Other great stories from Warhammer Age of Sigmar

DOMINION

A novel by Darius Hinks

STORMVAULT

A novel by Andy Clark

THUNDERSTRIKE & OTHER STORIES

Various authors

An anthology of short stories

HARROWDEEP

Various authors

An anthology of novellas

A DYNASTY OF MONSTERS

A novel by David Annandale

CURSED CITY

A novel by C L Werner

THE END OF ENLIGHTENMENT

A novel by Richard Strachan

BEASTGRAVE

A novel by C L Werner

REALM-LORDS

A novel by Dale Lucas

GHOULSLAYER

A novel by Darius Hinks

GITSLAYER

A novel by Darius Hinks

HALLOWED GROUND

A novel by Richard Strachan

KRAGNOS: AVATAR OF DESTRUCTION

A novel by David Guymer

• HALLOWED KNIGHTS •

Josh Reynolds

Book One: PLAGUE GARDEN

Book Two: BLACK PYRAMID

• KHARADRON OVERLORDS •

C L Werner

Book One: OVERLORDS OF THE IRON DRAGON

Book Two: PROFIT’S RUIN

Contents

Cover

Backlist

Warhammer Age of Sigmar

Godsbane

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Realm-Lords’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

The Mortal Realms have been despoiled. Ravaged by the followers of the Chaos Gods, they stand on the brink of utter destruction.

The fortress-cities of Sigmar are islands of light in a sea of darkness. Constantly besieged, their walls are assailed by maniacal hordes and monstrous beasts. The bones of good men are littered thick outside the gates. These bulwarks of Order are embattled within as well as without, for the lure of Chaos beguiles the citizens with promises of power.

Still the champions of Order fight on. At the break of dawn, the Crusader’s Bell rings and a new expedition departs. Storm-forged knights march shoulder to shoulder with resolute militia, stoic duardin and slender aelves. Bedecked in the splendour of war, the Dawnbringer Crusades venture out to found civilisations anew. These grim pioneers take with them the fires of hope. Yet they go forth into a hellish wasteland.

Out in the wilds, hardy colonists restore order to a crumbling world. Haunted eyes scan the horizon for tyrannical reavers as they build upon the bones of ancient empires, eking out a meagre existence from cursed soil and ice-cold seas. By their valour, the fate of the Mortal Realms will be decided.

The ravening terrors that prey upon these settlers take a thousand forms. Cannibal barbarians and deranged murderers crawl from hidden lairs. Martial hosts clad in black steel march from skull-strewn castles. The savage hordes of Destruction batter the frontier towns until no stone stands atop another. In the dead of night come howling throngs of the undead, hungry to feast upon the living.

Against such foes, courage is the truest defence and the most effective weapon. It is something that Sigmar’s chosen do not lack. But they are not always strong enough to prevail, and even in victory, each new battle saps their souls a little more.

This is the time of turmoil. This is the era of war.

This is the Age of Sigmar.

CHAPTER ONE

‘This world,’ she says, ‘in fact, all the Mortal Realms, are riddled with calamities, just waiting to happen. They lie in wait like the mundane cast-offs of a merchant’s caravan. They moulder, forgotten, in sealed chambers and beneath long-fallen keeps and towers. Sometimes, they wander of their own accord, seeking the perfect victim to aid in their ultimate manifestation.’

Her students baulk. How could that be? The weapons of daemons and gods, artefacts of monstrous power, treasures capable of blights and miracles – just lying about, like a child’s toys? Clearly, they do not believe her.

‘I shall show you,’ she says, and looks to the apprentice at her elbow. The supplicant moves forward, eager to be rid of the heavy chest she’s been holding for her mistress throughout the lecture.

When the ark is laid upon the pedestal before her, Thelana Evenfall deactivates its magical wards, opens each cunning lock in succession, then lifts the heavy lid. In the high tiers of the amphitheatre, some of her students rise on their benches, necks craning to get an early glimpse of the thing she’s about to reveal.

Thelana’s elegant hands display the object for all present: simple, old-fashioned, its lines clean and graceful, miniscule script engraved upon its surface.

‘Here,’ she says, ‘we have a diadem, forged in an elder age, before the Ocari Dara. Not much to look at, is it? And yet, the power once contained within this forgettable bauble could have been used to tear Hysh itself asunder.’

Murmurs and whispers from the risers. Incredulity. Disbelief.

‘How’d it come to be here, then?’ one of them asks. ‘At this university?’

‘You say it once contained power – where’s it all gone?’

‘How do you know it was powerful? Were you ever present for its use?’

Reasonable questions, all.

‘I was present when a would-be claimant unearthed this particular treasure and put it to use,’ she says, knowing already that such a claim will not suffice. They will want more. More than she would like to recount.

‘Tell us,’ more than one of them now beg. ‘Tell us the story.’

Thelana sighs. Stares at the diadem. Remembers.

‘Very well,’ she says, and that is how the tale begins…

Between the Lothil Delt and the Stoical Vast lies a long, deep, twisting canyon that cuts through the southern desert of Ymetrica Coreward known as the Saratrai Chasm. Legend insists that the chasm is a scar upon the land – evidence of an aspiring despot’s immense power and stunning destruction. As you should all know from your studies, Spirefall – which we Lumineth call the Ocari Dara – was the era of this blessed realm’s permanent ruination and disfigurement, a price paid for the titanic hubris of its offspring. The tales of sundered cities, fallen towers and shattered landscapes are too numerous to recount. What is pertinent to our tale is this: once, a thriving city reposed at the very centre of the long, snaking skein of crevasses and canyons that make up the Saratrai Chasm. That city was ruled by a powerful Lumineth mage-king known as Ansorath, and it was Ansorath’s attempt to create an enchanted diadem capable of encompassing a god’s power that resulted in the broken, carved-out ruin that dominates the desert to this day.

Our story begins in one of the deepest and widest box canyons in the vast, meandering Saratrai network. On a morning like any other, a stranger arrived from the outer world, guided by ambition and a wealth of long-collated lore.

This newcomer rides in atop a jouncing, reptilian biped, the sort most of you call a hopdrake. His aspect is silent, stoic, his dour, bearded face shaded under a wide-brimmed, high-crowned hat, the tails of a long, mantled greatcoat fluttering behind him. A long-hafted, heavy warhammer hangs, strapped against his back – a weapon of duardin make – and numerous curious, fat pouches, phials and small, scabbarded tools and weapons encumber a pair of bandoliers crisscrossing his broad, powerful chest. Visible against his leather cuirass is an unusual badge, hand-fashioned from onyx by a skilled jeweller. It is a simple, almond-shaped icon suggesting an open eye. Only upon closer examination might one notice that the eye-shaped signet sports not one pupil but two, one very nearly eclipsing the other, like a moon in-transit before a shining star.

The stranger’s name is Zabayus Tarn. Coolly, appraisingly, he studies a particular recess in the canyon wall, feeling a flutter of vindication.

The recess before him is no natural feature: it was once clearly some sort of tall, broad gateway, carved into the stone. A large, dark gash in the cliff-side indicates that there is still a path into the canyon rock itself; a way still open, awaiting his arrival after a thousand years.

Tarn knots the reins of his hopdrake to a nearby thornwood tree and advances through gardens of fallen boulders, over fallen cyclopean pillars, past rolling bushels of wheel weed driven by the canyon’s hitching winds. At last, he climbs the cracked, wind-scoured steps that rise to a wide portico marking the entrance to this long-forgotten cavern city. There, beneath the shadow of leaning lintels and precarious, half-collapsed archways, he peers into a yawning, ancient darkness that has probably not admitted any explorer for centuries. He produces a white-jewelled torchwand – two cloudy white lumps of aetherquartz at either end of a wooden baton – then ventures into the black of the long-collapsed gateway.

Zabayus Tarn is not simply a treasure hunter: he is also a scholar. He has studied every historical account, first- and second-hand, that he could locate regarding this place. He’s braved spiritual scryings with lesser daemonic summonings in an attempt to see through the eyes of spirits who once inhabited it when living. His investigations – factual and supernatural – have given him a masterful understanding of both its architecture and layout, and he has committed this knowledge to memory. That crystal-clear image guides him as he wends his way through the darkness, scrambling over more fallen masonry, squeezing under toppled archways and between leaning columns and sagging walls, leaping deep, seemingly bottomless crevasses and edging precariously along narrow ledges over deep, fathomless gulfs. For hours, Zabayus Tarn braves injury and death as he picks a slow, methodical path through the sepulchral ruins.

More than once, he hears the scrabbling of claws in the dark. Vile things probably nest and hunt here – things eager for the passage of some unwary soul through their domain; things hungry because they rarely venture into the outside world, and even more rarely find trespassers in the ruins to satisfy their considerable hunger. At intervals, the canyon winds penetrate the cliff-side through internecine crevices, shrieking or sighing as they move through the ruined city, sounding like the moans of Chainrasps or the wailing of Banshees.

Tarn loses hours to the dark. He braves crippling injuries, even death, forced more than once to retrace his steps upon finding his chosen routes blocked or impassable. Finally, after completing a long, arduous vertical climb past three separate levels of yawning, empty passageways and ruined chambers, Tarn believes he may have come, at last, to his destination. Muscles aching, stomach growling, senses scrambled by darkness and solitude, he clambers over the rough lip of a ledge of shattered stone and finds himself in a broad, arcaded passageway leading to a tall, wide arch at the far end.

It takes him a moment to consult the mental map that has guided him; to check and double-check his progress against the theoretical arrangement of stacked living spaces, labyrinthine markets, and the core warren of the one-time ruler’s palace. Just ahead, through an open doorway, lies the object of his long and treacherous explorations; the culmination of more than a decade of desperate, some might say obsessive, academic work.

Zabayus Tarn pauses just long enough to restore his strength. He drinks some water; hastily devours a small portion of the rations he carries; rubs the soreness from his burning, aching muscles. Then, satisfied that he’s equal to the revelation awaiting, he steps over the threshold to claim his destiny.

The legends consulted – ancient transcriptions of oral accounts, epic poetry, drama, historiography – differ endlessly on the specifics. The broad strokes are, however, well established: once, a powerful mage-lord named Xymarkias ruled here, and for the greater duration of his rule, he was accounted wise and good, just and courageous. Xymarkias succumbed, however, to the overweening, malignant pride so common among the wisest and most powerful of the Lumineth in those dark days. Seeking ultimate power, ultimate insight, Xymarkias fashioned for himself a blood-gold diadem capable of acting as a second locus for both his memories and his consciousness. His intention was to absorb all of the knowledge, all of the experience, all of the skill and mage-craft that a mortal aelf could, letting what was too great or all-encompassing for his own mind spill over into the diadem itself.

Of course, his obsession and the vast repositories of knowledge that he attempted to take into himself drove him mad.

Unfortunately, Xymarkias’ fears and terrors were visited in corporeal form upon his people. His perversions and depredations held sway, infecting the souls and bodies of those not keen enough to flee the coming disaster. Likewise, his appetites and ambitions were writ large, fusing with aelemental powers already dwelling in that region, becoming stunningly potent and impossible to control. And so, over the course of a terrible, nightmarish day and night, the city in the cliffs was riddled with slaughter and disaster, riven by geomantic quakes and firestorms, and the whole subterranean kingdom tore itself asunder, killing thousands, including mad Xymarkias himself.

Tarn’s theory is that the king would have been reposed upon his throne when the end came and his world imploded upon him. If he could locate the mad king’s last location, then he could also, theoretically, locate the fabled diadem.

And claim it for himself.

The chamber he enters – dark save for the clear, white glow of his lampwand – does indeed have the look of a throne room or formal audience chamber. Within, Tarn finds a broad, ovoid space with vaulted ceilings, its rock and dust-strewn floor composed of handsome, magically shaped interlocking flagstones. These flags are arranged in complex geomantic sigils and knots not uncommon in the architecture of Xymarkias’ era. The walls are lined by enormous pillars – many cracked, some toppled, others simply pulverised. The stone panels between the pillars boast dust-choked sculpture and inlays. All about the chamber stand enormous, unhewn megaliths – great fragments of the cliff’s mantle that sheared away during the cataclysm to punch through the once-vaulted ceiling.

The throne chamber is a ruin. A tomb.

But, at the far end of the chamber, clearly visible beneath one of those enormous, fallen megaliths, Zabayus Tarn sees what he has always hoped to see: telltale steps rising to a dais… the sort of dais that might serve as the base for a monarch’s throne.

A great rugged megalith stands inviolate upon the dais. Any throne or fallen mage-king once occupying that space is now crushed flat, long vanished into dust. But Tarn already has a plan to locate the treasure he’s come in search of. He has eschewed the use of magic all through his terrifying, exhausting day so that every bit of energy and willpower at his disposal will be ready now, when he needs it the most.

He approaches the dais and the great block of broken stone squatting upon it. Tarn produces a small, palm-sized aetherquartz gem from one of the many pouches on his person, a gem attuned to concentrated magical energies. In the presence of such energies, it will glow. The more potent the energies, the brighter its brilliance. He holds the gem in his open palm and slowly edges towards the megalith.

Five steps shy of the great boulder, the gem begins to glow.

Closer. The glow intensifies.

When he is right upon the collapsed stone, squatting at its base, placing the gem flat against it, the gem pulses brilliantly, painfully bright in the darkness. Tarn feels his heart beating double time. Once again, he has been proven right.

Now: the excavation.

The hammer strapped across his back is inscribed on the hammerhead and along its grip-shaft with ancient Fyreslayer runes that glow a sinister vermilion in the darkness. This is no ordinary hammer, of course: Tarn had to trade a great many compromising magical favours and sell a large part of his personal library to acquire it. He has also promised to return it to its rightful owner when his mission is done – presuming he still lives. Going to such lengths for a single weapon might seem obsessive, but he’s known for some time that, if there was a great deal of fallen stone to disperse in order to reach his prize, such a tool would be required.

He utters ancient duardin prayers, calling upon the latent magical energies in his own body to invigorate the weapon and intensify its power.

The hammer all but hums in his sweating hands.

He chooses a target at the base of the great megalith, very near to where he placed the gem against the stone, draws back for a fierce strike, and swings hard.

The hammer shatters the base of the megalith as though it were pottery. It does not destroy the whole boulder – it is far too large to be destroyed in a single strike, even from such a storied weapon as this – but the effect is wide-ranging and immediate. In a shower of fiery sparks amid a sound like the roar of a fired cannon, a wide swathe of the megalith’s base cracks and shears away, the edges of the shattered stone glowing red from their sudden, violent sundering.

He strikes again. Again. Again. He’s like some strange, eldritch mining god, slamming his hammer home time after time, red-hot rock and glowing sparks spreading in all directions. Some of the flying debris slashes his face, rakes his arms or shoulders, splashes off his leather breastplate. He is burned – scarred even – but he does not care.

Finally, after a seeming eternity, Zabayus Tarn steps back to examine his handiwork. A tunnel of sorts has been hollowed out of the base of the great megalith, a ragged depression just wide enough to allow him to enter if he crouches down and shimmies in with his legs folded under him. He uses the haft of the greathammer to sweep the pulverised stone and rubble out of the space he’s made, then wriggles into the narrow aperture.

It has to be here. Somewhere. He’ll tear the whole, great boulder down if he has to, never mind that it’s as tall as a mega-gargant and half-obscured by the collapsed roof it fell through.

As he feverishly sweeps aside the rubble with the hammer’s ferrule, he suddenly hears a strange sound: a clattering, clearly metallic ring. It comes not from within the little space, but behind him where the rubble that he tossed has hit the dais and scattered.

Zabayus Tarn shimmies out, crawling around on the dais among the sharp, still-hot rubble, sweeping his gloved hands back and forth in search of–

There!

He finds it, half-covered with old stone and bone dust fossilised into a rough, uneven crust. Staring at the curious formation in his hand – a ring of something dull and metallic, clodded with stone and compressed earth – Tarn begins to feel a giddy elation. He slams his prize down upon the stone floor. With each impact, more of the crust falls away and more of the treasure is revealed.

It is beautiful despite its simplicity: a simple, blood-gold diadem, inscribed with the small, subtle marks of a long-vanished alphabet. For a long time Zabayus Tarn kneels there in the dark, lampwand throwing garish light and long shadows around him; he studies the treasure in his hands, located and unearthed by virtue of his faith, his scholarship, his courage, even his sweat and blood.

Does it still contain the power that Xymarkias poured into it?

Part of him, no doubt, recoils at the idea of simply placing the diadem upon his head. He is no fool. If the object once drove a Lumineth mage-lord mad and destroyed his kingdom, how treacherous and intoxicating must its power be? And yet, he cannot deny the attraction of such surrender. What good will it do him, to retrace his steps through this subterranean ruin and scurry back through the desert to the city by the Piercing Lakes where his magical laboratory waits, only to find, upon returning, that the diadem’s power was already long-spent? That it offers him nothing at all?

No. Better to test the thing here, in this deserted place, where only he is at risk. If the diadem destroys him, so be it: at least he will die alone and take no innocents with him. But if it proves to be as powerful as he suspects…

Drawing a deep, slow breath, Zabayus Tarn tosses his hat aside and places the diadem of Xymarkias upon his sweaty head.

For a moment, only a moment, the diadem seems not to fit, clearly fashioned for a head shaped differently from his own, and to very exacting specifications. But then, miraculously, it seems to loosen, to expand and remould itself. It settles into place around his temples as though it has been made for him.

And with that yielding, the diadem opens its secrets to him.

It is painful at first: the shattering of a dam. For an untold interval – minutes, hours; time loses all meaning – Tarn is assailed by thoughts and impressions not his own. He is launched high into vasty heavens, tumbling through magical riddles and strange geometries made manifest. He is dangling above horrid, hungry abysses containing secrets he never could have imagined. In that terrifying, seemingly endless interval, Tarn thinks that his consciousness – his mind and soul and very essence – might be blasted from existence by the strange, unidentifiable demiurge that inhabits the diadem.

And then, just as suddenly as it came upon him, it subsides. The tide recedes. Once more he is Zabayus Tarn, alone in a dark, ruined city untenanted for a thousand years.

And the diadem, now awakened, is his. So long as he possesses it, nothing can stop him.

‘At last,’ he says to no one. ‘The age of the Eclipse – the epoch of the Black Sun – is upon us. And this, this pretty little bauble, shall be the instrument of the great change to come.’

‘It is quite handsome,’ a stranger’s voice says in the gloom of the ruined, half-collapsed throne room. ‘I fear, however, that it shall only bring you grief.’

Zabayus Tarn spins towards the sound of the voice, searching the darkness for its owner. When he finds that he can see nothing beyond his immediate surroundings – he’s cast his lampwand down some distance away – he decides to warm up his new trinket with a purely utilitarian task.

Tarn imagines a colony of small, brightly burning stars in the air between where he now kneels and the chamber’s entrance. In answer, the diadem shivers ever so slightly upon his brow. Long-dormant power courses through it – through him. The stars appear, hundreds of them, drifting lazily, bathing the half-collapsed chamber in a soft, white-gold light that banishes the deepest shadows and reveals Tarn’s unwanted visitor – or rather, visitors.

There are three of them, standing in tight formation near the chamber’s arched entrance. At the fore is an aelven female – Zaitreci, if he is not mistaken, identifiable by the dark crimson skirts she wears beneath her golden battle armour, as well as the shimmering, frost-blue lunar runes engraved upon that armour. Her skin is pale tan, her eyes the colour of two deep, flashing, red-brown garnets. She might be a young adult, barely out of adolescence, or a seasoned loreseeker, well into middle age. Her ancestry and the long-lingering appearance of youth common among aelf-kind make guessing her age impossible. She holds a pale, elegant wraithwood staff in her hands, capped by a small crescent-moon headpiece housing a tiny, scintillating fragment of aetherquartz. A slender sword hangs sheathed on one hip.

At her elbow stands another aelven spellcaster – male, pale-skinned and raven-haired. This fellow is rather harsh of aspect – scowling, almost sneering – probably not Lumineth at all. He, too, holds a wizard’s staff at the ready, polished black steel and bearing at its summit a glowing purple amethyst.

The third member of the party is, like Zabayus Tarn, human: a man of youthful but rugged countenance, with thick, curling auburn hair and a handsome, square-jawed face. His staff sports a fearsome golden lion’s head, the creature’s flashing eyes in fact two magically bestirred rubies.

The aelven female steps forward.

‘Remove the diadem and leave it here,’ she says flatly. ‘Do so and there will be no trouble.’

Tarn’s head cocks in disbelief.

‘Who are you?’ he asks. ‘How did you find me? Find this place?’

‘Immaterial,’ the aelven female says. ‘Will you comply?’

No. He will not.

Tarn summons an image of what he requires in his mind – the enormous, swiping hand of an angry gargant, slamming hard against these would-be thieves. To unleash his will, he stretches out his hand. Pure, unbridled kinetic energy – an invisible wall of force – blasts outward, causing every carven pillar, crumbling wall and engraved flagstone in the throne chamber to shudder.

In answer, the aelven witch raises her staff, levels it before her, and throws up an unseen shield. Her companions do the same. The shockwave sweeps right over them like a white-capped river sluicing past immovable boulders. When the spent force slams the outer wall of the chamber, there is a thunderous shudder and small fragments of cracked stone rain down upon them.

The mountain groans ominously.

‘Who sent you?’ Tarn demands. ‘I’ve worked too hard and too long to claim this prize only to hand it over to the likes of you!’

‘You’ve searched hard and long, truly,’ the aelven female says, advancing again. ‘And you’ve shown great skill and daring. But I tell you, Zabayus Tarn, the power you’ve claimed is not power you can wield for long. It will destroy you.’

Her tone is of eminent reasonableness – one friend advising another, or a low-key diplomat arguing with a peer.

‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ Tarn says, dreaming up another surprise for her.

She stops a short distance from the dais steps.

‘My name is Thelana Evenfall,’ she says. ‘A loreseeker of the Lumineth. I have come here to apprise you of the folly of your ambition. If you leave here with that diadem, it will destroy you – and possibly all life in the Mortal Realms.’

Tarn has heard enough.

With all the power of his will, he summons a ball of pulsing, plasmic energy from the aether. The sphere – a marriage of searing heat and pure, undiluted, destructive power – grows in the palm of his hand and he drives it hard and straight towards Thelana Evenfall.

The aelven witch raises her wizard’s staff. There is a loud pop and a bright explosion as the crackling energy flares and dissipates in the air.

Very well, then. Something far more deadly.

Tarn reaches out with his mind, and brings the flagstones of the floor to life.

In an instant, a quintet of tall, lumbering stone giants tear themselves free from the floor of the chamber, trailing dust and dirt and broken shards of the bedrock. They are tall, awkward and malformed, but they move according to Tarn’s iron will. The chamber rocks with the loud, terrible thunder of stone scraping stone; of huge, rocky feet stomping and shuffling; of stony, dusty voices crying in idiot aggression as they charge towards the three unready wizards.

The handsome human is the first to face the fury of the stone giants as two lumber towards him and reach with eager, blocky hands. The square-jawed wizard scrambles for a place to make a stand, but his two blocky adversaries have him caught in a pincer. The young sorcerer stands, his back against the chamber’s outer wall.

Before the human wizard can find some solution, an escape, Tarn’s attentions are torn away as two more of the brutes close upon the second aelven wizard – the dark-haired male with the sullen look about him. As the Darkling aelf retreats, he conjures balls of flashing green plasma-fire out of the air and hurls them towards the advancing giants. The fireballs slam into Tarn’s blocky creations, exploding on impact. The fire burns hot, slagging wide swathes of their bodies and leaving glowing, superheated scars upon them – veins of bright red and sputtering green – before cooling and dimming to smooth, heat-blasted black, but none of the fireballs slow their steady advance.

The giants keep coming. The Darkling wizard’s options narrow.

A screaming roar and a stench like scorched air draw Tarn’s attentions from the aelven and human wizards to the witch who leads them. Clearly, she has a different bag of tricks up her billowing sleeves. She unleashes bright skeins of aether-lightning upon the stone giants, choosing the novel strategy of hitting each in turn with a full-power blast instead of trying to split the power differential between them. The giants are slowed by her attacks, each bending and thrashing under the weight of the lightning as it tears into them, immobilising one, forcing another backward as its partner manages to advance a shaky step or two before suddenly finding itself bearing the brunt of her onslaught.

Curse her! The witch is powerful.

It occurs to Tarn that now would be a good time for him to make his escape, while the wizards fight for their lives. A clear line of egress presents itself between the warring parties. Hastily looking to his adversaries, Tarn sees them safely distracted: the young wizard unleashing short-length waves of aelemental force from his staff that travel through the floor of the chamber, each shock sending the stone giants reeling; the witch’s fierce lightning and the aelven wizard’s searing green fire dazzling Tarn’s vision.

Tarn leaps down from the dais and dashes for the exit.

The Lumineth female sees him. Before he can attend to her, she unleashes a burst of lightning from her staff that strikes one of his nearer stone giants and sends the creature staggering backward – right into Tarn’s path!

There is no way to arrest his motion, to change his course.

Thus, Tarn does all that he could think to do: he wills the toppling stone giant out of his path. As the great lumbering form falls, it turns to dust and sand, and he dashes right through the billowing cloud of its remains, breathing in a great gout of dust that induces a terrible coughing fit.

Off to his right, the Darkling wizard loses his ongoing battle with the two stone giants that have cornered him. One closes its enormous, rocky fingers round his throat while the other grabs his waist in its shovel-like hands. As the aelven wizard shouts and struggles, the two stone giants pull and the wizard is torn in half. Blood and viscera paint the floor of the chamber.

Tarn registers the shocked face of the young human wizard – his terror, his disgust, his fury – then sees him make a breakneck decision. The human wizard rushes forward in three long steps, threading a narrow gap right between two closing stone giants and dashing past them before they can arrest his flight. Clearly, his friend’s sudden, horrible death has made him daring.

Tarn knows the young wizard is about to unleash some powerful, magical attack. Through the diadem, he unleashes a massive shockwave that drives back everything in its path. The air itself scuds in a rushing, white wall as the floor and ceiling before him buckle and crack. The young wizard throws up his staff and attempts a warding spell, but he is too late – the shockwave sends him rocketing across the chamber in a balled-up heap. To Tarn’s consternation, he also notes that his shockwave strikes two of his stone giants, pulverising both into rubble.

But he does not slow. There, right before him – there is the doorway! There is his escape. If he can just get back out into the passage and leave this chamber and his enemies behind him…

Suddenly, a bright flash – a flash so bright that Tarn reflexively raises his arm to shield his eyes. He hears stone crack and explode. The world is a hail of rubble and rushing wind. One of the stone giants has exploded. The outrushing, explosive force of its demise hits Tarn from the right and sends him reeling. He hits the floor, rolls, bounces over something hard. Before Tarn can make sense of what is happening, he slams hard into the wall of the chamber and feels the breath knocked out of his lungs. His vision goes black, aswarm with sparks and whirling shadows.

He may only have moments – the barest instant.

Coughing, sputtering, Zabayus Tarn struggles to his feet. He sways, dazed and unstable. He can make no sense of the whirling world around him. Nonetheless, he reaches out with his diadem, willing a massive, outbound shockwave – a burst of force and invisible heat so concentrated, so powerful, that it will obliterate his enemies in an instant.

The diadem obeys. Tarn feels the backdraught of the heatwave, hears and feels the chamber shudder in protest. Enormous shards of stone tear free from the ceiling, crash down around him. He thinks he hears more of the stone giants disintegrate before the searing wall of fire he’s summoned. He hears the explosive collapse of the dais and the megalith that stood upon it.

Then, blessed silence. There is only the sound of his own breath. The chamber cracks and groans around him, like a calving iceberg. It threatens to collapse in the next instant, to bury him in answer for the damage he’s just done.

Zabayus Tarn blinks. Gulps breath. Come on, come on… I need to see. If I can just find the exit again, I can flee, unencumbered, before this whole place comes down.

His vision clears, little by little. Zabayus Tarn swings his gaze about the chamber, seeking the piles of ash and smouldering remains that will assure him that his enemies have been vanquished.

Instead, he sees two upright forms in the gloom.

One: the young-faced wizard, lion-headed staff held out before him, bent and dazed, but otherwise uninjured. And there, directly before Tarn, in her shining golden armour and crimson robes…

‘Impossible,’ Tarn snarls.

‘The diadem gives you power,’ Thelana Evenfall says, ‘but we have power of our own. Surrender, before this whole mountain comes down upon us.’

‘I’ll show you power!’ Tarn roars, and lashes out with the magic of his stolen diadem.

These are the last things Zabayus Tarn sees:

A bright wave of plasmic fire, emanating from where he stands.

That fire, rolling outward in a wide arc to engulf his remaining foes.

The aelven witch and the young human sorcerer raise their staffs, almost in unison, shouting spell-words of their own.

The wall of fire and light recoils, changing direction.

The heat and light rush back towards Zabayus Tarn, vaporising him in an instant.

CHAPTER TWO

Thelana Evenfall paused in her recollection of that terrible duel, large brown eyes downcast, lips pursed. A terrible hush fell over the amphitheatre as the small contingent of students present, spread loosely on the amphitheatre’s lower tiers, waited, rapt, for their teacher to continue.

Edinor, on the second tier from the bottom, realised that he had been leaning forward in his seat, fingers interlaced, knuckles white. Apparently, the great sage’s story had thrilled Edinor more deeply than he’d even first realised. Now, as the other students began to hiss and chitter, wondering aloud what was taking so long – why did Thelana not continue? – Edinor found himself horribly impatient, feeling almost betrayed. Why would their teacher abandon the tale now, when all that remained was her own, grim summary of what had driven Zabayus Tarn into that ruin in the first place? And likewise, what had given Thelana Evenfall the power to stop him?

‘What happened?’ someone demanded.

Edinor was simultaneously embarrassed for the speaker and thankful.

Thelana finally seemed to note the unrest in the amphitheatre. Clearly, she’d gone somewhere inward, deeper into her thoughts. Though Thelana Evenfall was, like most Lumineth, loath to show feelings and terribly enigmatic, Edinor felt that he’d learned to read what subtle hints his favourite mentor sometimes displayed.

She raised her eyes.

‘Zabayus Tarn,’ Thelana said quietly, voice amplified by a combination of magical and acoustical means so that all present could hear her, ‘unleashed a wall of concentrated plasmic force – pure heat, pure light, pure, kineticised rage – that he thought would turn Nerontes and me to ash. We acted on instinct, raising deflection spells that worked in concert. Tarn’s destructive powers were thrown back upon him, and he was disintegrated utterly. Only the Xymarkine Diadem itself survived.’

Wondering susurration ran through the hall. The students – all human, like Edinor, and all grown – stared at their teacher wide-eyed and gape-mouthed. Incredulous whispers rippled through the amphitheatre.

Edinor studied Thelana Evenfall’s face – her pale, light-tan skin; her sculpted, exquisite cheekbones; her bowed lips and gracefully tapering ears. She still held the legendary diadem in her hands, but her gaze was fixed upon the students as they whispered and wondered. Finally, she raised the diadem so that all could see it.

‘This is all that remains of Zabayus Tarn,’ Thelana said gravely, ‘treasure hunter and would-be master of magic. The thing he sought to possess that, in the end, possessed him.’

Hastily looking around him, Edinor saw a few narrowed eyes and heard one or two incredulous whispers – doubters, unbelievers. ‘It’s a replica,’ one said. ‘Even if it’s the genuine article, it’s been stripped of its power,’ said another. No matter. Edinor knew the truth of it. Among all of their Lumineth instructors here at the Lyceum Fundamental – one of the most prestigious universities in Settler’s Gain – Thelana Evenfall was the most forthright, the most honest; the least prone to posturing, to overbearing authoritarianism or to overweening pride. Those qualities made her beloved by many of her students, and quietly despised by many of the other masters, for they saw her faith in her students and their potential as weakness, not strength. Strangely, some of the students even felt that way, frequently deriding her in closed circles because they felt she did not expect enough of them; did not push them hard enough.

Edinor was not one of them. He hung on her every word, and he believed whatever she told them. He had no doubt that if Thelana said this was the very object, then it was the very object.

‘What’s the point, then?’ someone called from a higher tier. ‘What are we to take from this? That deflection spells trump all others?’

Thelana raised her eyes towards the incredulous enquirer. Edinor thought he saw something like a smile cross her lips, but he could not be certain.

‘Herein lies the lesson, my adepts,’ Thelana said slowly. ‘The Mortal Realms are full of powerful magical artefacts and ancient weapons of terrible power. Many remain lost in time, undiscovered, awaiting the right person – or the wrong one – to stumble upon them and unleash their terrible might once again. The prevalence of such items, their ubiquity, is, in fact, frightening.

‘What is in short supply are individuals with the willpower – and the moral courage – to use those objects properly… or to disdain their use at all. No doubt, a hundred aspiring owners – perhaps even a thousand – have claimed and lost this simple crown over the aeons, yet here it is, in the possession of this university, available for all of you – mere students – to gaze upon. What does that tell you about the character and moral fibre of those who sought to possess it?’

‘They were unworthy?’ someone ventured.

Thelana arched a brow in consideration. ‘Perhaps,’ she said.

‘They were unready,’ Edinor spat, not even sure where the words had come from.

His teacher’s large brown eyes swung towards him. ‘Better,’ she said, and once more, he thought he saw the ghost of a smile on her lips.

‘Many sorcerers aim only to grow in power,’ Thelana said slowly, soberly, ‘without taking into account their own capacity for self-control. But the simple fact is, what one gains in power, one always loses in control. The ideal is to help your capacity for mastery grow in tandem with, and according to, the power you wield, and to never let the latter outstrip the former.’

The students all chattered now, holding mini-symposiums and impromptu, heated arguments. Edinor was annoyed by them. His eyes never left Thelana. He wanted to hear what she had to say.

‘Zabayus Tarn,’ she continued, raising her voice in an attempt to quell all lesser conversations, ‘sought to claim a treasure that he did not fully understand. In the end, what he unearthed destroyed him.

‘Patience and humility – not speed and audacity – are the cornerstones of true mastery.’

She let that pronouncement hang in the air.

Edinor contemplated her words and their import. He was a serious student, eager to do well, desperate to prove himself worthy and capable. Each week, when the High Regents of the Lyceum Fundamental bade each student perform a magical task under their watchful eyes, to prove that student’s continuing mastery and reverence for the arts they studied, the power they sought to wield, Edinor very nearly broke under the weight of their expectations. Each week, he prepared incessantly. Each week, he was certain he would fail them and be banished from the school, as so many others had been before him. He attributed a great deal of his success to Thelana Evenfall herself.

And so, if his teacher now spoke of such things as patience and humility, power gained and control waived, he wagered that he should listen, and listen well.

Now, studying his teacher as she studied her students, Edinor saw that she knew that only a few of them received her words with the respect and understanding they warranted. Some said that all the Lumineth were mind readers, capable of knowing a person’s thoughts simply by reaching out, as easily as they might to grasp a low-hanging piece of fruit. Edinor was not sure if that was true; but he was sure that Thelana, like most Lumineth, was both observant and insightful. She would not have to read thoughts to know where the minds and hearts of many of the power-hungry students in this chamber were at.

‘Put that diadem on my head,’ Edinor heard one whisper, ‘and see how quickly I could master it.’

‘He was impatient, that was all,’ another muttered. ‘If he’d simply modulated his ambitions and used spells of lesser destructive force…’

‘There is a secret to its use,’ someone behind him claimed. ‘I’d wager my soul there’s a scroll out there somewhere that gives you all you need to understand its operation…’

Fools, Edinor thought. Fools, all of you. Have you not ears to hear? Minds to grasp?

Thelana seemed on the cusp of offering further elucidation – free hand raised, mouth open, as if words were just about to tumble out – when the great towering doors to the amphitheatre opened with a clank and a groan. The sound was ominous, dropping a sudden, weighty blanket of stunned silence upon all present.

A contingent of Lumineth soldiers marched into the amphitheatre. Thelana’s students knew to shut their mouths and lower their eyes when these, the wardens of the university, entered their presence. There were seven in total, their graceful, shining white body armour encrusted with small glittering designs in aetherquartz, each kit bearing distinct and ancient runes symbolising the wearer’s patron powers and guiding principles. At the head of the group, a grim-faced Lumineth officer marched, one gloved hand resting easily on a sheathed, gorgeously tooled greatsword. The other six bore tall, long-bladed Auralan spears, each held perfectly straight and unmoving.

In flawless lockstep, the seven Lumineth drew close to Thelana and halted a stone’s throw from where she stood. Their leader gave a quick, curt bow from the waist.

‘Thelana Evenfall,’ he boomed, as much for the hearing of all present as for Thelana’s own, ‘the Council of Regents has convened a tribunal. Consider this your summons.’

Whispers rushed through the chamber like the first wind-blown sparks of a wildfire. Edinor heard their wondering, their gossiping, their off-the-cuff insights – none of which, he wagered, were correct. She was summoned to offer testimony, surely? Thelana Evenfall could not be the one on trial. Could she?

Thelana, for her part, offered no resistance and asked no questions. Silently she returned the diadem to the inlaid wooden box, spoke words over its small brass lock, then handed the box to her silent teaching assistants. The treasure once more secured, she looked to the gathered students. Edinor imagined that he saw something like trepidation in her dark eyes.

‘Dismissed,’ she said quietly.

The tribunal chamber, located inside the enormous, imposing edifice known as the Concordia, was a grand, circular rotunda. A high domed ceiling far above was supported by forests of soaring pillars interspersed between towering, narrow windows of richly coloured, magically formed crystal mosaics. Though several hundred souls could fill the space comfortably, today’s gathering was dense and tight, right in the centre of the chamber, where a raised dais in the shape of a crescent moon forced the presiding powers into close association. The accused, all active speakers and the wardens who provided security moved in the space between the horns of the crescent.

The full nine-member Regents’ Council – the most enlightened, practised and powerful Lumineth mages in all of Settler’s Gain – was present, as was a delegation from the Tempest Lords Stormhost – Sigmar’s right hand in Hysh – and nearly every sitting member of the human Adepts’ Council. The latter were proven, experienced human mages and alumni of the Settler’s Gain schools granted the privilege of sitting in on Regents’ Council business as witnesses and advocates. In practice, any true power wielded by the Adepts’ Council was highly circumscribed, but their continued support by the Regents’ Council was indicative of the goodwill between the humans who came here to learn and the aloof, nigh-immortal aelves who taught them. The presence of the Adepts’ Council suggested one of two things to Thelana: either they cared very deeply about the outcome of this trial, or the Regents’ Council had commanded their presence to ensure their understanding of the gravity of the charges brought and the punishments to be meted out.

All present noted Thelana’s entrance and escort, and tracked her as she crossed the great chamber towards the tight knot of seated and standing bodies at its centre. The bulky forms of two Stormcast Eternals of the Tempest Lords – clad in their familiar night-blue sigmarite armour and white, crimson-edged tabards – were the only ones to seemingly take no interest in Thelana’s approach. As she neared, the bulky, armoured forms of two Sequitors standing shoulder to shoulder on the floor blocked any clear view of the prisoner on trial. Only when Thelana approached the crescent dais and the thrones of the regents did she finally see the prisoner clearly.

It was a student, her short red-brown hair, strong, rounded features and pale silver-blue eyes unnervingly familiar: Palembra Edast, twenty-two years old, one of the most promising aelemental magicians in the student body; one of Thelana’s favourite and most trusted students.

Impossible.

While Thelana had already seen the two Stormcast Sequitors that loomed menacingly behind the prisoner, faces obscured by the masks of their helms, she had not immediately realised that Palembra was being actively questioned by a third, higher-ranking member of their order. The Stormcast interrogator circled the accused like a hungry sabre-fish, even as his voice boomed in the vast chamber.

A familiar and unwelcome sight: Lord-Exorcist Malkeus Callen, second-in-command of the Tempest Lords Sacrosanct Chamber and a renowned – nay, infamous – enemy of the surreptitious minions of Chaos.

‘Answer the question, girl!’ he snapped. Palembra, of moderate height and slight build, stood barely eye level with the upper planes of the Lord-Exorcist’s breastplate. No matter how he thundered, she never raised her eyes.

‘What were you doing in that part of the archive?’ he pressed. ‘You had no permission to be there!’

Though possessing the godlike physique and demi-human stature of all the Stormcasts, there was something about Malkeus Callen’s face – sharp and angular, as if hewn from stone – that made Thelana think of a stiff-backed court minister or punctilious notary. It wasn’t the face of a warrior or man of action, but a zealot’s face: hard and implacable, proud and desolate. If Palembra found any mercy in the chamber today, it would not come from him.

As she passed, Thelana noted a terrible, resigned weariness in the young woman: fleeting impressions written in her stance and facial expression suggesting self-recriminating shame as well as silent belligerence.

‘Answer!’ Malkeus barked again. Far above them, birds roosting under the dome of the council chamber burst from their perches and took wing.

Thelana stepped between two of the guards at the periphery of the scene, marched past the accused, and presented herself to the Regents’ Council. As was customary, Thelana knelt and lowered her head.

‘Thelana Evenfall, great councillors, responding to your summons.’

She raised her eyes, awaiting a response. Their elegant, sculpted faces projected only a vague, barely perceptible disdain. All were dressed in customary Lumineth fashion, protected in shells of bright, bone-white armour, that armour draped with resplendent white robes which pulsed with the light emitted by delicately crafted designs of aetherquartz and enchanted gold thread.

Nendira Endir, the High Regent, gave Thelana a quiet, subtle nod. So acknowledged, Thelana once more stood tall before the council and studied the parties present.

Representing the Tempest Lords was Lord-Arcanum Petreus Mars, supreme commander of the Sacrosanct Chamber. Though elements of the Stormhost were strewn all over Hysh, the warrior-mages of the Sacrosanct Chamber were garrisoned in Settler’s Gain. Sitting his tribunal chair on the right wing of the crescent platform, Petreus looked to Thelana like some fabled king: square-shouldered, proud, his skin the colour of stained and polished shadewood. His loyal gryph-hound, Mace, lay calmly at his feet. Two more Sequitors – the masks on their helms obscuring their faces – shared the dais with Petreus, while Lord-Exorcist Malkeus continued to circle the accused.

To Thelana’s left, on the opposite wing of the dais, sat the Adepts’ Council. The total council consisted of nine – just like the regents – but only five were in attendance. Her old friend and confidant Nerontes Fane was among them, but Thelana knew that leadership of the council would fall to Tueldor, a bearded elderly gentleman who was one of the first humans to study magic and earn his robes at Settler’s Gain, in an age when Thelana herself was still a young apprentice and Fane – now barely forty – had not even been conceived, let alone born. The other three adepts, proud Exaris, aloof Reimonar and staunch, argumentative Alumari, were familiar faces to Thelana, though she could call none of them allies.

Old Nendira, the High Regent, was an Alarith Stonemage of ancient extraction and regal bearing. Thelana had no reason to believe Nendira to be her enemy, but she also knew, based upon experience, that if there was some breach of university by-laws at issue, Nendira would not parse between the vital or the trivial: broken laws were broken laws, and a price must always be paid. The others present – Ymetrican inquisitor Sembaris; the Syari spellwright, Kelarion; the brilliant but withdrawn Velathrin; dependable but hidebound old Dakhir; the Iliathan twins, Hetassa and Tamhir; noble, patient Kolothir; and the mercurial, mysterious Dimveryn – sat in their tribunal thrones like statues, bodies straight-backed and immobile, only the movements of their eyes or, occasionally, subtle shifts of their hands betraying there was any life in them at all.

Harsh judges, Thelana thought. Unlikely to be swayed by emotional arguments.

‘What unfolds here?’ she asked, doing her best to strain all incredulity and outrage from her voice; to sound – if not to actually be – respectful and inquisitive.

The regents stared from their thrones. Nendira gave a slow blink. Thelana, being Lumineth herself, could read a storm of fascinating and telling details in the subtle lines and movements of their faces, subtleties that human observers – like the Adepts’ Council – might be wholly oblivious to. To anyone not aelven, not Lumineth, the regents’ faces would have seemed as immovable as sculpted stone. But Thelana could clearly see signs and portents, storms and omens, roiling just beneath the surface of their collective calm: a sense of need, of desperation, unknown among those of their kind.

Nendira herself – the oldest, the wisest, one for whom everyday life should hold few surprises – was in fact the most troubled. Tiny lines at the corners of her narrowed eyes and a barely perceptible tension in her mandibular muscles made that clear. The fact that Thelana herself could see the signs – however subtle – stirred both her curiosity and her dread.

At last, the High Regent spoke.

‘Thelana Evenfall,’ Nendira intoned, ‘you are summoned before this tribunal to give testimony in support of this student, Palembra Edast. Be aware, before speaking, that your testimony can and will be added to the record of these proceedings, word for word, and will likewise be taken into account when both verdict and sentence are passed.’

Thelana could not help herself. ‘I might assume,’ she said drolly, ‘given the mood in this chamber and the powers present, that a verdict had already been reached.’

‘Sarcasm will not avail you,’ Velathrin interjected. ‘These proceedings are solemn and progressing with the utmost care.’

‘Enlighten me, then,’ Thelana said, stealing a glance at her miserable, downcast student, who still had not raised her eyes or made a sound. ‘What is this young woman accused of?’

It was one of the Iliathan twins – Hetassa – who stood and recited the charges, almost as a litany.

‘Palembra Edast is accused of using forbidden magical countermeasures to disable the enchantments and wards protecting the special collections in the Lyceum Fundamental’s archives, with an unlawful and unauthorised search of those special collections, and with seeking said information with the intent of imparting the same to unknown parties outside this university.’

‘In brief,’ Lord-Exorcist Malkeus interjected, showing far more relish and emotion than the Lumineth of the tribunal had, ‘she is accused of being a spy.’

The special collections. The archives. That was troubling indeed. Those sanctums, though appended to the library, were accessible by neither window nor door. Access to them required the ability to walk through a solid wall, the spell usually aided by special anti-wards from the archivists, issued on a personal basis to the petitioners. If Palembra had penetrated the special collections, it meant that her actions were neither impulsive nor without forethought – only a great deal of preparation could get a determined, unauthorised visitor into those spaces.

‘It is an archive,’ Thelana said, doing her best to breeze idly past their ire. ‘It exists to be studied and explored. Why should her searches raise so many eyebrows? I daresay she is not the first student overcome by curiosity who sought a means of neutralising the existing protocols.’

‘Were you not listening?’ Lord-Exorcist Malkeus shot back. ‘She used unauthorised magic to penetrate a restricted space – a space containing dangerous and corrupting knowledge, as well as artefacts of untold power. This was no idle perusal or penetration based upon a misguided dare, Thelana Evenfall! This was a deliberate effort to subvert security and gain access to something terrible in that archive!’

Thelana looked to Palembra. The young woman still would not raise her eyes, nor betray anything so base as regret or a plea for mercy, even to her own teacher. Thelana, however, needed to look into her eyes. She needed some sense of why Palembra had done what she’d done, if for no other reason than to try and mount a defence.

And why should I mount such a defence? she wondered inwardly. Why should I assume that her actions were justifiable… or even benign? She may be guilty of precisely what she’s accused of.

‘Palembra,’ Thelana said quietly.

‘Witnesses do not question the accused,’ Dakhir said from the dais.

‘Palembra!’ Thelana snapped.

The young woman’s silver-blue eyes rose, meeting Thelana’s own measured gaze. In that instant of eye contact – that silent, fleeting moment when her student looked her in the face – Thelana saw all that she needed to see. As with the Lumineth on the dais, Palembra’s expression seemed bland at first glance, her mental defences fortified, but the subtle signs were there for those capable of reading them.

Thelana could read them well.

Palembra was guilty, not only of what they now accused her of, but of something more… something that had not yet been spoken aloud in the regents’ chambers.

Thelana swallowed, her throat suddenly tight and dry.

‘Thelana Evenfall, we question you now,’ Master Sembaris said from his throne upon the dais. He was a master of enquiry and dialectics, and specialised in spells and enchantments capable of breaking the will and revealing deep, well-suppressed secrets. No doubt, if Thelana tried to deflect or hold anything back from him, he would – sooner or later – offer to use his spells and enchantments to loosen her tongue.

‘Did you send this student into the special collections?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Thelana said, eyes never leaving Palembra.

Sembaris spat the next enquiry without pause. ‘Did you allude to any useful or pertinent information to be found in the special collections, in such fashion that your student could surmise that you, personally, desired that she should attempt such a misguided foray?’

‘I did not,’ Thelana said. She silently pleaded with Palembra. What have you done? Ask for a recess. Ask for private counsel. Confide in me and perhaps – just perhaps – I can help you. But, without knowing–

Sembaris continued. ‘Has this student ever asked you about the contents of the special collections, or indicated an undue interest in what may be found there?’

‘No,’ Thelana said flatly, turning to face the regents. ‘I know nothing of this. I would never have suggested such an undertaking or approved of it. If I had known, or even suspected’ – she looked to Palembra – ‘I would have done everything in my power to dissuade my student from such a self-destructive course of action.’

‘Words,’ Malkeus sneered dismissively. ‘We all know well your reputation for subversive sympathies and unorthodox teaching methods, Thelana Evenfall.’

‘What did you say?’ she asked.

Malkeus strode nearer, wholly unintimidated. ‘I said,’ he began, ‘that you have a well-established reputation for undermining authority and corrupting the minds of the students at this university. Your Lumineth fellows may accept your anti-authoritarian proclivities as amusing eccentricities, but we Stormcasts know well how dangerous such misguided openness can be.’

Thelana turned to the regents. ‘Is that why I’ve been summoned before you?’ She was taking a terrible chance, begging their defence against him, but it was one of the few dependable truths of the world she occupied that the Lumineth seldom, if ever, tolerated human aspersions against the honour of their own. Like members of the same family, they were only content to squabble and hurl insults among themselves; they were loath to give outsiders – even those so respectable as Sigmar’s undying soldiers – the freedom to insult or dishonour any among them.

‘Indeed not,’ Nendira said curtly, swinging her disapproving gaze towards Malkeus. ‘Lord-Exorcist, you will address the problem at hand – this student’s unauthorised breach of a secured sanctum. The efficacy of Thelana Evenfall’s teaching methods and personal beliefs are beyond the purview of your enquiries.’

Malkeus swung about and addressed the Lord-Arcanum. ‘You see? As I surmised and predicted! They would protect this teacher’ – the word was spat out of his mouth, like a poisoned berry – ‘despite the clear and observable effects of her unorthodox beliefs upon this student!’

‘That’s a lie!’ someone cried from the Adepts’ Council. It was Nerontes, Thelana’s old comrade – now making a spectacle of himself to defend her. ‘I move the Lord-Exorcist’s insinuations be struck from the record!’ Nerontes declared, addressing the regents. ‘He has no right to cast aspersions–’

One of the hitherto-silent Sequitors responded. ‘He has every right. We seek answers. Whoever stands in the way–’

Tueldor and Alumari joined Nerontes’ in a chorus of objections and declamations. Malkeus levelled a gauntleted fist and wagged a finger, hurling insults and accusations at the Council of Adepts.

Thelana looked to the regents. They sat, as ever, quiet and demur, only their eyes flicking back and forth between the arguing parties. A glance towards the armed wardens encircling the crescent dais told Thelana that they would not restore order unless commanded to do so.

Meanwhile, Palembra kept her eyes down. Thelana almost wondered if she’d taken some potent narcotic to keep herself resigned and unresponsive.

Then, the sound of thunder: the ferrule of Nendira’s magical staff crashed down upon the stones of the raised dais and rang powerfully to the high domed rafters of the chamber. Sudden, abrupt; a sound like the doors of Azyr itself being barred to invaders; like a mountain being cloven in two by lightning from the heavens.

All fell silent.

High Regent Nendira surveyed them all with a withering glare – her first true show of emotion since Thelana’s arrival. ‘Let these proceedings remain pointed and efficient,’ she said solemnly. ‘We shall not stoop to bickering.’

She seemed to wait for a time, as if daring anyone to argue with her – including Lord-Exorcist Malkeus. When no one did so, she sat again, then looked to Thelana.

‘You know what we seek, what questions we would ask of you,’ Nendira said. ‘Say what you will in this young woman’s defence, if there is anything you wish to offer.’

Thelana nodded. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘But I have questions of my own that need answering.’ She glared at Malkeus before addressing all present. ‘May I ask precisely what my student is accused of? She entered the special collections without authorisation – no easy task, and not one undertaken lightly. Very well. What was she searching for? What forbidden treasures did she lay hands upon? Was she found in possession of anything which might suggest the purpose of her searches?’

Nendira turned slightly, offering the barest glance over her shoulder to Regent Dakhir. In answer to the silent summons, Dakhir rose from his throne, strode to the edge of the dais, and offered Thelana a blocky text that he’d been holding on his lap all the while. She’d assumed, when she’d first seen him holding the great book, that it was some sort of tribunal ledger or official record of the court. Up close, however, she immediately recognised the bound tome as a work of great age and density. Its leather covers and ancient brass hasps were scuffed and tarnished, suggesting to Thelana’s trained eye a provenance some four to six centuries before the present. Awkwardly, Thelana supported the book on one arm and opened it, to read the title page.

Sylverain’s Compendium of Errata, Rumours and Legends, it read, and below that, Being a collection of lost things, things whispered-of, and things which might never have been.

Thelana blinked. What a puzzling tome for Palembra to risk her scholarship and reputation over. Thelana vaguely recalled having encountered this massive tome when she was a young scholar, but, for the life of her, she could not recall anything of merit or note about it.

And yet, she thought, Palembra risked everything to acquire it. Why?

She handed it back to Dakhir and looked once more to her silent student.

‘Why this book?’ Thelana asked.

Palembra said nothing.

‘The accused has been addressed,’ Nendira said sternly. ‘She must answer or she will be made to answer.’

Still, Palembra said nothing. Thelana saw the tracks of tears – both dried and fresh – on her reddened cheeks. The young woman seemed equally ashamed and enraged, indignant and crestfallen. Thelana reached out with her extraordinary senses, seeking some understanding of her student’s true feelings, and discovered, roiling beneath the surface of her silent, sullen exterior a storm of combative and self-excoriating emotions that very nearly made her recoil in shock.

Palembra was at war with herself, a deeply held belief locked in mortal combat with an irreconcilable sense of shame and moral compromise. Beyond those impressions, however, that sense of a storm raging, Thelana could extract little more.

‘Regents,’ Lord-Exorcist Malkeus broke in, ‘I ask permission to interrogate the witness?’

Thelana looked to the Tempest Lord. He meant her.

‘Granted,’ High Regent Nendira said, ‘provided you isolate your questions to those pertinent to the actions of the accused and leave the witness’ own proclivities and sympathies for another day.’

Thelana rounded on the dais of the Council of Regents. Another day? Were they serious?

Of course they are, she thought. You know they do not approve of you.

‘Who is this, who stands before you?’ Malkeus asked, striding closer again.

‘Palembra Edast,’ Thelana said.

‘How old is this student, so far as you know?’ Malkeus asked.

‘Twenty-two summers,’ Thelana said. ‘Though I cannot say with absolute certainty. I rarely mark ages with any great solemnity.’

‘What year of study is this for the young woman Palembra Edast?’

‘Her fifth,’ Thelana said. ‘She is a novice adept, having completed the initiatory form of her studies and moved on to the second phase.’

‘And what,’ Malkeus continued, ‘is the primary difference between a student classed as an initiate versus a student classed as a novice adept, such as Palembra Edast is?’

Thelana knew precisely what he was after… and there was no way to avoid handing it to him. ‘Initiates – those in their first three to four years of study – cannot be held responsible for their more egregious missteps and mistakes. Failures of judgement or proscribed actions in that phase result in simple expulsion, and their teachers are, more often than not, punished for their students’ transgressions.’

Malkeus paused before continuing, letting those words hang in the air. If he was as good on the field with a sword as he was here, with words and insinuations, then he was a deadly combatant indeed.

‘You state clearly, then, that this student, despite her youth, is wholly responsible for her own actions and subject to punishment at this phase of her education, yes?’

Thelana studied Palembra.

‘Yes,’ Thelana said. ‘As an adept, even a novice, Palembra Edast is responsible for her own actions and subject to punishment.’

‘Was she given leave to search the special collections?’ he asked.

‘Not by me,’ Thelana said.

‘Would she have reason to search the special collections, perhaps seeking supplemental texts to aid in her now self-guided education?’

Thelana shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Would it be safe to assume, then,’ Malkeus continued, and Thelana saw the ghost of a smile on his smug, pale face, ‘that her very presence in a forbidden wing of the archive can be taken as proof of suspicious activity? As a de facto admission of guilt, of some undefined sort?’

‘There could be an explanation,’ Thelana said, still staring at Palembra, willing her to raise her eyes and look at her, but failing. ‘Some foolish, misguided dare or challenge from a fellow novice. A search for a shortcut or an unassailable means of besting a rival in one of her laboratory courses. Perhaps some desperate personal need that she believed no mentor could aid her with.’

Malkeus turned to Palembra now. ‘Is that it, girl?’ he asked, approaching her. ‘A dare? A challenge? Some desperate need?’

Palembra said nothing.

‘Answer him!’ Thelana snapped suddenly. ‘Answer him, Palembra, or they will punish you… and I cannot protect you when they do.’

Malkeus turned and looked at her. ‘Why would you protect her?’ he asked.

‘Because she is young,’ Thelana said, hearing the sadness in her own voice. ‘And the young frequently make mistakes, the long-term results of which they can scarcely understand.’

She decided, in that moment, to turn back to the Regents’ Council.

‘I beg mercy from the council,’ she said earnestly. ‘I beg understanding. Palembra Edast has been, in all my years of knowing her, a good and faithful student. I have seen her risk her own standing to help others achieve. I have seen her admit to mistakes and bad choices when doing so might have surely resulted in her censure, or even expulsion. I have watched her learn, and grow into a fine and potentially powerful wizard, and until this very hour I had no cause to doubt her abilities or her moral awareness. I submit that if the accused can articulate her reasons for accessing the forbidden wing of the archives, her career at the Lyceum Fundamental may yet be salvageable.’

It was unlikely, she knew. Students had been expelled for far less. Why she even felt the need to leap to the young woman’s defence, she could not say. She only knew that the need was in her.

Malkeus snorted derisively and sauntered back towards his fellow Tempest Lords. A few in the Adepts’ Council – Nerontes, Tueldor, old Alumari – cried out in agreement with Thelana’s plea, begging understanding, based upon the young woman’s spotless reputation heretofore. The tribunal, however, did not look convinced.

Nendira looked to Palembra, her eyebrow arching ever so slightly.

‘Will you speak now?’ the High Regent asked Palembra.

She waited for a reply and none came.

‘Will you speak in your own defence?’ the High Regent asked again, more sharply this time. ‘Will you defend yourself – if you can? Come, girl, you’ve got a tongue, haven’t you?’

‘Her silence is an insult to this august body,’ Kolothir, the Syari quartz-master of the regents said flatly. ‘I move that her guilt is undeniable – she offers no testimony in her own defence.’

‘Speak of your own accord,’ the High Regent said, voice darkening, glare fixed upon Palembra like a concentrated beam of burning sunlight, ‘or you shall be made to speak. If the choice is yours, mercy is still a possibility. If we use our arts to draw an explanation from you… mercy is an impossibility.’

Thelana stepped closer to the regents’ dais. ‘You would use magic on her? To force her to testify?’

‘We must have answers,’ Nendira said, her fell gaze never leaving Palembra’s silent, chained-up form. ‘There is terrible knowledge hidden in that archive – knowledge too corrupting for even many of the experienced mages in this chamber to dare a perusal of. For this girl to risk her standing, and her soul…’

She trailed off, lips pursing. Thelana saw the High Regent’s eyes flick towards her.

‘The dangers inherent are too profound,’ she said quietly, as if to Thelana alone. ‘Ignorance cannot protect us – any of us.’

Thelana approached Palembra. ‘Do you hear?’ she asked. ‘They will make you talk, Palembra. They will drag an explanation out of you with magic. Will you truly abase yourself so?’

Palembra said nothing. Fresh tears glistened on her cheeks.

Is she defiant, Thelana wondered, or afraid of something? To look upon her, I cannot say. Reaching out to feel what’s unfolding within her, I feel both… and more.

‘There is no humiliation greater than what you are about to endure,’ Thelana pressed.

Finally, Palembra raised her eyes.

‘Let them tear it out of me,’ she said quietly. ‘My life was forfeit the moment I was discovered.’

The cold, indifferent manner in which she said those words chilled Thelana Evenfall to her core.

‘She refuses!’ Malkeus shouted, with notable delight. ‘High Regent, I demand that you – that this tribunal – use every power at your disposal to extract the truth from the accused!’

Thelana suddenly had a terrible foreboding of what was about to occur. Frequently, if a subject fought truth spells, the results could be quite ugly, their body struggling, twisting, sometimes even bruising or breaking, against the efficacy of the spells designed to make them speak secrets they preferred to keep inside themselves. The effects were rarely fatal, but a belligerent subject with sufficient willpower could resist to the point of self-harm, sometimes ending the process in a state of traumatic catatonia or locked in a terrible, barely conscious waking fugue state. It was a pitiable sight, and Thelana had no desire to see this girl, one of her brightest students, reduced to such a broken shell.

‘High Regent!’ Thelana said, ‘I beg you, reconsider! Lock the prisoner in a cell for a time. A day… two days. Let her contemplate what she’s done and see that there is no way out of it. Why do we rush to judgement when more facts remain to be discovered?’

High Regent Nendira stared back at Thelana with narrowed eyes and pursed lips.

‘The rush,’ she said slowly, ‘is based upon the dangers inherent in this foolish girl’s breach of the inner sanctum. There are terrible things stored in that archive. That is our concern. If we do not know what she sought, or why, we cannot guard against possible misuse, or further penetration.’

‘She is young,’ Thelana said, even though she understood the wisdom of Nendira’s words. ‘Foolish.’

‘Both true,’ the High Regent admitted, a tinge of sadness in her voice. ‘But neither fact will deliver her from punishment. Master Sembaris!’

Sembaris rose from his throne on the dais. ‘High Regent?’

‘The accused must speak. I give you leave.’

The aelven inquisitor nodded. Thelana’s only consolation was that his impassive, well-sculpted face did not betray any pleasure in the duty he was about to undertake. She knew that Sembaris was simply chosen, time and again, because his spells were the purest, the most effective.

Thus, Sembaris gingerly picked a path between the chairs of the other tribunal members to put himself on the floor with Thelana, Malkeus and poor, chained Palembra.

Already, the dais of the Adepts’ Council was in an uproar, almost every present member of the council crying for mercy, a postponement, a counterargument in the accused’s defence. Thelana noted that only Nerontes was silent: he knew, all too well, that their words would not avail them. From the Tempest Lords’ dais opposite the Adepts’ Council, Lord-Exorcist Malkeus barked forceful commands to be silent, be still. Thelana wished – desperately hoped – that Lord-Arcanum Petreus would open his own mouth and call off his prosecutorial attack dog. No such reprieve materialised, however.

Master Sembaris approached Palembra.

‘I do this without pleasure or malice,’ Master Sembaris said. ‘I beg you, child, submit to the impulses that are about to run through you. The more you struggle to suppress the truth, the more your body will writhe and wrestle itself to contain what the spell seeks to reveal.’

‘I’m ready,’ Palembra said, now raising her eyes. Her voice was quiet, barely audible, but Thelana, being close to her, had heard it clearly. Her breathing was increasing in rapidity and simultaneously growing shallow.

Thelana knew what that meant: it was the telltale sign of a pugilist entering a fight to the death; a condemned prisoner about to stride to their execution.

‘Please,’ Thelana said, one last time.

Sembaris looked to her. Bless him, his eyes were soft, saddened. ‘You know I take no pleasure in this,’ he said quietly to her alone. ‘It is my office, Thelana… my duty.’

With that, he reached out his hand, closed his eyes, and summoned the magical energies required.

CHAPTER THREE

The spell began in the air before Sembaris’ outstretched hand. A globe of pure, white light formed, one tiny spark becoming a cluster of dancing embers; dancing embers becoming a shuddering ball of white flame; the ball of white flame growing fat and pregnant and beginning to extrude crackling, scintillating skeins of energy that scorched the air like summer lightning.

Thelana looked to Palembra. She reached out – against her own better judgement – to feel what her student was feeling.

The girl was terrified and bound-up all at once, as though the storm of emotions inside her finally threatened to boil over and spill out into the world. And yet, she would not give those emotions voice, she would not give the tribunal the satisfaction. For an instant – only an instant – Palembra’s eyes flicked towards Thelana – beseeching, begging forgiveness.

That moment of eye contact seemed to widen the empathic pathway stretching between teacher and student. For an instant Thelana received a clear-but-confused image of Palembra’s frustrated desires.

The compendium…

An ancient legend…

A Stormvault…

‘For the dying,’ Palembra said, eyes fixed upon Thelana.

Master Sembaris nudged the floating globe forward. The energies hanging in the air before him, growing ripe and vibrant for all to see, suddenly leapt into Palembra’s body.

Thelana’s brief, muddled image of the many desires warring in Palembra’s heart was destroyed, utterly.

Palembra bent double, forced down by an unseen hand. Skeins of thin, crackling lightning abruptly emanated from her, disappeared, then reappeared at sharp, random intervals. Palembra thrashed, waist bending at a horrible angle, head torn backward on her overextended neck. To Thelana’s horror – and the chamber’s collective shock – Palembra Edast opened her mouth and screamed. As she screamed, the queer, magical energies bleeding off her burst from her open mouth and her wide, staring eyes. The frightful sound rose high into the rafters of the great chamber, echoing like the shrieking voices of a host of Nighthaunt. Palembra wailed and thrashed, her body twisting into horrible, unnatural contortions, the chains that held her wrists and ankles rattling and clanking as she shook.

One of the Stormcast Sequitors stepped forward, reaching out a single gauntleted hand to allay the girl’s sudden, wild movements. The moment that gauntleted hand fell upon her, the strange energies crackling out of Palembra’s body poured into him. The Sequitor shook violently, as though struck by lightning, and was thrown back in the next instant, landing in a clanking heap upon the marble floor. The Sequitor’s fellow guard rushed to their side, the two on the dais quickly following suit.

Thelana looked to Sembaris. His face told her that something out of the ordinary was happening. Her response to the spell was too violent, too chaotic.

Palembra suddenly took a single step forward. It was a dragging, heavy motion, as though her body were, all at once, more massive and immovable than her modest frame suggested. Strangely, Thelana noted a bizarre sound when Palembra’s boot heel rose and fell: a hard, solid thunk reminiscent of stone or marble settling onto the flagstones that paved the chamber. Thelana even thought she felt the impact of something heavy and solid through her feet.

Then, she saw: Palembra’s left leg, bare between the height of her boots and the hem of her short robes, had visibly changed substance. It was no longer soft pink flesh, but marble: white, grey-veined marble, thoroughly solid marble, not unlike the substance from which the paving flags of the Regents’ Chamber were hewn.

Palembra screamed, thrashed again. This time, however, her thrashing was only from the waist up. Both of the girl’s legs were marble now, solid and immovable. She was rooted where she stood.

‘This is not my work!’ Sembaris shouted, terrified and amazed. ‘My spells alone cannot do this!’

Palembra’s screams subsided into desperate, pained panting, as though, all at once, the young woman could not breathe; as though some metal corset suddenly constricted her chest and lungs. She gulped air, whipping her head back and forth, a look of terrible realisation and fright in her silver-blue eyes.

Her arms were white and immobile: marble, forever frozen. Thelana guessed that her torso, as well, had been transmuted.

‘Stop this!’ Thelana shouted, then stepped forward and cast a belaying spell of her own. It was hastily yanked from her fevered mind and probably unequal to the task before it, but when Thelana thrust her staff forward and willed the spell to blast from its headpiece, she felt the magical energies leave her body, leave the staff itself, and leap through the air towards Palembra’s form. Somewhere, deep inside her, she felt the magical, invisible impact of her spell overtaking Sembaris’ truth spell and the two castings roiling and snapping like unleashed gryph-hounds at whatever latent, unknown curse had lain in wait in Palembra’s body – in her very blood.

Thelana’s spell slowed the process, but could not stop it.

Thelana saw the terror in Palembra’s pale eyes as the transmutation crept up her throat, towards her face. She remained horribly awake and aware, clearly feeling everything that was happening to her: how her body hardened, her lungs solidified, her blood stilled. Just before the spell overtook her lovely, round face, Thelana saw that Palembra’s cheeks were red and flushed, her lips blue due to slow, painful suffocation, terrified eyes all but bulging out of her head.

And then, the transmutation was complete. A living, breathing young woman no longer stood before them. All that remained was a marble statue – a perfect likeness – frozen forever in a pose of terror and torturous agony. The chains that bound her were still chains, the clothes that hung on her were still clothes, but everything that had been mortal, human flesh… it was all solid marble now.

Cries of horror filled the air behind Thelana. Old Tueldor wept openly. Silent Reimonar had lowered his eyes, unable to look upon the spectacle any longer. Nerontes stared, tears on his cheeks.

Even Lord-Exorcist Malkeus was stunned to ineffectual silence, mouth gaping wide, eyes bulging from the strong planes of his face. The Lord-Arcanum, likewise, stood before his seat on the dais, gape-mouthed with disbelief. The three Sequitors had torn off the helm of their fallen comrade, revealing a handsome, chiselled face the colour of loamy soil. The fallen Stormcast seemed to be alive, but in the throes of some fit, body trembling under the weight of his heavy armour, half-open eyes rolled back to expose only whites.

And Master Sembaris? His fear was unmistakable. Thelana could not imagine what he felt at that moment, knowing that, by some strange, surreptitious means, the energies of his spell had been twisted to catalyse the terrifying outcome.

‘Out of my way!’ a voice snapped, and High Regent Nendira pushed her way past Thelana, stepping right up to study the strange statue that now stood in their midst. Solemnly, the High Regent reached out her hand and tried to cast a spell of her own – to somehow undo what they’d all seen done. It was to no avail, though.

Palembra Edast was dead, and there was no undoing her murder.

Edinor arrived early for his weekly trial. Always, the examination took place inside a darkened, firelit chamber of the Temple of the Augurs, on the Lyceum Fundamental’s western edge. Always, the nature and intensity of the trial was guarded and protected, even those who had completed and passed said trial being enchanted with a spell of silence to prevent their revealing anything about its true nature. This would be Edinor’s sixty-fifth trial since he began studies at the university. No matter how many times he endured them, no matter how many times he passed them, he remained, before each examination, terrified and ill-at-ease.

Worse, his thoughts were presently diffuse, distracted upon the whereabouts of his beloved teacher. Thelana had been a constant in the weekly trials, her presence – even as a passive observer – giving him a sense of purpose and possibility. She, alone, seemed to have always seen him as a true mage in training, rather than some vile pretender or cynical charlatan, as most of the other instructors seemed to see the students. If she were not here now to silently cheer him on, to believe in him, could he even pass the trial? He feared his concern for her – and the thought of her not being present – would ruin him before he’d even begun.

The cost of failure was high. There were no second chances, no re-examinations, no appeals. If he failed to pass a trial, he would be expelled from the Lyceum Fundamental immediately. Many of his fellow supplicants had complained of the harsh, unbending nature of the weekly trials – and many of those who’d complained had, inevitably, failed them and never been seen on campus again.

Despite the anxiety and terror each trial filled him with, from the first to the most recent, Edinor believed that he understood the need for unwavering – and merciless – consistency in their application. So far as the Lumineth were concerned, every human student at the university was a potential enemy, or perhaps a disaster waiting to happen. They regarded the human desire to learn Lumineth magic as both admirable and suspicious, and would brook no compromises or shortcuts in teaching its secrets or exercising the powers bestowed.

And so, Edinor slumped on a marble bench in the shadows under the temple colonnade, hands clasped before him, running through a rapid-fire revisitation of the scant knowledge he had acquired and applied in his practical exercises over the past week. Always, there was a frightening sense of geometric progression to their examinations: while the actual knowledge gained and mastery demonstrated each week seemed – to most of the students – limited and negligible, the trials grew ever-more challenging, ever-more beyond the scope of their practical advancement.

And is that not the point? Edinor thought. To test our progression by constantly throwing challenges of greater complexity at us? To push us beyond what we, ourselves, think we can achieve?

Is that not what Thelana has always taught me, when we’ve discussed my performances in the aftermath? Each trial survived is a victory, for it shows a bone-deep mastery of magic that no ordinary hedge-mage could ever hope to possess.

Edinor wished he could take some pride in his advancement over the last two and a half years; exult, even the slightest, in the fact that he remained here, learning, growing, fighting through his terror and doubt each week. But there was no pride or sense of achievement inside him, only a terrible, grim determination never to fail, never to allow his fellow students to see that failure – or even infer it – and never, ever to allow his Lumineth instructors to discount or dismiss him.

He’d worked too hard, struggled against too many barriers – real and imagined – to finally arrive at this place. He would see it through, to the bitter end. He would sooner die for expending too much effort than fail for expending too little.

Great hinges creaked. Edinor raised his eyes and saw that the tall double doors of the temple now slowly, steadily swung inward. Beyond, he saw only a murky darkness, lit by intermittent lamp-flames or pulsing beds of embers in smoking braziers.

His mind felt muddled, unfocused. He feared the outcome of the day’s examination.

Stop it, he commanded himself as he stood and marched through the open doors. Be mindful, now. Without focus, you’re lost.

The doors shut – abrupt, ominous. The darkness within was thick and oppressive. Edinor knew this place – its high ceilings, its forest of columns and arches, its recessed shrines and its large, sunken sanctuary several dozen paces ahead – but today, for some reason, it seemed alien, even malign.

You know the way.

He heard whispers. They seemed to come from all sides – high up, in the rafters; off in the shadows to his right, his left, before and behind him. Assailed by those whispers, Edinor slowly advanced.

Shortly, he came to a hewn-stone staircase that descended down into the great sunken sanctuary at the heart of the temple. It reminded him vaguely of the amphitheatres so common in the university, save for the fact that its tiers descended on all four sides of the broad pit. At the bottom of the tiers was the large, square open space that constituted the heart of the temple: bare marble flags, several burning braziers and a bare, cylindrical stone altar. That space was frequently altered for their weekly trials, the braziers arranged in new configurations, obstacles raised to test their physical prowess in tandem with their magical advancement, challengers skulking about to test their mettle in one-on-one – or three-on-one, or five-on-one – contests.

Today, the sunken sanctuary was flooded. The braziers still stood at their customary corners, but there was water filling the lower tiers of the space. A lone mound rose from the centre of the square pool of water, as though someone had deposited a pile of loose soil in the very heart of the sanctuary. The water now lay still and glassy around that mound’s base. Judging from how much of the braziers yet showed above the water’s surface, Edinor guessed the pool to be about knee-depth, but he also knew that, in this place, looks could be deceiving. He could step into the water, expecting a floor, and find that it was, in fact, deep as an underground lake.

He began a slow, steady descent. Earth, fire and water were present: that meant that any of the three, or all three, might be instrumental to the examination. Conversely, the elements might only prove to be misdirection. The trial could easily centre on daemon suppression, or anti-necromancy, or levitation, or the transformation of the materials that made his flesh and muscle.

Anything was possible. Even the clues present could prove to be cunning false flags.

Edinor reached the last step above the still, smooth surface of the water. He could not see the floor of the sanctuary beneath its surface.

A soft breeze, seemingly out of nowhere, stirred the dark, close-cropped hair upon his head. Edinor felt the air in the chamber change. His skin went clammy. His heart beat hard in his chest.

The braziers suddenly flared. As their flames rose high, bringing tears to Edinor’s eyes and forcing him to shrink from the light and heat they emitted, those flames twisted and transmogrified, transforming before Edinor’s strained eyes into the likenesses of enormous, rearing serpents. Each fire-forged wyrm twisted and rose, their bright, red-orange eyes alighting upon his small, insignificant form, their flaming mouths gaping wide to emit striking tongues of fleet blue flame.

Edinor threw himself forward, no longer concerned about the depth of the water in the pool. To his great relief, he splashed through the surface and came to rest on hard marble an instant later, the floor of the sanctuary still precisely where he’d expected it to be. Throwing up his hands at once, he fixed his attentions upon the nearest striking fire serpent, spoke ancient Lumineth words of aelementiri substance, and bade the water that now enfolded him come to his aid.

A wall of foaming, flashing water blasted upward like the shield of some ancient aquatic god. The nearest fire serpent’s strike took it right through the rising wave and it exploded into roiling steam the instant it touched the leaping water. The rest of its flaming length dissipated into the empty air as its head and upper neck were consumed.

Edinor raised another shield of dancing water that turned the second serpent into a cloud of steam, as well, but the third and the fourth were too cunning. They each dipped and changed direction mid-strike, coiling and bending around the watery shields, continuing their deadly forward advances. Being at opposite corners of the sanctuary, they closed on Edinor from two sides.

Edinor threw himself out of their path, splashing wildly into an adjacent corner of the pool. When the two fiery serpent heads met, they seemed to coil and intertwine, growing in girth and intensity to form a single, enormous serpentine head of living flame. That single head dived towards him, hungry jaws opening wide.

Edinor tried to raise another water shield, but the serpent easily bent around it and maintained its forward velocity. He had only a second – perhaps two – to arrive at another solution.

The breeze. There was moving air in this space!

As though drawing tangled vines down from the boughs of an enormous tree, Edinor reached out with his will, binding every stray, errant wind current in the temple to him, braiding them together into a potent column of destructive kinetic force – a cyclone in miniature, sworn to his command and subject to his desires. As the yawning jaws of the fire serpent dived, Edinor unleashed the concentrated hurricane-force winds. They drove head-on into the fire serpent, stabbing right through the heart of it like an invisible lance.

The fire serpent’s writhing, flaming body dispersed and disintegrated a moment before Edinor’s control of the wind-column shattered. Once more, the temple was plunged into murky, half-lit darkness and uneasy silence.

Edinor stood on his feet again, dripping wet, relieved.

Without warning, the water itself erupted beneath him, heaving upward in a mighty upset not unlike the watery shields he’d thrown up against the fire serpents, but ten times as massive and diffuse. The water around his shins was torn away and swept up into the shifting, shimmering whole. Mere moments later, Edinor found himself standing on barely damp marble, staring at a towering water aelemental whose bulk nearly filled the whole of the sunken sanctuary.

It looked like the face of some ancient, angry god – looming, furious, impossible to resist.

Edinor was on the cusp of despairing of ever challenging the thing… but then, he noted a curious detail.

Despite the seeming storm and upset of the water aelemental’s birth, the banked coals filling the four braziers at the corner of the sanctuary still pulsed, red and angry, in the darkness. The fires still burned, though greatly diminished.

Water had protected him against flame; perhaps flame could protect him against water.

Edinor enslaved each bed of banked, pulsing coals to his will, and used the latent energies in his body to stoke them, to stir them, to strain their embers and intensify their heat. The water aelemental seemed to be gathering now, like a great wave rushing in to shore. In the next instant, it would crash down upon him and crush him.

Edinor’s careful, moment-by-moment attempt to intensify the heat in the braziers leapt away from him like a team of horses spooked by a desert scorpion. All at once, columns of flame erupted from the braziers and struck, snake-like, towards the heart of the great down-crashing water aelemental. As each tongue of flame smashed into the watery beast’s flanks, massive clouds of steam erupted, the water flash-evaporating.

The thing made a terrible sound, like a magmadroth roaring in tortured defiance, but Edinor’s gamble paid off. The greater measure of the aelemental’s mass was translated into thick, hot steam. The water yet un-evaporated rained down upon Edinor like a fine sea spray on a wharf – cold, bracing, but far from damaging.

He blinked water from his eyes; wiped it from his now-soaked face. All at once, the murky darkness of the temple was deeper, and the air itself thick and febrile with the steam created by his counter-attack. He felt as though he were standing in an enormous sauna, the only light coming from the farther edges of the temple above and around him, the darkness before him straining both his endurance and his visibility.

Edinor waited, sweat and moisture running down his face, stinging his eyes, clouding his vision and setting him on edge. Surely, he’d braved death – or terrible injury – and proven himself worthy of another week in this blasted place, hadn’t he?

No. No, he had not. Not yet.

Because he could hear something moving in the murky, humid darkness. The thick, moisture-filled air hove to and fro around him, like the currents of a gaseous ocean, struggling to amass and incorporate itself.

Fire, first. Then, water. Now what?

Air.

The steam had given the air strength… body… presence. Edinor turned this way and that, seeking the adversary he was sure would come for him.

Suddenly, shockingly, it swooped out of the air above his head.

The steam had become a huge, diaphanous raptor, plunging out of the darkness, ghostly claws grasping as they preceded the vaporous bird’s form. The bird was barely composed of solid matter and thus, barely visible, appeared with such terrible speed and suddenness that Edinor fell flat on his back at the sight of it, legs flying out from under him. His vision went black for an instant, the impact of his skull upon the ground stunning him.

But when his vision cleared, there above him was that terrifying bird of steam, plunging down with its phantasmal claws, seeking to snatch him up and rend him to pieces.

Edinor had time for a single thought: This is the end.

The mound of earth at the sanctuary’s centre – half-muddied from its time partially submerged and splashed upon by the water aelemental – suddenly leapt upward, into the air. Like the water aelemental before it, the flying earth formed a wall of sorts – a frozen wave of dark, dense loam animated by some unknown power that Edinor could neither see nor feel. It rose, blotting out the sight of the plunging bird of steam and airborne moisture, and kept rising – fast and deadly – right through the raptor’s diving body.

The fast-rising earth punched through the roiling steam, dissipating it like the wall of smoke and illusion that it was. The bird exploded into ghostly whorls of vapour and bestirred air. The moment the earth had accomplished its deadly mission against its airborne foe, it too gave up its animating spirit. All at once, its concentrated bulk rained down in loose granules and soft clods upon the sanctuary floor – and Edinor himself.

He rose to his feet, shaking, shocked, covered head to toe in sweat and earth, smelling like a freshly dug grave. He waited for another challenge… the formation of another aelemental.

It never came.

He had failed. That final adversary – the raptor – had been dispelled by some magical art not his own. He had not bound the earth and bade it rise up to protect him. He had not consciously faced and defeated his adversary.

But the question remained: who had?

‘Satisfactory,’ a voice boomed from the darkness, echoing in the vast, empty space of the temple. ‘You may go.’

Edinor blinked. He saw them now, the examiners – dark, almost ghostly figures standing above, around the perimeter of the sunken sanctuary, hewing close to the pillars and shadows.

Familiar hinges squealed and enormous doors groaned: an invitation to exit. Eager to be away from that place, and out from under the watchful, judgemental gaze of his proctors, Edinor fled.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘Here,’ Master Sembaris said gravely, ‘is everything found upon Palembra Edast’s person, as well as effects recovered from her living quarters.’

The young woman’s possessions were laid out upon a great enamel-inlaid table before them. The table was located in one of the Regents’ Council’s private meeting spaces, a magically warded chamber built at the summit of a tall, sheer column of stone that towered above the Lyceum Fundamental. They called it the Eyrie, and much like the university and the upper city itself, it could only be reached by flight or teleportation. Now, here they stood – Lumineth, Stormcast and human Adepts’ Council – perusing the last effects of the now-petrified Palembra.

Thelana had been commanded to attend because of her ties to the young woman. Though the aspect of her peers in the Eyrie was markedly different than their stiff-backed affectations during the tribunal, she laboured under no delusions of having escaped suspicion. Thelana knew instinctively that they would still be watching her.

All present studied the gathered objects as Master Sembaris ran through a hasty inventory.

‘One satchel,’ he said, as if by rote, ‘containing paper, an ink pot, a vial of sand for blotting and a small, scalpel-like knife for sharpening the quill nibs. A small purse, containing a handful of mixed coin, barely sufficient to cover two or three meals. Three phials of liquids, various colours and viscosities–’

‘Magical?’ Kelarion the spellwright asked.

‘Indeed,’ Sembaris said, ‘but common enough. The sort of illicit potions that most of the students either synthesise for themselves or buy in the meaner quarters of the lower city.’

Thelana knew the potions he spoke of: magical extracts designed to increase awareness, sharpen mental acuity or invigorate oneself to stave off exhaustion. Among the student body, they were familiar and ubiquitous. Many of the more pessimistic among the regents and the faculty used the prevalence of such potions as proof that humans were incapable of truly embracing the magical arts of the Lumineth, or ascending the Teclian ladder to higher rungs of enlightenment. The fact that a great many of the faculty created such potions or supportive talismans for themselves and employed them regularly was ignored when these arguments arose.

That Palembra resorted to the use of such potions surprised Thelana not at all. She supposed that a random search of any dozen students on campus would reveal that five out of six would possess the same mixtures.

Sembaris moved on to a new collection. ‘A few random amulets,’ he said. ‘One for protection from malign charms, one to warn of impending threats, a third to suppress self-doubt, a fourth to ensure restful sleep.’

‘What about that one?’ the Lady Dimveryn asked, suggesting a small pendant on a leather thong.

Sembaris lifted the item. ‘Inert,’ he said. ‘No apparent magical properties. She was wearing it around her neck at the time of her…’

He trailed off, as though to speak of death in this solemn place would somehow corrupt it. Thelana held out her hand for the pendant. Sembaris readily offered it.

‘A shell,’ she said, examining the fine engravings and brilliant colour washes that had set in the recesses of the natural and artful designs upon the pendant. ‘A mollusc, if I’m not mistaken. There’s a brass backing, but it doesn’t seem to open–’

‘Simple costume jewellery, then,’ Hetassa, one of the Iliathan twins on the Regents’ Council said sadly. She reached out and Thelana handed the little pendant to her. Hetassa studied it as she spoke. ‘Perhaps a gift from someone Palembra lost, many years ago. A last remembrance…’

Her twin, Tamhir, picked up the thought without hesitation as she took the pendant from her sister’s hand. ‘Perhaps a maudlin reminder of a bucolic childhood,’ she said, also with an air of sadness.

A wistful smile appeared on Hetassa’s face. ‘Perhaps a humble but earnest gift from a starry-eyed suitor. Oh, the poor girl…’

Thelana held out her hand for the pendant again. Tamhir handed it over.

‘Such a waste,’ Tamhir said.

Thelana stared at the pendant, wondering at it. So simple. So useless. It seemed out of place among the items gathered. Even as Sembaris continued with his inventory – Palembra’s study tomes and magical diaries, her alchemical set and clothes and scattered personal letters from her family and friends back in a faraway home that no one could even name – something about that simple pendant snagged at the edges of Thelana’s consciousness. Perhaps it was because it was the only thing on the table that did not have a specific, delineated purpose. While it was entirely possible that its primary value was, as suggested, sentimental, Thelana had her doubts. She could not recall a single reminiscence or anecdote shared that would suggest why Palembra would’ve worn that one bauble – rather than any of the other, functioning amulets in her possession – around her neck.

‘Senseless,’ Lord-Arcanum Petreus spat suddenly. ‘What in all the Mortal Realms did this foolish girl die for?’

Thelana wanted to speak but bit her tongue.

‘We may never know,’ Lord-Exorcist Malkeus said beside his commander. ‘She saw to that, didn’t she?’

‘Did she?’ Nerontes Fane then interjected.

Until now, he and his fellows of the Adepts’ Council had stood silently by. Now, however, Thelana saw a hard light in Nerontes’ eyes, the grim set of his mouth. She knew that look: his blood was up.

‘Where did the enchantment lie?’ he pressed. ‘None of these items carries a charge, or evidence of tampering. If that’s the case, how was Palembra Edast enchanted? Was the spell cast in the moment, by an unseen enemy?’

‘Impossible,’ Nendira said. ‘The Regents’ Council Tribunal Hall is impenetrable.’

‘Charms and enchantments can lie in wait,’ Kelarion reminded the group patiently. As their most skilled spellwright, he would know. ‘Like disparate elements in an alchemist’s laboratory. They achieve nothing in an unadulterated state, only becoming volatile when mixed, one inert element suddenly catalysing another.’

‘You’re suggesting the spell that killed her was passive?’ Regent Dimveryn asked. ‘Like a trap waiting to be sprung?’

‘That is one explanation,’ Kelarion said.

‘Regardless,’ old Dakhir broke in, ‘such an enchantment – and its terrible consequences – bodes not well. This young woman risked much to enter the archives. The fact that our attempts to magically force a confession from her led to her death suggests that she – or someone she worked on behalf of – did not want her true designs to be exposed.’

‘Dare I say, I have long warned this august body of such dangers,’ Lord-Arcanum Petreus said gravely. ‘Most mortals, humans especially, are not equipped to resist the temptations of magical study – not here, at any rate, in a place so rife with sleeping, sinister energies and tempting secrets–’

‘Excuse me, I’m confused,’ old Tueldor of the Adepts’ Council broke in. ‘Are you, Lord-Arcanum, not human yourself?’

The Lord-Arcanum was unmoved. ‘I was. Once.’

‘May I remind this august body,’ Nerontes Fane interrupted with notable sarcasm, ‘that humanity has practised magic in all the Mortal Realms for as long as humanity itself has existed? Those who come here, to this school, are simply seekers in a long and distinguished line stretching deep into ancient ages. The only thing that distinguishes this school, and the power it offers, from others is the specific nature of the magic harnessed and the specific path to enlightenment embodied by the university’s staff.’

Thelana knew what was to come. She’d known Nerontes for twenty years, since his own time as a student of this school. In the intervening years, he’d grown in power and eminence, travelling far and wide, learning alongside some of the greatest wizards of their age. Some years previous, he had returned to Settler’s Gain, officially as a member of the Collegiate Arcane. He had soon managed to secure himself a seat on the Adepts’ Council. Since his appointment, he’d been a tireless champion of the students in Settler’s Gain. When the Lumineth regents grew overbearing or dismissive, Nerontes frequently took it upon himself to remind them of their aims and oaths.

Thelana loved and respected him as a colleague and peer. In truth, he was probably one of her only close friends; certainly her most trusted confidant. Among most of the Lumineth faculty, however – especially the more reactionary and suspicious sorts – he was vilified.

‘We are all aware,’ High Regent Nendira countered, ‘of the history of humanity’s avarice for magic and power. But all the Mortal Realms are not Hysh, Delegate Fane, and all the magical knowledge learned elsewhere cannot compare to the purity, the majesty and the inherent power of the magical forces in this realm.’

‘Hear hear,’ the Lord-Exorcist Malkeus said solemnly. ‘The magic of Hysh is for the sons and daughters of Teclis and Tyrion alone. For mere, mortal humans it is folly of the highest order.’

‘This is preposterous,’ Fane spat at the Lord-Exorcist. ‘You are human. How can you betray and dismiss your own kind, Stormcast?’

‘My Lord-Arcanum has already spoken true,’ Malkeus said. ‘We of the Stormcast are no longer merely human. We are humanity perfected, human potential realised, by Sigmar’s light and Sigmar’s will.’

‘Power is power, and it is indifferent to its use,’ Nerontes Fane countered. ‘Magical energies and magical spells have no more consciousness or inherent affinity for one practitioner or another than a sword to a wielder. Places like this university exist to help would-be practitioners learn to tap and control those energies, to treat them with the respect they deserve. Would you prefer a more chaotic approach to magical practice, Tempest Lord?’

‘That is precisely what we face now,’ Regent Dakhir said. Thelana was not surprised that he should back the authoritarian, small-minded Malkeus: though of different races, they were cut from the same cloth. ‘You may believe as you wish, Nerontes Fane,’ Dakhir continued, ‘I cannot control your heart or mind – but I say this to my fellow Lumineth. This school, with the access it offers to destructive powers, is a powder keg awaiting a stray spark. If we do not put more stringent safety protocols in place–’

‘How dare you?’ Thelana spat. ‘Our students undergo the most rigorous trials – continuously – to prove their worth and potential! And when they fail those trials, they are ejected immediately, without appeal or recourse! That’s to say nothing of how they labour and chafe under a host of unreasonable and paranoid countermeasures designed to frustrate their progress at every turn. It is no wonder more of them do not rebel.’

‘You would hand these fragile, power-drunk mortals our most precious secrets?’ Regent Dimveryn said, almost sneering.

‘Of course not,’ Thelana said. ‘And if that’s all you heard in my words, then I cannot help you better understand.’

She paused. Took a deep breath. Struggled to calm herself.

‘If you treat these students as they are – or worse, as you see them – then they will become the monsters you make of them. But, if we treat them as if they already were what they seek to become… they shall become it.’

‘Treat them as criminals,’ Nerontes summarised, ‘and they become criminals.’

‘We treat them as potential criminals,’ Regent Velathrin suddenly said, ‘because that is what they are – they come here to steal our secrets, to leech our power, to counter our designs to protect and maintain this realm–’

‘You have no proof of that,’ Fane argued.

‘We need no proof,’ Regent Dakhir countered. ‘They are human, Fane, and mortal – as you are – and as such, they cannot be trusted by those whose understanding of life, magic and the limitations of existence differ significantly from their own.’

‘This is absurd,’ Thelana said, now appealing directly to High Regent Nendira, who had been unusually silent. ‘I thought we were here to solve a mystery. Will this now turn into a pretence for the suppression of the entire student body? For the ultimate destruction of everything this school represents?’

‘Perhaps that would be for the best,’ the Stormcast Malkeus said solemnly.

‘After notable strife and failure, I might add,’ Thelana said soberly. ‘Have you forgotten your history, Lord-Exorcist Malkeus? Have you all forgotten the collective shame of our race? The ruin of the Ocari Dara?’

‘We have forgotten nothing,’ High Regent Nendira said. ‘Spirefall stands as proof of what many here have been arguing, Thelana Evenfall – power without humility is corrupting. This school dangles power before its students, but perhaps we have failed to instil the proper measure of humility.’

Thelana stared at Nendira. ‘What are you saying?’

Nendira waited a long while before responding.

‘We may be forced to put an end to this,’ she said quietly.

Thelana could barely believe what she was hearing. She knew that many Lumineth – the faculty of the school included – harboured serious doubts about the relative value of educating humanity. Such trepidations were barely even a secret. But to hear such talk, in this room, from the wisest and, frequently, the most sensible among them? It spoke to a deeper disaffection with the purpose of the Lyceum Fundamental than she’d ever realised.

‘What will you do, then?’ Thelana asked, perhaps too aggressively. ‘Dissolve the university? Create a permanent rift between humankind and the Lumineth? May I remind you all why this place exists at all? To create a place where the mortals of this realm could learn to harness the energies they carry within themselves in an effort to create better individuals? A better society?’

‘That is precisely the point,’ Malkeus said. ‘The whole purpose of this university – its moral and philosophical underpinnings – must be called into question.’

‘No,’ Thelana said flatly. ‘I refuse to entertain this.’

‘You will entertain this,’ Nendira said, voice hard as stone. ‘You are not even a member of this council, Thelana Evenfall! You stand in this room, in our presence, because of your close association with the young woman who was arrested today. If you cannot respect your position – and its precariousness – then our faith in your abilities may have been misguided.’

‘Please,’ Thelana said quietly. ‘Reconsider, High Regent. I beg you.’

Nendira shook her head. ‘There will be no reconsideration. I ask my fellow regents to prepare new security protocols and university by-laws, immediately. We shall reconvene here, at this time tomorrow, to discuss how best the student body can be better surveilled and assessed.’

Old Tueldor was the first to speak. ‘You would punish the students for crimes they have not committed,’ the old mage said.

‘We will not let this stand,’ Adept Alumari said through gnashed teeth.

Nendira turned towards the Adepts’ Council. ‘Let me remind each and every one of you, your presence here is also contingent upon our good graces – our express permission. You have no power, no say. If you are granted voice in this chamber at all, it is by our leave alone.’

‘You’re asking for trouble,’ Nerontes Fane said.

‘Is that a threat?’ Regent Dakhir asked.

Thelana turned and strode away. She was halfway to the outer door before High Regent Nendira spoke.

‘You have not been dismissed, Thelana Evenfall!’

‘I adjourn myself,’ Thelana said, not looking back.

Terrible words, those. She did not want to be imprudent, or insubordinate… but what alternative did they leave her? If they were bound and determined to think the worst of those studying here because of the actions of a single individual, let them see what level of disaffection that stirred in one who would, under other circumstances, never dream of defying them.

In moments, Thelana was out of the chamber, onto the wind-wracked terrace beyond, stepping right up to the dread precipice that fell away from the tower’s high perch into a straight-vertical drop down to a courtyard almost three hundred feet below. Thelana was about to step off the edge, to let gravity take her, knowing she would arrest her fall before she hit the ground–

But something caught her eye. It was one of the small, lazily perambulating floating islands that hovered in the air above the university campus. There were ten of them – one for each of the Ten Paradises of Hysh – and they floated at great distances from one another and different altitudes, like a dectet of tiny, flat-topped planetoids orbiting an invisible moon. The islands were places of solitude and meditation, hosting shrines, temples and lush gardens that a mage in search of isolation might visit to rest and recentre themselves.

How she needed rest and a return to the calm centre of herself now…

Thus, Thelana Evenfall summoned the energies and mental formulae required. She launched in a long, flat arc from the precipice of the Eyrie, across the empty space in the air above the university campus, and alighted on the mossy edge of one of those overgrown little sky-gardens. It was only when she placed her foot on the flagstone pathway that led into the overgrown recesses of the sky-garden that she realised she still held something in her tightly fisted hand.

Palembra’s shell pendant, its thin leather thong entwined around her fingers.

She let the path lead her, because it had a will of its own. Each sky-garden’s path was mutable and reactive, shifting and drifting to allow those visiting the garden to truly lose themselves among the musk of the flowers and the shadows of the overgrown trees. Thelana let the flagstones bend and rearrange themselves, and was soon lost, the only reminders of her location being the low, insistent moan of the wind and the intermittent flashes of magical lightning blooming against the darkening sky.

She cursed herself for a fool, giving in to the feelings that now warred and whirled around within her, but she trusted that, given some time here, in this place, she could finally wrest the emotions now threatening to overwhelm her. Such depth of feeling, such absence of control – these were not the way of the Lumineth. They were marks of the immature, the ambitious, the cruel and the fearful.

Like the regents. Like the Stormcasts.

She dismissed that thought as quickly as it surfaced. No. The regents were not fearful, the Tempest Lords were not cruel. They simply misunderstood the situation. In their misunderstanding, they’d fallen back on their natural inclinations, their stated purpose and aims. They were guardians, protectors, teachers: if one of their students had gone astray, they must determine if it was some mistake of their own that had allowed corruption to set in beneath their ever-watchful gazes.

But was Palembra truly corrupt? Were her aims truly malign? The archive she’d been found in was one of several hidden in the structure of the Lyceum Fundamental’s library, places guarded by the most powerful, penetrating magics at work in the university. A great many of the things kept in those special collections were of no intrinsic value nor inherently dangerous: old tomes of arcane magic and lore; heretical tractates and scrolls describing a thousand different corruptions of long-forgotten orthodoxies and paths to enlightenment; weapons or artefacts that once carried potent energies, now wholly depleted, little more than scrap or curios. Nevertheless, there were still other objects and records held down there that could tempt even the stoutest heart to do evil and sow discord.

But that book presented in the tribunal – Sylverain’s Compendium – what possible value could it have?

And this, she thought, glancing down at the shell pendant still in her hand. Why did I hold onto this? How did this end up in my hand?

Chance. Mere accident. I was holding it when the debate grew fiery.

Why does it matter? Why should I care? Clearly, the girl acted rashly. I may never know why, and I just may have to accept that, no matter how it galls me.

That did not sit well with her. Not one bit.

This is foolish. Arrogant. None of this truly concerns you. You were ignorant of Palembra’s activities before entering that tribunal chamber. To think that it is solely your responsibility to solve this riddle, to exonerate the girl… it is ego. It is self-indulgence.

But I do not want the answers for her, she thought. Or even for myself. I want the answers for the other students.

I want answers so that the fear of unknowing that grips the regents can be exorcised.

That thought echoed in the chambers of her mind as a new, more immediate insight presented itself.

Moments ago, she’d been walking in darkness, among thick ferns and luminescent night flowers and bending, glowering trees… and now, somehow, there was light in the world. It was pale, blue-white, streaming through the dense foliage. Whatever its source, it appeared to be moving, however slowly.

Carefully, Thelana picked a path through the foliage, moving towards the scintillating light beyond. When she finally brushed aside the last boughs that choked her vision, Thelana saw a sight that filled her with wonder.

It was a wide, beautiful glade, ringed by wise old trees and carpeted in dense, soft grass. At the glade’s heart, a figure sat suspended in the air, legs crossed beneath them. Slowly, steadily, the suspended figure turned on an invisible axis, and the cloud of soft, clear white light enveloping them shifted.

Thelana recognised the figure’s flowing white robes and enormous, horned helm at once. It was Teclis, the aelven Mage-God; the paragon of enlightenment, knowledge and insight.

The floating deity rotated towards her, his smooth, sculpted face revealing itself little by little. Just as she was about to silently withdraw into the trees, the god’s steady, beatific gaze fell upon her.

‘Thelana Evenfall,’ he said. Thelana thought she heard a smile in his voice.

She fell to her knees. ‘Great Teclis, accept my most reverent apology–’

‘Apology?’ he asked, and his legs unfurled beneath him easily, feet reaching down to touch the smooth, soft grass. ‘Do not be foolish, daughter. You could not have found me if I had not willed it so.’ As his feet touched the ground, the lambent glow that enveloped him subsided. He was suddenly nothing more than another Lumineth – physical, mundane, despite his intense beauty.

She had only spoken to him on two occasions in the past, for palavers with the god of magic were exceedingly rare. But, he always addressed his fellow Lumineth as son or daughter, his only acknowledgement of both his great age and the debt they all owed him for their existence.

Thelana rose to her feet. ‘Willed it?’

Teclis cocked his head the slightest. ‘I sensed your turmoil. I counted it a happy accident that I could, perhaps, help you put your heart and mind at ease. Come, walk with me.’

Thelana stepped away from the treeline. Teclis turned and trudged away towards the far side of the glade. Thelana caught up, then fell in step beside him. As he led her along, the trees parted and a new, paved path through the darkened wood presented itself. Overhead, a bolt of magical lightning flashed and cast strange highlights and shadows upon everything under the canopy.

‘Thelana Evenfall,’ Teclis said silkily, ‘daughter of Tuerion and Attica, of Zaitrec, mage-adept and loreseeker, dedicated educator of the curious. I sense distress in you. Please, explain.’

Thelana let out a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. ‘Great Lord Teclis, I would not presume to tell you anything – even how I feel, or why.’

‘I asked you,’ he said.

He glanced at her and blinked, as though he’d just told a joke and now expected her to laugh at it. Thelana could not summon so much as a smile. A long, pregnant silence passed between them.

‘I would have assumed you’d heard,’ she finally said.

‘Oh, I have,’ Teclis said. ‘A student was discovered in the forbidden archive. She was questioned and was destroyed by some foul enchantment placed upon her. Who was she working for? What did she seek in the archive? Were her intentions truly malign or simply ambitious? I would imagine all of these questions, and more, haunt you, along with fears and doubts as to your fitness as a teacher.’

His expression was far less enigmatic now. Clearly, he was trying to demonstrate that she could keep nothing from him.

‘So,’ he said, a faint half-smile appearing on his lips, ‘I ask again – why are you here?’

‘I seek peace,’ she said. ‘My emotions are overwhelming me. I know well what folly can come of emotions running wild.’

‘And what emotions, precisely, have you wrestled with?’ he prompted.

‘Sadness,’ she said, because it was the most obvious. ‘Anger. Frustration. Resentment.’

‘You mourn the girl,’ Teclis said. It was not a question.

‘Yes.’

‘And yet,’ he added, ‘you are angry with her, because – whatever the ultimate aim of her intrusion – she did not trust you enough to share her intentions with you.’

Yes. It was true. She’d thought all of her anger was directed at the regents, but that wasn’t true at all: Palembra herself was afforded a measure of it.

Because she died needlessly, and she gave me no opportunity to help her…

‘What of the regents?’ Teclis asked, their path bending to the left. Thelana had to duck to move under a low-hanging branch dripping with glowing ivy and glittering fungi. ‘Some of your anger is directed at them, is it not?’

‘They act rashly,’ she said. ‘Out of fear, without all the facts. To do so may endanger this school and its students–’

‘Or poison those students,’ Teclis offered. ‘Or force a confrontation. Or drive many away from meaningful communion with their Lumineth mentors towards more dangerous sorts…’

‘You know a great deal, my lord,’ Thelana said.

‘You seek something else,’ he said, ignoring her comment.

‘I seek answers,’ she said.

‘Something else,’ he prompted.

‘I seek justice,’ she said, fully aware that she was guessing, not truly answering.

‘Something else,’ Teclis repeated.

‘I need to know if they are correct,’ Thelana suddenly spat. The statement fell out of her mouth so quickly – so unexpectedly – that she barely realised it had been waiting there all along.

‘They,’ Teclis said non-committally.

‘My critics,’ Thelana answered. ‘The ones who say my aims, my beliefs, are somehow inimical to the students I teach.’

‘So, this has little to do with Palembra and her ultimate aims and more to do with your own need for understanding? Perhaps even validation?’

Teclis nimbly leapt over a fallen tree trunk and, after landing on the far side, turned to face her. His smile was more notable now, less enigmatic. If Thelana was not mistaken, it was a little smug.

She stared at the ancient aelven deity. ‘Is that so wrong? That I should ask the question?’

Teclis shrugged. ‘Very little is wrong, in and of itself,’ he said. ‘I find, instead, that things are better branded as well timed or ill timed, depending upon their relation to other phenomena that they may or may not influence or be influenced by.’

‘Then, perhaps,’ she said, losing her patience, ‘my particular philosophies of trust and possibility are ill timed, considering they’ve resulted in the corruption and death of a student.’

Teclis looked genuinely surprised by those words. His head cocked quizzically.

‘Have they?’ he asked.

Thelana did her best to maintain her composure. The god’s special brand of oblique enquiry was not what she wanted or needed right now. But he’s here, she thought. He made the conscious decision to treat with me. Teclis does very little without a reason, even if he’s unlikely to make those reasons known to you.

‘Tell me, Lord Teclis,’ Thelana said, ‘what do my colleagues say about me? How would you summarise their criticisms of my teaching style and stated aims?’

He did not hesitate. ‘They call you permissive and equivocating. They believe that your innate faith in the goodness of your students and their limitless potential invites vaulting ambition and the corrupting influence of moral relativism. Some of them believe that you twist your students to a secret agenda of your own – which they someday hope to ferret out – while others merely dismiss you as a misguided optimist whose faith will, in the end, prove destructive to both yourself and those you seek to enlighten.’

Thelana stared, barely believing the litany just recited.

‘All of that?’ she asked.

Teclis nodded. ‘Simplified and summarised, but accurate.’

‘And what do you think?’ Thelana asked.

‘What I think is immaterial,’ Teclis said. ‘What is more pertinent is what you think.’

Thelana shook her head. ‘I cannot say,’ she admitted after a moment’s consideration. ‘They seem so certain. I’ve never known such certainty…’

‘Because you are a seeker,’ Teclis said, and she heard a certain, small measure of warmth in his voice. ‘Always so sure that you shall find something if only you look for it.’

‘Isn’t that how we grow?’ she asked. ‘How we learn?’

He nodded. ‘Indeed… but often the answers we seek are not hidden, or lost, or kept from us. Sometimes, the most profound answers lie very close at hand.’

She shook her head. ‘I am lost,’ she said. ‘Are my peers wrong about me or right about me?’

‘Certainty is no respecter of being factually or functionally correct,’ Teclis said, and Thelana thought she detected a slight, easy half-smile at the corner of his delicate mouth. He was delighting in this. ‘In your uncertainty – in your desire to wait, to see, to encourage and to hope for the best possible outcome, even as you do all that you can to prevent or mitigate the worst – you are not incorrect, Thelana Evenfall. Nor are you correct, precisely. But, you do provide balance. Their certainty creates a matrix of probabilities and foretold outcomes that lead to more-or-less inevitable ends. Your uncertainty allows you to transform and diversify those probable outcomes… to find possibility where others see only a lack of it. You influence fate. You shape destiny.’

‘For the better?’ Thelana asked.

The god shrugged, ever so slightly. ‘Better, worse, these are relative terms. The others prune the tree, seeking a desired shape. You simply let the tree grow and see what it becomes. More often than not you create more probabilities by virtue of uncertainty than your peers can through certainty. Do not obsess over your rightness or wrongness, Thelana – be satisfied that you provide a necessary alternative to an established paradigm… That you give the world – and this university – balance.’

She turned away from him, finding his cool, steady gaze unnerving. Was she to take his words as tacit encouragement, and be precisely who she was, henceforth? Or was she to understand the lesson he was trying to impart – the ideal of balance, the sowing of probabilities – and better apply them to her own view of the world?

She turned again, ready to ask him that question… but, to her chagrin, Teclis was already gone.

All her hopes for insight, for finding her calm centre again, for shedding her frustrations and misgivings evaporated. Thelana, in that instant, was overwhelmed by despair – swallowed by a sense of complete failure and shaken faith in all things – most specifically, in herself.

She collapsed upon the log and hung her head.

In her mind, she heard Teclis’ voice: soft, silken, almost monotone. Sometimes, the most profound answers lie very close at hand. She felt the warmth and the weight of Palembra’s shell pendant in her hand.

Thelana opened her fist. Stared at the pendant.

Impossible. It’s just a bauble…

She stared. Let her fingers slide softly, easily, over both the shell and the brass. Why the brass backing? The shell was beautiful enough, surely. The brass added nothing. And if the magical investigations had revealed nothing hidden within…

Thelana began fiddling with the pendant. She was not sure precisely what she hoped to do.

There was a minute shift. The brass backing pulled away from the shell covering. The shell almost fell into the grass, but Thelana caught it. Her thumb fell reflexively upon the small brass plate and suddenly, she felt something. Lines and ridges. The back side of the brass plate had been smooth, but now that the shell was gone, some sort of sculpture or inscription had been revealed beneath.

The ghostly light from the night garden showed Thelana stylised shapes inscribed upon the little brass oval: something like an eye, with two pupils at its centre, one overlapping the other. The pupil in front had rounded edges, but the pupil behind wore a corona of tiny flames that made its symbolic imagery clear.

An all-seeing eye, containing a sun eclipsed by a moon.

Footsteps in the brush. Thelana leapt to her feet and turned towards the sound. She half-expected to find Teclis again, having now returned after wandering off to give her a moment of solitude to solve her own riddle.

It was not Teclis, however. It was Nerontes Fane.

‘There you are,’ he said with notable relief. ‘You’re a hard one to find when you want to stay lost.’

Thelana could barely contain herself. ‘Palembra’s pendant,’ she said, displaying the little brass bauble in her hands.

Nerontes’ eyes grew wide. ‘What are you doing with that? It’s evidence–’

‘If I could walk out of there, right under their noses, with it still in-hand, it couldn’t have been terribly important to them,’ she said. ‘But, look, Nerontes! Beneath the shell! A signet!’

He blinked. Squinted.

‘It can’t be,’ he said quietly.

‘You remember it too,’ Thelana said. ‘The badge worn by Zabayus Tarn.’

CHAPTER FIVE

Edinor returned to his small, humble quarters in the lower city just as the sun in the Hyshian sky subsided towards its nadir, and night announced its coming with the waxing of the moons above. He was still covered in the dried sweat and earth from his afternoon’s trial, still befuddled as to how he’d managed to pass the test when he had not consciously made the killing blow against his aelemental adversary.

He was still a novice, and so had not yet been approved for residence in the upper city. That meant that, each day, when his classes were done, he was required to trudge to the precarious, sheer cliffs at the southern edge of the campus and to throw himself off, using magic to slow his fall and provide him with a gentle, levitation-aided landing, far below. In terms of both magical and physical energies, it was an expensive operation – exhausting, really – and usually left him tired, wrung out, and ready for collapse.

Of course, simple collapse was impossible. He still had a long walk back to his shabby little rented room in the Cliff-side Quarter, a walk that would usually be sidetracked by a stop for a cheap but sustaining meal – an absolute requirement, since the magic necessary to come and go from the Lyceum Fundamental burned much of the energy that food and drink gave his body. Then, when he did finally return, he’d be forced to spend at least a few hours in silent study and contemplation, preparing for the following day, when he’d once more deploy his magic to rise from the lower city to the upper, return to the university, and start the exhausting grind all over again.

On evenings when he felt capable, staring at the cliffs and craning his neck to see the shining university campus above gave him a deep, abiding sense of purpose: someday, he would become a novice adept; he would earn living quarters – however humble – on the campus itself, and begin learning things that only real mages – powerful mages – were allowed to learn. Perhaps, in the fullness of time, he could serve a larger purpose, doing work for the Collegiate Arcane or sitting on the Adepts’ Council.

On other evenings, the sight of the cliffs and the thought of his daily flights up to and down from the university just compounded his mental exhaustion. He felt purposeless, detached, completely unequal to his tribulations and wholly indifferent to whether or not he would continue. The work was too difficult, the studies too time-consuming.

Today was one of those days.

But always he heard the voice of his grandfather in his mind, urging him to hang on, just a little longer; to try, just a little harder; to believe in himself.

We were all mages, in an elder age, the old man had told him a hundred times. In ancient times. Before Spirefall. Before those pointy-eared tyrants stripped us of our power. You can change all that, Edinor. You have the skills, the insights, the determination, to help this family earn its sorcerous powers back again – its collective honour! If there is any chance that you can, then you must.

‘If there is any chance that I can,’ Edinor muttered to himself as he trudged up the narrow, stinking stairs towards his garret room, ‘then I must. They’re all counting on you,’ he said quietly, bitterly. ‘Fools that they are.’

He reached the top landing, produced his little brass room key, and let himself in.

Edinor froze on the threshold, puzzled and frightened at once.

Someone was waiting for him. A figure sat against the far wall, next to the open window, staring out at the cliffs in the near distance. A little moonlight and second-hand lamplight from the street below illuminated the stranger’s face.

It was a woman. She looked like she could be a young woman with one of those faces that suggested age and maturity, or perhaps an older woman who was simply well preserved, having aged handsomely and gracefully. Her short, dark hair was combed back flat and smooth against her scalp. A number of strange earrings and studs were arranged around the curve of her right ear, each little jewel and engraving catching the light. Her ears were curved rather than pointed: human, not aelf. She seemed to be wearing robes and a cloak – the sort favoured by wizards – but the room was too dark for Edinor to clearly see any colours or badges that might mark her allegiances. As Edinor stood there, staring, she slowly drew her eyes away from the cliffs and turned to face him.

Her eyes were large and limpid, of some pale colour – blue, green or grey – though he could not precisely say which.

‘Edinor Affrin,’ she said quietly. His name sounded quite musical and poetic in her rich, melodious voice.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘Come in, please,’ she said, as if this were her flat and not his.

Still unsure of just what was happening, or why, Edinor stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. It was terribly dark, except for what little light slanted in from the open window. He gestured towards a nearby table.

‘Let me light a candle–’

The woman made a small, subtle gesture. He had three candles and one brass lantern in his room. In the instant that her long, pale fingers moved through the air, all four wicks burst to life, filling the room with a warm, contented glow. Edinor blinked. Now that the candles were burning, he could get a better look at her.

Her face was pale – exceedingly so – but also well sculpted and beautiful, if a little sharp at the edges. Her eyes were pale grey; her hair short, straight and black as onyx. Her robes, though of earthy, low-key colours, were woven of fine silks and velvets – of rich make if not ostentatiously fashioned.

The woman crossed her legs under the folds of her robe and leant forward. She looked vaguely familiar to him, but he could not place when or in what context he’d previously seen her.

‘Who are you?’ Edinor asked again.

‘My name is Orenna Karn,’ the handsome woman said. ‘I am a member of the Adepts’ Council at the Lyceum Fundamental – not a senior member, but a member, nonetheless – as well as a reserve operative for the Collegiate Arcane. You are Edinor Affrin, the seventh son of a seventh son of a respected but not terribly wealthy or influential family of Ymetrican luthiers and woodworkers.’

Edinor felt a strange chill move through him. How could this woman know so much?

You’ve done something, he thought suddenly, feverishly. They know your dreams and desires. They know what sins you’re capable of, even before you commit them. They’ve deemed you a risk, Edinor! She’s about to erase you from existence!

‘Stop it,’ the woman said coolly.

‘Stop what?’ Edinor asked, voice catching in his throat.

‘Stop feeding your fear,’ she said, lips bending conspiratorially at the corners. ‘I’m not here to hurt you, Edinor Affrin. I’m here to get to know you. It might even be that I’m here to enlist your aid, providing you inspire my confidence.’

‘Your confidence?’

‘You’re hungry,’ she said. It was not a question.

‘Ma’am,’ Edinor said. ‘Forgive me, but I don’t understand–’

‘Don’t worry about understanding,’ she said. ‘Eat something. Settle that empty stomach of yours.’

Her left hand made a brief, graceful gesture. Suddenly, upon the little table he often used for study, there waited a delicious, fulsome supper, steaming hot, just waiting for his eager hands.

Edinor looked to the woman. She only arched an eyebrow. Slowly, cautiously, he approached the plate of food. There was a rockfowl leg, roasted and savoury, the skin crispy from the oven; a few thick, red slices of auroch, dripping a brown, pan-thickened gravy; smashed and roasted tubers, a pair of small roasted apples dusted with ground firebark, and a salad of greens and melon, glistening with a piquant dressing. There was also a flagon of something, nearly filled to its brim, and an empty cup.

Edinor snatched up one of the apples. It was warm, as though fresh from the fire, and perfectly cooked – soft outwardly, still firm at the centre. He bit. The flesh of the fruit was so hot, it burned his tongue and the roof of his mouth.

But it was absolutely delicious.

Still chewing, he poured whatever waited in the flagon into the empty cup, lifted the cup, and sniffed it. Prickle-pear wine, honeyed and spiced. He gulped it down and poured another. His belly all but sang inside him.

‘Who sent you, then?’ Edinor asked, his wolfish devouring of the food finally slowing. ‘You’ve told me your name and what you do, but not why you’re here. I know you’re not just some guardian angel, come to fill my belly and stroke my ego.’

It had occurred to him when he began that the delicious offerings before him might have been pure illusions, magical constructs designed to please and tickle his senses that could still never truly fill his belly. A great deal of chewing and swallowing had banished that suspicion quickly enough. Now, he felt so full he almost regretted eating at all… and there was still a great deal left on the plate before him.

Orenna smiled. ‘Honest and direct,’ she said. ‘It would seem I have chosen wisely. I shall be honest and direct with you. I represent a secret order whose presence and purpose have remained hidden for five hundred years. Our numbers are vast, though our rolls are rarely called. We occupy positions of power and influence, both high and low, for we believe there is no organisation, no body politic that cannot, in some way or another, serve a greater good – the greater good we seek to literalise.’

Edinor popped up from his chair.

‘Go, now,’ he said, ‘you agent of Chaos!’

The woman laughed heartily. ‘My goodness, your tune certainly changed!’

‘Go!’ he said, more forcefully. ‘I am no saint, but neither am I a betrayer of good folk or the God-King! I will not serve Chaos – ever! So, if that’s your aim, let me save you the trouble–’

‘I do not serve Chaos,’ the woman said, cocking her head a little. ‘My faction is dedicated to Order, eternally – though an Order unlike any the Mortal Realms has ever known.’ Having surrendered the room’s only chair to him, she leant on the wall beside the window. She’d been standing there, watching him, ever since he’d started stuffing his face.

‘Speak plain, then,’ he said. ‘If you do not offer your true purpose for coming here in the next passing moments, then I’ll leave so you don’t have to.’

Orenna Karn raised her hands, a calming gesture. ‘Easy, Edinor. You have nothing to fear from me. I’ve already aided you twice today. Would you really press me for a third show of good intentions?’

He stared. She’d fed him: that was one sort of aid surely. But…

‘Twice?’

The woman stared back, eyes level, mouth bearing a subtle half-smile.

Realisation slowly dawned. ‘My trial?’

She lifted her chin the slightest, as if prompting another insight.

‘You animated the earth,’ he said.

‘You needed help. And they cheated. Call it a show of good faith.’

He shook his head. ‘No. It was interference, plain and simple. I have to go to the examiners, to tell them–’

‘Tell them what?’ she asked. ‘That you cheated? That you had help? They won’t believe you, seeing as I covered my tracks too carefully. You’ll claim a strange woman came to you and admitted she aided in your trial, but they’ll be unable to find any evidence of my presence here… and they’ll expel you simply for being insane, or a fool.’

‘What do you want with me?’ Edinor asked. ‘What am I expected to give in return?’

‘I just need you to listen,’ the woman said. ‘And consider my offer. I demand nothing in return for the aid I’ve given you this day. Is that clear?’

Edinor nodded. He wished he could summon a pithy retort but could manage none.

The woman moved slowly towards him. ‘Have you ever asked yourself why mortals should be subject to gods at all?’

Edinor blinked. ‘What gods?’

She shrugged. ‘Any gods. The gods of Chaos. The gods of the forest and the mountain. Gods like Sigmar and Morathi and Teclis and Tyrion. Great gods and small gods – immortal tyrants working their implacable wills upon realms filled to the brim with fragile, mortal souls who are subject to the whims of said gods simply by virtue of being less powerful. We are no less noble, surely, no less worthy of love and adoration, no less imbued with the potential to wield fabulous power or realise an unmet potential. We are born, we live and we die, and in that brief blink between our first breath and our last, we are always and forever subject to powers that dwarf our existence, cheapen our struggles, and empower themselves upon our bent and sunburnt backs.’

Her words were, in truth, the last that Edinor had expected to hear. What was she on about, the gods?

‘We must all serve something, or someone,’ Edinor said. ‘To serve a being of power and might, who lives longer and sees farther than we do, is no dishonour–’

‘It is a most profound dishonour,’ the woman said, raising one finger professorially, ‘because we seldom have a choice. We may be allowed to choose which deity is supported by our blood, sweat and tears, our labours and our sacrifices… but what if we desire to support no deity at all? What if, instead, we seek to serve a simple idea – a nobler purpose, a deeper abstraction – while offering no service or loyalty to any deity whatsoever?’

‘Then,’ Edinor said, ‘sooner or later, you would be destroyed, and for no purpose. The wars that rage in this world, the conflicts that drive and define it, all begin and end with contests between the gods. They do battle, we choose sides – ’twas always thus, and always thus shall be.’

Those words came to him easily, as though he were declaring a simple fact: fire is hot, water is wet, ice is cold… and all mortals must choose gods to serve. In that instant, saying those words and realising how easily, how readily, they came to him, Edinor felt a strange, unbidden revulsion.

Why should it always be so? A part of him wondered. And that seed of doubt stirred and stabbed at him, even as the woman, Orenna Karn, spoke again.

‘Your family are craftsmen, are they not?’ she asked. ‘Turning fresh wood and catgut into engines of music and song?’

‘Just so,’ Edinor said.

‘But they were not always craftsmen,’ Orenna Karn said. ‘They were, in elder ages, something else…?’

Edinor sighed. She had clearly done her homework.

‘We were mages, once upon a time,’ he said. ‘Fierce. Powerful. One of the most renowned magical bloodlines to ever exist among the human population in Hysh. It was said that some of the ancient Lumineth masters came to my forebears – my great, great, great, great, great granddames and grandsires – to learn at their feet.’

‘Strange,’ the woman said. ‘I wonder what became of them? What caused a family line of mages to be stripped of their abilities and shut off for generation after generation from the practice of their birthright?’

Edinor could tell that she knew precisely what she was doing… and yet, he still felt the sting of the insinuation; the weight of the shame that had plagued his family so long.

‘There was a conflict,’ he said quietly. ‘A fall from grace, if you will.’

One eyebrow arched. ‘Oh?’

He sighed heavily. ‘Clearly, you already know.’

‘I do not,’ Orenna Karn said. ‘Not entirely. One hears rumours, whispers, that sort of thing–’

‘The Lumineth stripped us of our power,’ Edinor spat. ‘As punishment.’

‘Punishment for what?’ the woman asked.

Edinor shook his head. ‘Punishment for disloyalty. This was in the dark times, before Spirefall. My ancestors saw the corruption worming its way through the Lumineth echelons and organised an uprising among the human and duardin populations of the realm.’

‘I take it they were unsuccessful?’ Orenna Karn asked.

‘We were,’ Edinor said, well aware that speaking of himself as part of a larger ‘we’ when said ‘we’ was removed from him by several centuries was, at best, presumptuous. ‘They punished our disloyalty by literally sucking the magical knacks out of those who survived the battles fought. It’s taken many generations – from then to now – for some latent, magical ability to bleed back into our bloodline just by virtue of our existence in this realm.’

Orenna Karn’s eyes flickered a little in the candlelight. Clearly, she was sympathetic. ‘Stripped of your powers,’ she said quietly. ‘Your birthright. And they were right, weren’t they? Your ancestors?’

Edinor nodded. ‘Spirefall proved so. The Lumineth who lorded over our kind and called themselves our masters nearly destroyed themselves with infighting and petty jealousies. Their corruptions and delusions of grandeur nearly tore this realm to shreds.’

‘And in the aftermath of all that destruction and suffering, there stood your ancestors, stripped of their magical abilities and practice, reduced to artisans who work only with their hands, thoroughly, wholly vindicated by the humiliation and near destruction of those who would call themselves their masters.’

Edinor nodded again, eyes down. ‘Yes. That was the way of it… or so our family historians have told me. They warned me that the Lumineth have long memories – that some I encountered might even have been alive all those ages ago.’

‘They live long,’ Orenna agreed. ‘One might even say they are godlike in that respect?’

Edinor raised his eyes.

‘What do you want from me?’ he asked.

Orenna’s mouth formed a sly half-smile. He could see, in that half-smile, a combination of both admiration and respect.

‘I want you to realise your potential, Edinor Affrin,’ she said flatly. ‘And I want to offer you a place where that potential can be reached, in the fullness of time.’

‘Who do you serve?’ he pressed.

‘I serve an idea,’ Orenna Karn said. ‘And that idea is simple – mortal-kind should not be subject to gods and immortals who hoard power and long life. Myself and my companions – and we are many – believe that a time will come when mortal-kind must finally rise up and reclaim the realms. It is only a question of possessing the right tools, and striking at the opportune moment.’

‘You would strike down the gods?’ Edinor asked, hardly believing his ears.

Orenna shrugged slightly. ‘We would humble them, and remind them that, ultimately, power is derived from the base of the pyramid and flows upward, rather than trickling down from the tiny apex. If they accept our demands and agree to live in harmony with us, never hindering or opposing the vision we seek to immanentise, then very well – we can call them allies.

‘But, if they oppose us… we will destroy them. A world without gods is preferable to a world in their undying grasp.’

‘That’s madness,’ Edinor said quietly.

‘So it may be,’ the woman said. ‘But that is our ideal. That is the truth we fight to literalise. And it was not born in the mind of a god or an angel or a daemon… it was born in the minds of mortals like you and I. Humans, aelves, duardin – our numbers are vast and diverse. We are united in a common purpose, and we are always in search of new blood, for we know that our purpose cannot be realised in a single lifetime. We plant the seeds and tend them… only later generations may sit in the shade that those slow-growing trees will provide.’

Edinor knew, deep down, that he should tell the woman to leave him, to go, at once. What she spoke of was, at its heart, blasphemy: a terrible upending of the fabric of the universe, the order of the Mortal Realms. That mortals should cast down the gods and ennoble themselves? That the Mortal Realms could function and thrive without immortal powers to guide and protect them? It was madness! It was hubris of the basest sort!

And yet… it was right, wasn’t it? In his mind, in his heart, it was the truth that had never found utterance; the deepest desire of his soul, never before realised because words could scarcely contain it.

This is dangerous, he thought. Tomorrow, report her to the Regents’ Council. Show them your loyalty, your dedication.

But, have we broken any laws? Flouted any edicts? We’re simply having an ideological conversation, that’s all. Where’s the harm in that?

‘The choice is yours, Edinor Affrin,’ the woman said, acting as though she was growing bored with their conversation. ‘I will force nothing upon you.’

‘You’ll force nothing upon me,’ he said, ‘but what do you want from me?’

She studied him. ‘I want nothing from you, Edinor. I simply want to offer you entry into a circle, a fraternity filled with others who think and feel as you do. From time to time, we have meetings, we compare notes, we consider options. But, by and large, nothing is required of you… only an open mind and a certain amount of discretion.’

He considered. She was minimising the risk involved – he knew that – but that meant she was also minimising the activity involved, as well. And, truth be told, that thought excited him a little.

My family were powerful mages in an elder age, he thought. The Lumineth took all of that away from us. And, even when their own corruption was proven, the immortal powers ruling the Mortal Realms never restored our honour, our power. No one stood up for us.

That can never happen again. Someone, somewhere, must be an advocate for those like me: those stripped of their power, their prestige, their birthright, by selfish and careless gods who see all mortals as one and the same…

‘Very well, then,’ Edinor said. ‘I shall consider membership in your little circle, Orenna Karn. Has this order a name?’

She smiled, long and slow. ‘There’s a good lad. You’ve made the right decision. We are the Order of the Black Sun, and someday – tomorrow or a thousand years hence – the eclipse we dream of shall be at hand.’

CHAPTER SIX

Gifted with the power of flight, or the ability to see through the eyes of a winging bird, a person looking down upon Settler’s Gain from the air would have seen a sprawling but more-or-less symmetrical cityscape, looking something like a great wheel. At its centre was the upper city and the high plateau it stood upon, wreathed in lazily swirling cloud and constantly lit by bright, seemingly random flashes of lightning – pure magic, building to a fever pitch in the empty air, discharging itself at intervals to vent its destructive aelemental power. Radiating out from that central axis in a sprawling, circular pattern circumscribed by a high curtain wall that marked the settlement’s periphery was the lower city – the Settler’s Gain of ordinary traders, merchants, travellers and the like, as well as magical sorts who could not wrangle an invitation to study at the Lyceum Fundamental or one of the other institutions of arcane learning.

While Edinor Affrin and Orenna Karn held their quiet conclave in his rented rooms at the foot of the central plateau, another outsider – a lone traveller – nursed a mug of ale and a plate of cheese and stale bread elsewhere. The space this traveller haunted was a tavern off a narrow, slanting street that crawled up a knob of hill some distance from the city centre. It was a cramped, cosy place, with a haphazard, rambling floor plan. There was, as in most such places, a long bar at which a number of patrons bent and drank and chatted and finagled, as well as the main dining room, right beside the bar, warmed by a crackling fireplace and occupied by half a dozen tables, most of which were, at this late hour, unoccupied.

In addition to those primary spaces, the strange little tavern boasted a number of side rooms, alcoves and recesses. Within each of these, more tables had been crammed, to accommodate more customers. Consequently, to a casual observer just entering and taking a look about, the tavern had a look of randomness about it; as if it had not so much been built as grown slowly over time, of its own accord.

The traveller occupied a small table in a side alcove off the main dining room. For many hours, she ate and drank alone, back to the wall. Though she’d been haunting that corner of the tavern for most of the afternoon, she had not deigned to remove her travelling cloak, or to draw back the great cowl that hid her face and features from the drunken, lazy customers who surrounded her.

The tavern-keep had given her odd looks all day, a light curl of his lip suggesting distrust and distaste, but he had made no demands. He’d simply provided the demanded victuals, a pewter mug and a jug of ale, then left the strange, shadowy visitor to her own devices.

Her name was Sespyra, and she was a fugitive.

At present, she awaited a guest: a squat, muscular figure in the heavy flight coveralls and grease-smeared accoutrements of a Kharadron Overlord who had just entered the tavern. He was a frigate captain, and her best option for escaping this city.

Sespyra had espied him near the sky-port, in a sailor’s tavern, and approached him regarding a charter. She needed to flee the city. Though she was not – at the time of their initial meeting – flush with trade goods or a ready means of paying for her passage, she had been fairly certain she could work something out if only the captain would agree to take her on. As it turned out, her instincts about his desperation – the stench of it clung to him – had paid off. Eventually, their negotiation – cool and dispassionate one moment, eager and belligerent the next – had led to an offer being made.

Sespyra’s fulfilment of her part of their verbal contract was the reason she had summoned him to this place. Here, they would cement their still-unsolemnised covenant. To be honest, she had not been entirely sure the duardin would answer her summons. Certainly, if he’d known about the cache of fuel that he had invited her to purloin, he would also know that she had successfully stolen it. The question was, had he truly known she would do so – that she was capable of doing so – or had he simply sent her on a wild snipe hunt knowing that he would never see her again?

No matter, she thought, watching him as he accepted a mug of ale from the tavern-keep and strode over to join her. He’ll learn. When I say I can do something – or will do something – I always follow through, one way or another.

She had given him a fresh appraisal when he drew out the chair opposite her and sat: his broad shoulders; his thick, well-trimmed, tightly plaited black beard; the coldly smouldering sky-blue eyes under thick, knitted brows perpetually wrinkled in an uneasy scowl. Duardin age could be hard to judge, but Sespyra suspected he was halfway through his prescribed years in the Mortal Realms – old enough to be experienced and a little battered by fate, still young enough to imagine possible futures of heroism or distinction.

‘I was surprised to hear from you,’ the sky-reaver drawled as he sat, his voice a deep basso profundo. ‘Perhaps, during our first meeting, I had discounted your determination – not to mention your skill.’

Sespyra admired and appreciated his directness.

‘You set me a challenge,’ she said. ‘My pride demanded that I accept.’

The duardin swigged his ale. She could see a struggle playing out on his broad, bearded face: suspicion and wariness on the one hand, recognition of a valuable commodity on the other. Her surmise that the duardin was not in a secure financial position – arrived at by careful study of his shabby, almost-splitting boots and the great age and wear visible at the joints and seams of his coveralls, as well as his insinuation that a theft might solve both their quandaries – had told her just how desperate he was.

‘My frigate casts off twelve days hence,’ the duardin said, wiping runnels of ale from his beard with the back of his hand. ‘If you can provide sufficient remuneration – as we discussed – then passage aboard is yours.’

He was trying to act as if he could take her commission or leave it. Sespyra knew better. The fact that a proud duardin would readily accept a Daughter of Khaine aboard his vessel without a moment’s hesitation – or even the opportunity to take not-so-subtle digs at the bloody arts she and her sisters practised both on the field of combat and off – made his desperation abundantly clear.

For a moment – only a moment – Sespyra wondered if, perhaps, that was a sign. Perhaps she should reject him? Perhaps buying passage on this dog-faced, red-eyed drunkard’s ship would only deliver her to ruin?

But what other choice do I have? she wondered. I’ve lingered in this place too long already.

She decided to play her hand.

As casually as she could manage, Sespyra reached into a deep pouch slung at her side and drew out a long, heavy metal cylinder. It was about the size of her forearm, perhaps a little wider, with bronze bands spaced along its length, rivets along its welded seams, and a small, thick window about the length and breadth of a finger near its centre. As she lifted the cylinder and placed it upon the table, its pressurised contents reacted to the delicate movement and began to glow. The lambent light shone through the small window as though it housed a Ghyranic glow-worm.

The Kharadron snatched the canister off the tabletop and held it in his lap, trying to use his considerable bulk to obscure it from casual onlookers.

‘Aether-gold,’ he breathed, as though he could barely believe it.

‘As agreed,’ Sespyra said. ‘I managed to snag the whole cache. It was right where you said it would be.’

Inwardly, she cursed such a cumbersome method of barter, idly wishing that someone somewhere would opt for coin over the necessity to so specifically provide for the needs of one’s aides and allies. This canister was small, readily handled, but the rest of the aether-gold would require a pack animal to transfer from the traveller’s vault where she’d deposited it to the sky-port.

The duardin studied his prize. He shook it slightly, to see how its light intensified in answer to the kinetic energy expended. He held its cool, metal surface against his cheek, to feel its ambient temperature. He even smelled it.

‘I can deliver the rest upon departure,’ Sespyra said. ‘I want passage to the next major settlement you plan to dock in.’

‘You don’t even know where that might be,’ the duardin said, one thick brow arching.

Sespyra stared back, nonplussed. ‘It makes no difference. The farther, the better.’

The duardin started to respond, then hesitated.

No fixed destination, as I suspected, she realised. His is a tramp ship. But, if he takes my offer, he shall be obligated. A duardin’s word is his or her bond. That bond cannot be broken without severe penalties.

‘Fine,’ the duardin said, laying the aether-gold canister on the table but keeping one hand clamped around it. ‘Terms accepted. You give me your word you have more canisters like this?’

‘Seven in total,’ Sespyra confirmed. She knew not what that would translate to in terms of travel distance, or travel speed; she only knew that duardin knew only one true currency, and it was the gaseous material roiling about in that strange little canister. The fact that he’d pointed her towards one of his rivals and duardin kindred – another Kharadron berthed at the same sky-dock – only meant that he needed that fuel even more than Sespyra needed to keep running.

No matter: her gamble had paid off.

‘Can we leave sooner?’ Sespyra asked.

The duardin hefted the canister again. He seemed haunted by its weight, its reality, as if it represented something terrible and foul to him, even as it proved impossible to refuse. Finally, he raised his eyes to her.

‘No,’ he said with finality. ‘My ship needs repairs, refurbishing, provisioning. Twilight on the twelfth day hence is the soonest we can be away. If you are not present, we sail, with or without you.’

Sespyra nodded. ‘Your name and your vessel?’ she asked.

‘Wodrik Thunderall,’ the duardin said, ‘captain of the Aemick’s Blade. Berth eighteen at the sky-docks.’

‘Sespyra Sepherys,’ Sespyra said, stretching out a hand. ‘Shall we seal our deal?’

The duardin’s thick, calloused hand enfolded her own. They shook slowly, solemnly.

‘Sunset, twelve days hence,’ he said again, then tucked the aether-gold canister beneath his arm and strode out of the tavern.

Twelve days. An eternity. But it would have to do.

Once again, Sespyra was alone – a cloaked figure at an empty table, back to the wall. The irony of calling attention to herself by keeping her cowl up and her face concealed in shadow was not lost on Sespyra. She was a trained assassin, an unparalleled treasure hunter, and an implacable foe when set upon quarry. In the right settings and with the right elements at her disposal – dark forests, dim, winding alleys, shadow-wracked castle keeps or old, ruined temples – she could conceal herself in plain sight, using stealth, guile and a little magic… until it was too late for her prey and they wandered right into her clutches.

But in such a place as this? Where she had to eat, had to drink, had to occupy space where others could see her and take note of her? Where there were no handy shadows or darkened corners to lurk in? She felt horribly exposed. If she were the hunter, on the trail of prey, she had an enormous bag of tricks to utilise to give her every advantage. But as prey, on the run through strange lands about as far from her own as one could imagine, she was vulnerable.

Even now, as the world around her grew duller and more exhausted by the waning of another dreary day, she could see that the patrons in this place could see her, and whispered of her, and suspected she was something – someone – to be distrusted. If they simply wished to shun her or cast her out, she could live with that. What she was more concerned about was the likelihood that some among them would not see her as something to cast out, but as something to catch and hold.

Part of her thought she might be less conspicuous if she simply lowered the cowl and slumped over her ale and repast like any sad lout in the place… But of course she knew that would not help. They’d see, then. They’d see her bone-pale skin; her long black hair with its stripes of deep, bloody violet; the dark red tattoos that marked the soft lines of her face and her bare arms; and then, seeing, they’d know. The whispers would never stop.

Daughter of Khaine.

Witch aelf.

Murderess.

She huffed to herself, bit off a morsel of cheese, then washed it down with the dregs of ale in her mug. The liquor had grown sour as it warmed. Fools, fearing her, assuming she meant them harm, simply by virtue of her lineage. She would not waste a moment on anyone in this room – or any of the side rooms – if they were not a chosen target, or a direct threat.

For the first time that day, Gwenmeith and Misred appeared in her idle thoughts. She half-wondered if either of them were better off than she; if they’d found safe havens among sisters in other realms, or if they’d managed to find a place to hide in Ulgu, right under Morathi’s nose. Almost as soon as she’d thought of them, and wondered after their whereabouts, she cursed them for fools and spat upon the tavern’s floor on behalf of each. Fie upon them both! They should have never let Neverin convince them that the moment to strike Morathi was right. Even a perfect imbecile could have seen that it was a trap – a stratagem to flush out a conspiracy and entrap its perpetrators. Sometimes, Sespyra wondered if her cohorts were dead already – executed as examples for all those who would dare challenge their dread queen.

But she knew better. They were not dead. Not yet. Morathi’s fury burned cold and long. No doubt, Neverin and the others – the ones caught in the aftermath of their botched assassination attempt – were still alive, buried deep in Morathi’s darkest, foulest dungeons, tortured and interrogated, denied the sweet rest of death so long as the High Oracle and her loyal followers believed there was anything to learn from them, or any morsel of pain to extract from them.

They know my name, Sespyra thought, Morathi and her supporters. They have to. Certainly at least one of the seven they captured cracked and informed on the rest of us – the lucky ones, the runners. Well, I spit upon them – all of them! I warned them that we’d only get one chance; that if we took it too soon, the opportunity would never come again.

But they would not listen. And now, where are they?

And where am I?

That was the part that stung the most: not the fact that they had struck at Morathi and missed their chance, nor the fact that her companions had proven to be short-sighted and impatient, but that Sespyra herself had been foolish enough to believe a conspiracy could be cultivated; that concerted action could, in the long term, solve the problem before them.

She should have kept her suspicions to herself. She should have waited. Then, when the time was right, when she was in the High Oracle’s presence and no one – not even Morathi herself – would have suspected, she could have struck the witch down. She alone could have been the hand that dispatched Morathi, freeing the Daughters of Khaine from the usurper who sought to enslave and mislead them. True, she might have died in the effort – but that would’ve been a small price to pay, if Morathi herself had been destroyed, her reign ended.

She was lying to them. All of them. Had been lying to them for decades – centuries even!

Morathi, their queen, their High Oracle, self-proclaimed first priestess of Holy Khaine, was not, as she had insisted for so long, trying to recover the Shards of Khaine and resurrect their god, once and for all. She was nothing but a power-mad tyrant, using all of their effort and murderous intent to her own advantage, seeking to empower herself; to eventually place herself on the Shadow Throne and rule Ulgu as a goddess incarnate.

If Sespyra had slain the witch, and died in the process, she could have died content. But no… she had been weak. She trusted people. She put her faith in them. They had not only botched their sole, stated aim, but also made her a fugitive in the process; stripped her of her home, her standing, her means of belonging and serving a purpose greater than herself. Now, here she sat, alone in a shabby tavern, soon to push on to another town, another city, until she managed to come, at last, to a place bearing a realmgate where she could somehow buy passage to yet another realm.

A drifter.

A runaway.

Driven like a cloud on the wind.

Even if she were lucky enough to circle back to Ulgu someday, to end up once more in Morathi’s presence, the witch would only grow stronger in the interim. No… there was only one of two ends for her now: death at the hands of her enemies, or the discovery of some unforeseen miracle – some weapon or artefact of untold power – capable of destroying a god.

Creaking floorboards. Footsteps. Subtly, the quality of the second-hand light spilling into her dim little alcove changed.

Sespyra raised her eyes. She had company.

There were three of them – rough-looking men, of differing births and backgrounds, to judge by their skin tones and clothing – but they stood stalwart, shoulder to shoulder, the man in the centre a step ahead of the two men flanking him on either side. Sespyra could read them in an instant: men of violence, men of greed. Their faces sported scars, large and small, piercings and unshaven chins. Two of the three wore tattoos on their shoulders or bare forearms. The one in front – the apparent leader – was missing three teeth, but looked as though their absence caused him little distress.

All were armed.

‘You’re new here,’ the man at the fore said.

Sespyra stared back out of her cowl. ‘True,’ she said.

‘Not many new faces come through this place,’ the man on her left said. ‘We know because just a month ago, we were new, too.’

‘So,’ Sespyra said quietly, ‘you are the welcoming committee?’

‘We might be,’ the man on her right said, ‘if your kind were welcome here.’

Sespyra felt the air change between them. There would be a fight – she simply didn’t know when or precisely why. She catalogued their weapons.

The leader wore two daggers at his belt and had a long broadsword strapped across his back. The man on her left – bald and mostly clean-shaven, pate tattooed – carried a long truncheon or maul at his side. The weapon was already in hand, hanging casually, half-hidden behind his right leg. The man on her right was the only one displaying his arms: a pair of hand-axes, gripped tightly and crossed before him at about thigh level.

She had her matched sciansá daggers, a pewter plate, a pewter mug and a small clay jug, about half-filled with ale. She also had her cloak and cowl, which could be stripped and used to her advantage at a moment’s notice.

She dared a quick assessment of the tavern around her: a few patrons watched her interaction with these men, but most seemed wholly indifferent. To a man, to a woman, every individual watching their exchange looked to be the sorts engaged in the same sort of rough trade: hard individuals who’d lived hard lives, weapons close at hand.

The question was: why did these men think she mattered? What had led them to walk over here and start this conversation? Did they simply hate the Daughters of Khaine?

‘Indulge me,’ the man at the fore said. He reached into a pouch at his side, and dug something out. He’d gone from threatening and grim to friendly, if only in a mocking sort of way. He uncrumpled the object from his pouch and studied it. It seemed to be a piece of old, rough paper, frayed at the edges and crinkled interminably. There were words written on its upright side, perhaps even an engraved or sketched image, but Sespyra could not clearly see it.

‘We are but humble travellers,’ the man said, and Sespyra did not believe those words for an instant. ‘In our travels, we collect and note a great many interesting things. This circular – which we collected in a tavern on Zaitrec – was very, very interesting… at least, to the three of us.’

Sespyra waited, muscles coiled, nerves pulsing in anticipation.

‘Do tell,’ she said quietly.

Let them move. Be patient.

‘This circular holds the image and a description of a fugitive sought by the Daughters of Khaine. The fugitive spoken of is a female aelf of Ulgu – you know the sort, pale, sinewy, pretty, perhaps, but with an unfriendly look about them. What we found so very fascinating about this circular was that it describes a witch aelf wanted for treason by her own sisters! It says, right here’ – he began to read – ‘Sespyra Sepherys, Acolyte of the Khailebron temple, wanted for the high crimes of heresy, treason and attempted regicide. One thousand golden solars for information leading directly to her capture, two thousand for her corpse or undeniable proof of her death, three thousand for the delivery of her living person.’

Sespyra stared back.

Now?

No. Not now. Be patient, I said.

The man leant forward, looking smug. ‘Now, far be it from me to suggest that you and all your kind look alike–’

‘My kind?’ Sespyra said.

‘You’re hiding in that cloak, but I can see the milk-pale skin of your forearms and your raven-black hair and the tattoos on your hands clearly enough. I know a Khainite witch when I see one, even if she is trying to hide.’

‘And why,’ the man with the maul said, ‘would such a witch be trying to hide? Khainites fear no one – or so I’ve heard.’

‘It’s true,’ the man with the two axes said with a snort. ‘True Khainite sisters fear no one. They all but invite violence and bloodshed. And they never, ever, go out of their way to hide their identities or escape notice in public.’

‘Unless they’re trying to,’ the leader said. ‘Unless they’re, say, fugitives desperate to escape notice because their own High Oracle’s put a massive bounty on their heads.’

‘Thing is,’ the man with the axes said, ‘two thousand don’t split easily three ways. Ain’t that right, Hobb?’

He was speaking to their leader. Hobb nodded, his eyes having never left Sespyra. ‘That’s right. So, milady, what say you come with us, of your own accord, and let us collect the big reward? The one that splits three ways more readily? Because if you force us to kill you, we will – but we won’t be happy about it.’

Sespyra moved.

She brought both legs up, side by side, under the table. It was a flimsy affair – cheap lumber and comparatively lightweight – so when her knees hit the underside, the whole thing flipped into the air with violent force. For an instant – only an instant – the round face of the table was vertical, forming a sort of airborne wall between her and her three would-be attackers. She used that moment’s invisibility to unclasp her cloak, unsheathe one of her sciansá daggers, and prepare for her next move.

The flipping table slammed into Hobb, who quickly caught it and heaved it aside. As Hobb prepared for the fight and yanked one of his own daggers from its sheath, the man on Sespyra’s right – the mauler – lunged forward and raised his weapon for an arcing, overhand strike.

Sespyra whipped her cloak towards the other two men, dived low, and lunged for the maul-wielder. His weapon was high but falling fast when she closed the short distance between them, plunged her flashing sciansá dagger into his belly, and ripped upward. The blade, razor-sharp and hungry, tore from navel to ribcage in an instant. The mauler’s overhand arc shuddered and went wild. He gave a sort of whimper-cry as his free hand slapped over the enormous wound Sespyra had just given him. Ropes of intestine tumbled free as he folded and hit the floor.

Sespyra’s free hand drew her second dagger. She then planted her forward foot and shifted her weight to swing her body towards the two remaining enemies. Her cloak had entangled them, buying her a breath or two, but just as she readied to meet them, they ripped the cloak aside and prepared their own arms for combat.

The man with the two hand-axes made the first move. Hobb, meanwhile, yanked at the great sword over his shoulder, trying to get the big weapon out of its sheath.

Sespyra leapt at the axeman. Her daggers swiped, one over the other, biting the air in deadly concert but always missing her target by the merest finger’s-breadth. The axeman retreated nimbly, making a few strikes of his own. Axes were normally weapons for fools and sloppy berserkers, but this fellow knew what he was doing. He took long, clean swipes with each blade, one after the other, establishing a deadly rhythm and never missing a beat. Sespyra was forced to retreat in haste, nearly stumbling over the fallen mauler, making a strange, awkward back-leap to clear his fallen body and avoid a fatal blow from one of those hand-axes.

She thought the axeman would press his attack – she was ready for it – but, without warning, he suddenly froze and took a hasty step backward.

Hobb came then, from her left, enormous broadsword slicing the air like a Stormcast’s scythe. Sespyra threw herself to the floor just as his big blade cut through the air above her, then scurried forward looking for a clear space from which to regroup. The big blade bit deep into a wooden support beam and stuck fast there for a moment. Hobb cursed as he yanked and struggled to free the stuck blade.

Sespyra tried to get one of her sciansá blades into Hobb’s flank, just below the ribs, but the mercenary let go of the stuck sword, whirled sideward, and barely avoided the bite of her dagger. In the same movement, he drew his own dagger and took a trio of swipes at Sespyra. They were strong, wide, haphazard, but they were also well placed. If her own reflexes had been any rustier, he might have drawn blood.

As Sespyra stumbled backward, she suddenly slammed into something immobile: another table. She heard scooting chairs, saw fleeing bodies in her peripheral vision, but refused to take her eyes off the now-advancing Hobb, who was preparing for another swipe of his dagger. Then came the axeman.

‘Hobb!’ he cried, then barrelled forward with one of his blades high. Hobb threw himself aside, clearing the way for his comrade. The axeman’s charge was fast, but gave Sespyra a moment’s respite she might not have had if Hobb had pressed his own attack. In one smooth, compound movement, Sespyra sheathed one of her sciansá, laid her now-freed hand upon the nearest wooden chair, and heaved the chair upward and to the side in a smashing, single-handed blow.

The chair caught the falling axe, sent the axeman stumbling sideways in a daze. Before the fragments of the chair hit the floor, Sespyra had her second sciansá in hand again and made straight for the stumbling axeman.

Someone suddenly cried out – a loud battle cry, wordless but deafening. Sespyra turned in time to see Hobb closing, his enormous sword racing towards her head.

She let her legs go limp. Her body fell.

The blade whistled through the air she’d just occupied and crashed round in a murderous arc to slice right through the axeman as he reeled, trying to regain his senses after the chair strike. The blade took his head from his shoulders and his corpse folded.

Hobb stared, stunned by what he’d done.

Sespyra rolled sideways, closer towards him, and slammed one of her daggers into the back of his thigh. Hobb screamed and his leg gave way. He fell to one knee.

Sespyra threw her body round in a quick turn, using her momentum to regain her footing. Once more, she stood at full height, wounded Hobb kneeling before her, blood pouring from his sliced right leg.

He heaved up his sword, desperate to give it his all one last time.

Sespyra crossed her arms, turning her two daggers into scissors, and snapped their blades together with terrific force. Hobb’s throat was nearly cloven through to the spine. Blood geysered from his opened arteries, painting Sespyra and anyone standing nearby. She felt her enemy’s hot, steaming lifeblood on her skin and suddenly, miraculously, like a wink from the spirit of Khaine himself, Sespyra felt reinvigorated, alive and powerful.

Of course, everyone in the tavern now stared at her, eyes wide, faces pale with disbelief and incredulity. A few held weapons, as though they’d entertained the possibility of joining the fight. But, of course, all that tentative bravado had evaporated. The short, bloody work Sespyra had made of her attackers had ensured that.

‘Anyone else?’ she asked, eyes skating over them.

She heard heavy bootfalls somewhere behind her, saw more than one pair of eyes drawn towards the front door of the tavern, which at present was somewhere behind and to Sespyra’s right. If she were not mistaken, she heard the creak of a harness and the light, barely audible scrape of armour plate.

Sespyra spun to face the new challengers. She let them get a good look at the quarry they were trying to sneak up upon: to see the great gouts of blood now painting her, top to toe, the livid tattoos on her pale arms and shoulders, the mad, murderous light in her eyes, the lank fall of her black and purple hair…

It was a pair of Lumineth wardens, each adorned in resplendent, bone-white armour that glowed due to the abundance of small aetherquartz gems encrusting their breastplates, their pauldrons, their bracers and their greaves. Though she knew the aelven bodies beneath all that armour were slender and lithe, they looked fearsomely angelic and wholly out of place in this mean little wine-sink. Their long, graceful swords were levelled before them, ready for a fight.

The local militia, Sespyra thought mordantly. Just my luck.

Already her mad, murderous rage was bleeding away. Sense and self-control returned, and she knew – knew, down to her bones – that challenging these two, with their keen swords and their shining armour, would profit her little.

‘Is this your work, witch?’ one of the Lumineth asked.

Sespyra lowered her sciansá daggers slowly.

‘It is,’ she said. The pride in her voice was unmistakable.

Wodrik Thunderall had just set a single boot on the upper platform of the berth where his sky-frigate, the Aemick’s Blade, was moored when he heard a hoarse, insistent voice behind him.

‘You there! Duardin!’

Wodrik froze. He knew that voice: Assistant Harbour Master Spento. He turned, doing his best to tamp down the natural contempt he felt in the man’s presence.

Spento trudged up the steps, eyes fixed upon Wodrik, hawkish face and barely trimmed beard a now-familiar sight after two weeks docked here. The man’s voice was low and raspy, like the groan of rusted iron hinges, and there always seemed to be a few wild hairs poking from his wide nostrils.

‘You’ve got fourteen days left,’ he said, pointing an accusing finger.

Wodrik nodded. ‘I am well aware.’

‘That’s all you paid for, and that’s all you’ll get.’

Wodrik choked back the salty response he was inclined to give.

‘I am aware of what my payment purchased,’ the sky-captain said. ‘Has something changed?’

‘Nothing,’ the harbour master said, mounting the platform and moving sideways, forcing Wodrik to turn and stare up at him. ‘It’s simply my duty to inform you that if you haven’t cast off and departed this place by the rise of the Hyshian moon two weeks hence, your vessel will be chained to the dock and retained here until you can pay the berth fees and penalties you’ll incur.’

‘So,’ Wodrik said, ‘if I don’t leave, you’ll make it impossible for me to do so?’

The harbour master nodded. ‘Aye, that. And, moreover, the penalty phase of your berthing here carries with it an expiration date. If we have to hold you more than five days beyond your agreed-upon departure, your ship, and all its contents, are forfeit. You may go, after that, but that floating tub stays… probably to be scuttled for scrap.’

Wodrik stared up into the man’s smug, sneering face. When he and his crew first came to Settler’s Gain, they had expected to find Lumineth in command of the sky-dock – cold, moon-touched sorts, eminently reasonable, always open to dispassionate negotiation and bargains. Those expectations had been dashed, however, when they discovered that, even though this city and this realm were the ancestral home of the Lumineth, the pointy-eared luminaries had given the dock franchise to ordinary humans. No doubt this investiture of profit-driven power was, like most things aelves did, partial pragmatism and partial insult.

The Lumineth and their kind didn’t like to admit they wanted or needed money or trade goods, after all. And so, in a business that required some acumen with weights and measures, trade and barter, they would naturally install humans, whose aptitude for business and trade made them perfectly suited for the task – and likewise, in the eyes of the lofty Lumineth, sullied by it. Like powdered, perfumed lords never deigning to dirty their hands with manual labour or agricultural work, the Lumineth who owned this place could reap its benefits without ever once dealing directly with its messy, everyday exigencies.

Or its more desperate customers, like Wodrik himself.

‘I am duly informed,’ Wodrik said bitterly, still staring at the functionary. ‘Is that all you came up here to tell me?’

Spento stared, as if weighing Wodrik, appraising his worth silently. After a moment, he bent closer.

‘I know you’re out of fuel,’ he said with terrible relish. ‘And I also know the other captains won’t trade with you.’

Wodrik fought the urge to reveal what he truly felt. Given his druthers, he’d have planted an Arkanaut’s boarding axe in Spento’s brain, or perhaps just landed a single, skull-shattering blow with a nice heavy truncheon. But of course he could do no such thing. He was bound by all sorts of laws and regulations, not the least of which was the simple, undeniable social maxim that you never slew a man for telling you an unpleasant truth, even if the man intended his truth-saying as an insult – a figurative slap to your face.

No, Wodrik would maintain decorum. He would not even give this fool the satisfaction of knowing just how shameful his dry-docked state was.

‘Funny,’ he said quietly, then brandished the small canister that the Khainite had given him. ‘I seem to have fuel right here, well in hand.’

‘Where’d you get that?’ Spento asked.

‘None of your concern,’ Wodrik answered, moving closer. ‘I have it. When I deem it time to cast off and go, we’ll cast off and go.’

Spento grinned smugly. ‘That’s a quarter-weight,’ he said, suggesting the fairly small canister. ‘That won’t take you but a day’s sailing in any direction.’

‘Now he tells me my business,’ Wodrik snarled. ‘Is there a point to all this, Spento, or do you just love my charming company?’

‘My job,’ Spento said, ‘is to make sure every captain and crew knows where they stand, and what’s expected of them. Now that we’ve spoken, I’ve done my due diligence.’

Wodrik stole a glance sideways, to see if any of the crew had seen the exchange. The open deck of the sky-frigate was just a stone’s throw from where he now stood, moored across the platform.

And of course they were all there at the gunwale, watching. Even Helegrin’s cogmunculus stood among them, towering over the rest, its wide glass eyes staring out as though fascinated by what it now witnessed. Of course, Wodrik knew the thing was just a hulk of gears, metalwork and well-oiled ball joints, but that made no difference: its silent, goggle-eyed stare still seemed to penetrate and persecute him.

Wodrik felt his ruddy cheeks flush.

‘I understand,’ Wodrik finally said. ‘I’ve been warned, and I thank you for the notification. Now, if you’ll excuse me…’

Spento lingered, staring down at Wodrik with a now-familiar look on his face – half predation, half pity. Finally, he turned and strode back down the stairs, eventually disappearing in the maze of crates, retaining walls and archways snaking between the wide-spreading docking platforms.

Wodrik turned and carried on to the frigate. The moment he began his march, the crew all scattered, as though they hadn’t been standing there gawping the whole time. Helegrin’s cogmunculus could not move quickly, of course – celerity was not part of its magical programming – and so it was the last to go, slowly turning and marching away from the gunwale to follow its mistress back towards the hatchway and the endrinworks. The big clanking thing followed her around like an eager pup. Its movements were always a dead giveaway of her own.

Only Wodrik’s navigator, Grikara, remained at the gunwale to greet him.

He mounted the gangplank, stomped across, and leapt down onto the deck of the ship.

‘Captain’s aboard!’ Grikara shouted, smiling crookedly.

Wodrik glared at her, then quickly took stock of his crew.

Helegrin, his endrinmaster, was already half-descended into the hold, giving him a last look of sadness and sympathy as she disappeared below. Her cogmunculus allowed its mistress to clear the stairs before it attempted its own slow, unsteady descent.

At the starboard rails, his aether-khemist, old Moddek, had a complement of weapons arrayed on the deck, lying prone on flattened blankets, and moved from one gun to the next, shining its exterior, oiling its joints and workings, shoving cleaning brushes down their pipes to ensure they were ready for action. Between quick, fleet movements of his fat sausage-fingers and buffings of the tarnished gun barrels, the bearded old Arkanaut stole glances at his captain – the sort of furtive glances a doting uncle might expend upon a wayward, chastised nephew.

Brannit, the youngest member of the crew, climbed ape-like in the riggings above the dome of the aether-boiler, securing loose lines and trimming frayed ends. The boy was the worst of all when it came to hiding his curiosity and his concern, and it was his wide-eyed, eager-to-please gaze – a gaze that sometimes made Wodrik feel like the bravest, most renowned Arkanaut in the Mortal Realms – that he most often cursed.

Clearly, they all knew what a bind they were in, no matter how well Wodrik tried to conceal it.

Old Grikara’s lined face bent into a wicked, ironic smile.

‘Greetings, captain,’ she said, her voice almost as hoarse and craggy as Spento’s.

‘Well met, navigator,’ Wodrik said, remaining formal while they were on deck, within earshot of the crew. ‘At ease.’

Grikara’s square-shouldered stance relaxed. She still had that grin on her face.

‘What are you gawping at?’ Wodrik asked, leaning closer and dropping his voice.

‘Under your arm?’ she said. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

Wodrik displayed the canister of aether-gold for his navigator.

‘Just so,’ he said. ‘Have Moddek analyse its purity. I’m hoping Helegrin can make some endrin improvements to squeeze a few more sky-spans out of it, take us a little farther.’

‘Surely there’s more?’ Grikara asked.

Wodrik nodded. ‘More is promised… though I am loath to count on anything. So much has gone wrong for us, again and again…’

Grikara slapped him on one shoulder. ‘Enough sulking, boy,’ she said, addressing him jokingly as she once had when he still was just a boy. ‘If the witch aelf comes through, we’ll have fuel aplenty for the next leg of our journey.’

Wodrik nodded. ‘Yes,’ he muttered. ‘We have a contract.’ Then, under his breath: ‘Shamed as I am to admit it…’

Grikara leant close and whispered right in his face. ‘You did what you had to. There’s no dishonour in it.’

‘No?’ he asked.

‘Those proud fools on the other ships wouldn’t trade with you,’ she said, voice still low. ‘What choice did you have?’

‘That makes the bitter tincture no easier to swallow,’ Wodrik said.

He knew he was trying to convince himself as much as he sought to convince Grikara. The irony was, his navigator needed no convincing. Her loyalty and support never wavered – even in the most desperate of circumstances.

Even when this opportunity – theft and the abetting of a fugitive – had presented itself.

They’d been here for over a week, Wodrik beating the proverbial brush in every tavern and wine-sink from the outer gates to the central plateau. He hadn’t just been looking for a tramp contract – he’d been all but begging for one. And still, nothing.

When it had become clear they could not wrangle a charter, he’d tried dealing directly with the other Kharadron captains, pleading to buy small consignments of aether-gold fuel directly from them, to fill his own reserves. Of course, they all knew his name – and the name of his ship – and on principle they refused to do business with him. Even when he begged, or appealed to their separate mercies.

‘Well,’ Grikara said, almost mumbling, ‘I suppose if she’s acquired the fuel and is willing to pay, we shouldn’t grouse. Where are we taking her?’

Wodrik shrugged. ‘She made no formal declaration. Up to us, she says. She simply wants passage to the next major settlement – and no questions asked.’

Grikara’s jaw set dubiously. She sucked air through her teeth.

‘On the run,’ she said. It was not a question.

Wodrik nodded. ‘Has to be.’

‘So,’ Grikara said, ‘we’ve got to abandon this port in two weeks’ time, with or without a formal contract or freight, and our only paying customer is a murder priestess who undertook a robbery on our behalf and may or may not have killers on her trail?’

Wodrik nodded. ‘That’s about the size of it.’

To his surprise, the old navigator’s crooked smile returned.

‘Well, then,’ Grikara said, ‘I guess we’d best clear a berth for her… and sleep with our eyes open while she’s aboard.’

Far from encouraging Wodrik, Grikara’s attempt at humour made him feel worse. She was putting on a brave face for him, that was all. She knew it was her job – her duty – to encourage her captain and keep his spirits up when they flagged, for they’d flagged quite often of late. That encouragement only made his own failures and shortcomings all the more visible to Wodrik himself.

Where am I leading these good, brave Arkanauts, and why? Wodrik wondered. Why do they remain with me, with no opportunities for honour won and only starvation rations to live on?

He shot a surreptitious look at Moddek and Brannit. They were watching, all right.

‘Don’t tell the others,’ Wodrik said quietly, handing the aether-gold to Grikara. ‘I don’t want them to worry.’

‘Of course not, sir,’ his old navigator said. ‘Worrying’s your job – and mitigating that worry is mine.’

‘Get that to Helegrin,’ he said, tapping the canister. ‘Worse comes to worse, if our mysterious passenger fails to show, that canister may still take us a good distance. Closer to the nearest friendly realmgate, at any rate.’

Grikara nodded. ‘My lips are sealed, sir. Get yourself some rest. You look weary.’

Wodrik nodded. Shrugged. ‘That’s all I am these days,’ he muttered, leaning miserably on the gunwale. ‘Weary…’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Thelana never tired of entering the Lyceum Fundamental’s Great Library, for it was, in her mind and heart, a temple dedicated to the twin ideals, knowledge and enquiry: a place where seeking, learning and discovery were worshipped and practised with the reverence and care they richly deserved; where expanding one’s mind, one’s consciousness, was its own reward. Now, however, well after dark, with the Hyshian moon bright and fat in the sky above it, lit garishly by the odd flash of magical lightning from the skies over the upper city, the great structure took on an imposing aspect, its surfaces and edges sharper, more menacing, the shadows upon its countenance deeper.

Thelana led Nerontes up the wide outer staircase and into the grand foyer. Beyond the immense doors, standing in the very centre of the vestibule, was the warder’s station, where an assistant librarian sat vigilant behind a high lectern. The library could be accessed at any hour of the day or night, and the studious regularly came and went, so someone was always on hand to admit new arrivals and make sure that the proper keys were provided.

The young Lumineth mage mounted behind the lectern that evening was unfamiliar to Thelana – perhaps a student long-buried here in her studies, or dispatched by one of her masters on long-term expeditions about Hysh or the other Mortal Realms in search of new holdings for the archive. Whoever she was, she seemed deeply lost in her work – copying out an enormous text opened before her, by hand. For a moment – only a moment – Thelana idly wondered what the young aelf was doing, labouring away to hand-copy the tome when spells existed that might have allowed for the generation of an exact duplicate, or even for its physical duplication via duardin printing technology.

But this is her discipline, she reminded herself. To understand the weight of knowledge by making its transmission a slow, laborious task.

Realising that, she wondered just how many of the books in the primary collections were precisely what she saw being created now: a hand-copied volume, completed by some novitiate-adept at a master’s behest.

As Thelana and Fane approached, the student raised her large, green eyes and studied them. Normally, the foyer would be filled with colours and bright sunlight, courtesy of the great windows that stretched above them towards the high, vaulted ceilings. At this late hour, however, the light in the chamber came from the lamps standing to either side of the labouring librarian, and the armies of small, Ghyranic glow-worms crawling lazily over the pillars and ceiling above them. The worms, though bright and plentiful, were small, and cast a cool, ambient glow upon everything.

‘Magister,’ the librarian said to Thelana from her high seat; then, to Nerontes, ‘adept-delegate.’

‘Librarian,’ Thelana said, staring up at the young mage-in-training. ‘I seek access to the special collections.’ Her voice resonated loudly, almost offensively. The magically altered acoustics of the great foyer were shocking to the uninitiated; the way even a brief, whispered word could be amplified for the sake of clear hearing.

The student librarian hesitated. All instructors above a certain rank and standing were granted access to the special collections as a matter of course, and Thelana had earned that status many, many years before the present: it was all but written upon her robes, the magical aetherquartz she wore, and the Teclian runes displayed upon and within each. Nerontes, being a duly appointed delegate of the mages-adept, would himself be allowed access to almost every chamber in the library. His access, however, was contingent upon the presence of a Lumineth faculty member and the use of a specially attuned key – an amulet issued here, at the librarian’s station, which would be returned upon their departure.

‘Most certainly, magister,’ the librarian said, then turned on her high, swivelling stool-perch, reaching out towards a small tusk-mounted crystal ball on the desk directly to her left. When the librarian’s hand fell upon the crystal, it began to glow, milky and pale, from within.

A small rectangular portal opened, floating in the empty air directly before them. Through the small portal, Thelana saw the talismans distributed for access to the special collections: literal keys made of ancient aetherquartz, suspended on smooth, colourful ribbons of Hyshian spider-silk. Nerontes reached out for one of the keys displayed, but before his hand had even moved into the floating portal to extract it, one of the keys therein leapt up, as if of its own accord. It flew eagerly into his outstretched hand. The moment the key was in his grasp, the portal evaporated.

‘Return the key upon your exit,’ the librarian said. ‘Good studies.’

Thelana nodded. ‘Good studies,’ she said, and led Nerontes around the lectern, through a short, dark corridor, and into a vast, high-ceilinged reading room beyond.

The reading room was an enormous atrium providing study desks both on the main floor and rising upon small, isolated balconies spaced along a gently spiralling staircase that ran around the outer wall of the great chamber, higher and higher towards a vaulted dome above them. Specific collections were appended to the central hub of the reading room, not only on the ground floor, but also along the ever-rising outer walls. Like a great many of the special, dedicated structures here at the university, the interior of the library was much larger than its apparent exterior – living proof of its magical provenance – and a great many of the special collections and restricted archives were only accessible by magical means.

There was a section on aquatic life and evolution, for instance, hiding at the bottom of a reflecting pool lying placidly in an outer wing. Above them, set into the rising walls of the great rotunda, were alcoves that looked like recessed spaces for future collections that had not yet been built, but those recesses were, in fact, the solid-wall gateways that led into some of the more fantastic special archives. One need only use magic to fly up to them, then penetrate their seemingly solid barriers – while being either a permitted member of the faculty or key-bearer – to access them.

‘Remind me which archive Palembra breached again?’

Fane thought for a moment. ‘Verses and lore, on the lower levels.’

Thelana nodded and led the way.

The archive they sought was deep in the library’s bowels. Quickly enough, Thelana located the proper staircase and led Nerontes on a long, slow descent. They passed several landings before coming at last to the one that would take them to their destination.

In short order, they came to a long, low passage leading to a blank, solid wall. This, Thelana knew, was the entrance to the archive Palembra had infiltrated. Lining the passage on either side of the approach to the solid wall were a number of handsome, evocative statues of strange beasts from ancient Hyshian mythology: cave-apes, cliff harpies and canyon wyrms. To those oblivious to the workings of this place, those statues might have been dismissed as simple decoration: fearsome gargoyles whose sole intent was to beautify the corridor and make passers-by uneasy. Everyone with library privileges knew, however, that the statues were sleeping guardians; patient sentinels who would spring to life if anyone without the proper access tried to pass this way.

How, then, had Palembra managed to circumvent that system? It was not that such spells were impossible or impractical… it simply struck Thelana as a bizarre undertaking simply to access this particular archive. And the presence of the statuesque guardians was only one of the fail-safes in place: there was still a solid wall to pass through, and the binding chains upon the archive’s printed holdings to unfasten.

Nerontes hesitated. ‘Are you sure my key grants me access?’ he asked. He knew well what terror could be awakened by trying to go somewhere in this library that he was not authorised to go.

‘Stay close,’ Thelana said with a slight smile. ‘I shall protect you.’

Nerontes noted the humour in her voice. He managed a half-smile of his own. ‘Lead the way, brave protector.’

When they reached the far end of the passage, Thelana and Fane used their separate powers to make their bodies insubstantial and ghostly, then strode forward together and passed through the wall. The moment they were on the far side, they solidified again.

Thelana had a momentary thought of Palembra. Under ideal circumstances, she should have been stopped by the stone guardians. Failing that, the challenge of passing through a solid wall should have frustrated her apprentice-level efforts. The enchantments placed upon the outer wall were not passive, after all; they essentially imbued the wall itself with a spirit, a sense of self and purpose. Thelana and Nerontes were allowed to pass because Thelana’s own magical aura was registered with the library; therefore, she was a known quantity, and held privileges to search its special archives – including those most heavily guarded. Nerontes, being a member of the Adepts’ Council, was accorded those same privileges, but only with declared intent and situational permission. The key he had been issued at the front desk was, in effect, his warrant: the thing which told the solid wall that the entity passing through it was friend and not foe.

How had Palembra acquired the means to pass through the wall without it offering resistance? Either someone on the library staff used their own knowledge and position to circumvent the fail-safes, or Palembra managed to create a spell of her own, powerful enough to fool the enchanted wall.

‘Are you all right?’ Nerontes asked beside her.

Thelana blinked. ‘Certainly… Just a moment’s reverie, that’s all. Come.’ She led the way into the stacks.

The Lore and Verse collection was not one of the larger special archives in the library, but, like many of the spaces in this building, it evidenced a number of apparent paradoxes of both design and layout. The most flagrant and puzzling of these was the presence of glass skylights in the ceiling – a ceiling that actually existed several dozen yards below ground level. Despite this apparent impossibility, however, Thelana could clearly see the bright orb of the moon and the shimmering stars strewn upon the darkened sky, just as, if they had come here during daytime, they would have seen bright sunlight streaming in, unimpeded. Glow-worms traversed the walls and pillars here, as well, providing steady light to navigate the stacks by. Brighter light was afforded by small handheld lamps containing bioluminescent flowers and ferns. These self-lighting baubles glowed in response to subtle vibrations, thus, when one lifted a lamp from its wall-hook, the flower within was awakened, giving off a steady, yellow-white light that was perfect to read by. Though spells could have been cast to protect this place from random fires, the use of passively luminescent life forms as its primary means of illumination had proved an elegant and dependable solution to protect the books from flame.

There was no librarian on duty here. A duly appointed deputy or assistant would, no doubt, appear at intervals to peruse the collection and make sure everything was as it should be – it had been one of those random checks that had revealed Palembra’s presence – but there was no dedicated guardian. The archive, along with its dim illumination, shadowy stacks and close, claustrophobia-inducing back corridors, was deserted, save for Thelana and Nerontes alone.

‘Come,’ she said to Nerontes, ‘I know where our quarry waits.’

She led Nerontes to the closely arranged stacks on the adjacent wall. There, Thelana moved swiftly, smoothly among the shelves, eyes scanning as she went. After circling around two different shelves, she finally located what she’d come to review.

Sylverain’s Compendium of Errata, Rumours and Legends: Being a collection of lost things, things whispered-of, and things which might never have been.

She raised her hand. A spell of un-binding freed the single link from the small stout chain that held the volume upon the shelf. Thelana drew the fat tome down and cradled it in her arms. She then deposited the book upon a desk, and went rooting in her pockets. When her hand emerged, it held a small scrap of cloth.

‘What’s that?’ Nerontes asked.

‘A piece of Palembra’s skirt,’ Thelana said quietly. ‘It shall act as a sympathetic link, helping us find what she was looking for in this volume, and, likewise, any other volumes herein that she might have perused.’

Her spell took effect quickly. The compendium fell open to a place just past its centre, a shining, diaphanous glow affecting the page where Palembra’s hands had touched it. Seeing the passage, Thelana held out the scrap of fabric to Nerontes.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘All volumes that Palembra touched should be showing signs, and a glow-trail should be visible between them. Bring them back here. We have a great deal of work to do.’

Without hesitation, Nerontes hurried away.

Thelana deposited herself in the nearest chair, drew the opened book closer to her, and began to read.

Nerontes returned in short order with a massive pile of books and scrolls. He sat himself opposite Thelana, and the two of them spent hours reading in silence by the light of night-flower lanterns and the ever-changing glow-worm stars that drifted across the dark vaulted ceilings above them. They established a pattern, Thelana reading a certain tome, then moving on to another, passing whatever she’d been perusing to Nerontes for his own study. Thelana said nothing, determined to remain silent and focused until some meaningful information – some pattern – emerged from the books pulled and the pages indicated.

The two of them were silent for a very long time.

At last, Nerontes shifted in his seat. ‘I think I’ve found something,’ he said.

Thelana raised her aching eyes from the pages before her. Nerontes tapped the open leaves of the heavy, leather-bound codex in front of him, face alight with discovery.

‘These three,’ he said, laying down the book he currently held, then snatching two others from nearby. ‘All three were handled by Palembra. All three reveal bits of information she appears to have focused upon – information that’s mutually supportive.’

He rose from his chair and rounded the table so that he could stand at Thelana’s side and guide her through the tomes offered. As Thelana watched, Nerontes hastily opened each book to a marked passage, then laid the three of them next to one another. Before they began, he sought Sylverain’s Compendium in the already-read stack and yanked that into the cluster of tomes, as well.

‘What was the passage she spent the most time studying in the compendium?’ he asked.

Thelana suggested the present page.

‘This,’ she said, having gone over it so many times she could almost memorise it. ‘It’s a description of a hidden weapons vault – perhaps a Stormvault. Sylverain used clues from a number of travellers’ anecdotes and the observations of geographers to surmise that there was a structure containing magical artefacts and weapons hidden somewhere in the foothills north of the El Doir Range. The references were vague, though – barely useful…’

‘Indeed,’ Nerontes said, then suggested the books he’d just arranged alongside the compendium. ‘Peruse the passages before you – here, here, and here.’

Thelana began to read. With her spellsight already activated – she’d had it so since they entered the archive – she could actually see the marks of Palembra’s hands and fingers, glowing upon the pages and ragged, leafy edges of the books, marking where she’d touched the tomes, or where her hands had settled as she stopped to read longer sections.

She read the passages, each in turn, and immediately saw what had got Nerontes so excited. Each of them was, like the passage from Sylverain’s Compendium, a vague, anecdotal recollection of a strange place reported by travellers on a series of converging roads at the western edge of the mountain range. In each case, the travellers reported bizarre phenomena near a particular crossroads among the hills – sounds that no natural beasts could make, localised weather patterns that seemed determinedly opposite of those prevailing on any given day, spectres and phantasms in the woods surrounding the well-trod path, and intermittent tremors or earthquakes that seemed abnormally small and limited in scope.

The interesting thing was how the passages corresponded. Each gave what felt like a vague, almost poetic description of the location. In each case, three details were given – details that would be hard to corroborate, in and of themselves. But when all four passages were read in tandem, a clearer picture emerged: each recollection presented two familiar details and one very specific one. Taken together, the familiar details supported one another, making it clear that the speakers all described the same place.

And the more specific details would make it possible for that place to be identified.

‘It’s not a fairy tale or fragment of local lore at all,’ Thelana said to herself. ‘It’s a triangulation, spread over several different sources–’

‘To hide the ultimate location,’ Nerontes finished, ‘and to make it more difficult, though not impossible, to identify that location and pinpoint it.’

‘Have you compared it to a map?’ Thelana asked.

‘I say we access the living map in the geography archive,’ Nerontes countered. ‘It can search for us. All we need do is feed it the criteria and it can eliminate all unlikely possibilities to reveal those that best fit our parameters.’

‘So,’ Thelana said, ‘Palembra was looking for a Stormvault. That still doesn’t answer the most basic questions. Why? And for whom?’

‘I think we should assume it was to no good purpose,’ Nerontes said gravely.

Thelana nodded. ‘A fair appraisal,’ she said, then began gathering books for return to the shelves. ‘Transcribe the locative information. We’ll move these tomes to the book return, then get to the geographer’s archive. We may yet have something of value to offer the Regents’ Council.’

Nerontes hastily transcribed the information from the books, word for word, using a simple replication spell. In moments, they had the information they needed.

It was only after the books had been returned and the two made straight for the outer wall of the archive that they were interrupted.

Three members of the Regents’ Council blocked their exit from the archive: the Syari spellwright, Kelarion; the hidebound legalist, Dakhir; and Master Sembaris, grim face and piercing gaze suggesting that their presence here was anything but an accident.

Thelana and Nerontes froze. Though they were technically violating no statutes or by-laws, Thelana yet understood that their presence here – and the fact that they’d perused the very book Palembra had studied before being arrested – without any word of warning to the regents would not go well for them.

Shield Nerontes, she thought. Make him look like a dupe or a fool, if need be. Take the brunt of any punishments meted out.

‘Master Sembaris,’ Thelana said formally, giving a slight bow of her head.

‘It would appear,’ the inquisitor said, ‘that young Palembra was not acting alone. We now know the name of the one who sought to corrupt her.’

Thelana waited. Beside her, Nerontes breathed – slowly, deeply; in, out, in, out – as if awaiting some terrible attack.

Sembaris stepped forward. ‘The hand of Tzeentch is in this,’ the aelven inquisitor said gravely. ‘Tell us you’ve discovered something here that might be of aid.’

Thelana looked to Nerontes. He looked only slightly less dumbfounded than she was. She turned back to Sembaris.

‘Master inquisitor, I think we may have something.’

Time lost all meaning for Daethus Atairos. He vaguely recalled the strange events in the tribunal chamber – though he did not recall leaving it. His next, isolated memory was of waking in a dark cell – an isolation chamber in the deepest levels of the Stormkeep. There had been others in the cell when he woke – watching him, studying him. He asked what had happened. They said that he had suffered an injury, and that a strange, irregular fugue state now gripped him. That fugue – a condition of wakeful unawareness, of open-eyed dreaming, must have begun in the tribunal chamber. Somewhere, deep in his mind, Daethus recalled that girl screaming, thrashing, bleeding lightning into the open air. He’d tried to secure her – and that was the last thing he remembered.

Had she launched him into the strange half-life that now imprisoned him? Or had it come after, obscuring his memories of the tribunal chamber? In either case, he felt a strange sort of shame at his convalescence, the uselessness it implied. He was a warrior of Sigmar, a wielder of the power of the storm, a Sequitor of the Tempest Lords and a pious servant of the Lord-Arcanum and the officers of their Sacrosanct Chamber.

But now, he was useless. An empty shell. A soul cut off from action and endeavour in the physical, waking world.

He came and went – conscious, then unconscious, wracked by visions, losing what felt like hours, even days, to the darkness. He sometimes blinked and studied his surroundings – the same drab, sweating walls of stone so perfectly shaped they barely required any mortar to hold them together; the same small, lone window offering scant light from the outside world – light that was sometimes bright and sharp-edged, sometimes pale and wan, sometimes grey and sickly. When was the last time he ate? he wondered. The last time he swilled cool, clear water from the ceramic jug that stood beside the always-closed door? The last time he’d moved from the place where he sprawled upon the floor, or lay, half-reclined, back against the wall? Daethus had no clear recollection of those things… and yet, he was vaguely aware of feeling his hunger sated, his thirst quenched, of seeing this small, dark room from several different angles.

It was as if he slept through action, and was only awake and aware when his body lay idle. As though his sleeping and waking states had somehow changed positions in his consciousness.

He heard voices, from time to time. Some – like the deep, sonorous voice of Lord-Arcanum Petreus or the Lord-Exorcist, Malkeus – he could readily identify. More than once, he’d heard the voice of his Stormhost comrades – stalwart Anandal; mordant Epiria; ardent, true-hearted Langelis. Likewise, he’d heard voices that were not familiar, that he could not identify – the voices of Lords-Relictor, Lords-Castellant and Lords-Venator that he did not know and had never met. They watched him from the small window set into the cell’s heavy, iron-barred door, and though he rarely took note of their slack faces or their watching eyes, he was always aware of their presence, at all hours of the day and night.

‘What is it?’ some asked. ‘A brain-fever? Some malady?’

‘Prelude to an errant quest,’ others offered. ‘Sigmar speaks to him. The mind and soul of the Mortal Realms itself seeks a use for him.’

‘How long will he remain like that?’

‘He must wait, and listen. His purpose will be revealed, in time.’

Daethus certainly hoped so. This strange existence he found himself in – a ghost in his own body, a stranger shuttled about by unresponsive bones and muscles, immobile limbs, his senses scrambled and his understanding diffuse – was no state to remain in. More than once, he’d prayed for release – the blessed oblivion of expiration, a bare blade left unattended in the cell, so that he could be reforged again, better, stronger. Clearly, something had gone wrong inside him, something that only death and Reforging on the Anvil of Apotheosis could repair.

Once, he’d slipped back into awareness from a state of feverish distemper. He’d been lost in a storm of visions and dreams, all swirling about the small, compressed kernel of his consciousness, assailing his senses, filling his mind with notions that he could not articulate. Awakening from that troubled state, he’d found himself face to face with one of the Lords-Relictor of the Stormhost, Lucena Quarrel. She knelt beside him, counting the beats of his pulse while using a coterie of simple tools to listen to his heart, to peer into his ear canal and down his throat, shining lamplight into his staring eyes and testing the reflexive responses of his body to blunt external stimuli.

Daethus stared at the Lord-Relictor. She stared back at him.

‘What is happening to me?’ he croaked, throat as dry as desert hardpan.

Lord-Relictor Lucena’s immobile mouth suggested a smile without truly forming one.

‘A fugue is upon you,’ she said, returning to her survey of his bodily functions.

Daethus had wanted to reach out and grasp the Lord-Relictor at that moment – to squeeze the folds of her rich, embroidered tabard, to shake her, to shout into her pale, implacable face that he needed answers! He needed to know what foul malady this was and how it could be dispelled!

But his body would not respond. Only his eyes, his tongue and his mouth seemed capable of movement, and that with the greatest of effort.

‘Will I die?’ he asked.

Lord-Relictor Lucena shook her head. ‘No, brother. This is prelude to a quest. The Mortal Realms sense a need, and you are instrumental to satisfying that need. This – all of this – is the fabric of the Mortal Realms themselves trying to converse with you. If it goes slowly, if it confuses you, that is only because the voice in the maelstrom is a large one, speaking a tongue we do not understand, and we are too small to contain or comprehend it all at once.’

Daethus blinked, barely understanding.

‘I am… accursed?’ he asked.

The Lord-Relictor smiled unmistakably.

‘Some might say so,’ she said. ‘But some would call it a blessing.’

‘For what?’ Daethus said.

The Lord-Relictor shrugged. ‘No one knows. Even you may not know. Understanding will come slowly, but it will come. My advice – don’t fight it. This part takes as long as it takes.’

Daethus blinked – a slow, languid movement – and when his eyes opened again, the Lord-Relictor was gone, and the light in the little cell had changed, indicating a great passage of time.

A blink… and hours lost. How was it possible?

When would it end?

He had no answers, but the Lord-Relictor’s words stuck with him.

Seconds became minutes. Minutes became hours. Those hours collapsed and elongated, the passage of time impossible to mark. Throughout, Daethus was assailed by visions – nightmares, really, though they had the sharpness and heft of memories rather than mere fancies.

He saw storms raging in blood-red skies above the rolling plains of Hysh. He saw armies of the filthy and unwashed – Chaos? He could not say – battering down the doors of Azyr and storming into the central keep where Sigmar sat on his golden throne. He saw vast armies of Stormcasts vaporised, immortal essences torn from their broken bodies and disbursed into the aether – obliterated, never again to be reforged.

He saw a wizard with a staff standing upon a mound of large, powerful bodies that were not soldiers or Stormcasts or slain warriors at all, but that he was sure were the gods themselves. He saw Sigmar’s corpse encased in bloodied, golden armour. He saw beautiful Alarielle and enigmatic Teclis and even the incarnate forms of the paragons of Chaos – Khorne, Tzeentch, Slaanesh, Nurgle – slaughtered and heaped one atop the other, lying still as enormous bloodflies scuttled upon their corpses.

He saw the people of the Mortal Realms in slavery. He felt their despair, their misery. He saw, again, that strange staff: simple in design, yet fantastic in import.

And at the close of each vision: darkness. A still, terrifying, all-encompassing darkness, bearing with it a terrible sense of finality; the obliteration of all future possibility. The end of something. Perhaps the end of everything.

But, most of all, he saw the sweating walls of his own cell. He saw the light slanting down from the little window above. He saw the floor. He saw the rafters. He heard the whispers of the watchers at the window: their concern, their impatience, their doubts and misgivings.

What does it all mean? he asked.

End this! he begged.

Speak to me! he pleaded.

How long has it been now? Days? Weeks? A month or more?

And then, one day, he woke from one of those terrible, assailing dreams – a vision of Sigmar, burnt upon an enormous funeral pyre while still alive and aware. He woke… and he moved.

He all but leapt to his feet, adopting a long-practised battle stance that training and repetition had made second nature to him. There he stood, gulping breath, heart hammering in his chest – his first notable, concerted movement in… in…

Sigmar, how long has it been?

But a moment later, when he saw what lay on the floor before him, he forgot his wonder.

It was a sword – a long, broad-bladed weapon of exquisite craftsmanship and beauty. It lay there, calm and silent, its beautifully tooled leather scabbard shining in the afternoon light from the small, high window.

Daethus took up the sword, gently slid the blade free of the scabbard. Strange runes dominated the centre of the blade, from hilt to tip. As he stared and tried to work out what they said – the language was unknown to him – he felt a curious buzzing in his palms, through his fingertips. It was as though the blade was humming, ever so slightly.

Alive.

That was how the Lord-Exorcist and Lord-Relictor found him, kneeling there upon the cold, damp stone floor, staring at that wondrous blade, suddenly – miraculously – yanked out of his troubling fugue state, only to be presented with a new mystery that stubbornly offered no answers.

‘What have we here?’ Lord-Relictor Lucena asked.

‘He looks fit for service, to my eye,’ Lord-Exorcist Malkeus said.

‘I woke,’ Daethus said, ‘and this awaited me.’ He lifted the sword, displaying it for them.

‘You’ll put it to use forthwith,’ Lord-Exorcist Malkeus said. ‘Your Redeemer Conclave shall be underway within the hour.’

‘Underway?’ Daethus asked, thoroughly confused.

‘The Lord-Relictor can explain on the way,’ the Lord-Exorcist said. ‘Suffice to say, if you’re fit, we need you on the line.’

With that, he turned and marched away, leaving Daethus with Lord-Relictor Lucena.

‘What is this?’ Daethus asked her.

The woman’s face displayed something like compassion, with a hint of clinical bemusement hiding beneath.

‘It’s a rude awakening,’ she said. ‘I would say your timing is most unfortunate, Sequitor. Or, should I say Questor?’

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘Curseling!’ Hasturath barked, unconsciously shifting his weight to remain perched atop the scintillating, fire-spitting daemonic disc that held him aloft. ‘Get those foot-dragging, lackwit Acolytes moving! Now!’

The helmed and armoured curseling raised its threshing flail in answer to the Tzaangor shaman’s command, then turned to beat the trailing knot of human petitioners back into line with the marching column. They were still on the cusp of submitting themselves to the flux, adopting new bodies, stronger forms and more redolent, powerful magics that would make them more formidable foes against the powers of Order and Light. Hasturath had chosen them for the present expedition based upon their hunger for advancement, their willingness to undertake any mission – no matter how daring, foolish or soul-twisting – to satisfy and earn the respect of their master, Hasturath. He had hoped to decide, before their destination was reached and their mysterious prize won, just which among them might be worthy of ascension. Thus far, however, the fools had only proven a burden, frequently trailing the rest of the column, their mortal bodies fragile and undependable beside the more powerful, flux-irradiated forms of their supreme leader’s daemonic and already-ascended servants.

From his perch, hovering several yards above the dusty desert ground below, Hasturath turned to survey the column snaking along ahead of them across the sere plain. Somewhere, far ahead, his master Ruhlgurrad led them on. Ruhlgurrad, daemon prince of his own subhost of the Eternal Conflagration. Ruhlgurrad, intent upon some dread, long-forgotten magical prize waiting at a destination he had yet to reveal to Hasturath himself. Ruhlgurrad, whose ambition might elevate him to nigh godhood, even if it killed every sorcerer, daemon and Acolyte under his command. Hasturath had done his best to probe his master’s ultimate intentions, to get some sense of why they’d been forced to throw together this hasty company – a mixed bag of magisters, Heralds, chromatic Horrors, Tzaangors and Acolytes – and set off across the Hyshian desert with almost no warning. Ruhlgurrad had been less than forthcoming about their ultimate destination, or what they might find there.

‘Yours is not to question, Hasturath,’ the daemon prince had snarled. ‘Yours is to obey and execute. Now gather our forces and get them underway.’

Hasturath had readily agreed and done as commanded. Still, he wished he knew what their intrepid leader had in store. He’d never seen his master so eager before, so haphazard and fixed upon an external goal. He was used to him being secretive and circumspect; he was baffled, however, by the inexplicable eagerness – the almost adolescent determination – which Ruhlgurrad now evidenced, driving the column across the desert towards…

Towards what?

Yours is not to reason why, Hasturath, the Tzaangor shaman reminded himself. Yours is to obey and execute. The inward voice that repeated these words to him was smug, mocking, but it yet reminded Hasturath whom he served, and how dangerous opposing him could be. Very well, then – Hasturath would keep his Acolytes and subordinate sorcerers moving. When Ruhlgurrad decided that he wanted to share his designs with the rest of them, he would do so.

Hasturath could bite his tongue and do as he was told. He was not precisely loyal or trustworthy, but he was patient. He could wait a long, long time before deciding that direct action might be required. He’d already waited centuries, had he not?

Up ahead, a staff-bearing Herald broke from the column to wrangle a small knot of capering Pink Horrors that had broken away to start chasing one another in circles upon the moonlit sand. The strange, asymmetrical daemons snapped and snarled at the Herald’s ministrations, but they fell back into line quickly enough, with little resistance or effort. Would that Hasturath’s own minions responded so readily to his commands.

It’s their humanity, he thought mordantly. Fills them with an excess of independent thought and impulse. Once I’ve got the lot of them initiated, subjected them to the powers of the flux, they’ll become far more compliant.

And far more deadly…

Hasturath dared a last glance behind. His Acolytes were moving faster now, all but jogging in tight formation to join the tail end of the snaking column. He barked at and berated them as they passed, assuring them that if he caught them straggling again, they would pay: all of them, collectively.

He was just about to withdraw to follow behind them and ensure they didn’t fall behind again when he heard shouting far ahead: high-pitched screeching and a series of martial hisses, like belligerent greatcats preparing to join in combat. Hasturath squinted, trying to see what might be unfolding. He willed his daemonic disc to float higher, offering him a better vantage.

Far ahead, nearer the front of the column, a fight had broken out. Judging by the sounds, the combatants were a pair of his Tzaangor brethren – though of a lower caste than he. With a snort, Hasturath willed his disc to carry him forward, and the magical conveyance gently accelerated beneath him. Hasturath bent into the wind, stabilising his foothold, and saw the suddenly erupted conflagration inching nearer and nearer.

Two Tzaangor warriors were the primary combatants – their low-slung, buzzard-like heads thrusting and snapping at one another as they struck in deadly, haphazard concert with their separate weapons. One wielded a long blade-topped glaive, the other an elegant, curved scimitar. As the two troublemakers circled and struck and cursed, the troupe around them fell into a loose, chaotic circle. The Acolytes of another Kairic coven were already taking sides, rooting for one or the other. Bright yellow Brimstone Horrors flared in the twilit night, their flame-soaked bodies providing the sudden, bloody spectacle with ample illumination, while Red Flamers exhorted the combatants and sullen Blue Horrors groaned that their blows were frail and hesitant. Already a small squadron of winged Screamers circled above, shrieking in eager anticipation for bloodshed and ruin.

There were several dozen Tzaangor warriors in the column, from a handful of different units. Unfortunately, as Hasturath closed the distance between him and the impromptu fight, he recognised the livery upon the currently fighting Tzaangors and felt a terrible dread when he realised they were his own troops.

‘By the Great Conspirator!’ Hasturath hissed to himself. ‘No, you fools! Are you trying to get me crucified?’

The crowd was enormous by the time Hasturath zoomed through the air above the duel, at least fifty of their soldiers and sorcerers now pressing forward in the roiling, surging throng. Clearly, these fools did not understand they were on a mission, set towards a goal, and that their petty in-fighting and meaningless challenges to their personal honour meant nothing alongside their master’s enrichment. Hasturath was circling the crowd, seeking a ready place to alight from his hovering disc, when he saw a towering figure – easily twice as tall as even the tallest, strongest Tzaangors or Acolytes below – come wading through the crowd. Hasturath felt clammy as he espied the enormous, hulking form, the strong, blue-skinned limbs roped with tight knots of muscle, the great blue-black wings rising from its broad shoulders, the crown of enormous, twisted horns upon its snarling head.

Ruhlgurrad had finally noted the upset, and he’d arrived to yank everyone back in line and drive them onwards.

Hasturath watched, horrified, as Ruhlgurrad marched on, crushing a few oblivious minions beneath his great cloven hooves, yanking others up in his taloned grip and tossing them aside, those unlucky fools falling to the ground a hundred yards distant from where he encountered them.

The fighting Tzaangors were deep into their blood sport now, covered in wounds and dripping gobbets of coagulating purple blood onto the sand as they circled and struck. The bladed glaive of the larger Tzaangor swished and hummed as it cut the air, swinging back and forth with scythe-like force, while the scimitar of his challenger parried every glaive-strike before slicing and thrusting, seeking the exposed flesh of the one it sought to strike down.

Hasturath landed his disc and dismounted, pressing through the surging throng towards the fighters. Just as he broke through to the fore, right at the edge of the open space where his two minions duelled, Ruhlgurrad burst from the crowd, snatched up each of the fighting Tzaangors in his enormous hands, and raised them – wriggling and squirming – high above the roiling crowd. Those gathered gave a collective sound, half cheer, half scream of terror. It was as if they truly hadn’t seen him in their midst until the very moment when he’d plucked up the two would-be gladiators.

Ruhlgurrad unleashed a foul burst of Tzeentchian magic. The scimitar-wielding Tzaangor bucked and twisted in his grip, the desert night suddenly filled with the sound of breaking bones, liquefying flesh and torn organic matter. As Hasturath and all others gathered to watch – some of the Horrors still cheering – the Tzaangor was literally turned inside out, every one of its innards, soft tissues and veins switching places with its ragged clothing, its mismatched armour and its rough, unclean epidermis. In an instant, the writhing creature in Ruhlgurrad’s enormous grip became a gelid, quivering mass of amorphous putrescence. The daemon prince dropped the unlucky fighter to the sand, where its wet, moist form burped and shuddered.

Hasturath felt bile in the back of his throat. The Tzaangor, though having undergone the most horrible transformation imaginable, was still horribly alive and aware.

The glaive-wielder, in Ruhlgurrad’s other hand, had dropped its weapon. It now begged, vowed forbearance, even offered penance, per its master’s instructions. The daemon prince would not have it. Without hesitation, Ruhlgurrad unleashed another font of magic.

This time, his subject suddenly lost its spine and found a series of small, spidery appendages protruding from its once-humanoid form. Ruhlgurrad dropped the transformed Tzaangor onto the sand, and the now-altered spider-thing scuttled around, squeaking and crying and begging him to reconsider. The moment it was loosed on the sand, scurrying this way and that, a number of those who’d been watching the contest began laughing maniacally and chasing the thing around with their spears and cleavers, eager to terrorise and destroy it.

Then, Ruhlgurrad sounded a terrifying roar. It was the sound of an awakening, foul-tempered dragon; the sound of the earth shaking, of a mountain landslide, of sundered rock and tumbling boulders. It shook the sands and split the still desert night and even seemed to cause the moon and stars above to quail in fear at the aelemental force of his rage, now unleashed.

Every creature in Ruhlgurrad’s warband fell to their knees, screaming, crying, begging his understanding, decrying their own foolishness and short-sightedness. Hasturath joined them, vaguely hoping that his master had not yet seen him so close at hand.

‘I am Ruhlgurrad!’ the daemon prince bellowed. ‘I am your master! You exist to serve me, to obey me, to please me! Is that understood?’

They all answered in unison. Ruhlgurrad let the noise surge and tremble around him for a time before raising his muscular arms again. Silence fell the instant he did so.

‘There will be no more in-fighting and no more falling behind, am I understood?’

Silence was their only response. They were too terrified to answer.

‘Brothers and sisters,’ the daemon prince carried on, addressing all, ‘my brave and terrible companions – we stand on the cusp of upsetting the balance of power in the Mortal Realms! Our destiny lies there’ – he pointed towards the rocky foothills in the distance – ‘just a few scant hours march from where we now stand! But, I need your cooperation, brothers and sisters! Bend your will to mine! Yoke your strength, your cunning, your desires and your killer instincts to my higher purpose! Follow me across this desert, to our destination, and your future will be changed forever!’

He turned, surveying them all. That’s when his eyes alighted on Hasturath, kneeling among the rest. Hasturath felt as if all the ambient heat in his body fled the moment his master’s fell gaze bore down upon him.

‘Waylay me, delay me, or frustrate my efforts,’ the daemon prince said, eyes never leaving Hasturath’s own, ‘and this is what awaits you.’

He suggested the scuttling spider-thing and the still-quivering mass of inside-out protoplasm and purple blood.

Without a word, the daemon prince’s many servants nodded, threw up their hands in exaltation, and took to their feet. At once, the march resumed.

Hasturath stood, not moving from where he’d knelt. As the column carried on around them, he and Ruhlgurrad locked gazes, the onmoving soldiers and sorcerers of the retinue flowing around them like a stream around stubborn boulders. After a long, uncomfortable pause, the great daemon prince strode forward, towering over his lieutenant. Hasturath did his best to maintain his gaze, never to blink or shrink from his master’s looming form. If he showed fear or sycophantic deference now, it might only make Ruhlgurrad more angry.

‘Where were you, Hasturath?’

‘Gathering stragglers, my lord,’ Hasturath said, finally lowering his gaze because he could no longer stand to stare up into Ruhlgurrad’s burning crimson eyes.

‘Gathering stragglers,’ Ruhlgurrad said quietly, voice like two boulders being rubbed together. ‘Did you not see what they descended to?’

Hasturath nodded, eyes still downcast. ‘Yours was an elegant solution to a knotty problem, my lord. I beg your forgiveness. I sought only to corral wanderers and keep the column moving. While busy with one troupe, I failed to see trouble brewing in another.’

Ruhlgurrad bent low, so that his daemonic face was close to the beaked visage of his trusted lieutenant.

‘Fail me again, Hasturath, and you shall be the one turned inside out. We are too close to our goal now to suffer because of foolish miscalculations and misguided self-interest.’

Hasturath seized upon that moment – eye to eye with his master – to pose a question.

‘And what is our goal, dread master – if I may so enquire?’

For a moment, Ruhlgurrad’s horrible visage bent into the semblance of a dismissive snarl. But then, almost magically, it realigned. All at once, the daemon prince was smiling. It was a cold, sly grin, but a grin nonetheless.

‘Ascension, Hasturath. Ascension to the level of the gods themselves.’

With that, the daemon prince turned and strode away. He never saw the look of absolute, sneering disdain that his trusted lieutenant gave him; nor could he feel the burning, deeply buried hatred now blazing in Hasturath’s twisted old heart.

‘Ascension,’ the Tzaangor shaman muttered to himself. ‘Be careful, dread lord, that you do not fall from the great height you seek to ascend to…’

The column inched on, minute by minute, hour by hour. After a time, they left the open sands and moved among scrubby hills and long-parched, flood-cut ravines. The blunt, rocky peaks of the El Doir Range loomed in the near distance. The rugged country they moved through was haunted by widespread convocations of thin and twisted trees, all leafless and white as bone, their limbs either long-broken off into sharp, spiky protrusions or still clinging, gnarled and dog-legged to their trunks. The strange trees looked, to Hasturath, like frozen bolts of lightning.

The land and the bent trees were of little consequence, however, beside the dim, ghostly phantom lights that pulsed and shifted between the sharp desert hills, or even across the half-lit night sky above them. At first Hasturath thought they were simply bearing witness to natural phenomena – some sort of magnetic anomaly, or perhaps the gaseous faerie lights that had inspired so many myths and legends among simple folk throughout the Mortal Realms. But, little by little, Hasturath began to realise that the strange lights and the bent trees and the haphazard, broken shape of the landscape around them were not natural phenomena at all, but something wholly and specifically magical.

If his own sneaking suspicions and innate sensitivities were not sufficient to prove that fact, the increasingly erratic behaviour of the chromatic Horrors and servitor daemons in their column made it abundantly clear. Those creatures bore a natural sensitivity to magical energies. If they were acting so strangely – alternately eager and affrighted – the latent forces at work in the landscape around them had to be responsible.

Hasturath raced forward upon his daemonic disc to find his dread lord, striding along at the very fore of the column, all but indifferent to whether anyone still followed him or not.

‘What is this place, my lord?’ the Tzaangor asked, genuinely curious.

‘This is the place,’ Ruhlgurrad muttered, wholly to himself. ‘Truly, this is the place I’ve searched for…’

Up ahead, strange flutters of heat lightning seemed to pulse from an invisible axis, racing outward in rhythmic waves before dissipating. The sight was unlike any Hasturath had ever seen.

Ruhlgurrad stopped, suddenly curious as to whether his servants still followed him. Satisfied that they yet trudged in his footsteps, silent and obedient, the daemon prince carried on. Hasturath hovered alone as the soldiers followed their master, harnesses creaking, weapons and armour ringing softly.

He felt a strange, rarely known emotion: doubt. He frequently doubted his own safety, his own capabilities, his own capacity to outsmart and outmanoeuvre his master in the long term, and ultimately overcome him and claim control of this mismatched band of miscreants. But Hasturath had never before doubted Ruhlgurrad himself. The daemon prince was acting like some Errant-Questor or pilgrim, trudging onward towards a goal he would not give name to or articulate. Should Hasturath take that as a sign of their destination’s true worth? Or should it, perhaps, make him doubt Ruhlgurrad’s mental acuity?

He had no satisfying answer. And so, he carried on.

Eventually, the road gave out onto a broad, flat valley of sorts hemmed in by the irregular hills and shallow canyons that defined their environs. Directly before them lay a long-dried riverbed, its old clay surface baked by the Hyshian sun. As the column hove up to the dusty banks and slowed, not sure if they should cross the natural barrier even though it presented no obstacle, Hasturath saw Ruhlgurrad carrying on, down across the dried riverbed, up the opposite bank, lurching ever-more quickly towards a strange gathering of ruined masonry just on the far side.

When one of those bizarre, skyward pulses of light suddenly bloomed above and spread outwards, Hasturath got a clearer view of what his master now advanced towards.

It was a ruin – a wide stone foundation, surrounded by a forest of pillars in various states of disarray, some still tall and capped by half-eroded lintels, others broken in half, or lying, long-toppled, like petrified worms of marble and stone. A number of crumbled structures littered the site, but the great foundation and the forest of columns thereon was, very clearly, the nucleus.

Hasturath watched. Across the dried riverbed, his master stood before the ruins, great wings outstretched exultantly, seemingly staring in awe and wonder at where they’d arrived. Along the banks, the sorcerers, daemons and Acolytes of their small warhost studied the ruins, as well as their reverent master, and muttered amongst themselves about why they’d come here, and what came next.

Hasturath floated forward on his daemonic disc until he drifted abreast of his master.

‘Is this, at last, our destination?’ he asked. ‘These blasted, haunted ruins?’

Ruhlgurrad nodded. Hasturath could see the wonder, the passion, in his master’s large, crimson eyes. Finally, the daemon prince looked down upon his second and smiled.

‘It is a Stormvault, Hasturath. One of Sigmar’s ancient, hidden repositories of power.’

All at once, Hasturath’s doubts evaporated. That was a word he understood; a well of potential he was more than equal to tapping.

‘A Stormvault?’ he breathed, studying the ruins.

Ruhlgurrad nodded again and swept his taloned hands out expansively.

‘My spy in Settler’s Gain came through. An overambitious student of sorcery uncovered clues as to the location – and contents – of this Stormvault–’

‘This student,’ Hasturath began, ‘was also your spy?’

‘Do not interrupt me again,’ Ruhlgurrad snarled. ‘No, the young adept was not my spy. Who she sought the information for, or why, I cannot say. But the information she uncovered will prove as useful to myself and my designs as it might have to whomever she worked for… more’s the pity for them.’

‘You knew, then?’

‘Knew?’ Ruhlgurrad asked, voice growing louder. ‘That this place waited for us? Oh, yes, Hasturath, I knew. I simply needed to correlate some fragments of information, to locate it. Waiting within is the treasure I’ve spent the last five centuries seeking, unsuccessfully, among the deep, dark, terrifying places both in and outside of the Mortal Realms… Balestorm.’

Hasturath blinked. ‘Balestorm? I have not heard of it.’

‘Few have,’ Ruhlgurrad said. ‘Its provenance and power are largely lost to the ages. Where its name and purpose are not simply forgotten, they were purged and suppressed. I have searched for so long, Hasturath – so long! And now, here, I finally lay claim to it.’

‘It waits within?’ Hasturath asked. ‘Abandoned and unguarded?’

‘It waits within,’ Ruhlgurrad said with certainty, then turned his gaze towards Hasturath. ‘But I did not say it was unguarded.’

Hasturath was about to ask his master to clarify that statement when the daemon prince gave his orders.

‘Gather a small party – twenty or so – Acolytes, wizards, lesser daemons. Leave the rest up here, to secure the vale and hold it if anyone tries to interrupt our penetration of the inner sanctum.’

Those words gave Hasturath no confidence. ‘Interrupt? You expect challengers, my lord?’

The daemon prince bared his teeth.

‘Just do as I say, Hasturath.’

Hasturath, as was his duty, saw his master’s commands carried out.

Among the ruins, beneath a fallen pillar, they found the stairway leading down. Ruhlgurrad sent six of the overeager Kairic Acolytes and several sullen Blue Horrors down as an advance party. After that small group had been given a brief head start, the daemon prince looked to Hasturath.

‘Now you,’ he commanded. ‘Take a Herald and a troupe of Horrors with you.’

Hasturath, knowing full well that his master was sending him ahead as grist for potential booby traps but helpless to defy him, waved his favoured Herald and a small knot of Yellow Horrors and Red Flamers into his orbit, and the lot of them began their descent. When they were part way down the winding, rough-hewn stairs, Hasturath heard his master huffing and cursing as he squeezed into the passage above them.

Though he never stopped to circle back and check on his master’s progress, Hasturath heard Ruhlgurrad’s horns frequently scrape against the stone ceiling. Intermittently, he would note the scuff of a leathery wing or bent knee and hear the daemon prince curse. Clearly, this passage was not made for one so large.

All the way down, Hasturath and his fellows had been on edge, spells and magical weaponry at the ready, sure that some terrifying adversary or cunning magical trap would present itself with little warning. True, they never heard indications from the first party sent ahead of them that there were terrors awaiting, but that could easily be accounted for. The absence of proof did not assuage their wariness.

At last, the down-winding passage opened onto a long, broad shelf of rock above an expansive cavern farther below them. The first group of Acolytes and Horrors were far ahead, already picking a slow, steady path down a sort of half-natural stairway in the rock towards another broad shelf even lower down. Though the cavern was dim and vast, ghostly light emanated from roiling clouds of smoke and fog at its lowest points, and in that dim, shifting light, Hasturath thought that he could see another ramp of rock or half-hewn stair below the lower shelf, leading to the actual floor of the cavern.

Below them, Hasturath saw four enormous towers of stone. Though they appeared to be natural formations, a magical provenance was suggested by their perfectly square spacing to support the four far corners of the cavern. Surrounding those semi-natural, tapering towers were clearly constructed and polished pillars added as further support for the cavern vault. Some of those pillars were cracked, slumped at precarious angles, or had even collapsed entirely, but more yet stood than not. Interspersed among them was a quintet of square, pyramidal platforms connected by narrow stone bridges and supporting barely discernible structures and columns of their own. The glowing fog crawling across the floor of the cavern flowed between those platforms like gaseous streams, the source of the shimmering radiance that lit it from within wholly invisible.

The Stormvault had clearly suffered some damage and collapse over the millennia, but it still seemed to be in remarkably good shape for a place so long abandoned.

Behind Hasturath, Ruhlgurrad emerged from the passage, groaning as he stood to his full, enormous height and stretched his limbs and wings. Hasturath approached his master warily and suggested the great structures below them.

‘Your prize awaits, my lord.’

Ruhlgurrad surveyed the scene. A sound like a gryph-hound’s satisfied growl escaped his gullet.

‘Send the Flamers down to the platforms,’ Ruhlgurrad said. ‘I need light.’

Hasturath gave the command. The scintillating crimson Flamers obeyed, bounding down the semi-natural steps from shelf to shelf, speeding towards the cavern floor and the ruins visible there. When they made the cavern floor, they rushed forward, up and over an arcing stone bridge. As they reached each platform in turn, one would plant itself, almost like a guard hound, while the others carried on. Each bright-burning daemon illuminated the trove around it, and finally, from their high vantage on the ledge, Hasturath and Ruhlgurrad had a clearer view of precisely what lay below them.

The platforms themselves seemed to be built like palaces or temples without roofs, the pillars creating the impression of boundaries, each space within in haphazard disarray. Spilling out of once-sealed vaults and marble arks and tombs to long-forgotten heroes, there were treasures untold. They sparkled and glowed, everything from mighty broadswords and shining, magically enhanced shields to stately suits of duardin-forged armour and fearsome battle masks. There were overturned barrels of golden coins and hogshead kegs spilling raw silver, and once-stacked piles of ingots and raw metals littered about like children’s toys. Orreries, clocks, chalices and mirrors; chariots, sky-ships, dragons’ wings and even a lone, listing sailing ship: the place was a treasure trove indeed, just waiting for their arrival, and their plunder.

‘There, your majesty,’ Hasturath said, presenting the now-lit Stormvault to his master. ‘There, below, is what you’ve struggled so long to attain. Now, this Balestorm–’

‘It’s there,’ Ruhlgurrad said.

‘Where?’ Hasturath asked. ‘What, precisely, are we looking for?’

‘We,’ Ruhlgurrad sneered, ‘are looking for nothing. I have come here to claim Balestorm, and I, alone, shall do so. You, Hasturath, will remain here, on this ledge, and command our troops and watch as I fulfil my destiny.’

‘But, my lord,’ Hasturath said, seeing that his master meant to descend and walk the cavern floor, ‘you cannot simply place yourself in harm’s way.’

The daemon prince looked back. He smiled devilishly.

‘I can… and I must.’

On he went. Hasturath watched, frustrated that his commander could not be more forthcoming. How could he properly support him and protect him if he never knew what Ruhlgurrad intended?

One of the Heralds hovered at Hasturath’s elbow.

‘Dread magister?’ he asked, addressing Hasturath by his formal title.

‘Place the troops in small formations on every shelf,’ Hasturath said impatiently. ‘I’ll ensconce myself on that ledge further above. Keep a force of nine here, by the entrance, watching for new arrivals.’

As the Herald scurried about, relaying the orders, Hasturath climbed the rocks far off to his right and placed himself on a natural balcony of sorts, high above the highest shelf. He had a fine, commanding view of the whole cavern now. Far below, he saw his master moving across the fog-shrouded cavern floor towards the first bridge that rose towards the first pyramidal platform. As Ruhlgurrad mounted the platform, he held his hand out, as if awaiting the delivery of some unknown item from the empty air.

Hasturath knew what came next: his master’s favoured weapon – an enormous battle axe capping a long, gnarled, petrified limb from an ancient tree – would appear in Ruhlgurrad’s grip from its aether-vault. As Hasturath watched, the weapon materialised – enormous, nearly the height of a grown human from ferrule to head. With his weapon now in hand, Ruhlgurrad strode forward, cloven hooves thumping on the scattered coins and bare stone as he went.

Clearly, Ruhlgurrad expected a challenge of some terrible import. He only summoned that battle axe in such circumstances. What, precisely, was about to happen?

‘Hear me!’ the daemon prince roared into the vast cavern, voice echoing off the bare walls. ‘I am Ruhlgurrad! Daemon prince of the Sundered Hells, Devourer of One Hundred Thousand Souls and servant of Holy Tzeentch, the Sorcerer Supreme and Changer of Ways! I have come to this place ready to do battle with the guardian that waits here! I summon that guardian now, to face me! To fight me!’

In answer, the earth above and around them seemed to groan. It made Hasturath’s bones vibrate beneath his skin.

What guardian was his master summoning?

‘What are you waiting for, you fools?’ Hasturath shouted down to the Acolytes and daemons hanging back in Ruhlgurrad’s wake. ‘Surround your master! Protect him!’

As the soldiers surged forward to join their master on the central platform, Ruhlgurrad threw a disdainful glance back over his massive shoulders. Though there was a great distance separating them, Hasturath thought he saw genuine annoyance in Ruhlgurrad’s crimson glare.

‘Did you not hear me?’ the daemon prince shouted again, voice echoing powerfully through the unseen recesses of the Stormvault. ‘I am Ruhlgurrad! I am your ruin! I demand you show yourself, guardian, and stand against me, if you can! I demand–’

Another guttural snarl sounded out of the fog-shrouded darkness surrounding them. It seemed to come from some unseen place – a deep place, a lost place – but it rose up and echoed in the vastness of the Stormvault like the sound of a mountain avalanche: tons upon tons of stone tearing loose from a high perch and tumbling downward, scouring the land as it went; the roar of an enormous, unquenchable waterfall; the roar of a cyclonic storm, full of thunder and tearing wind, barrelling down upon an unsuspecting city on a plain.

‘What is this fool up to?’ Hasturath muttered to himself, not liking the sound of that elemental snarl one bit. He stood, still and silent, eyes fixed upon his master far below.

The roar sounded again, closer this time. The cavern shook, mounds of gold and silver coins shifting in answer. At the edge of the five platforms, amid a roiling bank of ghost-lit fog, Hasturath thought he saw a large, dark shape rising out of an unseen abyss. As the shadow grew and shifted, the light in the fog changed, going from a cool, dim white to a glaring, firelit orange. An instant later, a plume of pressurised black smoke blasted upward out of the fog and Hasturath thought he saw the movement of enormous limbs and muscles in the smoke and fog, felt the whole cavern vibrating beneath and around him with the heavy footfalls of some newly arrived yet still-obscured monster out of myth.

Ruhlgurrad saw it as well. He was already barking orders at the soldiers nearby.

‘You lot,’ he snarled at a knot of Acolytes on his right, ‘take the fore! Make your stand on that far platform!

‘You!’ he then shouted to a small troupe of miasmatic Horrors all but cowering in his vast, daemonic shadow. ‘Place yourselves over there, on the platform ahead, behind those fallen pillars! I’ll draw the beast in and distract it – you be ready to strike it from behind!’

Hasturath decided that he needed more information. He used a hasty telepath’s spell to speak directly into his master’s mind.

What do you require, dread lord? Command me.

Keep the others back until I call for aid, Ruhlgurrad answered. I may need reserves.

For a moment, peering into Ruhlgurrad’s mind, Hasturath was aware of the storm of emotions now assailing his master: eagerness, belligerence, pride, bloodlust. Whatever Hasturath had believed about Ruhlgurrad’s intentions or desires, he could now feel that they were nothing if not earnest.

Ruhlgurrad was about to make a daring stand against a terrible foe – and he possessed a vague, unmistakable awareness of the possibility of his own destruction.

Sensing that fact, Hasturath yanked his own intellect out of his master’s mind. This may be your chance, at last, he thought, and settled in to watch the spectacle about to unfold.

Another roar sounded out of the deep, and a great deific shape rose from the roiling fog and swirling black smoke – a hulking, bestial form of enormous size and power. Hasturath, espying the thing, suddenly felt very weak and very small.

It rose swiftly, like a sea whale breaching oceanic waters, then came crashing down upon the treasure trove floor, the whole cavern shaking beneath its titanic mass. Still-standing pillars toppled in answer to its arrival. Great swales of coin and gems swept downward in unexpected avalanches. Several of Ruhlgurrad’s soldiers below were knocked off their feet by falling mounds, or were tossed by the tremors of the cavern beneath them.

Ruhlgurrad, however, stood at the ready. He adopted a battle stance and spread his powerful wings, like a dragon preparing for a duel with one of its scaly brethren. As the beast towering above him roared and shook the earth, Ruhlgurrad, daemon prince and Disciple of Tzeentch, roared in answer.

Hasturath could barely believe his eyes. The guardian was a thing of sublime terror and beautiful ruin: a godbeast nearly the size of a castle keep, its low, narrow head crowned by enormous, curling horns while two vicious, side-by-side spikes rose from its snout. Though its bulky, muscular frame made Hasturath think of something large and shaggy, like an auroch, its hide was covered by leathery scales, each scale as large as a Stormcast’s shield. A long line of irregular, blade-edged plates rose along its spine, all the way down the length of its fat, switching tail – a tail tipped with a configuration of naturally shaped spikes and clubs as deadly as any weapon forged in a duardin smithy. Though Hasturath saw it from a great distance, the godbeast filled the far corner of the cavern like the forward ranks of an amassing army. It was many things and nothing at once – a slithering dragon, a knuckle-dragging ogor, a stamping auroch, a charging rhinosaur, embodying and suggesting the nightmare forms of half a dozen different fearsome beasts while being entirely none of them. Its thick, spike-capped tail sliced the air and stirred the rising smoke and fog, and its eyes – each orb as large as the wheel of a war chariot – glowed from their depths with a malign energy as frightening and fearsome as Ruhlgurrad’s own.

In truth, Hasturath thought the abominable godbeast a thing of true, sublime beauty: a nightmare incarnate; the carnivorous, spiteful rage and animal savagery of an entire realm manifested in titanic physical form.

Then, the godbeast opened its gigantic maw and roared again. Hasturath had to clamp his talons over his earholes, the sound was so deafening, so damaging.

Standing beneath the godbeast, Ruhlgurrad raised his axe.

‘Come then!’ he cried, his voice swallowed in the godbeast’s roar. ‘Come and face me!’

The godbeast and the daemon prince engaged, their initial impact cracking the cavern roof above them.

From his high, distant vantage, Hasturath watched, alternately cheering on his master’s bravado and praying for his inevitable doom.

CHAPTER NINE

The element of surprise was spent the moment the first aetheric bolts loosed by the Tempest Lords Castigators blew the far-stationed sentries guarding the approach to the shallow vale off their feet. What the Stormcasts lacked in subtlety, however, they made up for in coordination: their scouts had located five guard stations spaced at intervals around the enemy camp. All were obliterated in perfect concert.

The enemy instantly knew they were no longer alone, but they were also helpless to stand against the incursion launched against them.

Thelana and Nerontes rode borrowed steeds in the vanguard, among a wing of Lumineth Dawnriders that thrust, swift and sharp, into the mouth of the little valley. At the fore of the wedge formation rode Kitaria Swordwind, lord regent of the cavalry, her shining blade levelled straight and true before her as she spurred her feline lightcourser onwards, into the very heart of the enemy camp. Between the discovery of the clues as to the Stormvault’s location and the hasty assemblage of an expeditionary force, there had been little time to plan. They had only learned what enemies they’d face as they’d drawn nearer to their destination and seen the aftermath of the Tzeentchian warhost’s march across the desert. Now, if they hoped to keep the leader of the expedition from claiming whatever prize they had come to unearth, they would have to drive fast and hard towards the Stormvault entrance, and leave surprise and subtlety for another day.

Thundering behind the Dawnriders, on the wings of their tight formation, were two small retinues of Stormcast Evocators, their Celestial Dracolines roaring eagerly as they bounded headlong into bloody combat. The hulking Evocators sat atop their mounts, straight-backed, lifting their shining stormstaves to call down Sigmar’s wrath from the heavens above. As the cavalry raced into the enemy camp, their onslaught too swift to be countered by an organised defence, great thunderheads roiled and formed in the light-rippling sky above, skeins of crackling, sun-bright lightning stabbing down to be focused and cast out with destructive force against the riders’ unprepared foes.

Thelana unleashed arcane bolts from her wizard’s staff as they flew through the camp, blasting capering Horrors and charging Acolytes to dust while Nerontes cast massive, destructive fireballs from his bare hands to drive back the enemy hordes that tried to encircle them. Thelana knew their goal was not simple destruction: they were embedded with the first wave so that they could locate the entrance to the Stormvault and rush in to do battle with the daemon prince that led this mad band of magicians and miscreants.

Assuming they survived this first, mad dash through the camp.

Great winged daemons known as Screamers had been summoned by the tumult and came diving down out of the sky, snatching unready Dawnriders and Stormcasts from their mounts in their toothy, gaping maws. Most of those the Screamers engaged survived the initial impact and gave as good as they were given, but already, Thelana saw the telltale lightning storms that crashed down out of the heavens when a Stormcast was slain in battle, snatching the dead soldier’s body and soul back to Azyr for Reforging on the Anvil of Apotheosis. They had yet to even dismount and reach their ultimate goal, and already their numbers were reduced.

No matter. If their suspicions about this Stormvault and its contents proved true, more terrible outcomes could be imagined than a few dead Stormcasts or Lumineth. The safety of Hysh itself hung in the balance.

Something swift and shining closed from Thelana’s right: a capering Pink Horror, its foul, toothy mouth agape, its strange asymmetrical form seeming to flow and change even as it charged. Thelana tried to redirect her mount and blast the foul creature with her staff, but she saw it too late and its advance was too blindingly quick. The Horror slammed into her mount, its foul, grasping tentacles enfolding her screaming steed, and the horse rose and bucked, trying to wheel its hooves to beat off its attacker. Thelana was thrown free and hit the ground with terrific force.

It was a minor miracle that the Dawnriders thundering along just beside and behind her managed to avoid trampling her where she landed. Once the world around her was no longer a storm of pounding hooves and swirling dust, Thelana reeled to her feet and sought her mount.

The horse had fallen, the Pink Horror now atop the screaming animal, tearing into its flesh with its horrid, needle-like teeth, laughing maniacally as it fed upon the horse’s terror and panic.

Thelana blasted the foul thing, its pink protoplasmic form bursting into a storm of burnt gobbets and embers that scattered on the wind tearing through the valley. The wounded horse, however, could not be saved. Saddened, Thelana placed a soporific spell upon the beast, to ease its suffering and allow its quiet expiration. Then, knowing she could not spend much time in grief, Thelana gathered herself. Already, new enemies charged in from all sides – a brace of Kairic Acolytes from ahead of her, a sullen Blue Horror trying to quietly slip in behind her. In the wake of the charging cavalry, Thelana saw Stormcast Sequitors and Auralan Wardens already wading in to engage the Chaos forces with stormsmite mauls and lowered pikes, while the cavalry continued to drive hard towards the centre of the camp and, likewise, circle at the periphery of the battle to keep their enemies from escaping. If she was going to do what she came here to do, she’d have to hurry.

On she went through the chaos, using arcane blasts of energy from her staff to obliterate all enemies who charged or challenged her, casting offensive spells further afield when she saw riders before her or infantry behind in need of support. She knocked two diving Screamers out of the sky and blasted several Horrors to embers and protoplasm before once again locating Nerontes – still fighting from horseback – among the fray.

‘There you are!’ he shouted down, casually unleashing a scintillating fireball towards an onrushing Kairic Magister who was blown from atop his daemonic flying disc. ‘I thought I’d lost you!’

‘Took the scenic route,’ Thelana said, before sending an earth-born shockwave towards a Tzaangor shaman preparing to cast offensive spells against a circling Dawnrider. ‘Do we know where the entrance is?’

Nerontes indicated a blasted ruin just across a long dried-up riverbed.

‘There! Beneath the old foundations!’

Thelana nodded and led the way. Nerontes dutifully leapt out of his saddle and fell in behind her. As they went, Thelana called out to those among the Dawnriders chosen to accompany them in their descent. Little by little, as she and Nerontes picked a semi-direct path through the ancient ruins towards the now-visible entrance to the Stormvault, they gathered allies – an Auralan Sentinel, three pike-wielding Wardens, a quartet of Stormcast Evocators.

Together they pressed on, using every weapon and stratagem at their disposal to clear their path. Thelana knew that if they could not reach the Stormvault in time, no victory won here, on the surface, would even matter.

Throughout his master’s ill-advised duel with the godbeast guarding the repository, Hasturath had asked himself again and again why he remained, why he did not run, why he did not seek safety and escape. In truth, he’d begun to despair of ever leaving the Stormvault alive.

He was no coward. He had proven, more than once, his courage and conviction, standing with allies and rivals alike against impossible odds to win a dicey battle or close a long, difficult campaign in Tzeentch’s name. But he hated the thought of dying for anything so base as Ruhlgurrad’s vanity, or for a legendary treasure that might not even exist.

Down below, a small knot of scampering Pink Horrors fled before the might of the godbeast, screaming as they went. A Kairic Acolyte tried to clear the godbeast’s oncoming path, but failed and was crushed beneath the creature’s enormous foot. The beast itself barely noticed the fleeing Horrors or the crushed Acolyte; it was too busy trying to shake Ruhlgurrad off its broad, hunched back. The daemon prince, Hasturath saw clearly, still chopped away with his fiery axe, tearing off scale after scale from the titan, hacking through the thick pachydermal hide beneath, bathed in the godbeast’s bright orange blood and, apparently, revelling in it.

He’s gone mad, Hasturath thought from his vantage on the ledge above the treasure chamber. Stark raving mad. I shall have to beg the Changer of Ways to retire him!

‘Lord Hasturath,’ one of the Tzaangors on the ledge cried out, rushing nearer. ‘What do you command? The forces called down by our master grow thin! That beast has nearly slaughtered them all…’

Hasturath studied Ruhlgurrad, atop the godbeast, hacking away and cheering mightily. Not all, he thought.

‘Should we descend, to support–’

‘No,’ Hasturath said.

The Tzaangor stared. ‘No?’

Hasturath turned on his subordinate. ‘What did I say? The master has not made me privy to his plan – not in its entirety. If he needs support, he’ll call for it. I suspect he made a strategic sacrifice with the forces already lost.’ His eyes swept over the dozens of daemons, Tzaangors and Acolytes already lying dead and broken across the span of the treasure trove’s floor. ‘We must wait here dutifully, until he orders us into the fray. He may yet have some use for us.’

Or, he thought, we may yet be able to slip away, if that beast will just strike the master dead and free us all from our vows of obedience.

Suddenly, below them, the beast changed direction, charging right towards the outer wall of the cavern. The wall of the cavern that formed the shelves of stone that Hasturath and his soldiers now stood upon.

Hasturath supposed that the creature’s impact might not bring the whole, rocky wall crashing down – but it would certainly send some mighty shudders through its superstructure.

‘Brace yourselves!’ he shouted, and threw himself flat on the little promontory that he’d adopted as his command post.

The godbeast hit the ledge far below, head-on. The impact shook everything beneath and around them. Hasturath was thrown bodily into the air and came crashing down on a nearby rockfall. The scree upon which he landed shifted and slid beneath him, and he panicked, imagining the whole high wall of scree suddenly breaking free and sliding down to entomb him and his erstwhile companion. But thankfully the rock pile held and he was able to climb back up onto the ledge again.

Just as they reached the top of the hill of debris and scrambled over the boulders at its head to re-establish themselves on the higher ledge, the godbeast leant back, then lunged again, once more crashing its great head into the broader ledge below. The spot where Hasturath had been standing mere moments before crumbled and fell away, pulverised.

From his new, higher vantage, Hasturath had a better view. Ruhlgurrad stood tall atop the godbeast, tearing at the plates running vertically along its back, setting flames into each wound as the fiery axe rose and fell, stomping with his great cloven hooves and even, at intervals, whipping the talons at the tips of his mighty blue wings back and forth to scrape and wound the thing. As Ruhlgurrad tore and struck and slashed, the godbeast shuddered and shook and whipped its great head back and forth. That, apparently, was what had driven it headlong into the cavern wall: the madness of the pain it now felt, its inability to see and face its adversary, its fury and despair at being wounded, being slashed and torn… at feeling helpless.

That’s when Hasturath realised that Ruhlgurrad had truly, literally, made a breakthrough. As the godbeast roared and thrashed, beating its horned head against the rocky wall of the cavern again and again, his daemonic sovereign tore deeper and deeper into its flesh, now uncovering what looked like a small, dark cavity – a hole like a burrow in a hill. Blood poured out of the ragged wound, and the flesh around it was torn and uneven, but the implication was clear.

Ruhlgurrad had penetrated the godbeast’s hide. Could it be that such a penetration was the ultimate answer to the question of how to kill the thing?

Ruhlgurrad suddenly leapt up from his perch on the godbeast’s back, his wings beating hard to lift him higher, higher into the air. As Hasturath and his Tzaangor captain watched their lord and commander, Ruhlgurrad rose higher still while the great godbeast beneath him thrashed and slammed its head into the cavern wall repeatedly, convulsing in pain and frustration.

Then, Ruhlgurrad dived. Like a striking eagle, he let gravity take him, let his head fall downward and his cloven hooves rise upward, folded his wings close against his body. He dived, fast and true, and he disappeared, in an instant, into the open wound on the godbeast’s back.

‘Impossible,’ the Tzaangor croaked in disbelief.

Hasturath had no words. Foolish? Yes. Impossible? Clearly not…

Moments later, the godbeast once more began to thrash and shudder. It hastily backed away from the cavern wall and began circling, circling on the open, treasure-littered floor of the cavern. Its great tail pulverised still-standing pillars, its great feet crushed the fallen ancient statues, and obelisks were ground to dust as its enormous bulk heaved back and forth, stumbling to one side, rushing to another. Hasturath even thought he saw something like panic in its one remaining enormous eye. The sounds it made were like the earth tearing itself asunder; like mountains split by lightning strikes; trees cracked and exploded by the warring heavens; continental plates rending, their ragged, rocky edges scraping together in tormented agony.

The godbeast was clearly in distress. Could it be? Could Ruhlgurrad really be tearing it apart – ending it, from the inside out?

The godbeast spun, its great tail whipping in a wide arc and crushing a small force of Tzaangors down on the cavern floor. The beast stomped and reeled sideways, collapsing yet another of the great pillars that supported the cavern roof, and Hasturath wondered idly how many of the pillars – half of them already crumbled or toppled – could fall before the roof of the cavern might come crashing down. As whorls of dust and enormous fragments of broken stone choked the treasure trove and came to rest, the godbeast continued to spin and lurch about. At one point, its left front foot suddenly crashed through the floor, probably into a concealed lower chamber whose ceiling could no longer support its weight. The beast’s sudden loss of mobility made it even more furious. As it thrashed and struggled to extract its stuck foot, more of Ruhlgurrad’s still-living servants down below met their ends, casualties of that enormous whipping tail, those stomping feet, its rocking, struggling bulk.

‘Lord Hasturath,’ the Tzaangor at his side asked, ‘what do we do?’

‘We wait,’ Hasturath snarled. ‘We watch!’

He waited. He watched.

The beast was slowing now, as though it were some clanking duardin engine losing its head of steam. Its struggles, still sudden and panicky, were losing their ferocity and intensity. It could not extricate its foot from the well it had fallen into. It had begun to cough up great burbling gouts of blood as well, with each roar and scream. At intervals, as if in answer to inward stabs of pain, moments of horrid, unimaginable agony, the godbeast would suddenly spasm, or shudder, or thrash. Little by little its roars of fury became pathetic, softening groans of slow, painful death.

Hasturath forced himself to step out from behind the screen of boulders he hid behind. He mounted the screen, then began a slow, tentative climb down the face of the rockfall, back towards the broken ledge below. Above, the Tzaangor who had joined him clambered over the rocks and also began a descent in his wake.

The other survivors – barely a dozen in total having survived the godbeast’s attacks – were all coming out of their retreats and hideaways, watching as the titanic thing that guarded the old repository slowly, visibly, lost its hold on life. Its groans were like a slow, insistent wind through a canyon. Moving a little closer on the ledge, for a more direct vantage, Hasturath saw that blood now poured out from beneath half a dozen of the creature’s enormous scales on its right flank, as though it had been wounded mortally from beneath its own hide.

Then, with a final, deific rattle, the godbeast’s great head collapsed, a last gout of blood poured from its open maw, and the thing lay still: thankfully, finally, dead.

Hasturath blinked. His tongue clicked wonderingly behind his beak. His open hands constricted into fists.

Silence reigned.

‘My lord,’ the Tzaangor at his elbow asked, voice barely above a whisper, ‘what of our lord Ruhlgurrad?’

Hasturath was about to answer when he suddenly saw something long and sharp come jetting out from beneath the godbeast’s thick, scaled hide. Every Tzaangor, daemon and Acolyte down on the treasure trove floor leapt backward when the strange, hitherto-unseen blade appeared – an axe-blade, wreathed in guttering flame.

The axe blade thrust outward, shook and quivered from side to side; then, with a great rending force behind it, the blade was withdrawn and slashed forth again, slicing right through the godbeast’s hide, opening a wound in its flank that was nearly as tall as two mortal men, if one stood on the shoulders of the other. A fresh wave of thick, orange-red blood and viscera poured from the enormous gash, and the edges of the wound fanned outward as a new form presented itself.

It was Ruhlgurrad. The daemon prince was covered, from the tips of his fearsome horns to the soles of his cloven hooves, in the gore of his now-dead adversary, but his eyes glowed with a malign, bewitching light, and despite his low state, he strode forth from the godbeast’s gut like a conquering hero swaggering off the battlefield.

Hanging at his side, in one large, taloned hand, was his familiar flaming axe. Gripped in the other hand, resting casually on his shoulder like a pilgrim’s walking stick, was a long and wondrous staff that Hasturath had never seen before.

Ruhlgurrad found the nearest elevated vantage – a sort of hillock in the cavern floor that rose a short distance above everything strewn around it. As his soldiers and servants slowly, guardedly approached, staring at their blood-caked master and commander, he mounted that hillock, tossed away his flaming axe – which disappeared in a gout of smoke, back into the nether-realm that he stored it in – and raised the great wizard’s staff in both of his gnarled, clawed hands.

‘Behold!’ he roared, burning gaze sweeping over all present, exultant, omnipotent, ‘Balestorm!’

As the staff rose in his grip, it seemed to awaken. Before Hasturath’s amazed eyes, lightning suddenly descended in rippling, crackling skeins from all corners of the Stormvault – from the walls, from the ceiling, from the floor – every dog-legged branch flashing and crackling and drawn to the great gem at the head of the staff in his master’s hands. The lightning bolts were so numerous, so loud, so bright that Hasturath found himself shrinking from them, as though a stray might suddenly rip his way and strike him dead. The others cowered as well, some covering their eyes, a few falling on their knees, a great many simply frozen in place, unsure of the full weight and import of what they now witnessed.

With the same suddenness with which it had begun, the lightstorm ended. Ruhlgurrad lowered the staff, bright eyes staring lovingly into the depths of the crystal at its head, that same crystal still flashing and scintillating with the latent energies just absorbed from the Stormvault around it.

Hasturath was just about to break from where he stood, to seek an easy path down to the cavern floor, when he suddenly realised they were not alone.

Far to his left, knotted near the narrow passageway and winding stairs that had allowed them access to this place, he saw strangers: a Lumineth witch in white, a handsome-faced human wizard at her elbow, with still more armed Lumineth and hulking Stormcasts crowding in behind them. The mingled look of wonder and determination that he saw on the faces of the two newcomers in the fore – the Lumineth female and the human male – told him they’d borne witness to Ruhlgurrad’s spectacle, as well.

His fellow Tzeentchians stood stock-still, frozen with shock and surprise, having just noted the new arrivals, still not sure what to do about them.

‘Don’t just stand there gaping!’ Hasturath shouted. ‘Attack!’

Thelana reeled.

The Stormvault was large, but not the largest she’d ever seen or heard report of. The place was in a ruinous state, many of its tall pillars having already collapsed in times long before this day had ever dawned, while a great glut of dust and fresh debris suggested a titanic battle had been underway before they arrived. There were more members of the Chaos army from the surface – a mixed force of lesser daemons, Tzaangor mercenaries and magicians, and mad-eyed or half-mutated Kairic Acolytes, all, no doubt, bucking for promotions and an unholy transformation to better serve their foul superiors. Many of them lay dead or dying already, strewn about like cast-off children’s toys, but at least a dozen remained, weapons still in hand, affrighted but still lethal.

What most amazed Thelana, however, was the spectacle underway when she and Nerontes burst out of the stair passage onto the ledge above the cavern floor. A large, winged daemon – the commander of the Tzeentchian army, no doubt – stood below them on a low hillock of coins and treasures, bearing in his hands a long, glowing wizard’s staff. At the moment of their entry, the staff was ablaze with light and energy, a vast, coruscating webwork of lightning striking from every corner of the vast cavern, all its energies converging on the gem at the staff’s head. As they watched, the daemon prince roared with ecstasy as the sorcery of the Stormvault poured into the staff. The spectacle was so bright, so loud, so impossible to ignore that Thelana barely noticed the corpse of a godbeast lying beneath the daemon prince until the lightning storm subsided. There it lay, its sprawling form covering a space sufficient to host a small village, lifeless and unmoving.

They were too late. The daemon prince had claimed his prize.

It was one of his Tzaangor sorcerers, further along on the ledge, who first noted Thelana and her comrades crowding into a small area just this side of the entryway.

‘Don’t just stand there gaping!’ the avian fiend snarled. ‘Attack!’

Every daemon, Acolyte and Tzaangor remaining charged towards them.

Behind Thelana, their armed companions – Lumineth and Stormcasts – surged around her and Nerontes and rattled to meet the oncoming horde.

‘For Teclis and the Light of Eltharion!’ the Auralan cried, raising their pikes as they advanced.

‘For Sigmar! For the light!’ the Stormcasts roared, their stormsmite mauls crackling with the power of the tempest.

The fight was joined. Mauls met scythes and spears; magical energies loosed from aetherquartz talismans engulfed hurled curses and weaponised enchantments. A Stormcast crushed a scintillating Horror with a single blow, only to find that his quarry quickly divided into two separate creatures, which turned and attacked. A Kairic Acolyte screamed as a sigmarite warblade cleft him in twain through the middle.

‘What is it?’ Nerontes asked, eyes fixed upon the daemon prince below and the long staff he brandished.

‘That’s his prize,’ Thelana posited. ‘Clearly, an object of immense power or he wouldn’t have gone to this much trouble to claim it.’

‘Then we have to stop him,’ Nerontes said, and charged towards the edge of the ledge.

‘Nerontes, stop!’ Thelana shouted, but she knew it was already too late. The bold young wizard leapt from the precipice, accepting empty air as though he were stepping over a gap in flagstone paving. The moment he was out in the air, a field of bright, shimmering light surrounded him, and he guided his arc downward, as sure as a bird coming in for a graceful landing.

Thelana stood at the very lip of the ledge, covering Nerontes’ descent. She swept her own staff back and forth, firing small, concentrated globes of pure Hyshian energy down at the foes below, blasting two Tzaangors off their feet and vaporising a prancing Horror. Several of her other energy bolts slammed into the treasure trove floor, missing targets entirely but causing a great deal of confusion as their impact sprayed gold coins, fragments of blasted treasures and splintered rock every which way.

While their enemies sought cover below, Thelana launched herself from the ledge and followed Nerontes into the fray.

She hit the floor of the cavern hard, legs buckling beneath her. Already she saw Nerontes weaving in among a storm of onrushing enemies. Thelana was ready to loose fantastic bolts of energy to help clear his path: an Ogroid Thaumaturge and Tzaangor shaman were both closing from behind Nerontes, while he was busy attending to the flaming Horrors directly before him.

But just as Thelana was about to cast, a new trio of screaming Horrors – beasts seemingly forged of pink and blue fire – charged from behind a fallen pillar. Thelana cast sizzling bolts of energy at each of the onrushing daemons. The first was vaporised; the second took the energy bolt and fell backward, but almost immediately stumbled about, trying to clear its addled head; the third, to her great consternation, was torn in two by the bolt – leaving two separate Horrors now still charging towards her.

Not the outcome she’d hoped for.

She heard heavy feet on the storm of coins scattered on all sides of her. Thelana spun round, daring the briefest of glances to better understand what approached.

It was the Ogroid Thaumaturge, the same hulking beast that had been stomping towards Nerontes moments ago. Already the great brute was chanting in its foul, guttural language, great blooms of wyrdfire swirling round its enormous hands.

Thelana had only seconds before the monster’s foul magic was loosed upon her.

She planted the ferrule of her staff. Almost as soon as she’d spoken the words of a shield spell, the Ogroid loosed a withering storm of wyrdfire that crackled around her. She heard the screams of the remaining Horrors as the Ogroid’s magical fire was directed away from her to consume them, changing them with agonising swiftness into swirling clouds of sulphuric smoke.

The moment its wyrdfire cleared, the Ogroid saw Thelana still standing there, untouched by its horrifying ministrations. Its large, dull eyes widened. It simply did not understand what had gone wrong.

Thelana spat a new spell. In an instant, the coins beneath the thaumaturge began to glow: first bright yellow, then red, then white. The Ogroid’s huge feet sizzled and smoked. The beast tried to step away, to move, but it was too late: already the rock and coins beneath it had grown molten and liquefied, and it was sinking into them, flesh burning as the molten floor swallowed it. The Ogroid thrashed and screamed, its vain struggles making it sink faster into the molten fire. As it sank, it burned.

With the smell of the thaumaturge’s burning flesh in her nostrils and its dying screams in her ears, Thelana charged on.

The daemon prince stood on a low rise beneath a stair-stepped pyramidal platform, the strange magical staff in one great talon, the other casting sphere after sphere of scintillating wyrdfire towards Nerontes. The human mage dived and pivoted gracefully, like a master swordsman against a lithe opponent, always seeking cover when it presented itself, then pressing on, closer and closer to his quarry. Once or twice, Thelana saw Nerontes throw up magical shields to deflect the daemon prince’s attacks, but the daemon would not relent; he roared and cackled, conjuring fireball after fireball, hurling them down from his high perch, snarling and taunting his adversary as the wizard slowly, painfully wended a dog-legged path towards him.

‘You think you can stop me now?’ the daemon snarled. ‘Me? Slayer of a godbeast? The master of Balestorm? You fool! I am Ruhlgurrad, Chosen and Favoured of the Changer of Ways! The mightiest daemon lord in all the Scintillating Hosts! Stand still, now! Let me show you what change can bring to you! Let the wyrdfire touch you and see how Tzeentch can transform you and your world for the better!’

A ball of wyrdfire missed Nerontes and slammed hard into an unwary Tzaangor who tried to waylay him. The beaked beastman screamed under the ministrations of its master’s foul magic. As Nerontes dived for cover again and Thelana ran swiftly across the cavern floor to his aid, she saw the struck Tzaangor fall to its knees, wracked by a horrid transformation that caused its beak to separate and droop into a mass of dangling tentacles, its arms and legs to lose their bone structure and fold beneath it, going soft and slithering about like thick, warted snakes.

As Nerontes sheltered beneath a toppled pillar, waiting for a break in Ruhlgurrad’s attacks to once more charge, a Kairic Acolyte crept nearer, unseen, sword at the ready.

Thelana prepared an arcane bolt, but one of Ruhlgurrad’s shrieking wrydfire spheres crashed down upon the Acolyte as he stepped into the open. He fell, twisting and crying as the baleful spell left him quivering, bleeding, gurgling – barely alive, let alone human.

Thelana then heard a loud shriek from above. A lamprey-mouthed Screamer came diving down from the cavern’s heights towards her. She hurled a magical lightning bolt at the beast and it vaporised in the air, showering her with ash. Enemies closed from all sides, moment by moment. A Tzaangor shaman who engaged her in a brief contest of spells, ending with its being blinded by a flash of light and made vulnerable so that she could run it through with the sword she carried. A handful of human Arcanites attempting to overtake her from behind, one sent rocketing towards the ceiling of the cavern, where the upward impact crushed him, the other turned into a statue made of ice. Any who made it past the ideal distance for a magical defence were struck down or skewered by her blade.

Thelana took no pleasure in taking life, but she’d do what was necessary to see the end of this day – and to keep Nerontes from getting killed by his own, youthful hubris.

For a moment, she lost sight of her companion entirely, but then she saw Ruhlgurrad, still standing atop his tiny hill of treasures and fallen stone, cursing and hurling down storms of wyrdfire. The spaces that Ruhlgurrad attacked were where she would find her companion.

Just as Thelana rounded yet another long-fallen pillar, leaping over its horizontal bulk and sliding down the far side, she saw Nerontes suddenly dart from his hiding place and charge towards Ruhlgurrad. There was almost no distance between them now, and certainly no cover: the mage advanced towards his adversary head-on, the air before him rippling and scintillating with the suggestion of new attack spells.

Ruhlgurrad saw Nerontes closing.

‘Enough,’ he snarled atop the little hill. ‘I had thought to save the power of my new trinket for a more worthy opponent, but you leave me no choice.’

Both of his great taloned hands gripped the wizard’s staff he held, and he lowered the head towards Nerontes, like a gunner about to fire his arquebus from the hip.

‘Witness the power at my command,’ Ruhlgurrad growled, ‘and despair!’

The gemstone at the head of the staff glowed, pulsed, bled skeins of wild energy and shone brilliantly in the half-dark of the enormous cavern.

Nerontes kept charging, hands before him, seemingly raising some sort of shield to deflect whatever Ruhlgurrad was about to loose. Thelana summoned a shield of her own, a shield she could project outward, to fortify Nerontes’ own – though she was not sure she was close enough for it to work.

Ruhlgurrad shouted. The staff’s gemstone exploded with light, sending out waves of lightning and pure, rippling energy, and then–

Then… nothing. It did nothing. Nerontes was still charging. Ruhlgurrad still stood upon his little mound, staff levelled, staring, as if awaiting a boon that would not come.

Thelana blinked, thoroughly confused. What had happened? Could a wizard’s staff misfire? Was his own magic spent? The staff had thrown out a gout of light and energy – but nothing had occurred. It was like a musket roaring with the explosion of black powder, but without any round in its barrel.

Ruhlgurrad, she saw, was horrified, confused. He raised the staff and stared at it.

‘No,’ he roared. ‘Impossible!’ He shook the thing, as though it were a machine that he could coax into operation. His taloned hands tightened on its shaft. His fanged mouth twisted into a furious snarl.

Nerontes bounded up the little slope of the rise, his human-sized form barely half the size of the towering daemon prince. He still held up his magical shield before him, ready to deflect fireballs or energy bolts yet to come. Ruhlgurrad was too busy staring at his malfunctioning prize, too busy stomping and snarling in frustrated fury, to even notice Nerontes’ presence.

‘Lies!’ the daemon prince wailed. ‘Fictions!’

Thelana saw that Nerontes was upon the daemon prince now… lowering his shield, reaching out. What was he doing? Did he think he could just snatch that staff from the daemon’s hands?

Thelana summoned speed – a great wind to launch her forward. She rocketed towards her comrade, terrified for what was about to happen to him.

‘Nerontes, no!’ she screamed.

But Nerontes could not hear her. He reached out, both hands falling upon the staff in the daemon prince’s enormous fist, and – seemingly oblivious to the size and strength of the adversary he faced – held the staff tight and tried to yank it out of the daemon’s grip.

Ruhlgurrad’s eyes came alight with a terrible fire.

‘You dare?’ he growled, and yanked back on the wizard’s staff.

Thelana was in the air, arcing swiftly towards the low rise ahead, towards Nerontes and Ruhlgurrad, towards that strange, powerless prize that the daemon prince had worked so hard to claim. In one more second – perhaps two – her spell would set her down hard on the low brow of the little hill, just below her old friend and their common enemy.

But as she sped nearer, she saw something strange happening.

Nerontes’ own eyes now glowed with a baleful light. Concurrently, waves of magical energy, aetheric smoke redolent of the aelemental forces that bound and constituted the Mortal Realms, rippled and wafted off him. The capstone gem of the wizard’s staff, meanwhile, glowed brighter and brighter by the second.

‘No!’ Ruhlgurrad shouted. ‘Impossible!’

Nerontes opened his mouth. Thelana expected a quip, perhaps a challenge. Instead, she only heard a scream – a scream of fury, agony, desperation, desolation. Titanic energies seemed to flow out of the staff and into Nerontes, then back out of Nerontes into the staff.

And Thelana was rushing towards it.

Then, all became bright. There was a horrific flash, forcing Thelana to close her eyes and dare a blind landing. She was slammed by great waves of outrushing energy, scintillating heat, pure kinetic force. Something exploded, and her forward motion suddenly reversed.

Thelana hit the floor of the cavern with stunning force. She tried to shake off the impact quickly, to rise and see what had occurred, but it was to no avail. She was stunned, confused, damaged.

When at last she managed to open her eyes, the blinding white light was gone. She swung her gaze back and forth, seeking to orient herself. Where was Nerontes? Were enemies closing? Had Ruhlgurrad managed to get that staff to do his bidding? She found the low hill that the daemon prince had occupied.

Ruhlgurrad was gone: completely, utterly destroyed.

Nerontes Fane stood. Smoke rose from his body, as though he’d just passed through a wall of hungry flame – though no part of him appeared to be damaged or injured.

The staff called Balestorm was gripped in his shaking hands.

CHAPTER TEN

Thelana thought it a supreme irony when, after a tiring mop-up at the Stormvault and a long, arduous march back to Settler’s Gain – always awaiting an ambush or counter-attack that never materialised – she once more found herself in the Eyrie. The questions that had first landed her in this place might be laid to rest, but now, new questions – more baffling questions – lay before them.

Unfortunately, the absence of answers to those questions did nothing to quell the endless debate that attended their return. The wizard’s staff, Balestorm, lay cold and unmoving on the great table, while those present endlessly disputed where the weapon should repose and who should have control of it.

‘It belongs here, at this university, among the Lumineth,’ Regent Dakhir insisted. ‘Our spellwrights, archaeologists and enchanters can penetrate its secrets more readily than any body of scholars in all the Mortal Realms.’

‘It belongs in Azyr,’ Lord-Exorcist Malkeus countered, ‘under the watchful eye of Sigmar’s most loyal and trustworthy servants. Whatever it is, whatever it does – or can do – Ruhlgurrad risked a great deal to locate its resting place and destroy its guardian! It cannot be allowed to simply rest here among your storehouses full of forgotten artefacts.’

‘If it was desired by a daemon prince, we have no business toying with it,’ Inquisitor Sembaris interjected at one point. He eyed the staff as though it were a coiled snake. ‘I say we lock it in a warded vault and continue these debates out of its presence, and its hearing.’

That objection had actually raised a response from Lord-Arcanum Petreus.

‘Out of its hearing?’ he repeated. ‘You believe it’s alive?’

Sembaris shrugged. ‘We all know that objects, as well as people, can have souls… and evil intent. It should not even be here, among us…’

Thelana studied the staff while these arguments raged. It was handsome, if unremarkable: a tall, strong stave of polished material that no one had yet managed to identify, possessing the coldness of metal, the weight and heft of dense wood, and the strange, smooth-rough surface of polished bone. A brief, two-line inscription spiralled at a canted angle around the shaft’s centre-point, engraved in an alphabet and language that no one had yet identified either. Save for the sunsteel ferrule upon the butt of the staff and the milky-white gem that capped it, the object seemed to have no other distinctive markings or indicators of its origins.

Thelana wanted to be left alone with the staff in a quiet room for a day or two – perhaps a special, walled-off chamber in the library. With sufficient time, ample solitude and access to research materials, she knew she could tease out its secrets.

From time to time, she turned away from the staff, away from the debates underway, to study Nerontes, who sat apart from the rest. He’d been examined three times now – first by Thelana, shortly after their victory at the Stormvault; again before their homeward journey, that time by a Stormcast Knight-Incantor; and finally, by the Lyceum Fundamental’s senior Lumineth healer and physician, Verlinger, upon their return. Verlinger pronounced Nerontes in excellent health, exhibiting no more than a few scrapes and bruises. That had been Thelana’s own diagnosis in the field, but, knowing Nerontes, she’d found her old student-cum-comrade strangely withdrawn and quiet. Not sullen, precisely, but in a strange, low-key state of shock, like a young soldier after his first experience in bloody combat: quiet, taciturn, simply… off.

Even now, he seemed bizarrely indifferent to the arguments raging around him, slumped in a chair, staring contemplatively into the middle distance, no amount of noise or bustle seeming to have any effect on his concentration.

If their battle with the Chaos forces the previous day had been one of Nerontes’ first, Thelana might have expected such a response from him, but nothing could be further from the truth. Nerontes Fane had served the Collegiate Arcane for over a decade, and fought both alone and by Thelana’s side on numerous occasions. He’d seen any number of frightening, shocking, terror-inducing sights in his years of service, braved death a hundred times. Thus, Thelana could not accept that Nerontes was simply in shock or suffering some form of post-combat trauma; whatever his distemper, it had to be something else, something more personal and profound.

She had every intention of asking him, when they were alone. Unfortunately, such an opportunity had not presented itself.

‘We really must insist,’ Lord-Arcanum Petreus said forcefully, the timbre and force of his voice blasting Thelana’s reverie, forcing her to pay attention once more to what was unfolding around her.

‘Insist upon what?’ Dakhir countered. ‘That you should take this… this… this… weapon and lock it away in Sigmar’s keep, never to be seen again?’

‘It was recovered from a Stormvault,’ Malkeus pointed out. ‘That means it is Sigmar’s property.’

‘Lost for a thousand years, or longer!’ Sembaris interjected. ‘Forgotten!’

Thelana looked to High Regent Nendira. She sat in one of the large high-backed chairs at the head of the table. Throughout the debate she had said nothing. She’d simply sat quietly, fingers steepled, staring at the staff on the table before her and turning all courses of action over and over again in her mind.

‘You said it yourselves,’ Malkeus argued. ‘If a daemon prince coveted this item, it must be powerful and dangerous. Azyr is the safest place for it.’

‘But should we not learn, first, what it is capable of?’ These words came from a newcomer to the conversation – the Syari spellwright, Kelarion, who until that time had remained silent. ‘Let us take it as a given – the thing is dangerous. What, then, can it do? Why was it made? And for whom? For all we know, this weapon could shift the tide in the war against Chaos! This could be a great boon for all the peoples of the Mortal Realms. If we lock it away without first understanding it–’

Malkeus planted his knuckles on the table and bent wearily.

‘The longer it stays here, the greater the danger of it slipping from our grasp–’

Nendira’s eyes shifted towards the Stormcast. ‘You accuse us of lackadaisical security? Of indifference?’

Malkeus knew that he’d roused a firedrake now. ‘High Regent, I made no such accusations…’

Nendira continued. ‘Our library contains some of the most secure collections housing the most powerful and blasphemous magical tomes in all the Mortal Realms. Our archives and collections are as secure as your master’s long-hidden Stormvaults. If we say we can keep the staff, then it shall be safe.’

‘As safe as the special collection where that girl found its location?’ Malkeus countered, then addressed his commander. ‘Lord-Arcanum, I humbly move that we take possession of the staff and prepare to transfer it to Azyr. Our allies here in Settler’s Gain have the best intentions, but this object–’

‘You will not take it.’

All eyes turned towards Nendira. Her statement had been clear and unmistakable.

Lord-Arcanum Petreus eyed her. ‘High Regent?’

‘You will not take it,’ Nendira repeated, ‘until it has been studied. We are scholars, and this is a scholarly find. Let us do our work with it, then you can do yours.’

Lord-Arcanum Petreus’ eyes narrowed. ‘High Regent, I understand your position–’

‘Then you also understand I am immovable upon it,’ she said. ‘Regent Kelarion, the staff is in your charge. Remove it to the armoury. Begin your investigations immediately. Use all caution and observe the most stringent security protocols.’

The spellwright nodded and reached across the table. As he lifted the staff and stepped away, Thelana closed her eyes. She had made a point of staring at the staff in the last moments that it lay before her, painting a mental picture, as it were.

Specifically, she had memorised the mysterious inscription of a strange couplet in an alphabet that no one recognised. She was certain that she could transcribe it precisely once she had pen and parchment in hand.

After some time staring at the staff claimed by the Lumineth from the Stormvault, Daethus Atairos had withdrawn from the council chamber. He could not so much as glance at the ancient object on the table without feeling a strange, overwhelming sort of vertigo.

I saw this in my visions, he thought whenever his eyes fixed upon the damned thing. This very object, conjured out of the aether – out of my nightmares!

He could still barely believe his strange ordeal – the way awareness was fractured and time lost all meaning. He’d thought that his fugue had lasted days, perhaps weeks: Lord-Relictor Quarrel had made it clear that he’d only lost a day, a night and part of another day.

The winds on the outer terrace of the Eyrie bit cold, even though the air was balmy, almost summery. A trick of altitude and wind velocity, Daethus Atairos knew. High places were subject to buffeting. This place – this topmost tower of the university that the Lumineth called the Eyrie and reserved as a privileged meeting place – was no different than a cave set high in a sheer cliff wall or the rocking winds tolerated by Kharadron Overlords crawling across the heavens in their wind-borne sky-ships.

Daethus did not mind. The cold was bracing, and reminded him that he was, blessedly, alive and aware at last, his strange fugue state behind him, already fading like an unwanted memory of a terrible nightmare.

‘Questor Daethus,’ a hard, sharp voice said.

Daethus turned from where he stood – close to the edge of the terrace, just steps away from a long, deadly fall. It was Lord-Exorcist Malkeus, spearing him with a steady, even gaze. The Lord-Arcanum and Lord-Exorcist had been accompanied here by four hand-chosen Sequitors, Daethus among them – presumably because of his newly acquired Errant-Questor status, rather than despite it. Daethus’ decision to excuse himself without permission could, perhaps, be interpreted as insubordination.

Daethus faced his executive officer and squared his shoulders.

‘Lord-Exorcist,’ he said.

Malkeus approached. Per usual, Daethus had a hard time reading the Lord-Exorcist’s immobile face.

‘You absented yourself from the council chamber without leave,’ Malkeus said.

Daethus nodded. ‘I did, Lord-Exorcist. I beg your forgiveness.’

Malkeus’ head cocked inquisitively – a slight, barely perceptible gesture.

‘Why?’ Malkeus asked.

Daethus blinked. ‘Lord-Exorcist?’

‘You are neither disobedient nor insubordinate,’ Malkeus answered. ‘Something drove you out of there. What was it?’

Daethus sighed. ‘That staff,’ he said, nodding towards the council chamber at Malkeus’ back. ‘I recognise it.’

‘Recognise it?’ Malkeus asked, stepping closer. ‘Speak, then! Where did it come from? What does it do?’

‘I know nothing,’ Daethus answered. ‘But I’ve seen it before… during my illness.’

Malkeus’ eyes narrowed ever so slightly. ‘In your visions?’

Daethus nodded. ‘I’m certain of it – that staff, wielded by a powerful wizard. I can barely make sense of the visions – so broken and random they seemed – but whatever else I may have difficulty interpreting, I know that staff is the weapon I saw destroying whole Stormhosts, even slaughtering the gods.’

‘The gods?’ Malkeus asked, partially incredulous, partially shocked.

Daethus nodded once. ‘Aye, Lord-Exorcist. One of the clearest images from the visions. A great pile of the dead – Sigmar himself among them.’

Malkeus raised his chin slightly. ‘Who else have you told of this?’

‘No one,’ Daethus said. ‘I have not understood my visions well enough to articulate them. They still remain a storm of senseless impressions in my mind. Even now, seeing that staff, I know not what I am supposed to do about its presence here.’

Malkeus’ expression softened. He laid one gauntleted hand on Daethus’ pauldroned shoulder.

‘You chose wisely,’ Malkeus said. ‘Sharing this with me.’

Daethus nodded and lowered his eyes. Perhaps it had been wise. Why, then, did he still feel so confused? So ashamed?

‘Are you truly your old self, Daethus?’ Malkeus asked.

Daethus shrugged. ‘I had thought so.’

‘You fought well, at the Stormvault,’ Malkeus said. ‘I had not realised this weighed so heavily upon you.’

Perhaps Daethus had not realised it himself. He was happy to march into the desert; happy to hew down the scores of daemonic Horrors and Tzaangor wizards that served the now-slain daemon prince Ruhlgurrad. Combat had restored his sense of temporality, his awareness of the precarious present. Slaying enemies of Order and Light in Sigmar’s name had been a balm to his weary and restive soul – perhaps the first peace he’d known in the time since his fugue had broken and he’d rejoined his fellow Stormcasts.

But that was before. Before he’d seen the daemon prince destroyed. Before he’d seen that staff and realised it was the same, accursed artefact that had haunted and dominated his visions.

He felt Malkeus’ gauntleted hand on his pauldroned shoulder.

‘Speak,’ the Lord-Exorcist pressed. ‘I would swear upon Ghal Maraz that you are not yourself, Daethus.’

‘I am not,’ Daethus said. ‘But I tell you, Lord-Exorcist… I cannot precisely say what I am. I thought being at the fore of a fight might once more restore me – truly heal me, inwardly. Yet I find myself now more confused than ever.’

‘Confused about what, brother?’ Malkeus asked. ‘You may not yet know the nature of your quest, but you are a Questor. That is a certainty.’

‘So they tell me,’ Daethus said, nodding and looking Malkeus in his soft, grey eyes. ‘If that be the case, however, why do I not know what my quest is to be? Why were the visions granted – those I can yet recall – so cryptic and quasi-formed? That fugue came upon me and kept me chained beneath its influence for what felt like days, Malkeus – days – and then it was simply gone?’

Malkeus suggested the runeblade sheathed at Daethus’ hip. ‘The sword was given to you. Questors only receive their swords when their path is clear.’

‘So we are told,’ Daethus said. ‘So I always believed… and yet, I tell you, Malkeus, I know not what I am destined to do!’

Malkeus’ face grew stony.

‘Perhaps you returned to duty too quickly. Perhaps you should seek further insight via isolation, meditation–’

‘No,’ Daethus snapped. ‘No, Lord-Exorcist, not again. I cannot go back into that cell. Back to… insensibility. You do not understand what a nightmare that was to endure. I could stand on a hundred battle lines and face millions of the ravening spawn of any of the gods of Chaos, again and again and again! I could fight, kill, struggle, die – and endure Reforging a thousand times! I could and would do all of that, happily! But, that sense of dissolution and strange absence that enwrapped me while in fugue…’

Malkeus’ brows knit hard above the long, straight bridge of his nose.

‘To bear a Questor’s sword is to be on a quest. If you have no quest, you cannot wield that sword.’

‘Then take it from me!’ Daethus snarled, and started struggling with the buckle of his sword belt, eager to be rid of the thing, to hand its oppressive weight and heft to Malkeus, or Petreus, or anyone else…

Malkeus took two long steps backward and raised his hands.

‘That was not what I meant,’ he said hastily. ‘I will not touch that blade, Daethus, and you will not attempt to renounce it.’

‘No,’ Daethus said. ‘I mean it. Sigmar’s made a mistake. The unseen powers–’

‘Those powers do not make mistakes,’ Malkeus said.

Daethus shook his head. ‘Then why do I remain ignorant?’

He had the sword belt off now. Gathering the leather into a tight coil, he stretched out his hands, offering the runeblade to Malkeus. Malkeus, to his great consternation, kept his hands in the air, refusing to accept the sword.

‘Take it,’ Daethus begged. ‘Lock it away! Keep it for someone who needs it!’

‘That blade is yours,’ Malkeus said flatly. ‘Yours alone. No one else can wield it.’

‘There is no quest,’ Daethus said, slow and ponderous, letting each word settle like a gargant’s stride. ‘Just that damned, queer staff in there, mocking me with its silence, its curiosity!’

Malkeus suddenly lunged towards him. One gauntleted hand grasped the edge of Daethus’ breastplate and yanked him closer.

‘Then the quest is yet to come,’ Malkeus said slowly, as if to a child. ‘I know not why your experience defies all explanation, all reason, Questor – I only know that Sigmar does not make mistakes. If the fugue came upon you, and a runeblade was given you, your knowledge or awareness would seem to be of little consequence. That blade may only be the first piece of a puzzle, and that staff in the council chamber the second. If you would do your duty, and undertake your quest, then you would do well to seek out the next piece of the puzzle – or, at the very least, patiently await its revelation.’

‘This is torture, Lord-Exorcist,’ Daethus whispered. ‘Hell itself. I want no special destiny! No unanswered questions! I want only to serve! To obey! To give all that I have for Sigmar and my comrades! I only want to walk the path that I walk alongside my brothers and sisters in arms. To walk any path alone–’

‘Is your duty,’ Malkeus answered – harshly, unmercifully. ‘Your fugue, that sword, and that staff you say you recognise… they all prove it.’

Daethus sighed. ‘What shall I do, then? Command me, Lord-Exorcist.’

There was a long, pregnant pause. When Malkeus finally spoke, it was with immovable determination.

‘I command you to watch and wait. And when the next piece of the puzzle is revealed, I command you to make it known to me, immediately.’

It was not the answer Daethus had hoped for… but it would have to do.

Edinor found Orenna Karn skulking about in a narrow alley near his tenement, awaiting his return.

‘What are you doing here?’ Edinor asked, speeding towards her, seeking the comfort of the shadows for any words he shared with her. His was a little-traversed street – dingy, dark and crooked – but one could never know where eavesdroppers may lurk.

‘I have exciting news for you, Edinor,’ Orenna Karn said, wide mouth spreading into a beaming grin. ‘My Black Sun sponsor shall call a meeting of his ennead this evening. He and I have decided that you should join us.’

Edinor felt a strange, contradictory storm of emotions. The notion of being present for a secret conclave – the sort of thing back-room power brokers and important persons were used to – made him feel initiated, on the leading edge of a coming change that did not, as yet, even have a name. At the same time, he was keenly aware of what dangerous waters he now waded into. When Orenna Karn had last left his presence, he’d thought that they’d come to an accord: he was interested in this special order of hers, their ideology and their long-term goals, but he was not, as yet, fully on board.

Just meeting with these people could be seen as seditious, he thought. But seditious against who? They seek to make the world a better place, not a more frightening one. Whom, precisely, do such thoughts betray or endanger?

‘I’m not sure,’ Edinor said, eyes downcast. ‘I’ve a great deal of studying to do. My weekly trial is tomorrow. If I fail–’

‘You will not fail,’ Orenna Karn said, still smiling. ‘I can help you with your studies. Give me two hours. Come and peek behind the veil. I promise you won’t be disappointed.’

Edinor bit his lip. Searched the street. There was no one about but a mangy, underfed hound sniffing a pile of rubbish deeper in the alley.

This is what shall liberate and uplift your family, Edinor. This is what shall buy back your nobility.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Let me take my things up. I’ll be right back.’

Orenna Karn led Edinor from his mean little quarter of the low city – from cramped, winding streets overhung with laundry and shaded doorways, smelling of refuse and choked with cooksmoke and bathhouse steam – to a more spacious and amenable neighbourhood, only a short distance south, further away from the upper city and its endless magical lightning storms and corona of swirling clouds. Edinor knew they were in a better part of the city when the streets were suddenly paved with cobbles instead of being little more than dry, dusty tracks of shifting sand and old mud-traps born from the dregs of tossed-out chamber pots. Their current environment seemed to be one of quiet security and privilege – not rich, precisely, but decidedly middle class, the tenements well maintained and handsome, far more welcoming than any block of cheap rooms Edinor had ever occupied.

Orenna veered off the primary path, moved down a pair of adjacent narrow alleys, and came to the rear door of what seemed to be a tall, three-storey building. That door was set back into a tiny alcove off the alleyway, covered by a lovely arbour overhung with perfumed night flowers and curling vines.

‘Whose house is this?’ Edinor whispered, craning his neck to stare up at the ascending structure, with its handsome lines and well-formed accents of stone and plaster.

‘No one’s house, precisely,’ Orenna said quietly. ‘The order owns it.’

She reached out her left hand, making a loose fist. As Edinor watched, a ring on her left middle finger suddenly began to glow, illuminating a hitherto-hidden key plate set into the locked door. Orenna thrust the ring forward, sliding the knobby stone upon its setting into the key plate. Behind the door, Edinor heard the clicks and clanks of lock tumblers spinning. Finally, the door opened inward. Orenna led the way. The moment they were through – now in a cramped, dark vestibule just inside the house – the door shut quietly behind them of its own accord.

A lamp hung from a bronze hook on a nearby wall burst to life. Orenna gently lifted the lamp from where it hung.

‘This way,’ she said, and carried on down a narrow passage.

The passage led through a series of humdrum chambers – a laundry, a larder, a small but well-appointed kitchen. Just past the kitchen lay a winding stairway. Orenna led them upward. Edinor dutifully followed.

They climbed for some time, until the stairway gave out onto a landing that narrowed into a short, dark passage with a door at its end. Once more, Orenna laid the ring upon her left hand against a key plate on the door, and it opened for her.

The room beyond, to Edinor’s relief, was rife with candles and lamps, all lit, providing a beautiful, welcoming golden glow. It seemed to be a parlour or sitting room of some sort, with comfortable chairs and couches, rich wall hangings, a fireplace, and a pair of large windows that looked out onto the sleeping city. There was also a sideboard bearing a flagon of wine, several empty goblets and a platter of fruits, cheeses and nuts.

Orenna looked around them, seeming surprised that they were alone.

‘We seem to be the first arrivals,’ she said quietly. ‘Help yourself to food or drink if you like. I’m going to close the shutters.’

Edinor had taken several long strides towards the sideboard – he was famished – when he heard a voice speak from behind them.

‘Leave them open,’ the voice said, ‘at least until we begin.’

Edinor and Orenna spun. A shadowy figure haunted the far corner of the chamber, between two corner bookcases laden with ancient tomes. The stranger stood in the exact place where the globes of light cast by two opposing lamps failed, in a shroud of darkness.

‘Behold,’ Orenna said, ‘what shadow is this which falls upon the sun?’

To Edinor’s ears, the greeting sounded memorised, like a pass phrase of some sort.

The shadowy figure answered. ‘It is the shadow of the moon and a promise of things to come,’ he said. ‘Soon enough, that small sliver of shadow shall become a full eclipse.’

Orenna smiled. The man stepped from the shadows and Edinor studied him. It took him only moments to recognise him and realise that he’d seen him before… on numerous occasions, in fact.

He was a friend of the university.

It can’t be, Edinor thought.

‘Edinor Affrin,’ Orenna said, ‘may I introduce my associate–’

‘Nerontes Fane,’ Edinor breathed, not allowing Orenna to finish.

Fane’s handsome, youthful face smiled. ‘I see my reputation precedes me.’

Edinor bowed his head in deference. ‘Of course, magister. All of us who study here know you, and your reputation, well. I must say, finding you here is–’

‘Surprising?’ Nerontes asked, one eyebrow arching. ‘It should not be. One of my greatest mentors – and friends – has long said, “Seek not the old way, or the new way, the traditional way, or the progressive way – seek the best way, and all else shall take care of itself.” This world we occupy, young Edinor, is broken by painful rivalries and false dichotomies – good and evil, right and wrong, orthodoxy or agnosticism. I have long believed there is only one way that matters – the path that helps, uplifts and empowers the greatest number of people, rather than the path that helps, uplifts and empowers only a small, favoured minority. The work undertaken by the Order of the Black Sun ensures that all civilisation, in all the Mortal Realms, bends towards the former and away from the latter.’

Edinor chewed on the mage’s words for a moment, digesting them.

‘It seems a noble goal,’ Edinor said. ‘But all this secrecy and mis-direction–’

‘For our safety,’ Orenna interjected. ‘New ideas are, more often than not, shunned and proscribed. Those who have long laboured under old delusions assume that which is new or different is, automatically, wicked and destructive.’

Edinor nodded. ‘I understand that,’ he said, and he meant it. ‘But is it really such a new idea? That mortal beings – be they human, aelf, duardin, or any other sort – should be their own masters?’

‘It is a very old idea,’ Fane said, nodding approvingly. ‘But, understanding that, ask yourself – if it is such an old idea, and so very noble, why then is it not more widespread in practice, let alone understanding?’

Edinor considered. The question all but answered itself: the notion of true mortal sovereignty – or freedom from rule by gods or beings that were not bounded by any span of life or reasonable checks upon their power – was not more widespread, more commonly accepted, because the powers whose undying rule was threatened by that idea did not wish it so.

‘Your own family has suffered for the whims of those who would wield power over them,’ Nerontes Fane said, edging closer now. ‘Their innate abilities, their passion for magic – stripped from them! All because the Lumineth of an elder age would not be undermined… and the Lumineth of the present age refuse to question the wisdom of their forebears.’

Edinor nodded. ‘I know it well.’

Nerontes threw a glance at Orenna. ‘You’ve chosen wisely, Orenna. This young man will do us credit, I think.’

She smiled. ‘I thank you for pointing me in his direction.’

Edinor could not believe his ears. Could it be true? It was Nerontes Fane who had initially chosen him? Nerontes Fane knew him, and thought him worthy of consideration?

Edinor thought he might burst into tears, so profound was his gratitude.

‘Now,’ Fane said, moving towards the centre of the room, ‘it is time for our conclave. I suggest the two of you take places in the corner, far from the scrying field of the Spectralith?’

Orenna moved away from the window, hooked one arm in Edinor’s, and led him towards the very corner where Nerontes had been hiding when they first entered.

‘He’s to meet with one of the internecine councils now,’ she said quietly. ‘He shall project an image of himself into their presence, their images shall be projected here. Our role is but to observe, not to interact.’

Edinor nodded. ‘I understand,’ he said.

As they took their place in the corner, in the shadows, Nerontes Fane approached a cloudy crystal sphere standing upon a lithe, delicate wrought-iron stand in the centre of the room. As he approached, he stretched out his hand. The crystal sphere slowly, gradually, came to life, the dim glow at its cloudy centre intensifying, until after several long moments, it shone, pale and frosty, in the centre of the chamber.

As its glow intensified, ghostly figures faded into existence at the periphery of the broad globe of illumination that it cast. Slowly but surely, each sharpened and solidified into a life-size form, the colours of their flesh and clothing slightly washed out and pale, their three-dimensional apparitions still ever-so-slightly transparent.

Edinor studied the projections: eight – nine in total, if Nerontes Fane were counted. They stood in a perfect circle, with the seeing stone at its centre. Five were human – male and female, dark-skinned and light-skinned, city-dweller and wild barbarian – but there was also a pair of aelves and a pair of duardin. One of the aelves wore the unmistakably nautical raiment of the Idoneth Deepkin, while the other was swaddled in dark silks and robes, probably a member of a Darkling Coven. One of the duardin bore the telltale tattoos and muscular build of a Fyreslayer, while the other defied Edinor’s ability to identify.

One, a hard-faced old man with piercing blue eyes and a bald pate, fixed his gaze upon Fane and lifted his chin. ‘Nerontes Fane – greetings,’ he said in a deep, sonorous voice.

‘Greetings, duke,’ Fane answered. ‘And to the rest of you – mistress, magister and general, consul and Warden, warlord and chieftain. I apologise for my late arrival. Caution was required.’

‘You insult us with your delays,’ the Idoneth Warden snapped. ‘You called this conclave, after all. Such gatherings are, as you know, risky for all present.’

Nerontes Fane nodded. ‘I would not have summoned you without news of great import. I believe I’ve located a long-vanished artefact that could prove instrumental in immanentising the age we’ve long dreamt of.’

‘What artefact?’ the Darkling sorceress, addressed as ‘mistress’, demanded.

‘References to it exist in the Book of Days, the Prophecies of the Lost Eclipses, and the Scrolls of Tyressa. It is also attested to, obliquely, in the writings of Ephegus and the annals of the Shadowmancers.’

‘This is why you summoned us?’ a duardin warlord huffed. ‘To speak of lost treasures from our mythic texts?’

‘Spit it out, then,’ the savagely adorned one addressed as ‘general’ urged. ‘You waste our time with your games.’

‘Godsbane,’ Nerontes Fane said.

Silence followed the pronouncement.

Edinor turned to Orenna beside him. ‘Godsbane?’ he whispered.

‘Shush,’ she hissed.

‘Impossible,’ the Fyreslayer chieftain scoffed.

‘A fairy tale,’ the lady magister said dismissively.

‘I still need to verify its provenance,’ Fane said forcefully, ‘but I have no doubt, it is the staff written of and alluded to in our histories.’

‘If Godsbane existed,’ the duke said, ‘it would be lost forever in one of Sigmar’s Stormvaults.’

‘Just so,’ Nerontes said. ‘A Stormvault is where the staff in question was recovered.’

Silence answered that pronouncement.

‘Godsbane is older than written history,’ the consul said. ‘Already a myth even in the Age of Myths.’

‘The staff is inscribed in a language as yet unidentified,’ Fane answered. ‘That is one of the last puzzles I intend to solve before claiming it.’

Edinor was impressed by his poise and confidence. Clearly, he’d anticipated all of these objections and more.

‘And what of its fabled powers?’ the Idoneth Warden sneered. ‘A wizard’s staff that grants mortals the power to destroy immortals and gods? Have any of these powers been demonstrated?’

Fane nodded. ‘Demonstrated,’ he said, ‘by my own hand.’

Once more, silence prevailed.

Fane elucidated for his comrades. ‘A student here, at the university, was secretly under the influence of the daemon prince Ruhlgurrad – one of Tzeentch’s foulest and most powerful Lords of Change. Somehow, the daemon prince knew of – or, at the very least, suspected – Godsbane’s existence, and used said student’s access to the library to tease out its location. I was sent with a force of Stormcasts and Lumineth mages to stop him from leaving the Stormvault with the staff.

‘It was I who faced Ruhlgurrad, who laid hands upon the staff, and who ultimately destroyed him. The daemon prince is no more… and his power is mine now.’

Edinor realised that his hands were clammy and sweaty. What was this that Nerontes Fane spoke of? Slaying a daemon prince? Wielding his power? A wizard’s staff that could slay such beings… even gods?

‘He lies,’ the general grumbled. ‘I see no proof of such all-encompassing power.’

Nerontes Fane said nothing. Edinor simply saw the mage raise one hand – his right – and suddenly ball that open hand into a fist. The moment he did so, the general – separated from Fane’s present location by the veils between realms and who knew how many hundreds or thousands of leagues – suddenly burst into bright, scintillating, roiling red flames. The other conspirators stared through the aether at their comrade as he shot to his feet, thrashing and screaming, moving in and out of the orb of effect that allowed them to meet. Once or twice, the thrashing, blazing general disappeared completely, but he always stumbled back into view, struggling to douse himself, begging for relief.

‘Fane!’ the lady magister snapped. ‘End this, at once!’

Nerontes’ fist opened, fingers splayed. Suddenly, miraculously, the flames that engulfed the general evaporated. The man still thrashed and cried out, smoke rising from his furs and leathers in thin, whirling tendrils. He was, however, unharmed. The fire, which had been devouring him only a moment before, was gone entirely, as were all the associated injuries. Slowly, as he realised that his quickly impending death had been averted, the general regained his composure. For a moment, he staggered out of the area of effect of the seeing stone, only to return a short while later. His face was drenched in sweat, eyes wild and fearful.

‘All of you know,’ Fane said slowly, ‘that I would not have been capable of that feat only a day ago. You all know the extent and depth of my power – are we not all both comrades and rivals? Allies and adversaries?’

Edinor realised his mouth hung open. It was, truly, an impressive feat. Only the most powerful, immortal magician – an arch-daemon or a living god – could have projected both ruin and salvation across the gulfs between realms like that.

The gaping mouths and wide eyes of the other eight Black Sun conspirators suggested that Fane’s demonstration was neither unnecessary, nor boastful. It had done precisely what he hoped it would do.

‘You must bring it here,’ the duke said. ‘To Azyr.’

‘No, here,’ the sorceress said. ‘To Hammerhal Ghyra.’

‘Would you lord over the lot of us now?’ the Idoneth Warden asked. ‘With your power to slay any one of us on a whim, no matter how far away we are, or where we hide?’

‘That demonstration was to gain your trust,’ Fane said. ‘Not to undermine it. You had to see what I was capable of – not only the ability to kill at a distance, but also to heal, to undo what I had done.’

‘I suppose you believe you are the only one chosen to wield this fantastic weapon,’ one of the duardin snarled. ‘You – the youngest and most untried among us?’

‘I make no claims,’ Fane countered. ‘My hands held the staff when it destroyed Ruhlgurrad, and his power passed into me. That is all I know.’

‘I say no one can possess that staff,’ the consul said, ‘until its power and potential are understood, in full.’

‘I agree,’ the Idoneth Warden said. ‘Bring it here, to my underwater kingdom. None shall find it here, and a full conclave of our best wizards can study its abilities–’

‘No,’ Nerontes Fane said, his voice loud, forceful. ‘I called this meeting not to ask for years of study. I called this meeting to proclaim the beginning of the end of our season in exile. Now is the time to reveal ourselves! To announce our intentions and let all mortals in all the Mortal Realms flock to our banners! At last, we have a weapon capable of countering any power – the power of Chaos, the power of wizards, even the power of Sigmar himself! We cannot waste the advantage this grants us! To do so would be folly.’

‘To tip our hand would be folly,’ the duke snapped. ‘This order has existed for four centuries, and has, in all that time, patiently gathered the knowledge, the manpower and the understanding of the Mortal Realms necessary to see its ideals made manifest – in the right season, at the right time. If we move now–’

‘Were you not listening?’ Fane interrupted. ‘I could not be plainer – I am not asking permission. Watch for my sign. Heed the call to come. The time for the prophesied eclipse is at hand, brothers and sisters. For the dying.’

And with that, Fane swept one hand over the seeing stone, and all the astral forms of his cohorts disappeared in the blink of an eye. Once more, the upper room was quiet, still. Fane turned to Edinor and Orenna.

‘Expected?’ Orenna asked.

Fane nodded. ‘Just so. People spend all their lives waiting for an appointed day… They seldom recognise that day when it arrives. No matter. There will be other opportunities.’ He was already moving towards the door.

‘Off so quickly?’ Orenna asked. ‘Shall you spend not a moment with our new recruit?’

Fane stopped, halfway to the door, and studied Edinor. Edinor felt a strange, probing presence in his mind, as though the mage were using deep sensory powers and subtle magics to plumb his mind and heart. It was a curious feeling, and he did not care for it.

But that tells you it’s all true, a voice inside him said. The power he now wields, passed to him from that slain daemon prince. Nerontes Fane is, at this moment, one of the most powerful beings you know.

‘I sense eagerness in you, Edinor,’ Fane said at last. ‘And desire.’

Edinor nodded. ‘I am eager to learn,’ he said. ‘And to serve.’

Fane nodded towards Orenna.

‘Serve Orenna Karn, then,’ Fane said. ‘Learn from her. I have important work to do – dangerous work. There may come a time when I have need of both of you, but that time is not now. For the foreseeable future, remain hidden.’

Orenna nodded. ‘As you say, milord.’

‘But what of you?’ Edinor asked, only realising how foolish and presumptuous his question was after he’d posed it.

‘What of me?’ Nerontes Fane asked. ‘Once I know – beyond a doubt – that the staff we claimed is Godsbane, I shall have to seize it and be away from here. I have soldiers and sorcerers waiting to support me, and a hue and cry will be raised, far and wide, to gather an army.

‘At that point, there will be no turning back.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The words upon the scroll unfurled before Thelana, seemed to stare back at her, pregnant with an import belied by their simplicity.

The staff was marked, the narrative read, by an inscription in Old High Mielitic, the tongue of the duardin folk who forged the weapon for its first keeper. ‘God uses man, man destroys god,’ it read, ‘Man becomes god, god uses man.’

God uses man, man destroys god. Man becomes god, god uses man.

It had taken her hours to uncover that single, enigmatic description of the ancient, long-forgotten weapon, guided by a time-eroded memory. She could not even say when she’d first come across it. When she was a student? As a child, hearing heroic myths and lore of lost treasures? Preparing a lecture, perhaps? The source was lost to her.

But ever since bearing witness to Nerontes’ miraculous survival against Ruhlgurrad, ever since she’d wondered over the staff in the Eyrie, while her peers debated around her – through all of those moments, something in her memory had tugged at her.

Godsbane, it said. This is Godsbane.

She could not, however, recall what Godsbane was. When her search began, in the early morning hours, she’d been guided not by knowledge, precisely; only a feeling.

In the Age of Myth, when the Mortal Realms were young, and myriad immortal powers sought dominion, a small order of duardin smiths – with the aid of human wizards and aelven sages – had created a weapon that could give the terrorised and beset mortals of the realms some advantage over the ageless powers that abused and enslaved them. That weapon was a wizard’s staff called Godsbane, an artefact of unspeakable power that gave a mortal wielder the ability to stand against an immortal or godlike being. So far as Thelana could glean from the scant records, its creators never truly intended Godsbane to be used: it was, rather, a fail-safe of sorts; proof that mortal-kind could, when pressed, create weapons capable of threatening the immortal powers that lorded over them.

According to the legends, wars were fought, entire kingdoms mobilised and eradicated, as various actors manoeuvred to control Godsbane. After a century of nigh-apocalyptic conflict, the staff was finally stolen by its duardin creators and personally delivered to Sigmar for safekeeping in a hidden Stormvault. For centuries – millennia – it had remained lost to time and memory, the only evidence of its existence a few glancing mentions and recorded rumours in ancient, obscure texts.

Until now.

God uses man, man destroys god. Man becomes god, god uses man.

Right now, locked in the university spellwright’s armoury, there lay a treasure capable of upsetting the balance of power in the Mortal Realms for all time.

But it can’t be, Thelana thought, summoning all the objectivity and reason at her disposal. It’s too fantastic to believe. How can this thing truly be, here, now, in our hands?

She did not want to believe it… but what other explanation could there be?

The Shyish Necroquake shook the Mortal Realms, revealing scores of secret Stormvaults, long hidden from prying mortal eyes. Somehow, Ruhlgurrad learned that the location of the Stormvault housing Godsbane might be discovered here, and he used Palembra, a student, to penetrate the library and locate it.

But it had not given him power, had it? Nerontes attacked Ruhlgurrad and Godsbane failed to protect the daemon prince. In the end, only Ruhlgurrad himself had been destroyed when Nerontes laid hands upon it.

Why?

‘Of course,’ Thelana muttered to herself, eyes aching in her skull. ‘God uses man, man destroys god.’

Ruhlgurrad was immortal – for all intents and purposes, a god… if of a lesser sort. And Nerontes was mortal. Godsbane refused to serve the sort of being it was forged to destroy, but readily saved the life of a mortal claimant.

But what did that mean for Nerontes?

‘There you are,’ a familiar voice said.

Thelana spun in her seat. There stood Nerontes, accompanied by another human male: perhaps the same age as Nerontes or just a little younger, olive-skinned, dark-haired, trim and strong. Thelana knew the young man by reputation alone. His name was Castigus, a captain in the Free Companies. On numerous occasions, he’d supported Nerontes’ expeditions for the Collegiate Arcane, acting as a sort of bodyguard.

‘You startled me,’ Thelana said, studying her old friend.

He seemed thoroughly ordinary to her – more so than earlier, surely. He’d seemed shocked and preoccupied then, overcome with weariness and confusion. Now, he truly seemed his old self, his familiar, confident half-smile in evidence, his eyes bright and eager.

‘No one knew where you were,’ he said, glancing over the many books and scrolls laid before her. ‘It’s taken quite some time to find you.’

Thelana suggested the texts. ‘Studies to pursue,’ she said. ‘Questions in need of answers.’

Nerontes stepped closer. ‘Oh?’

Thelana considered. Should she involve him in this? Is it worth frightening him, or implicating him in some fashion that will ultimately endanger him, if I’m not entirely sure?

‘You remember Castigus,’ Nerontes said, moving casually past her towards the table.

Thelana nodded greetings. ‘Of course. The valiant captain who’s saved your life almost as often as I?’

‘Not half so often,’ Castigus said, smiling. ‘I think of myself more as a wizard-wrangler… present to keep the fool from biting off more than he can chew.’

He was handsome and charming, clearly bred of good stock and possessed of a first-rate education. Thelana saw something deep and heartfelt in his dark eyes when he glanced at Nerontes: admiration; an abiding affection.

‘I can chew a great deal,’ Nerontes said, looking over the books and scrolls on the table. ‘So, tell me, Thelana – what is all this?’

Thelana decided that full disclosure would best serve her ends, though doubts yet remained.

‘That staff we claimed in the Stormvault,’ she said, ‘jogged something in my memory. Something vague… half-forgotten. I came here in search of evidence.’

Nerontes raised his green eyes. ‘And?’

She drew a deep breath. ‘Have you ever heard of “Godsbane”?’

Nerontes stared. Blinked. Cocked his head the slightest. Finally, he shook his head.

‘I have not.’

Thelana gave him a brief overview, then walked him through the sources gathered and the texts consulted. Finally, she showed him the scroll that had given her the last piece of the puzzle – the note about the inscription upon the ancient staff and the obscure, now-lost alphabet used to spell out the words.

Nerontes read the excerpt aloud.

‘The staff was marked by an inscription in Old High Mielitic, the tongue of the duardin folk who shaped the staff for its first keeper. “God uses man, man destroys god,” it read. “Man becomes god, god uses man.”’ He raised his eyes. That dumbfounded, shell-shocked look had returned; the haunted emptiness she’d seen hours ago, in the Eyrie.

‘What does all that mean?’ Castigus asked.

‘It means,’ Thelana said, ‘that the staff made it possible for a mortal wielder to destroy a god, and that its only identifying mark is the Mielitic inscription upon it.’

‘That’s impossible,’ Nerontes said, shaking his head. ‘I wielded nothing. I attacked Ruhlgurrad and tried to snatch the staff from his hands–’

‘The staff refused him,’ Thelana said slowly, ‘but accepted you.’

‘Because he was immortal?’ Nerontes asked.

Thelana nodded. ‘And you are not.’ She eyed Castigus askance.

‘Trust him,’ Nerontes said quietly. ‘He means as much to me as you do.’

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘But, now that we suspect–’

‘We need to read that inscription,’ Nerontes said.

‘Which means we need to find a monograph on Old High Mielitic,’ Thelana countered.

‘And,’ Nerontes continued, ‘gain access to the spellwright’s armoury.’

‘The spellwright’s armoury?’ Castigus said. ‘Nerontes, what are you dragging me into?’

Nerontes looked to his companion. His eyes were wide, beseeching. ‘Don’t fail me now, Castigus,’ he said earnestly. ‘I need you.’

Thelana looked to Castigus. Would he accept? Or would the enormous import of their suspicions – of that staff – sway him from joining them?

Castigus finally sighed and shrugged.

‘Very well, then,’ he said. ‘Where’s this armoury?’

‘First,’ Thelana said, ‘the linguistics wing.’

It was over an hour later that they finally arrived, as a trio, at the door to the spellwright’s armoury, in one of the highest towers of the Lyceum Fundamental’s central keep. Locating a few texts on Old High Mielitic had proven surprisingly simple. One of those texts had been fairly recent and approved for borrowing. Thelana checked out the text in question and ferried it along with her. She was reasonably certain that she could translate the inscription upon the staff… provided it was in the Mielitic alphabet.

They were greeted by one of Kelarion’s senior apprentices, a young aelven woman of severe countenance and few words.

‘We need to see the artefact,’ Thelana explained. ‘I am one of Kelarion’s colleagues – Thelana Evenfall, magister of the Aelementiri School.’

The apprentice blinked. ‘Kelarion left no word.’

‘This is an unexpected visit,’ Thelana added. ‘We made no appointments. But new knowledge has come to our attention–’

‘There are no appointments,’ the apprentice said. ‘And Kelarion is not here. You’ll need to return later, when he’s present.’

She tried to close the enormous door in their faces. Thelana placed her body between the door and its frame.

‘Join us,’ she said simply. ‘Accompany us to the armoury. What we seek to do, we shall happily do under your watchful eye. But we need to see the artefact.’

‘Arrangements were not made,’ the apprentice said again, as though it were a prayer.

‘We understand that,’ Nerontes said impatiently. ‘But this is an emergency.’

She stared at him for a moment, as though she had not seen him there at all; then, she turned back to Thelana.

‘You are not alone,’ she said. Perhaps she had truly not seen Nerontes or Castigus standing there all this time at Thelana’s elbow?

‘These are my colleagues,’ Thelana said slowly. ‘My trusted colleagues. If you will just grant us a moment’s access to the artefact–’

‘Kelarion is not here,’ the apprentice said yet again.

‘I understand,’ Thelana snapped, growing impatient.

‘Return when Kelarion is present, and Kelarion will grant you access,’ the apprentice said. ‘Now, if you will excuse me–’

Nerontes surprised Thelana by pushing his way through the door and facing the apprentice head-on.

‘You are excused,’ he said, all dismissive charm. ‘Go on about your business, we shan’t stop you. We’ll just wait for Kelarion to return.’

He hastily waved Castigus into the vestibule. Castigus obeyed. When all three of them were inside, the apprentice stared at them as though they were minor daemons multiplying, moment by moment, on her doorstep.

‘I am not authorised–’ the apprentice began.

‘You are not,’ Thelana said, ‘but I am. I am a member of this university’s faculty and I need access to that artefact.’

Her insistence seemed to finally make an impression. With a scowl, the implacable apprentice leant against the heavy door to the armoury and shut it.

‘Kelarion will return,’ she said.

‘We’re counting on it,’ Nerontes said, and smiled.

‘Take us to the artefact,’ Thelana commanded.

The apprentice shook her head. ‘I will not… But if you know the way, I won’t stop you.’

Thelana, exasperated, turned to her companions. ‘Come, it’s down this way.’

She led them along a meandering passage. As the passage bent and curved, a different sort of energy began to permeate the air around them: a subtle, crackling potentiality that only the most magically inclined would notice, provided they were open to sensing it.

‘What is that?’ Castigus asked finally. ‘That… humming?’

Nerontes gave his old friend an impressed glance. ‘Your senses do you credit,’ he said. ‘That is a suspensor field… a protective magical spell commonly used by wizards and mages eager to protect some item – or even an entire chamber – in their precious collections.’

‘It feels… alive,’ Castigus said, shuddering slightly.

Thelana nodded. ‘It is,’ she said. ‘Think of it as the magical equivalent of a snarling gryph-hound. A sort of passive, barely palpable resistance to ill intent. It does not actively repel anyone, or actively do anything… it just fills all who pass through its area of incidence with a vague sense of dread, of being watched.’

Castigus, she could tell, felt the field’s effects most profoundly. He was sweating, dark eyes darting about in all directions, constantly on guard for aggressors or sudden dangers.

‘Stay calm, my friend,’ Nerontes said quietly. ‘Pass through the field, and the feeling will pass.’

Finally, the passage bent to the left, and opened into a wider chamber, its walls round and cornerless, its ceiling high and vaulted – more of a dome than a proper roof. The strange, hemispherical chamber was largely empty, but more passages led off from it in several directions. Three Auralan Wardens, their long, sharp pikes at the ready, paced in easy perambulations around the periphery of the chamber, guarding the lone treasure floating at its centre.

A bright, steady light shone down from the apex of the dome. In the very centre of that column of light, the strange staff they’d recovered floated idly. It seemed to be suspended in the air by nothing at all; as if gravity itself were suspended in the column of light, and the staff rotated lazily, forever on display under the watchful eyes of the spear-wielding Wardens.

One of the Lumineth guards faced the three of them as they entered the chamber.

‘Who approaches?’ he asked. He did not lower his pike, but the hardness of his voice made it clear that he would, if challenged.

‘Thelana Evenfall, magister of the Aelementiri School, a colleague of Master Kelarion. I’ve come to examine the staff.’

The other two Wardens neared, eyeing the newcomers warily.

‘Have you a written mandate from the Council of Regents?’ the lead Warden asked.

Thelana shook her head. ‘I do not,’ she answered flatly. ‘I have a suspicion that needs verification. Bear witness. I simply need to approach the staff and examine it. I will not even lay hands upon it.’

‘This is irregular,’ he said.

Thelana nodded. ‘It is. We can await Master Kelarion’s return, if we must, but I simply wish to translate an inscription upon the staff. Please. You can see I carry no weapons – only my staff and a single book.’

The Warden studied the small volume in her hands.

‘What book is that?’ he demanded.

‘She’s trying to translate the inscription upon the shaft of the sceptre,’ Nerontes said impatiently. ‘It’s a simple matter, if you’ll step aside.’

The Warden now took notice. ‘And who are you, human, to make demands of me?’

Thelana felt the confrontation escalating, which was the last thing she wanted.

‘This is Nerontes Fane,’ she said, ‘an alumnus of the Lyceum Fundamental and a respected member of the Collegiate Arcane. He accompanies me as a friend of this school.’

‘What is this?’ a voice boomed from the shadows.

All eyes were drawn towards the sound. It was Master Kelarion, the hard-headed apprentice at his elbow. The two emerged from one of the many side passages that fed off from this particular chamber.

‘Master Kelarion,’ Thelana said, brandishing the book in her hands. ‘I understand this might seem strange, but I need to get a close look at the staff.’

He allowed her to approach. Thelana quickly summarised her fears and suspicions, and allowed him to examine the primer on Old High Mielitic that she’d shuttled along with her. After a long, silent consideration, Kelarion gave a grave nod.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Let us examine the staff together.’

At Kelarion’s side, Thelana approached the staff where it hovered in the brightly lit air at the centre of the chamber. The rest – the pike-wielding Wardens, the apprentice, Nerontes and Castigus – all watched expectantly as Thelana and the university’s greatest spellwright approached. Kelarion plucked the staff from the air, then turned to face Thelana. He spun the artefact slowly in his grip, seeking the inscription. When he found it, he held it out towards her, displaying it so that she could balance the book in her hands and make the comparisons necessary.

It took Thelana longer than she would have liked. The feeling of all eyes in the room upon her – watching her, waiting for her, judging her – was not helpful. Soon enough, though, she’d arrived at her conclusion. She offered the book to Kelarion and gently took the staff from his hands.

‘See for yourself,’ she said.

Kelarion studied the primer, then looked to the inscription. His own examination was slow, methodical. After a time, he spoke.

‘How did you translate the words?’ he asked.

‘God uses man, man destroys god,’ she recited. ‘Man becomes god, god uses man.’

He nodded gravely. ‘I translate it thusly as well,’ the spellwright said. Then, more quietly, ‘It’s true, then.’

‘Well?’ Nerontes called from where he stood, some distance away.

Thelana turned towards her old friend and student.

‘Just as we feared,’ she said. ‘This is Godsbane.’

For a moment, his face registered a grave and terrible understanding, the sudden realisation that he was in the presence of an artefact of world-shattering import. He and Castigus exchanged fell glances – shock, disbelief, Thelana could not say. The rest of those present – the Wardens, the apprentice – remained wholly indifferent to what now passed between the two scholars and the two humans who’d invaded their work space.

And then, without warning, Nerontes’ hands rose, plucked bright plasmic fire from the air itself, and hurled a pair of matching spheres at two of the pike-wielding Auralan Wardens. Both bolts slammed hard into the unready soldiers and sent them sprawling, pikes clattering on the marble floor.

Thelana could not believe her eyes.

‘Nerontes, what–’

The last Warden – the leader – lowered his pike and charged. He made it three steps before Castigus plunged his own, unsheathed sword through the Lumineth’s gut. The Warden sagged and crumpled to the floor.

Thelana looked to Kelarion.

‘Run,’ she said.

Kelarion seemed on the edge of obeying her, but Nerontes fired another powerful energy bolt and the spellwright was sent sprawling, body smoking from the terrible, life-shattering energies unleashed upon him.

Already, Nerontes had another shimmering sphere of energy in hand, ready to cast.

Thelana blinked. ‘What is this?’ she asked. ‘Nerontes, what are you doing?’

‘I’m leaving this chamber with that staff, Thelana,’ he said slowly, carefully. ‘It’s up to you whether you leave this place of your own free will, or as a corpse.’

Thelana edged backward. The staff – Godsbane – now lay on the floor, half-across Kelarion’s unmoving body. She did her best to place herself between Nerontes and the staff. If she could get the object in hand…

Nerontes drew back the sphere of deadly energy in his hands. ‘Move to your right, please… away from the staff.’

‘Nerontes,’ Thelana said, ‘do not do this. Whatever you think you can accomplish–’

‘I think nothing,’ Nerontes said. ‘I’ve planned for this for almost fifteen years. Waited. Watched. Read signs and scryed omens. There are a handful of weapons in existence that could turn the tide, that could make it possible for my order to finally – blessedly – take its place in the sun, as a power for change in this blighted world. That staff, Thelana, is one of those rare weapons, and I will have it.’

She took a single step backward. Her heel bumped against the staff where it lay. If she could turn and snatch it up… But where would she go? How could she escape? Nerontes blocked the primary exit and the other passages only led deeper into the armoury.

‘Move to your right, I said,’ Nerontes repeated, more forcefully this time. ‘Do not force me to destroy you, Thelana – that’s not what I want.’

‘I wonder,’ she said, eyes still fixed upon him. That ball of energy in his hands bled swirling smoke and small embers. He need only cast it towards her…

Movement at the edge of Thelana’s vision. She turned, and realised that Castigus had been trying to slide in far to her left. His bloodied sword hovered in his right hand.

Two of them, she thought, one of me.

‘We don’t have to be enemies in this,’ Nerontes said, sounding eminently reasonable, even eager. ‘I truly don’t want to harm you, Thelana. You’re my teacher, my friend. You believed in me when no one else would. All that I am, I owe to you.’

‘All that you are,’ Thelana said, not sure what to make of that. ‘And what of this, Nerontes? Is this what I’ve made you? A murderer? A thief tainted by the temptations of Chaos?’

She changed the angle of her body the slightest bit. Castigus was still trying to edge in on her left.

‘Chaos?’ Nerontes scoffed. ‘This has nothing to do with Chaos, old friend. This is about power, and who wields it. My allies imagine a world in which mortal-kind – my kind – can be the masters of their own fate, subject to neither gods nor daemons. But the only way the fate of mortal-kind can be secured is with a weapon capable of destroying a god – any god.’

‘Destroy the gods,’ Thelana breathed. ‘Are you mad?’

Nerontes shook his head slowly. ‘I think you know the answer to that.’

Thelana sighed. She did… it simply was not the answer Nerontes imagined she would arrive at.

He’d edged closer now – closer than Thelana probably should have allowed. The time for hesitation was past. Thelana stretched out her hands, summoned the powers of Hysh, and formed a pair of shimmering shields of pure energy – pure light – one in each outstretched palm. If Nerontes cast that fireball in his hand, she would readily deflect it.

And shouldn’t help be on the way? Shouldn’t someone have noticed that all the people who ventured into the weapons vault had failed to return? Were there no other apprentices or spellwrights on duty? Moving about in these catacombs?

In answer to Thelana’s shield summons, Nerontes raised his left hand and another ball of crackling, sizzling energy appeared. He had two missiles now, ready to cast.

‘Thelana, please,’ he begged. ‘Mine is the path to a better world – a brighter future. You know this. The old ways crush us beneath their weight.’

‘There may be new paths forward,’ Thelana said, ‘but they won’t be marked by theft and murder, Nerontes.’

‘I had hoped you would see things as I do,’ he said, and she heard the sorrow, the regret, in his voice.

He drew a deep breath – a breath intended to steady him.

‘Alas,’ he sighed – and, to his credit, he seemed genuinely pained.

Then, he struck.

Nerontes cast each energy sphere, one after the other. Thelana raised her magical shields and felt the full, terrible impact an instant later. The world exploded with heat, light, a brief storm of scintillating, crackling lightning. Sparks flew, her vision was dazzled, and the air itself smelt burnt and misused. Just as her vision cleared, she realised that Castigus was now charging in from her left, sword ready.

Thelana spun on her heel, raised the magical shield in her left hand, and drew back her right. The shield formed upon her right hand evaporated, replaced by skeins of crackling electrical energy. Castigus brought his sword down in a fierce overhand arc and the weapon’s blade bounced off Thelana’s raised magical shield. As Castigus yet reeled from the recoil, Thelana cast a storm of lightning that slammed into his breastplate and sent him rocketing backward. His feet never touched the floor until his body collided with the wall. He was subdued, but far from dead.

You held back, Thelana thought. You cannot hold back here. This is a fight to the death. It ends with your destruction, or his.

It was a strange state of affairs. She was not used to battles to the death – certainly not here, in the confines of her own university, against one of her most trusted and respected comrades.

And yet, here came Nerontes again, falling to his knees, hands upon the marble floor of the armoury chamber. The moment his hands touched the marble, Thelana felt tremors moving through the stone, the floor shaking beneath her. Enormous cracks formed as the smooth, veined flagstones were torn apart by the kinetic force Nerontes unleashed.

Thelana stumbled backwards, then to the side, reeling away from where Kelarion lay with Godsbane across his lifeless body. She tried to arrest her headlong movement, but there was nothing for it. Before Thelana knew what was happening, the small earthquake Nerontes had unleashed sent her sprawling onto the marble floor, nearer the centre of the chamber.

She was now just as far away from Godsbane as he was.

The tremors ceased. Nerontes stood tall and stretched out his hand. In answer to his silent summons, the staff upon Kelarion jerked upright and began to slide through the air itself towards its new master.

Thelana reached out for the staff, arresting its movement with the force of her will. Though she was nowhere near it, had not laid a hand upon it, she could feel it as though it were within her grasp – its weight, its solidity, as well as the force and strength behind the other will now calling to it. She concentrated upon the staff, trying to keep it from moving even an inch further. Nerontes, meanwhile, reached out with both hands, trying to outmatch her and yank the hovering staff from her mental grasp.

There they stood – teacher and student, comrade and comrade – each using the power of their minds to draw that staff into their waiting hands, the artefact itself hovering upright in the air halfway between where they each stood.

‘It’s mine,’ Nerontes snarled. ‘I’ve already wielded it, already been chosen by it.’

Thelana felt the unmistakable tug of Nerontes’ will upon the weapon. All at once, defying all understanding, his magical prowess and the power of his will outmatched Thelana’s own.

Impossible, she thought.

No, all too probable: he slew a daemon prince with that staff. All of Ruhlgurrad’s power passed to him. This is not the same Nerontes you knew even the day before yesterday.

Still, she struggled. She could not let the staff leave her.

Movement on her left. Thelana dared a quick glance. Castigus was on his feet, something long and heavy in hand. One of the pikes of the Auralan Wardens who’d guarded the armoury. The bright blade flashed. He took careful aim – and loosed.

Thelana was forced to release her hold on the staff and meet the speeding pike. She threw up a magical shield and the weapon’s blade shuddered against it, clattering to the floor. But when she once more looked to Nerontes, she saw that she’d won that momentary battle only to lose the war: Godsbane was now in his hands.

‘Nerontes, don’t do this!’ she shouted, and summoned the lightning again, determined not to let him leave the room with that staff.

Nerontes summoned fire. ‘This is not what I wanted, Thelana – I had thought you might understand.’

He cast. She cast. Her lightning and his plasmic fire met in the air. Pure, kinetic force blasted outward from where the aelemental forces collided. Thelana flew head over heels, until a wall arrested her flight. The breath was knocked from her body as she hit the floor hard, her senses scrambled.

She could not say how long it took her to regain herself. When she did, however, and raised her eyes, she felt a terrible pang of despair and loss.

Nerontes and Castigus were gone, as was Godsbane.

New Auralans had arrived, however. When they saw her lying there, surrounded by corpses and ruin, the fabled staff nowhere in sight, they did their duty.

Thelana stared at six bright, sharp spear-points, all hovering, ready to strike.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Never in her life had Thelana imagined that she – a proud Lumineth, a loyal daughter of Teclis and Tyrion, a humble servant of her people, a scholar – would find herself in a locked cell. Yet, here she was: humiliated, powerless, bereft of allies.

For five torturous days, a prisoner.

‘Where is Nerontes Fane?’ they had asked her, again and again.

‘I know nothing about his plans, or his ultimate designs,’ she repeated. ‘The moment I realised his aim was to abscond with Godsbane, I used every weapon in my arsenal to stop him.’

‘But you failed, didn’t you?’

Yes. Yes, she had failed.

‘He was your ally, was he not? Once your student? Even a close friend?’

All true. She could not deny it.

‘And now, we are to believe that he hatched this nefarious plot – waited patiently while other actors moved the pieces into place on the game board – and that finally, he murdered sworn protectors of this university’s secrets and a powerful, respected faculty member… and that you knew nothing of his designs?’

‘Yes,’ she had said. ‘You should believe that, for it is the truth – however humiliating it is to admit it.’

She had been blind. Completely, utterly blind. How could he have hatched such devious plots and never revealed even the slightest inkling of his true intentions to her?

Simple enough: he was brilliant. And cunning. And patient. He had used her own trust in him, her own alienation from the university’s power apparatus, and her well-established love and compassion for her students against her; against everyone.

A small, quiet part of her – a deeply buried part – admired the brilliance of it all. Nerontes had played her like a skald’s harp in order to gain access to Godsbane and seize it. If she were studying this event from a remove – as an investigator or historian, poring over the records decades or centuries hence – she would admit a sneaking admiration for Nerontes Fane and what he’d achieved. It was masterful.

During the previous night’s interrogation, she had tried to make the threat he now posed clear to them.

‘I do not believe this to be a crime of opportunity,’ she emphasised again and again. ‘Nerontes has been seeking Godsbane for some time – directly, specifically – and having finally uncovered it, he’s now implemented a plan long in the making. We cannot underestimate what he may be capable of!’

But, of course, they had dismissed her threats and fears. She had no doubt they were preparing their own contingencies, but they would not satisfy her desire to believe she would or could aid them. If only for her benefit, they pretended to ignore her pleas and warnings, to view everything she said, and all of her unspoken motivations, as suspect.

Thelana, lying upon her back on the stone floor of her cell, sighed heavily, her melancholy and self-loathing threatening to overwhelm her.

They are right to look with pity and distrust upon me, she thought, staring at the ceiling of the little cell. I was either too stupid to see the signs of Nerontes’ eventual betrayal, or wilfully blind. In either case, I deserve no mercy. My imprisonment, all punishments to come… I deserve them.

A part of her fought that self-pitying belief, all but raging inside her, like a gryph-hound bound in an unbreakable cage.

Foolish? Wilfully blind? He lied to you! Manipulated you! He could have been planning this for years – decades, even! If his designs were dark enough and his motivations base enough, he would have used any and every means of suppressing his true intentions! Even the most brilliant investigator would not have been aware of his potential betrayal, because that is how desperately Nerontes worked to keep his secrets!

Now, stop pitying yourself and work out some means of escaping this place, for there is work to be done!

She closed her eyes. All she wanted was clarity. If she could achieve that, a course of action might present itself.

‘If you blow out another dejected sigh,’ a voice said from somewhere nearby, ‘I do believe I’ll go stark raving mad.’

Thelana opened her eyes, peering through the gloom. Her cell consisted of three solid walls, with the span where the fourth wall should have been lying wide open before her. This prison had no bars: there was simply an invisible barrier before her, permeable only by light, air and sound. Her naked eye saw nothing barring her path, but she knew that if she attempted to walk out of the cell, she would slam into a hard, cold barrier as solid as a wall of unshatterable glass.

She stared, therefore, directly out of her own cell, directly at the cell on the opposite side of the corridor. She could just perceive a figure slumped in the darkness over there – lithe, feminine, dressed in tight, supple leathers and lightweight chainmail, a mass of long, black hair pouring down from atop her slumped head.

Thelana stared, trying to get a better look at the silent watcher. She could all but smell the disdain and pity wafting off of the woman; almost hear the curl of her lip into a derisive sneer beneath the shadows cast by all that unruly black hair.

‘I had no idea I sighed so loudly,’ Thelana said, all but willing the figure to coalesce in the shadows. Try as she might, the woman slumped against that far cell wall remained a dark smudge.

‘You do,’ the other prisoner said. ‘It is most vexing.’

‘Who are you, then?’ Thelana asked.

‘No one at all,’ the prisoner said ruefully. ‘I did not seek concord, only an end to your infernal noise-making. Carry on… just try not to breathe so loudly.’

‘Well, you’ve interrupted my train of thought now,’ Thelana said, unfolding her legs and standing. ‘Can I not at least get a name?’

‘I should ask who you are,’ the other prisoner said. ‘You wear a wizard’s robes and you’re Lumineth. How do you find yourself in this foul place?’

‘I was an instructor at this university,’ Thelana said quietly, almost to herself.

‘And now?’ the prisoner asked.

Thelana considered. What was she, in fact?

‘Now,’ she finally said, ‘I am a fool.’

The prisoner began to chuckle, quietly and coldly.

‘My goodness,’ she said drolly. ‘Such recrimination.’

Thelana turned to spear her with a fell gaze. ‘If you intend to mock me, I won’t waste time treating with you.’

Down a short passage and around a corner lay the locked entrance to their gaol. At that moment, Thelana heard the telltale signs of movement and approach: the several locks and bolts that held the door disengaging; the heavy groan of the door hinges themselves, followed by footsteps.

A moment later, Regent Sembaris appeared. There was no Warden in his company. Thelana thought she saw the shadow of some deeply felt but suppressed feeling pass over his face as he stepped up to the invisible barrier that separated them. He spared only a momentary glance for the pale Khainite in the opposite cell.

Sembaris studied her. ‘How do you fare, Thelana Evenfall?’

‘As well as could be expected.’

Sembaris nodded. ‘You have my sympathy.’

‘But do I have your support?’ she quickly countered. ‘You know I’ve done nothing wrong, Regent Sembaris.’

‘I do not know that,’ he said, just as quickly. ‘I suspect that to be the truth. I hope that is the truth. But I do not have all the facts required to exonerate you.’

‘Then I am to be charged with a crime?’ Thelana asked.

Sembaris’ lips pursed. ‘Not yet. There are still questions to be answered.’

Thelana felt weariness assail her. ‘I spent hours answering questions! The same questions, over and over and over again.’

Sembaris shrugged. ‘The regents are not satisfied. The next step is, most likely, an enhanced interrogation.’

Thelana felt a terrible chill run through her. ‘They mean to enchant me and tear the truth out of me?’

‘Oh my,’ the Khainite said from her cell.

Thelana and Sembaris scowled at the prisoner simultaneously. The mysterious female raised her hands in surrender and withdrew deeper into the shadows.

Sembaris stepped nearer to the invisible barrier between he and Thelana. ‘They will only be satisfied when they know that your testimony is unassailable. They believe that if Nerontes – a human – could mislead the Collegiate Arcane leadership for so long, and escape notice by you, one of his oldest companions, then there is no telling what you yourself have managed to hide from them – or even to hide from yourself.’

Thelana stared. That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? They were not simply afraid that she was keeping secrets from them. They were also convinced that she had, over the course of time, wilfully blinded herself to Nerontes’ deficits of character and suspicious behaviour – that she knew things she herself did not even realise she knew, because she had deliberately dismissed or ignored them.

And so, she thought, they will suborn my will, break open my mind and heart like a ripe thorn-fruit, and pick out what they require, bit by bit.

‘When?’ she asked.

Sembaris shrugged again. ‘The spells and enchantments employed must be carefully designed and deployed. With our primary spellwright dead…’

Thelana felt a pang of shame. Kelarion, slain, along with one of his more trusted apprentices. That was a hole in the collective expertise of the Regents’ Council that would be hard to fill.

‘There are other interrogations underway already,’ he said then, eyes downcast.

Thelana stared. ‘Others?’

Sembaris nodded. Sighed. ‘Tueldor. Exaris. Every member of the Adepts’ Council. All will be subjected to enchantment and questioning.’

Thelana felt that terrible chill move through her again.

‘Are they mad?’ she asked. ‘They’ll do nothing but alienate the students in this university, not to mention human powers like the Collegiate Arcane. Why subject a group of duly appointed deputies to such extreme interrogation if there is no proof–’

‘They will leave no stone unturned,’ Sembaris said grimly. Then, his voice fell. ‘There are already reports of an army gathering at the edge of the desert, where the hill country begins. Nerontes has begun to gather troops. Hundreds, it appears, were poised to answer his call the moment it went out – in a day or two, that number could become thousands.’

Thelana stepped closer, knowing the barrier was just a finger’s length away from the tip of her nose. ‘Get me out of here, Sembaris. I know how he thinks! I may not have seen this betrayal coming, but now that his duplicity has been revealed, I can help you stop him!’

‘But that’s just the question,’ Sembaris countered. ‘Stop him doing what? What is he planning, Thelana? Whom does he even work for? Or with? Was he tainted by Chaos?’

Thelana remembered Nerontes’ words in the armoury.

Chaos? he’d said, scoffing at the very suggestion – seeming insulted, in fact, that she’d even suggest it. This has nothing to do with Chaos, old friend. This is about power, and who wields it. My comrades and allies imagine a world in which mortal-kind – my kind – can be the masters of their own fate, subject to neither gods nor daemons.

But the only way the fate of mortal-kind can be secured is with a weapon capable of destroying a god – any god.

That’s why I need Godsbane… and I will have it.

‘It’s not Chaos that fuels his ambitions,’ Thelana said. ‘It’s justice. His idea of justice, at any rate.’

Sembaris’ brow knitted dubiously. ‘Justice?’

‘Nerontes believes that the gods of the Mortal Realms are to blame for the enslavement and suffering of mortal-kind,’ Thelana spat impatiently. ‘All of the gods! Not only the gods of Chaos, but also Tyrion, Teclis, Alarielle, Sigmar. All the gods are, by his reckoning, monsters and tyrants. He wants to destroy them.’

Sembaris chewed on that pronouncement for some time, as though he could not actually believe it.

‘I told the council that,’ she said pleadingly. ‘You were there.’

‘It is unimaginable,’ he said slowly. ‘Mad. The height of folly.’

‘And yet,’ Thelana responded, ‘what other explanation is there?’

Sembaris shook his head. He looked genuinely pained. ‘We can fight the gods of Chaos, Thelana. We can fight contagion, and bloodlust, and mad indulgence and unbridled change. But… how do we fight an idea?’

Thelana shook her head. ‘I have no answer to that question,’ she said, truly feeling the despair of her position; not only her own helplessness, but the council’s as well. ‘But I want to be an aid to you in this. Let me out of here, Sembaris, and I shall do all in my power to stop him – even if it means my death!’

Sembaris studied her. Seemed to genuinely search within himself for some sense of the right course of action. Finally, he could only sigh and shake his head.

‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said, ‘but I can promise nothing. Even if the council accepts your aid, I fear they will only do so after you’ve been enchanted and interrogated. Only after their suspicions are wholly eradicated.’

Thelana could already imagine the aftermath of that interrogation. Enchantments of that sort wrought havoc upon the psyche. Even in a compliant subject, the erosion of one’s natural mental defences had serious physical consequences. If they enchanted her, interrogated her, she would, in the aftermath, be a useless shell for days to come – if not weeks.

Even if they believed her and wanted her assistance, she would not be able to give it.

‘Convince them, Sembaris,’ Thelana said, knowing that he heard the earnest plea in her voice. ‘I can do nothing if I am broken. You know that.’

Sembaris nodded soberly. ‘I know it,’ he said. ‘But I may be helpless to stop it.’

He turned and departed the dungeon. Once more, Thelana was left with only a storm of dreadful thoughts and misgivings… and the watchful, acrimonious gaze of that foul stranger in the opposite cell.

‘They plan to use magic to get their answers,’ the prisoner said.

Thelana did not bother to raise her eyes. ‘They do not trust me.’

‘Have they reason to distrust you?’

Thelana had no immediate answers. She could only shake her head.

‘I do not mock you,’ the prisoner said, standing and sauntering to the front of her cell. ‘I mock the powers you serve, for they’ve clearly turned on you, heaped their myriad sins upon you. Tell me, bright scholar, what terrible transgression can you claim? I overheard some of your conversation but not all of it.’

When the prisoner reached the front of her cell, the dim light from the aetherquartz lining the hallway fell upon her. Thelana saw the tapering, pointed ears visible beneath her black, unruly hair, as well as the pale cast of her skin – as white as sun-bleached bone.

Thelana felt her own brow furrow. ‘A priestess of Khaine?’ she asked.

The prisoner, the Khainite, smiled a little.

‘Very good,’ she said. ‘Identify my home temple and I might think you know a thing or two.’

Thelana studied the pale stranger in the prison’s dim half-light.

‘You sat there for hours, staring at me, and I did not notice you until just now,’ Thelana said, weighing all the facts and possibilities before her. ‘I’d say you were Khailebron, prone to lurking in dark corners and skulking in the shadows.’

It was simply an inference, based on all that Thelana had learned of the Daughters of Khaine in her years of travel, study and investigation. She had very little first-hand knowledge of their foul sects.

The Khainite raised her eyebrows and began to slowly, drolly clap her hands.

‘Most impressive, cousin,’ she said in that strange, sinister voice of hers – something between a sigh and a purr. ‘Most impressive, indeed. Clearly the Lyceum Fundamental’s taught you a thing or two.’

‘I am not your cousin,’ Thelana said. She was not prone to having strong feelings about strangers based on only brief familiarity, but already, something about this Khainite aelf made her skin crawl. The Daughters of Khaine were foul murderesses at the best of times, but the Khailebron temple was renowned for the cunning and stealth it inculcated into its priestesses and Acolytes. Even among such a blood-soaked race, they were considered the fiercest foes in single combat, the source of a hundred generations of fearsome assassins and silent killers.

‘You’re an aelf, aren’t you?’ the Khainite witch said. ‘In one way or another, all our blood flows from the same wellspring.’

Thelana shook her head and stared at her feet.

‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ the witch aelf said. ‘What could someone like you have possibly done to warrant incarceration?’

‘It is none of your concern,’ Thelana said, not looking at her, yet trying to remain calm and resigned. ‘Please, I am weary and I have much on my mind. I beg your silence.’

The witch aelf surprised her then. She leaned forward, letting her head rest flat against the invisible, magical barrier that marked the fourth wall of her cell.

‘Please,’ she purred silkily. ‘Please, white witch, tell me what terrible transgression you’re guilty of. I’ve been here for days, all alone, bored out of my mind. I need some amusement.’

Thelana refused to look directly at her. ‘You mock me,’ she said.

‘I do,’ the witch aelf answered. ‘You must share. The curiosity is killing me–’

‘I failed!’ Thelana shouted.

‘Failed how?’ the witch aelf asked. ‘A test?’

‘I failed to see corruption in a student, and she died,’ Thelana said, now knowing that she was not speaking to please the Khainite, but to indict herself. ‘I then failed to see corruption in an ally, and he betrayed me! And, finally, when I saw that betrayal clearly, and understood the price of failure, I was still bested and outsmarted! Hysh – all the Mortal Realms – are now in danger because of my inadequacy.’

The witch aelf stared back at her. Her head cocked slightly – a gesture of curiosity.

‘Someone’s got an inflated sense of her own importance,’ the Khainite said.

Thelana turned from the bone-skinned harridan, seeking shelter in her bare cell and finding none.

‘Spare me your judgement,’ Thelana muttered. ‘What would one such as yourself know about duty or honour or a sense of purpose and responsibility?’

There came a long pause.

‘Duty,’ the witch aelf finally said, and Thelana heard a wicked, pent-up laughter in her voice. ‘Honour… purpose and responsibility… surely, one such as myself could know nothing about those things. You know nothing, Lumineth witch. Nothing.’

There was a new quality in the Khainite’s voice now – something sharp and crystalline; almost poisonous. All at once, Thelana knew precisely what that was – the venomous, sharpened edge that the Khainite’s soft voice now possessed.

What had she said? My goodness… such self-recrimination.

Aye, Thelana was displeased with herself… and the Khainite had noted it because she understood all too well what that displeasure felt like.

‘You’re right,’ Thelana said. ‘I know nothing. Enlighten me.’

The witch aelf stepped away from the invisible wall of the cell, as if suddenly taken aback by Thelana’s words.

‘No,’ the Khainite said.

‘Please,’ Thelana countered. ‘I would like to hear your story. It might help me see my own predicament more clearly – and with more perspective.’

The Khainite smiled. ‘Still all about you.’

Thelana shrugged. ‘You’re right. Why bother? I’m sure there’s a simple explanation. No doubt, you slew some poor, unwary soul in possession of a petrified shard of your god–’

The witch aelf spat out rueful laughter.

‘Far off the mark?’ Thelana asked.

The witch aelf shook her head. Her bitter smile remained. ‘Closer than you realise.’

Thelana strode forward and sat down upon the floor, cross-legged, as though she were a student eager for a lesson. She folded her hands in her lap and stared up at the Khainite. She knew the gesture might annoy the assassin… but its inherent ridiculousness might also win her over.

The gambit worked. The witch aelf sat herself down as well. Now, there they were – two strangers in opposing cells, sitting like street corner yarn-spinners, facing one another across the scant space separating them.

‘My name is Sespyra,’ the Khainite said, ‘bladedancer and first knife of my Khailebron temple. I was arrested because I slew three bounty hunters in a low city tavern, and the local authorities realised that a mundane cell in the human prefect’s dungeon would not hold me.’

‘Bounty hunters,’ Thelana said slowly. ‘You’re a fugitive?’

Sespyra cocked her head in that curious fashion again. Before, it had seemed a gesture of interest, as though she were trying to more deeply penetrate Thelana’s outer defences; now, it struck Thelana as performative – a bald invitation to more deeply penetrate her appearance, for Thelana to truly see her as she spoke.

‘I was part of a coup against Morathi,’ Sespyra said quietly, almost proudly.

Thelana truly could not believe her ears.

‘A coup? Against the Immortal High Oracle of Khaine?’

‘High Oracle of Khaine,’ Sespyra spat. ‘Bah! Morathi doesn’t care a whit for Khaine!’ Her voice fell again, now little more than a whisper. ‘She’s trying to steal our slain god’s power for herself – to raise herself up as a true, all-powerful goddess.

‘Unfortunately, my foolish co-conspirators thought they saw an opening and moved too soon. They did not survive the attempt. I was lucky to escape with my life before my involvement was revealed.’

‘But they’re looking for you,’ Thelana said. Morathi, betraying her patron god? Could it truly be?

Sespyra nodded. The fact of her fugitive nature – the imminent danger she now faced, no matter where she went – seemed to delight and disgust her all at once.

‘Yes, they’re looking for me,’ she said. ‘That’s why I need to get out of here. If word of my incarceration reaches Morathi’s servants and they find me here, I’m done for.’

Thelana shook her head. ‘The regents would never turn you over to murderers. They’d sooner lock you away themselves, where you could never be found.’

‘They won’t come as murderers,’ Sespyra said. ‘They’ll come with a warrant. They’ll come speaking of the will of Morathi and the ancient treaties between our kind and yours, and Sigmar and all the rest. They’ll come using the letter of the law to convince your Lumineth brethren that Order and Light are better served by my punishment – at the hands of my own kind – than by my continued imprisonment here.’

Thelana considered. That scenario struck her as far more plausible.

‘That’s why I need to get out of here,’ Sespyra said. ‘This cell is, for me, a very literal deathtrap. If we put our heads together–’

‘There is no hope,’ Thelana said quickly. ‘This place is designed to hold our kind – magic users.’

After a long pause, the witch aelf spoke.

‘What if I told you that there might be a way?’ she asked. ‘If there were, perhaps, a weakness in this gaol to exploit – would you join me? Would you work with me to get out of this place?’

Thelana blinked. She considered the Khainite’s offer very carefully.

‘I would need to get out of the city,’ Thelana said. ‘Immediately.’

‘I have transport arranged,’ Sespyra said. ‘But the clock is ticking. Yes or no, Lumineth – shall we help one another, or sit here waiting for our persecutors to have their way with us?’

Thelana considered. She had a great many misgivings. Despite her present circumstances, she knew that if she made the choice to extricate herself from this situation and go after Nerontes alone – or with whatever limited help she could gather – she was all but insuring a final judgement by the Regents’ Council against her.

And nonetheless, she was still ready to do so. Because to do nothing, to let them interrogate her and drag the truth out of her and destroy her will and ability to somehow repair the damage already done, seemed infinitely worse than simply breaking out of this place and going after Nerontes alone.

She stepped closer to the barrier.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘What is your plan?’

The Khainite smiled. ‘I’ve been toying around since being locked in here, and I’ve come to a realisation. These cells interfere with our ability to use our innate magical abilities, they suppress us as spellcasters.’

Thelana nodded. ‘Of this I am well aware.’

The Khainite pressed closer to the barrier. ‘But did you know that the suppression in question is only effected inside the cell? That outside these cells, we can still cast?’

‘Of course we can spellcast outside the cells,’ Thelana said impatiently. ‘That’s why we’re locked inside them!’

‘You’re not listening,’ Sespyra said. When she next spoke, her voice was quieter, rather than louder. ‘I can cast a spell upon you, in your cell, just as you could cast a spell upon me, in mine. What we cannot do is cast a spell inside our own cells for any sort of self-benefit.’

Thelana blinked. ‘Impossible,’ she said.

The witch aelf shrugged. ‘Try it if you do not believe me.’

Thelana considered her options. ‘Have you a wound? Any untended injuries?’

Sespyra considered for a moment, then unwound a length of bandage wrapped around her left forearm. When the bandage was unwrapped, she revealed a long, ragged gash, ugly but certainly not dangerous, so long as any potential infection had been tended to.

Thelana reached out her hand. Though they were still separated by empty space, she tried to imagine that space as non-existent; tried to will the space between the out-turned palm of her hand and Sespyra’s scabbed, bloody wound as bridged. Had she possessed her staff, it would have been fairly easy: while she did not require the implement for spellcasting, it helped to both draw energy from the aether and focus that energy towards a specific end. With only her will, the empty air, and the interference of the anti-magical sigils placed upon her cell now working against her, it would be an uphill battle to produce an effect that would have been negligible had she been anywhere else, and in direct physical contact with her subject.

But she had to try, even if there was a minuscule chance of the two of them escaping.

So, Thelana imagined the witch aelf’s pale, smooth flesh beneath her own warm hands, and she summoned one of her most familiar, low-power healing spells.

It was a trial, not unlike trying to speak to someone through a solid wall. She could literally feel the cell around her, working actively to keep any magic she summoned from coalescing towards potency. And yet, the harder the cell worked to stop her, the harder Thelana worked to will the power up from inside her, out through her warm hands, through empty space, into that cell that Sespyra occupied.

Little by little, as Thelana stared, focusing upon the ragged flesh, the wound on Sespyra’s arm began to knit itself together, a process that might have taken days or weeks unfolding over the course of a few moments.

‘You see?’ the witch aelf asked. She spoke in a rush, as if she had been holding her own breath, waiting to see if her hypothesis could be proven.

Thelana almost lost the spell – lost concentration – but she forced herself to remain focused. She had to stop before the wound was fully healed – the strain was too great. But now, upon Sespyra’s brandished arm, there was only a ragged, mostly healed scar where only moments ago there had been a scabbed-over gash encrusted with dried blood.

Thelana’s heart was beating hard in her chest. Her breath, likewise, was shallow and ragged. She fell back against the inner wall of her cell, exhausted.

‘It still works against you,’ she said between gulps of air. ‘Still… suppresses… our magic.’

‘Suppresses, yes,’ Sespyra said, smiling. ‘But it does not stop it. Not entirely.’

‘All right, then,’ Thelana said, struggling to catch her breath again. She slid to the floor, her knees too weak to hold her upright any longer. ‘What do you propose?’

Castigus felt magic at work the moment he passed over the threshold of the ruined temple at the heart of the acropolis, the small hairs on his arms and at the nape of his neck all standing in unison. Ahead of him, past the outer vestibule, he saw Nerontes, alone in the ruined sanctuary. He was levitating a great cohort of fallen masonry – enormous, barrel-shaped fragments of fallen pillars; massive blocks from the tumbled walls; even ancient, half-petrified roof struts, once wood, now as dense and heavy as stone.

He’d seen Nerontes perform wonders before, but that familiarity now threw the unique nature of Fane’s present state into sharper relief. In the past, the strain and complexity of such a feat might have marked its undertaker, manifesting as strained muscles, clammy skin, a sense of time and physics suspended by sheer force of will and physical determination. Now, however, Castigus saw no signs of strain or struggle. Nerontes seemed to hold all those enormous, heavy objects in the air as a casual, meditative act that he was barely conscious of. He stood, eyes closed in peaceful resignation, hands stretched outward, palms up, supporting Godsbane gingerly, as though it were a royal sceptre demanding the lightest, most delicate touch. Castigus lingered in the shadows of the half-fallen peristyle, content to bear witness to the miracle from a distance. The last thing he needed was to be crushed by one of those giant stones when Nerontes finally deigned to drop them.

Suddenly, his long-time companion’s eyes snapped open.

To Castigus’ amazement, they glowed brightly, like two small, pale witchfires in the darkness, strange smoke bleeding from them into the air. It was a terrible, sinister sight – Nerontes, remade as a thing of terror and malign intent – and it made Castigus’ blood run cold for an instant.

Nerontes must have noticed his distemper. A moment later, the power coursing through him, permeating the vast, once-holy chamber, subsided. Slowly the huge levitating stones sank, coming to rest upon the sand-scoured flagstones of the temple. Once more, Nerontes was simply Nerontes: his most stalwart and dedicated companion, his teacher, his unwavering partner, and – most of all – his friend.

‘Impressive,’ Castigus said, suggesting the now-prone stones around them. ‘Explain to me how levitating stones will serve our ends?’ It was a facetious question, he knew, but he could not resist. They needed the levity, badly.

Nerontes smiled a little. ‘You’re impossible to impress.’

‘I’ve seen you levitate a great many things, large and small,’ Castigus said.

Nerontes held up the staff – Godsbane. He still cradled it in open hands, like a holy relic.

‘It was not simply the strength and efficacy of the spell,’ the mage said, ‘but also its casual complexity. I could have commanded each stone, unto itself, as though it were a living, semi-sentient creature. I could have given each enormous piece of masonry a mission, then set them to it. That is the true miracle of this little bauble – not just the power it affords, but its infinite adaptability. It seems to have no limitations in terms of the power it contains, nor the power it can bestow. It is, truly, limited only by my imagination.’

Above, bright daylight streamed in from a massive gash in the temple roof. In ancient days this place had been home to a small population of Lumineth spellwrights and seekers – or so Nerontes had said. When Spirefall came and their world was sundered by the failure of their long-practised magic, a great many of the larger structures in the city – held aloft by active spells – had collapsed. Evidence of that collapse lay before them in the form of a once-proud watchtower that had crashed right through the roof. Some of the ruined stones that had constituted that tower were among those Nerontes had been levitating. Castigus idly wondered if Nerontes could cause that long-fallen tower to rise up and rebuild itself.

‘You have news for me?’ Nerontes asked.

Ah, yes. That was why Castigus had come looking for him, wasn’t it?

‘They’re here,’ he said. ‘The first, at any rate. About a hundred, thus far.’

Nerontes nodded. ‘Very well. Lead the way.’

He seized the staff in one hand – as though it were a walking stick. Castigus led him back through the peristyle and out of the temple.

‘This place makes me uneasy,’ Castigus admitted, as they carried on. ‘Something in the air. It’s nothing I can clearly articulate… just a feeling.’

‘Perfectly normal,’ Nerontes said. ‘This was a place of deep, powerful spellcraft and terrible, heartbreaking folly. Its wonders and woes remain – ephemeral, just under the surface. Do you know, early in the day, when I first began my exercises, I created a time window? It allowed me to peer backward, to see this place as it used to be, during its heady days.’

Castigus threw a glance at his dear friend. He wore a distant, moon-eyed expression. It was one of Nerontes’ most endearing qualities: the awe he felt for knowledge in and of itself, along with a healthy reverence for the past.

‘Through that window,’ he said, ‘I bore witness, at a distance, to their fall and ruination.’

‘Spirefall?’ Castigus asked. He’d heard the tales, of course. Nerontes himself had told him many.

Nerontes nodded. ‘Spirefall… when the self-importance and overweening pride of the Lumineth exploded as a storm of magical conflicts, great and small. They nearly destroyed Hysh, you know. The land, sundered by wild magic. Aetherquartz towers falling out of the sky. The keeps and strongholds of wizards and priests who fancied themselves equal to gods crumbling into dust…’

He glanced back at the crumbling temple.

‘This was just such a place. They called it Kel Tallis, the Court of Wonders. Nothing but ruin, dust and weeds.’

Castigus did as his companion bade and studied the half-ruined temple. The remains of the long-toppled watchtower that had smashed through its eastern wall and lay, crumbled and segmented, along the eastern edge of the acropolis. He imagined this place had been impressive at one time, even beautiful. The knowledge that pride and arrogance brought it all crashing down filled him with a strange, mingled sensation of both vindication and dread.

‘You’re sure this is the best place to rally?’ Castigus asked.

Nerontes nodded. ‘The wild magic here will mask that borne within Godsbane, making it more difficult for our enemies to find us. Likewise, there is the symbolic value of this place.’

Castigus arched an eyebrow. ‘Symbolic value?’

Nerontes nodded soberly. ‘All power is fleeting, all supremacy but an instant away from being overturned. In an ancient era, long before we were born, the Lumineth who lived and died here thought themselves the masters of their universe. Now, where are they?’

Castigus nodded and they carried on, down the temple steps and through the vast, dusty square surrounding it. The acropolis wall was a short march ahead of them; then, they’d begin their descent down the winding streets of the ruined city that clung to the hillside.

Pride. Arrogance. The apocalyptic price of both, when unchecked by humility or moral authority. He contemplated those things as they continued.

What they attempted now was arrogance personified. For centuries, the Black Sun had endured, a hidden network of philosophers, revolutionaries and mages reading signs, biding their time, waiting for the moment when some prize or prophet would present themselves and suggest that the foretold conflagration – the great change that they yearned to induce – was finally underway.

Nerontes had decided that, with Godsbane in his hands, he was the chosen instrument of that change. Using the dream-borne messaging network that existed among all the Black Sun’s loyal constituents – a network maintained by Black Sun pendants, signet rings, bracelets or torques worn in plain sight of ordinary folks who knew nothing of their provenance or import – Nerontes had sent a call far and wide to every member of the Black Sun, from Hysh to the farthest edges of fiery Aqshy.

Nerontes had crafted his message carefully, eager to be both rousing yet also specific and grave. In essence, he’d told them that the hour foretold was at hand; the time of the Great Change was underway. He would be the fulcrum, they the lever, and the world would shift on its axis in answer to their long-held hopes and desires.

Come, he invited. If you seek the end of the gods’ tyranny and the hope of a new day dawning. I bid you, come. Come to me and march under my banner. Together, we shall change the world.

He’d ended with the standard call to arms of the Black Sun.

For the dying.

Nerontes had sent that dream-message on the night of their hasty flight from Settler’s Gain, six days prior. Now, just a day after their arrival here, at the ruins of Kel Tallis, their first respondents – those closest – had arrived. They waited below, outside the acropolis walls and down the hillside. It was a small coterie, but it was just the beginning, Castigus knew. More would come, and greater.

Nerontes would change the Mortal Realms – of this, he had no doubt. And he, Castigus, would be fortunate enough to be at his side as he turned everything upside down.

It was a brief, bracing walk from the summit of the hill to the base of its south-eastern slope. There, Nerontes’ volunteers waited in a broad, open space that had once been a forum or marketplace. Castigus stood by his initial count of about one hundred: just short of two dozen Black Sun cell quaestors, provisors, legates and marshals – the field leaders of their respective cells – along with their closest allies and most trusted subordinates. They were mostly human – proud, well-to-do members of old families here in Hysh, as well as several newly minted and prosperous merchants, captains in some Freeguild regiment or another, along with a few independent sorcerers not associated with any particular school or the Collegiate Arcane. Several aelves and duardin milled among them, as well. Castigus had no doubt their numbers would grow.

The new arrivals studied Nerontes as he picked a slow, careful path down the slope, no doubt trying to get a good look at the staff he carried, trying to decide if the object – quite ordinary and unremarkable to the untrained eye – could possibly be the powerful artefact whispered of in their separate circles.

Nerontes found a raised plaza just above and beside the forum. There, he surveyed his troops.

‘Thank you for coming,’ he said, projecting his voice into the still, quiet air. ‘It’s good to know I have supporters.’

‘You have an audience,’ one of the old, moneyed men below said. ‘You’ll have to give us more if you want supporters.’

Nerontes eyed the fellow. ‘You want money?’

‘We want proof,’ an aelven sorceress accompanied by a retinue of Acolytes said. ‘None here are so base as to sell their allegiance to you, Nerontes Fane. But we need to know that you carry the fabled weapon – that the time for decisive action is clearly at hand.’

He brandished the staff.

‘This is the weapon,’ he said. ‘This is Godsbane.’

A duardin Fyreslayer chief scoffed. ‘It’s a stick,’ he said.

Castigus looked to Nerontes. He wanted to tell him that these dogs required no proof – they were just being obstreperous, challenging his authority. But he could tell by the eager half-smile on Nerontes’ face that their request for proof of power troubled him little: in fact, he seemed to welcome it.

Nerontes looked out from his vantage on the hillside. Castigus saw, at once, what drew his attentions: a long-fallen spire sprawling on the outer periphery of the hilltop city they now haunted, broken into several enormous fragments, like the clean, white skeletal spine of a long-dead titan wyrm.

‘Behold, the spire!’ Nerontes said, and stretched out the staff towards the great toppled obelisk.

Once again, Castigus felt a subtle change in the air through the small hairs on his arms, at the nape of his neck. The staff was awake, and his body was – down to its core – aware of that fact. As Castigus and the newcomers watched, Nerontes unleashed a twisting font of aetheric fire and lightning. The ropes of flame and withering skeins of energy leapt from the bejewelled head of the staff, arcing across the city ruins towards the fallen spire. The air rippled and the clouds above were chased away by a blast of concussive force. Before all the wondering, horrified eyes of those present, the great central section of the fallen tower buckled and exploded outward. It sent an enormous wall of wind blowing back through the ruined streets of the city, whipping up minor dust storms upon the hilltop and caused all present – Nerontes included – to hunker down against its outrushing force.

But when the dust cleared and they could once more rise and look to see, they knew – Castigus knew – that Nerontes Fane spoke truth. The entire central section of that fallen tower – a structure roughly the size of the ruined temple in the acropolis above them – had vanished.

Nerontes surveyed those gathered below. Castigus saw beaded sweat on his brow, subtle tremors in his hands. This time, apparently, the show of power had exacted a physical toll, suggesting to Castigus that either the staff itself, or the power it temporarily granted, had both limits and a price.

He knew the newcomers below could not see Nerontes’ sweat or the shaking hands, however. They only saw a champion above them; the living nexus of their long-frustrated desires for a new and different world.

‘That,’ Nerontes said, ‘is just a fraction of the force I’m capable of unleashing, upon a dead and unmoving target. I stand before you now, with this staff in hand, because Godsbane chose me. I stood face to face with a Tzeentchian daemon prince, and I laid hands upon this staff – a staff that the daemon had already claimed – and it saved me. The one who wielded it was destroyed, and only I remained.’

‘What now?’ one of the Freeguild captains shouted. ‘Are we to bow down to you? Worship you as a god?’

Nerontes shook his head gravely.

‘I would refuse such homage if offered,’ he said. ‘I do not want worshippers or sycophants! I want allies! The time for our foretold revolution is now, and the place it begins is here, in the ruins of Kel Tallis, in Hysh!’

‘But what of the order’s leadership – the sects in Azyr and Ghyran? They shall want to coordinate, to prepare–’

‘They want to argue,’ Nerontes countered, descending from the raised dais he’d addressed them from, ‘and they want to stall. If I deliver Godsbane to them now, they’ll lock it away in some vault and debate endlessly – perhaps for generations – trying to formulate a plan of attack and decide when and how best to deploy its power. I say we have no time to lose. Godsbane is here, now, in my hands. It chose me. I have chosen all of you. Will you answer my call?’

One of the other mages looked sceptical. ‘We are too few, Fane. We’ll have no hope, even if each of us gathers our servants and allies.’

Castigus looked to Nerontes. Nerontes glanced back. His smile was infectious now: powerful, yet strangely childlike. He was enjoying this, down to his bones.

‘We need only start the boulder rolling,’ Nerontes said. ‘It shall gather more earth and turf on its way down the mountain. Send out the call. Invoke the long-whispered words that we’ve been taught, from our first initiation into the Black Sun, to listen for. Hark! A shadow upon the sun! Spread the battle cry far and wide – first here, in Hysh, then to your most trusted emissaries in all the Mortal Realms. The revolution starts here, now.’

Castigus studied Nerontes. Nerontes studied the seed of his nascent army.

‘I’ve chosen all of you,’ he said. ‘Choose me, and the dream our order has long nursed and preserved can finally come to fruition in our lifetimes.

‘What say you?’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The changing of the guard came mid-afternoon, and the incoming sergeant-at-arms ventured alone into the cell block to examine their two prisoners. He was a good soldier: obedient, determined and eager to distinguish himself through demonstrations of his ironclad competence; unparalleled in single combat; a solid if unimaginative tactician; a willing, eager subordinate to any Lumineth superior placed above him. He knew nothing of the transgressions of the two aelven females currently locked in the high city’s gaol – one a Lumineth loreseeker, the other a Khainite assassin – other than that they were prisoners, and that they should be kept secure until such time as the authorities that commanded him came to collect or release them.

He also knew that, as sergeant-at-arms and master of the watch through the middle of the night, the welfare of the prisoners was his responsibility. This was why he insisted upon checking on his prisoners – whomever they might be – whenever his shift began. The state of things before his arrival on duty was not his concern, but the state of things during his duty hours was entirely his responsibility. His personal honour, his unimpeachable integrity, both were on the line and could only be maintained through the conscientious dispatch of his sworn duties.

He was quite dismayed, then, to find their Lumineth prisoner wholly absent.

He checked all eight cells on the bloc before taking up vigil before the Zaitreci loreseeker’s chamber, staring into the bounded space that was now, disturbingly, empty. She had not been released or taken for questioning – that much he knew. Yet here he stood, staring into an empty cell. He touched the invisible force field that sealed the cell, his fingers pressed against the unseen barrier, like a pane of the clearest glass ever created.

It made no sense. The cell was sealed. Where was his prisoner?

The sergeant looked to the witch aelf across the way. The pale harridan sat against the rear wall of her cell, legs crossed beneath her. She seemed sweaty, strained somehow, as though she’d been running combat drills in her tiny space.

‘Where is she?’ the sergeant demanded.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ the Khainite said, one brow arching.

The sergeant suggested the empty cell. ‘Your companion,’ he said. ‘Where is she?’

‘She’s not my companion,’ the witch aelf said, and he thought he heard a rather unpleasant edge in her voice.

‘You know what I mean,’ he insisted. ‘She was here and now she’s gone.’

‘She was your prisoner,’ Sespyra countered, ‘not mine.’

The sergeant-at-arms approached the Khainite’s cell wall.

‘We shall have no foolishness from you, witch,’ the sergeant snarled. ‘Where is the Lumineth prisoner?’

The witch aelf’s breathing was intensifying. Was there something wrong with her? At first he’d thought her sweaty, hard-breathing state indicated that she’d just finished physical exertion of some sort, but now it struck him differently.

It was as if she were struggling to cover up or ignore something; as though she had a painful, unseen wound and fought to conceal her true agony.

‘Your prisoner,’ the witch aelf said, voice straining. ‘Your problem.’

‘Speaking of problems,’ the sergeant said, studying the pale assassin as sweat poured down her brow and matted her dark hair against her forehead, ‘what is yours? Are you ill?’

The witch aelf seemed quite perturbed by that question.

‘Leave me be,’ she said. ‘Go find your little glow-worm friend.’

The sergeant dismissed her. Bloody-minded fanatic. He should have known she would be no help. Muttering a curse, he turned back to the empty cell.

This was a conundrum. He could summon the others, or he could investigate himself. The latter option struck him as best, considering how embarrassed he’d be if he brought the others and one of them noted some strange detail that he had missed in his haste.

He could miss nothing. He must be thorough.

And so, the sergeant-at-arms placed his hand upon the aetherquartz gem set into the wall beside the cell. When his hand touched the gem, the energies feeding the barrier dissipated; he could feel the unseen barrier simply dissolve before him. The sergeant-at-arms stepped cautiously into the cell, searching about. When the light therein proved too dim to allow the close examination that his honour demanded, he rooted in his pocket for a light stone. He rubbed the little shard of aetherquartz with his thumb and it began to glow. The glow showed him an empty, unremarkable, unaltered cell and nothing more.

Then, suddenly, the lightstone flickered and died.

The sergeant shook the stone, rubbed it again, but it would give no light. He turned to march out of the cell, but ran right into the invisible barrier that he’d lowered only moments earlier. The collision was hard, unexpected, like walking into an unseen slab of marble.

As his dazzled vision began to clear, he noticed there was someone standing in the passage now: a Lumineth female, staring back at him, her hand on the aetherquartz gem that controlled the barrier.

Wait: wasn’t that his prisoner?

‘Impossible,’ he muttered.

‘My apologies,’ she said, and, to her credit, she looked and sounded as though she meant it.

‘Stop it!’ he shouted. ‘Let me out of here!’

‘Hurry, now,’ the witch aelf across the way said. ‘Before he makes too much noise!’

The Lumineth female pressed her hand against the aetherquartz. The sergeant-at-arms felt a change in the air of the cell. He slammed his fists into the barrier, threw his body against it.

Nothing. Impenetrable.

Again, in the passage, the prisoner said something. It appeared to be I’m sorry, but he could not hear her words. Of course! If the barrier was intensified to full power, it did not just prevent escape – it also dampened sound! He could shout to his heart’s content, and no one would hear him.

‘No!’ he shouted, beating at the invisible barrier. ‘Let me out of here!’

The prisoner had already freed the Khainite. The Lumineth prisoner gave him a last, mournful look; the Khainite, a smirk and salacious wink. Then, the two aelven females were rushing down the curving passage, towards the exit of the cell block and the gaol.

‘No!’ the sergeant shouted. ‘Don’t leave me in here! Not like this!’

But they were already gone, and he feared he’d missed whatever brief opportunity had existed to save his reputation.

Sespyra and her brightly clad companion paused upon reaching the small vestibule and door that would lead them out of the gaol.

‘I was bound and masked when brought here,’ Sespyra said. ‘I have no idea what waits outside this door.’

The Lumineth witch, Thelana, shrugged.

‘I’ve never been in the gaol before,’ she admitted. ‘I know about as much about our situation as you do.’

‘Very well, then,’ Sespyra said. ‘Since I’m the de facto expert on prisons, shall we assume I might know a thing or two?’

Thelana nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘I’m guessing there’s a guard room on the other side of this door,’ Sespyra said. ‘I have no idea what to expect therein – an entire squadron of spear-wielding wardens or a pair of lazy louts stuffed here because they were fit for nothing else. Seeing as your folk are self-important sorts, I’d say we should assume the former and be happily surprised if we find the latter.’

Thelana’s face registered a vague distaste: she was starting to realise they couldn’t get out of here without spilling at least a little blood – even if non-lethally.

No matter. She’d just have to get used to the idea.

Sespyra carried on. ‘Do you have any magic that can aid us?’ she asked.

Thelana nodded. ‘I can hold my own in a fight.’

‘Very well, then,’ Sespyra said. ‘Let me engage first, test their limitations. I can do a great deal of damage, even without my weapons. Make sure none of them sneak up or overpower me.’

Thelana nodded. ‘Understood. Just…’

‘What?’ Sespyra hissed, Thelana’s reticence enraging her.

‘Don’t kill anyone,’ Thelana said.

Sespyra studied her. ‘Are you serious?’

The Lumineth’s large, brown eyes were steady, stony.

‘Try me,’ Thelana said. ‘I know we need to get out of here, but these guards – they’re just doing their duty. We cannot injure them permanently – or kill them – and ever hope to argue for mercy before the tribunal.’

‘Mercy?’ Sespyra asked. ‘We’re escaping!’

‘You are escaping,’ Thelana said. ‘I have to come back here. That is my price for joining you in this – no one dies.’

Suddenly, Sespyra saw a different woman before her: not the frail, indecisive intellectual she’d first been annoyed by, but a determined, wilful adversary, equal to any threat she uttered. For a moment, she thought it might simply be bravado, but as she studied Thelana Evenfall, she realised she was wrong.

‘Very well,’ Sespyra said. ‘No one dies. Are you ready?’

Thelana nodded and raised her hands. Pale fire bloomed in her open palms: arcane energies, ready for release.

Sespyra thumbed the latch on the outer door and gently opened it, peering through the crack.

She saw very little of the room beyond. A few wall racks sporting well-polished weapons; the corner of a long trestle table and bench; a single, slanting beam of sunlight alight with swirling dust motes. She could see no guards – her angle was oblique – but she heard voices.

‘…foolish,’ someone said. ‘If she’s been arrested, she’s committed a crime. There is no question.’

‘I tell you,’ another answered, ‘Thelana Evenfall is no criminal! Even if she made some error in judgement, it was just that – an error. I know her by reputation, I tell you! She is beyond reproach!’

‘I say you’re both fools,’ a third voice said. ‘Argue a prisoner’s guilt or innocence on your own time – presently, we have blades to hone.’

A few more whispered words to close the argument, then came the sound of oil sloshing in flasks and blades hissing over whetstones.

Sespyra had a number of magical abilities to aid her in combat – extrasensory apparatus, deeper sensitivities, the ability to quickly obscure her movements – but to paint a complete picture of the chamber beyond the door required no magic at all.

They seemed to be in some sort of circular tower or fortress – the gentle curve of the cell block corridor made that clear enough – so she imagined that the room they were about to storm was somehow curved, but more or less rectangular. If it were long enough, that might mean that other guards were hiding – unseen and unheard – at the far end. It likewise meant that they might not have a clear view of adjacent chambers.

The single trestle table suggested that there might be obstacles: other tables, perhaps, strewn along the chamber’s length.

She’d heard three voices, but now, as she reached out with her senses, she noted not three heartbeats in the room outside, but four. She thought there might even be a fifth, but the four she could account for made the certainty of that surmise questionable.

So, five armoured, armed soldiers against a pair of empty-handed magic users. And she wasn’t allowed to kill anyone.

Sespyra opened her eyes, cursed silently under her breath, and readied herself.

‘Here goes,’ she said, and threw the door wide.

Sespyra Sepherys burst into the guard chamber and launched herself from the near trestle table towards the tight knot of armoured figures at the far end of the room. There were five in all – as she’d surmised – but only two possessed reflexes fast and sharp enough to put them in defensive stances in response to her attack. The other three were, by comparison, sluggish and unready. All five of their faces displayed various states of shock and disbelief.

She unleashed the suppressed magic roiling about inside her. The long, shallow arc she described never wavered, but so far as her enemies could see, she seemed to split into three different bodies, each hurtling form enrobed in swirling black smoke.

The moment of shock and confusion inspired by her strange replication gave her all the time she needed to hit the trestle table where the guards were gathered, roll, then spin sideways and throw herself bodily onto the first guard – the one quickest to prepare for the attack.

Sespyra had the Lumineth female in an ironclad grip between her strong, slender legs. Before the Lumineth Warden realised what had her, Sespyra used her momentum to slam the guard to the floor, immobilise her in a choke hold, and yank the sword she held from her weakened grasp.

Another Lumineth lunged, thrusting his blade forward.

Sespyra disengaged and rolled aside, barely escaping the sword point as it sparked off the stones she’d occupied a breath before: too close for comfort. Sespyra wheeled up to her feet and countered with a thrust of her own stolen blade. Already, she was willing to toss her vow of no killing out the window, if it meant assuring their escape.

A bright arc of light slammed her would-be victim out of her blade’s path. He collided with the wall a few yards away and slumped. Thelana now stood just inside the door, and she’d blasted the guard out of Sespyra’s path to keep her from dealing him a mortal wound.

Sespyra scowled across the room at the Lumineth witch. Thelana glared back, like a parent silently scolding a child.

Later, Sespyra told herself.

Two more guards closed now, one with a sword, another with a Warden’s pike. Sespyra lashed out with the sword in her hand, using backhanded parries to hold off their slashes and thrusts. Fearing a fatal misstep if she dared endanger one of their captors again, she used the butt of her stolen sword as a cudgel to slam the helm of one guard, disorientating him, before driving the sword grip butt-on into the gut of the other. With both guards reeling, she used the flat edge of the sword to slam each in opposite directions, leaving one fully unconscious and the other so dazed he could do little more than flop about on the flagstones.

Having seen the fast and furious contests unfolding around her, the fifth guard had retreated to the weapon racks to claim a Warden’s pike for herself. Armed, she advanced, the spear-blade slicing the air near Sespyra’s throat.

From across the room, Thelana unleashed another blast of force from her fiery hands. The blast took the Warden on the flank and sent her reeling sideways, right into the nearest wall, but she did not fall.

Sespyra wanted to close, to immobilise the guard, but she could already see Thelana preparing for another blast.

The dazed Lumineth was fast, though. She snatched up a fallen shield just as Thelana’s bolt was unleashed. The arcane energies slammed into the shield and drove back its wielder, but the guard still did not fall. Instead, she drew back and hurled the spear she held at Thelana.

The draw-back and loose was so smooth, so swift, that Sespyra felt a pang of grudging admiration. The spear sliced through the air, straight towards Thelana – but the Lumineth spellcaster raised a magic shield and the spear spronged off as though it had hit the ironclad hull of a Kharadron frigate.

Sespyra lunged for the guard, determined to neutralise her. The Lumineth turned to meet her.

Sespyra slammed into the raised shield and fought to get a grip on it – but, suddenly, there were new hands upon her. It was the lead female – the first she’d taken down. Now recovered from Sespyra’s initial attack, she’d snatched up a long battle staff to use for leverage, locking Sespyra in her strong embrace, wrestling her back from the shield-wielding guard.

Sespyra noted that her assailant wore no helm and countered directly by slamming her head backward. The back of her skull collided with the aelven Warden’s face. Sespyra heard bones break, cartilage crunch, smelled a sudden, hot gout of blood pouring forth, but the guard – to her credit – never loosed her grip. She held Sespyra fast, the quarterstaff locking her in.

The shield-wielder snatched up a sword from the nearest table. Sespyra saw the murder in her eyes, the desperation: she would run her through in moments.

Suddenly, everything exploded.

Sespyra was yanked up off the ground, slamming into the ceiling. The impact was dazzling and black waves of unconsciousness vied with bright, swirling clouds of fireflies in her vision. An instant later, gravity asserted itself and Sespyra was falling again, crashing down hard upon the stone floor. The two guards landed with equal force on either side of her.

Then, another fantastic blow came. This time, Sespyra was thrown backward instead of upward, slamming hard into the far wall of the chamber. She caught sight of her two adversaries, jerked skyward by Thelana’s violent levitation spell. The two guards slammed once more into the vaulted ceiling of the chamber, then plummeted to the floor. This time, they did not move.

Sespyra slid to the floor, struggling to regain her composure.

Thelana rushed towards her. Sespyra, in spite of her pain and shock, began to laugh.

‘That’ll do,’ she said between coughing fits.

‘I’m sorry,’ Thelana said, face a mask of worry and shame. ‘I didn’t quite have the focus to only snatch the two of them off you. I had to throw all three of you into the ceiling, then get you clear somehow.’

Sespyra spat blood and saliva. Little by little, regular breathing returned.

‘You succeeded,’ she said, and held out her hand.

Thelana helped her to her feet. ‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘If there had been any other way–’

Sespyra laughed between deep, hungry breaths.

‘Stop your mewling,’ she said. ‘It worked. Now what?’

Thelana pointed towards an open archway receding into an adjacent chamber.

‘There,’ she said, and led the way.

The adjacent room held Thelana’s Eclipsian staff and loreseeker’s blade, as well as Sespyra’s sciansá daggers, and – most importantly – the satchel that included Sespyra’s key for the traveller’s vault where the stolen aether-gold canisters waited.

Unfortunately, within moments of reclaiming their property, they heard the thump of boot heels and the rattle of armour in the corridor outside. Sespyra was not thrilled by the prospect of another battle – especially if she could not truly free her murderous artistry. But there was no other way out of the fortress.

They paused before opening the outer door.

‘You’re the one insisting we do this non-lethally,’ Sespyra told her comrade. ‘I suggest you lead the way this time. If you can clear us a path – or even thin the competition – I can punch through.’

‘Open the door,’ Thelana ordered.

Sespyra obliged.

The corridor was long, fairly narrow, and seemed to follow the gentle curve of the circular fortress that held them. Sespyra was starting to wonder just how close to the centre of that circle – and, by comparison, how far away from the outer doors – they might be.

She had little time to wonder, though. A new squadron of Lumineth soldiers in shining white armour rushed up the bending corridor towards them. Each soldier was fully armed with a sword or a short close-quarters pike and a beautifully tooled shield. The passage was barely wide enough to accommodate two abreast, forcing the oncoming guards to move in a staggered formation.

Thelana drew back her staff and thrust it forward, her form as perfect as any fencer’s. A massive column of arcane energy blasted down the throat of the corridor, sending each and every guard sprawling. A few managed to brace themselves against the passage walls or landed on bent knee, but not a one remained standing.

Sespyra shot forward, daggers tight in each hand.

Reaching the first guard, she kicked savagely, driving the half-fallen Lumineth into the wall head first. The next guard – kneeling behind her shield – was met by a storm of dagger blows, so fast and furious they blurred in the aelf’s still-dazzled vision. She cowered behind her shield and Sespyra pressed on.

Suddenly, Thelana Evenfall’s voice was in Sespyra’s mind.

Brace yourself, she warned.

Sespyra drove her body full-on into the next dazed guard, then deftly swung behind her, used her armoured body as a shield.

The second blast came an instant later, visceral and disorientating. Once more, the soldiers crowded into the passage reeled and sprawled. Sespyra managed to keep her prisoner upright to take the brunt of the blast, then released her, spun, and carried on. Despite having used the guard effectively, Sespyra’s senses were yet scrambled by the pure, concussive force of Thelana’s blast, but she refused to belay her drive: nothing would stop her – only death or victory.

On she went, deploying every trick in her varied arsenal: blurred movement; obfuscation spells that shrouded her in black smoke; full-force body collisions and rapid-fire, surgically placed swipes of her dagger blades – each and every movement, dodge, leap, wheel and parry designed to disorient, immobilise and frustrate her struggling opponents. She left four of them gasping for breath and desperate to regain their senses. One unlucky fellow wound up unconscious after Sespyra drove the lip of his own shield into the bridge of his nose.

That took her through the initial seven. Unfortunately, more soldiers yet filled the corridor. More worrisome, Sespyra was beyond any line of sight with Thelana now, the white witch lost beyond the curve behind her.

And so, Sespyra Sepherys fought on. She parried jabs and tight slashes from sword-blades and spear-tips. She deflected edge-strikes from shields and turned her adversaries’ armoured bulk against them. She freely interpreted Thelana’s no-kill mandate and began to employ the edges of her ceremonial daggers with surgical precision, hamstringing several guards, blinding others with savage strikes above the brow that filled their eyes with sheeting blood, or employing serpent-quick, non-lethal thrusts to torsos and flanks. She was more or less certain – more or less – that she missed all vital organs.

Behind her, Thelana advanced, mopping up those at Sespyra’s back with new blasts of concussive, non-lethal force. A mental warning reached Sespyra before each blast, giving her an instant to hunker down or brace herself for any secondary force that might unbalance or endanger her.

Suddenly, miraculously, Sespyra’s path was clear.

Just ahead: intersecting passages. The windows in the guard chamber had been on their right. That meant that the exterior of the fortress was in that direction. Taking a right at the next intersection might take Sespyra closer to escape, to freedom.

Weakening but refusing to relent, Sespyra loped along, stride fast but uneven, careening around a corner just as Thelana unleashed another blast behind her. The blast wave, though diminished, shoved Sespyra haphazardly, as though she were being pushed by invisible hands. She regained her balance readily enough, though, and carried on.

At the end of the short passage ahead, she saw a door set deep into the stone wall. Could that be the way out?

The door felt cool to the touch, suggesting open air on the far side. Sespyra tried the latch. Locked.

Fine, she thought. There hasn’t been a lock created that I couldn’t un-lock.

She extracted her lock-picks from her satchel and went to work. At intervals, far behind her, Sespyra heard the groans and shouts that attended Thelana’s magical force blasts; likewise, she felt the walls and floor tremble around her with each blast wave. It made concentrating on her work more difficult. The force expended seemed to be intensifying, meaning that Thelana was no longer waiting at the far end of the passage: she was approaching, trying to maintain her own clear path through the opposition.

Inside the locking mechanism, Sespyra felt something click and fall into place. She tried the latch again. This time, the door swung outward – and was snatched violently a moment later by a snarling blast of wind.

The sudden movement of the door yanked her precariously off balance – a terrifying prospect, considering she now knelt on the threshold of a long, fatal drop of at least a thousand yards.

To her right, Sespyra saw a sheer wall of rock rising towards the table of the high city plateau. To the left was empty air, and a stunning aerial view of the low city sprawling below. Their prison, apparently, was part of a turret tower affixed to the sheer cliff-side, and the door that Sespyra had just opened gave out onto empty air.

She edged backward, slowly, precariously.

Behind her, she heard a sudden, thunderous sound that portended a new blast from Thelana.

‘Bloody hells,’ Sespyra spat.

The residual energy from the blast raced down the side passage, shoved Sespyra from behind, and sent her toppling into empty air.

Sespyra tried to catch herself but could not. She saw the ground, far below her, suddenly rushing up to meet her; heard wind roaring and groaning as she plummeted towards her fatal appointment with Hysh’s immovable surface. Sespyra had almost resigned herself to that fate – foolish and ignoble as it might be – when something suddenly caught her. She was jerked to a halt, expended force grating every one of her bones and joints.

Sespyra raised her head. Thelana hovered in the air above her, her wizard’s staff glowing, surrounding its possessor in a scintillating corona of light that held her aloft.

Sespyra glanced down again. They were a hundred yards from the ground now. She muttered a disbelieving prayer to Khaine and raised her eyes once more to the wind-borne saviour who had kept her from ending her existence as a bloody smudge on the Hyshian landscape.

‘Down, please,’ Sespyra said, with a mad grin.

Thelana offered a satisfied smirk in answer.

Shortly thereafter, Regent Sembaris returned to the gaol to have words with Thelana Evenfall. He had come to inform her that he’d done his best to argue on her behalf with the other regents, but had failed to move them. Her interrogation was scheduled for the following dawn.

Sembaris did not relish delivering this news to his old student and peer – he had nothing but the greatest affection and respect for Thelana, given their long association. Unfortunately, there was nothing for it. Terrible events were underway, and Thelana – by design or bad luck – played a role in them. She would suffer, no doubt; come out the far side of interrogation a lesser being, broken, fractured, in need of mental and physical repair – but the greater good would be served.

The state Sembaris found the gaol in, however, was most surprising. Battered, wounded guards, healers at work with the injured, berobed magisters taking statements and sweeping for evidence. Clearly, something unexpected and destructive had swept through the gaol. The question was, what?

The sergeant-of-the-guard appeared from the cell passage, looking harried and desperate. He saw Sembaris haunting the outer doorway, surveying the chaos, and immediately strode to meet him.

‘Regent Sembaris,’ he said, ‘it’s terrible! Unbelievable! They’re gone!’

‘Who is gone?’ Sembaris asked.

‘The prisoners!’ the sergeant answered. ‘Mistress Thelana and the Khainite assassin! They tricked me into one of the cells and imprisoned me, then tore through the other sentries on their way to the sky-door!’

Sembaris studied the disarray before him again.

‘How was this even possible?’

‘They gained access to the armoury, regent!’ the sergeant carried on. ‘They retrieved their weapons!’

‘Did they kill anyone?’ Sembaris asked.

The sergeant blinked. ‘Regent?’

‘Did they murder anyone in the process of escaping?’ Sembaris repeated.

The sergeant shook his head. ‘No, sir. The Khainite made short work of them, with Mistress Evenfall’s help. But… we have only physical injuries. No one was killed, nor even mortally wounded.’

Sembaris drew a deep, cleansing breath.

‘They’ll try to escape,’ he said quietly. ‘We need every authority in the city alerted – not just our troops, but the Tempest Lords and the street-level constabulary as well. Every gate guarded, the sky-port closed, every house and hostel searched, block by block.’

‘But, regent–’

‘See to it!’ Sembaris roared, then strode from the gaol, knowing that he needed to return to the Eyrie and report to the other regents at once.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As Sembaris strode out of the gaol towards an unpleasant report to his peers, Thelana and Sespyra threaded the labyrinthine streets of the lower city on a stolen, black-scaled hopdrake. The beast’s swiftness belied the heavy load it carried, for not only did it shuttle the two fugitives, but also the cache of aether-gold canisters that Sespyra had promised to the Kharadron captain who was their ride out of Settler’s Gain. Their short, harried stop at the dusty little traveller’s vault where Sespyra had locked the goods away had made Thelana terribly nervous, but in short order they’d gained access to the vault, withdrawn the contraband sky fuel, and were on their way.

Now, Thelana held the reins, whipping and directing their mount as Sespyra held on tightly behind her, black and purple hair lashing in the wind like streamers from a battle banner. At their present, breakneck speed, they’d reach the eastern sky-port in short order – but they made a great deal of noise as they went.

‘That way!’ Sespyra barked behind her. ‘You missed the cut-off!’

Thelana yanked the hopdrake’s reins, forcing the animal to rear and spin fully round in the midst of a crowded junction. Behind her, she heard the bound aether-gold canisters clink angrily as their bulk shifted, threatening to topple the hopdrake.

‘You’re sure this is the way?’ Thelana asked.

Sespyra nodded. ‘I scoured this city, seeking every path – direct and indirect – to a few select means of egress. This is a shortcut.’

‘Will the Kharadron even take me on?’ Thelana asked.

‘He can’t leave without his fuel,’ Sespyra insisted. ‘He’ll do as I say or he’ll go nowhere! There! To the right!’

Thelana tugged on the reins. A mother and two small children screamed as the hopdrake nearly ran them down as it changed course. Thelana glanced back over her shoulder to make sure they’d escaped unharmed.

‘They’re fine,’ Sespyra said in her ear, wind roaring around them. ‘Just keep your eyes on the road. We’re nearly there.’

‘This is not what I do,’ Thelana shouted back. ‘Forgive me for keeping my conscience intact.’

‘You need to escape this city if you’re planning to stop this Fane person,’ Sespyra barked back. ‘One priority at a time, witch! Stay focused. There! Left!’

Thelana tugged the reins again.

At the main gate of the sky-port, they hastily leapt down from their stolen mount and offloaded the heavy canisters of aether-gold. The canisters were each about three feet long, about as wide as a muscular man’s thigh. Tied into small bundles – one bearing three, the other bearing four – the canisters were awkward and heavy, but they could be carried. Thelana shrugged three canisters onto her shoulders, like an uncomfortably heavy backpack, as Sespyra smacked the hopdrake’s hindquarters and sent it scampering down a side street.

The press of dock workers, travellers and duardin sky-sailors was tight and chaotic, but it covered their entry. Once inside, Sespyra located the arrows that pointed the way to their berth of choice, and led Thelana towards their waiting ride. The weights they carried on their backs were oppressive, but only slowed them slightly. Already, the sun waned towards twilight – the perpetual golden hour that passed as night in this realm, when Ulgu occluded the light of Hysh itself and made of the world a gloaming shadow of its daylit self.

When they finally reached berth eighteen, they found the sky-ship already rising from its landing pad, cables and ropes trailing beneath like vines on a rising tree in a steamy jungle. Sespyra dashed out onto the landing pad and shouted up to the rising ship.

‘Wodrik Thunderall!’ she bellowed. ‘I’m speaking to the captain of the Aemick’s Blade!’

Thelana stared, not believing their rotten luck. Would this really be how this mad dash to freedom ended? Missing their ride by mere moments?

A head appeared over the gunwale of the ship above them.

‘Who’s that?’ a booming voice shouted down.

‘Sespyra! Your passenger!’

‘We have no passengers!’ the person at the gunwale responded.

‘You have two!’ Sespyra shouted back. ‘With fuel in hand! Hold for just a moment, we can climb up a mooring rope!’

‘If you try to climb, we’ll cut you down!’ the voice shouted back. ‘I said sunset! You are too late, witch aelf!’

‘And you’re running on a single quarter-can of aether-gold!’ Sespyra snapped. ‘How far do you think you’ll get with my token of good faith?’

‘As far as we might,’ the sky-captain answered. ‘I told you when to be here and–’

Thelana had a moment’s inspiration. She ran to Sespyra’s side, threw an arm around her thin waist and pulled her close. What she was about to attempt would be most difficult – and reckless – with the extra mass attached to both of them, but, she wagered, it was not beyond her capabilities.

Theoretically.

Sespyra’s thin, graceful face registered shock.

‘What are you doing?’ the witch aelf asked.

‘Hold onto me,’ Thelana commanded, then slammed the ferrule of her wizard’s staff onto the dock.

The moment her staff slammed down, they rose, rocketing on invisible wings through the air, the wind rushing and roaring as they went. For a moment, Thelana was afraid they would slam into the underside of the sky-frigate’s aether crucible, but the spell was spent almost as quickly as she effected it. As they arced over the gunwale, gravity took hold and they instantly fell forward, both of their bodies jouncing hard on the sky-frigate’s wooden deck. The heavy canisters strapped to their backs finally tore their bonds and went rolling in all directions.

The expenditure of energy and hard landing left Thelana dazed. It took her what felt like an eternity to regain her senses.

‘I want you both off this ship, immediately,’ someone said – a male duardin, voice deep and sonorous. ‘I should’ve known I could not trust you to keep our covenant.’

‘I’ve kept our covenant,’ Sespyra snarled in answer. ‘Here–’

Thelana heard one of the canisters ring as Sespyra kicked it defiantly.

‘Your fuel, as promised,’ Sespyra said.

Thelana saw Sespyra now addressing a middle-aged duardin, squat and muscular, his broad face half-covered by a bushy black beard, blue eyes flashing under thick, ragged eyebrows. She counted four other crew members: a tough old duardin matron; a younger female with grey eyes and blonde hair; a grizzled, bearded aether-khemist; and a young duardin whose beard had barely grown in. They all stared as Sespyra and their captain – Wodrik Thunderall – kept arguing.

‘You’re a fugitive,’ Thunderall said, shaking a thick finger, ‘and you’ll bring nothing but misery upon my crew and me!’

‘You knew I was a fugitive,’ Sespyra countered. ‘That’s why you hired me to steal that fuel. You need it and you couldn’t acquire it honestly. You think I can’t see the state of this machine? Held together with spit and baling wire? Rattling under us like it’s ready to fall out of the sky?’

The crew responded with a chorus of incredulous oaths. The captain waved his hands, silencing them.

‘If you wish to stay aboard and not take a flying leap over that gunwale,’ the duardin said, ‘you’ll mind your tongue.’

‘I’ll mind it well,’ Sespyra said. ‘Let’s just stop arguing and get out of here.’

A tense silence set in. Thelana thought to say something, but quickly decided against it.

The captain looked to his crew. ‘Continue cast-off,’ he said. ‘Let’s beat the skies.’

‘But, captain,’ one of the crewmen – the young, fresh-faced duardin – began.

‘Obey!’ the captain retorted.

‘But, captain,’ the young duardin said again, pointing over the gunwale, ‘that’s what I’m trying to tell you – we’ve got something heavy on a mooring line. It’s creating drag.’

Wodrik Thunderall looked as though he might toss the youngster overboard in the next instant but, to his credit, he resisted the urge and stomped over to the gunwale. When he bent and looked, Thelana could immediately tell by the dumbstruck look on his face that what he saw both surprised and vexed him.

‘You’ve got to be joking,’ he whispered.

Thelana and Sespyra moved to the rail for a look of their own.

They had an unwanted passenger, all right: a single, heavily armoured Stormcast Eternal inching his way up the trailing mooring line. The unmoving sigmarite mask of his great helm turned upward and appraised them blankly for a moment before he continued his steady, laborious ascent. He seemed completely unconcerned that only the strength of his grip separated him from a very long fall – getting longer each moment as the frigate drifted skyward.

When Thelana felt the deck listing gently beneath them, she raised her eyes and realised that everyone aboard now crowded along the starboard gunwale, staring down at their unexpected stowaway.

The tough old duardin yanked a dagger from her belt and looked to Wodrik.

‘Permission to cut him loose, captain?’

Wodrik shook his head and waved his arms. ‘Absolutely not!’ he roared. ‘I’ll not have the bloody Tempest Lords raining fiery wrath upon me! Haul him up!’

The old female – who Thelana now realised must be the first mate – nodded. She immediately turned to the nearest duardin – the youngster and another, far younger female.

‘You two – help me.’

The three of them hauled in the rope. Wodrik himself joined in after a moment.

Thelana and Sespyra exchanged troubled glances. Clearly, the witch aelf was wondering just what had moved that Stormcast to crawl up the line towards them… and imagining that it couldn’t be good for either of them.

Moments later, the huge, armoured intruder clambered up over the gunwale, clanking and huffing. He was a Tempest Lord – the storm-blue armour edged in gold and crimson made that clear enough. His only weapon appeared to be a rather large broadsword sheathed at one hip and a dagger large enough to be a small sword for one of the duardin.

The Tempest Lord’s blank, masked stare swung from side to side, taking them all in. That gaze lingered on Thelana, then finally settled on Sespyra.

Sespyra drew her sciansá daggers and adopted an en garde stance, ready in the next instant to make the newcomer bleed. She had to know there was little chance of hurting him, let alone killing him – for he far outweighed her and looked like some inhuman automaton in all the heavy sigmarite armour that he wore – but her daring was admirable.

The Tempest Lord lifted his helm and tucked it under one arm. His black hair, gathered in a series of long, thick braids, fell free. He had a good face – equal parts friendly and fearsome, with skin the colour of dark-stained wood. The now-unmasked Stormcast studied all present – and seemed to silently invite them to study him.

‘What brings you aboard my frigate?’ Wodrik Thunderall demanded. ‘Protocol demands you make your intentions known before setting foot upon my deck, stranger.’

‘I come in peace,’ the Stormcast said. ‘Note that my sword still hangs sheathed and I remain unarmed.’

‘You still haven’t stated your business,’ Wodrik countered.

The Stormcast sighed. Thelana noted something strange in the man – a hauntedness, a strange preoccupation. Was it possible that he did not know who they were, or why they’d fled to this ship? Could it be?

‘You carry fugitives,’ the Stormcast said, eyeing Thelana and Sespyra.

‘I carry travellers,’ Thunderall said, ‘not fugitives.’

The Stormcast actually seemed to smile, though it was faint and half-formed.

‘Is that so?’ he asked.

The captain pointed at Thelana and Sespyra. ‘They bartered for their passage. Duardin honour their agreements. I will not allow them to be harmed while aboard my ship.’

‘A good thing, then,’ the Stormcast said, ‘for I do not come to harm them.’

The duardin captain blinked. Thelana looked to Sespyra. The witch aelf had lowered her guard, ever so slightly.

The Stormcast set his dark, haunted gaze upon the two of them now.

‘Let me begin again,’ he said calmly, even softly. ‘My name is Daethus Atairos. I was a Sequitor in the First Retinue of the Redeemer Conclave of the Sacrosanct Chamber of the Tempest Lords Stormhost. Now, I am an Errant-Questor, bound to a fate separate and distinct from that of my brothers and sisters in arms.’

‘That’s a mouthful,’ the young duardin sailor muttered.

Daethus continued. ‘This afternoon, I was ordered by my Sequitor-Prime, and by my Lord-Arcanum, Petreus Mars, to take to the streets – with the remainder of my conclave – in search of fugitives recently escaped from the high city’s gaol. We were told to subdue these fugitives by any means necessary.’

He paused, letting his dark gaze sweep over the lot of them.

‘I have, of late,’ he continued, a note of weariness in his voice, ‘been visited by visions – visions which I cannot make sense of, but which I have been assured are, in some sense, the will of Sigmar. Those visions led me to watch the sky-port this day, waiting for I knew-not-what. Those visions echoed in my imagination when I saw you, Thelana Evenfall, and you, witch aelf, fly up from the sky-pad to alight on the deck of this departing ship.

‘And those visions bade me follow, knowing well that my Stormhost command would never approve of my involvement.’

‘Visions,’ Thelana said quietly.

Sespyra’s stance relaxed. ‘Visions,’ she said dismissively.

The Stormcast nodded. ‘They’ve troubled me for weeks – ever since I laid hands upon the prisoner Palembra Edast, in the tribunal chamber.’

Thelana suddenly realised who he was. This Stormcast – this Daethus Atairos – was the very same Sequitor she’d seen in the tribunal chamber on the day of Palembra’s death; the one who’d reached out to arrest her thrashing, and who was rewarded with a blast of the wild energies that the enchantment upon her had loosed.

‘Today,’ Daethus said, staring squarely at Thelana, ‘I realised what they were demanding of me. And so, here I am.’

‘And what were they demanding?’ Wodrik Thunderall asked.

Daethus Atairos studied the captain for a moment, then returned his soft, dark gaze to Thelana and Sespyra.

‘It is my destiny to join you,’ he said quietly. ‘To stand with you, against Nerontes Fane.’

Thelana and Sespyra exchanged puzzled glances.

‘You are not welcome here,’ Wodrik Thunderall said, striding forward. ‘I shall have to insist you be on your way, Stormcast–’

‘I shan’t leave,’ Daethus said, turning back to face the captain again, ‘but I also swear to you, captain, I shall neither trouble nor hinder you. If you require payment…’

He drew the finely wrought dagger from his belt and tossed it to the duardin. The sky-captain examined the magnificent blade.

‘That should cover me.’

The duardin eyed the Stormcast askance, then looked to his two fugitive passengers. The three of them barely knew what to think.

The Stormcast held out his arms – wide open, as if awaiting an embrace.

‘Let fate take us where it may,’ he said. ‘I am one of you now.’

The duardin studied the Stormcast, shot a poisonous look at Thelana and Sespyra, then strode away, grumbling under his breath.

Nerontes had drifted off to sleep while sitting upright, eyes still open, when Castigus and the other captains arrived to report. He’d been alone, reclining by the fire he’d built in the old temple naves, enjoying the blessed silence. Something about the dancing, crackling flames must have hypnotised him, for he felt himself settling slowly into a warm, thoughtless reverie, when–

‘Lord Fane?’

He snapped out of his half-drowsy state and whipped his head around. There stood Castigus and the others, a crowd of backlit silhouettes bereft of features or substance: dark ghosts against the grey, waning light from outside.

Nerontes blinked. Rubbed his forehead.

‘Report,’ he said.

‘Spies from the city have verified that a squadron of Vanari Dawnriders and Dracoline-mounted Stormcasts are assembling for dispatch. Reports indicate they could set out by dawn tomorrow.’

‘We expected that,’ Fane said.

‘You made no effort to cover your tracks,’ one of the Freeguild captains said. ‘They’ll follow you here, then we’ll be outnumbered and outclassed.’

‘Will we?’ Nerontes asked, staring into the fire.

‘Perhaps not,’ another of the mercenary commanders said, ‘but a squadron of mounted Lumineth is no small threat. Even if we outnumber them, we cannot overpower them. At best we’ll be holding them off by stalemate while we wait for reinforcements.’

‘Then that’s what we’ll do,’ Nerontes said with finality. ‘Have you forgotten that the power I alone wield is worth half a dozen armies?’

Nerontes hoped they heard the earnest intent in his voice. This was no idle boast: he, not their slow-gathering army, was their greatest asset. And yet, somehow, he kept having to remind them of that fact.

Make an example of one of them, a voice inside him said.

He recoiled at the thought. No. Displays of cruelty for their own sake would not avail him.

‘There’s more,’ Castigus said, interrupting Nerontes’ inner turmoil. ‘Thelana escaped.’

Nerontes shot to his feet. ‘Escaped?’ he asked.

Castigus nodded. ‘She was in custody, awaiting interrogation… and somehow, she managed to escape. Reports indicate she wasn’t alone, either. There was a Daughter of Khaine in the cells with her. They fled together.’

Nerontes chewed on that for a moment.

‘They fled,’ he said to himself.

‘We need to flee this place,’ another of the company captains broke in. ‘This position is not defensible for long, especially when there’s more than one threat–’

Castigus hissed impatiently. Nerontes looked to his old ally and studied him. Castigus looked quite annoyed that some cat had been let out of the proverbial bag.

‘What does he mean,’ Nerontes asked, ‘more than one threat?’

Castigus sighed. His shoulders sagged. ‘We’ve got scouts circling the hills around us, sweeping for infiltrators. They’ve found signs of an orruk advance party – scouts, most likely. We know not where the main force might lie in wait, but it’s clear they’re nearby.’

‘Orruks on our doorstep!’ another captain brayed. ‘With Lumineth and Stormcasts on the way? Our numbers are too few, Lord Fane! We must away, at once!’

‘No,’ Nerontes said.

A dread silence followed his pronouncement. The fact that no one could even muster the wherewithal to argue with him was both troubling and something of a relief.

‘Why?’ Castigus asked. ‘Why should we stay here when we’re still undermanned and vulnerable?’

‘Because we are not undermanned,’ Nerontes said, meeting Castigus’ gaze. ‘We have all the power we need. And we can expect reinforcements any day.’

‘We only issued the call to arms two days past,’ one of the captains insisted. ‘It will take time for our forces to gather.’

‘Aye,’ Nerontes said. ‘It will also take those Dawnriders more than a few hours to reach us, no matter how swift their steeds are. And if those orruks try to come upon us, we can repel them easily enough. There is no art to their war, only mayhem.’

‘Mayhem might be enough,’ Castigus said quietly.

Nerontes felt a terrible flare of fury inside him. He had never thought of himself as prone to being annoyed or enraged by alternative points of view, but hearing Castigus validate the misgivings of his companions – expressing doubt about Nerontes’ fitness and vision for leadership – left him wounded, even angered.

For an instant – only an instant – Nerontes heard that alien voice inside him again.

Make an example of him, that voice said silkily. They’ll never argue with you again if you sacrifice him here, now. Set him ablaze. Pulverise every bone in his body. Smite him with lightning. Turn him into a pile of quivering, formless jelly.

It would only take a word; the instantaneous application of your will…

Fane drew a deep breath. No! Impossible! He would never hurt Castigus! Never!

‘I understand your trepidation,’ he said to Castigus. Then, to the others, ‘I hear you and understand all of you. But, you must trust me in this – I know what I am capable of, and what I can withstand. Dawnriders, Stormcasts, orruks – all are well within my capabilities. We remain here, until the army we’ve summoned has assembled.’

‘And if they do not arrive in time?’ one of the captains asked.

‘Then we start with what we have. We make all challengers pay for their arrogance and we march on, gathering more as we go.’

‘And if they come at once?’ another captain said with a sneer. ‘Lumineth on one side? Orruks on the other?’

Nerontes felt his lips curl into a small, wry smile.

‘The greater measure of glory for our small band, then,’ he said. ‘Our first victory – and it will be a victory – shall be the first flagstone on a path towards ultimate conquest.

‘A shadow falls upon the suns of the old gods,’ he continued. ‘The eclipse has begun. Nothing can stop the inevitable now.’

In the richly appointed upper room of their secret headquarters in Settler’s Gain, Edinor Affrin and Orenna Karn watched as Magister Tyboria – one of far Phoenicium’s premier citizens as well as a high-ranking member of their Black Sun coven’s governing ennead – appeared out of thin air, projected by Spectralith. The handsome older woman carried a cup of something that Edinor imagined was cool and refreshing – sweet apple wine or iced lemon-water – and maintained a slow, tight perambulation inside the narrow area of effect of her own Spectralith. Only Orenna addressed the magister, while Edinor lingered in a dark corner.

At the moment, a thoughtful pregnant silence persisted, the magister pacing in tight, quiet little circles, mulling the question that Orenna had asked moments before.

‘Will you give Fane the aid you promise?’ she had asked.

Edinor stared. It seemed a rather pointed question for a subordinate to ask her superior. The fact that Magister Tyboria responded with thoughtful silence rather than overbearing fury had made Edinor more frightened of the response, than less.

‘I shall,’ Magister Tyboria finally said. ‘The troops are outfitted and assembled. I’ve had them ready and waiting since your master’s first report regarding Godsbane.’

‘You gathered the troops after your very first conclave with him,’ Edinor said. He honestly hadn’t intended to speak aloud – the words just tumbled out of him.

Orenna turned, scowling.

The projected image of Magister Tyboria searched the empty air. She’d clearly heard his voice, even though she could not see him.

‘Is that your cohort, Orenna?’ the magister asked.

‘It was, Magister Tyboria. My apologies.’

‘No apologies,’ the magister said. ‘Tell him to step into the Spectralith’s circle, where I can see him.’

Orenna – occupying a chair in the very centre of the spherical area of incidence cast by her Spectralith, jerked her head sideways, urging Edinor forward. Edinor stepped into the stone’s pale, cerulean light as Orenna yanked her chair aside and stood beside him.

Magister Tyboria assessed him.

‘Very good, boy,’ she finally said. ‘That is the way of things.’

‘Forgive my interruption, magister,’ Edinor said. ‘I simply found your foresight… impressive.’

‘Then, you believe he’s the one?’ Orenna asked, changing the subject. ‘That Fane is the prophesied Son of Fire from the auguries of Nestorius?’

Edinor had no idea who Nestorius was, or what his auguries said about a Son of Fire. He could tell, however, that whatever the spoken-of auguries were, whatever they contained, it meant a great deal to their fraternity. The quiet reverence Orenna spoke with made that abundantly clear.

‘Perhaps,’ Magister Tyboria finally said. ‘Tell me, do you know where the Basilisk’s Fountain is, in the Ivy Quarter?’

Orenna nodded. ‘I know it well.’

‘You must deliver a missive for me,’ Tyboria said, brandishing a letter rolled into a tiny, thumb-sized scroll. ‘Be at the fountain before sunset. It may take some time, but a man will come to you – a man with a scar over his left eye. He shall know the words. You’ll give the letter to him.’

‘As you wish,’ Orenna said, then stepped forward and knelt before the Spectralith.

In her sanctum in Ghyran, Tyboria bent forward, closer to her own Spectralith.

Orenna laid one hand directly upon the glowing stone. The slow-swirling energies within the great gem seemed to gather beneath her palm, as if attracted by the touch of her skin. Edinor wondered what was about to happen, for the ritualistic nature of their mirrored movements portended something out of the ordinary.

With one hand upon the stone, Magister Tyboria reached out, extending the small rolled letter before her. To Edinor’s astonishment, the letter passed through the veil of magical communication that now linked their two far-flung spaces, moving from projected space in Phoenicium to true, physical space in Settler’s Gain. It only extended part way: Magister Tyboria seemed reluctant to let her fingers touch the membrane of separation.

Orenna grasped the letter with two fingers and yanked it through. In an instant, it cleared the veil and lay in her hands. Edinor blinked, barely believing what he’d seen: a letter, teleported over untold distance through the membrane separating one Mortal Realm from another!

Without another word, Magister Tyboria gave a curt little bow, then withdrew. As she withdrew, her projection disappeared. Orenna’s did the same.

Edinor stared at the letter in Orenna’s hand.

‘How?’ he asked. ‘The energy required–’

‘Is immense,’ Orenna finished. ‘And unstable. It’s the projection fields from the Spectraliths. Complex objects or organisms could never effect such a teleportation. But a simple letter? It’s possible, if impractical for regular employ. On certain rare occasions, however, it’s necessary for a person of influence in our order to send a missive in their own hand to a trusted confidante. It’s exceedingly rare. Consider yourself witness to a minor miracle.

‘Come, we have an appointment to keep.’

It was on the tip of Edinor’s tongue to ask Orenna for an explanation of the question she’d posed to Magister Tyboria. Every time he was about to broach the subject, however, they found themselves on crowded streets, among milling bodies, and he could not in good conscience threaten the security of their enterprise by speaking so loosely. Thus, on they went, passing through residential areas, market squares and thick convocations of wine-sinks and grog houses, more or less in silence.

Their destination was a handsomely sculpted fountain capped by a tall, snaking bronze statue of a basilisk rearing above a fallen Vanari knight, and they reached it just as the last light of the Hyshian day coloured the sky. The fountain dominated a cosy square at the convergence of five cobbled roads, surrounded by three- and four-storey apartment houses and town homes. This place was called the Ivy Quarter, Edinor surmised, because of the great abundance of fecund webs of bright green waxy leaves and strange colourful clusters of flowers in hues of amethyst, pale emerald, crimson and butter yellow upon every visible wall. Unlike the busier quarters of the city, this area seemed quiet and largely deserted: no neighbourhood for workaday labourers or artisans, but for inheritors, bankers, merchants and grandees. Every now and again a door might open, or footsteps might clip-clop along the cobbles, but, in general, they were alone, and the narrow, beautifully maintained streets were empty.

It seemed a curious place to meet a fellow conspirator.

‘What were the texts you spoke of?’ Edinor asked, when the silence grew too thick to bear.

Orenna eyed him, as though weighing his worthiness to receive what arcane knowledge she possessed. Finally, with a sly smile, she relented.

‘Nestorius was a theorist,’ she said, voice low so that it would not carry. ‘He lived centuries ago, in Hammerhal, during an age when the Black Sun was just another clandestine fraternity of occult scholars and magical jurists. There was no movement, no plan, only ideas, idle suppositions about when and how our ideals could shape life in the Mortal Realms.

‘Nestorius was a materialist – a believer in magic insofar as it was a predictable, practicable science – but he had never been a practising mage, never dipped his toes into the waters of practice, so to speak.

‘One night, during a lunar eclipse, he was struck by a terrible fit, a trembling sickness that wracked his body with tremors and left his mind fractured and insensible. His servants and companions believed he had been poisoned or stricken by some mage’s curse. Even after the tremors subsided, he lay unconscious. None thought he would survive the night.

‘But when dawn came, he awoke. He bade his companions bring him paper and quill, then he spent the day thereafter and another full night writing page after page of enigmatic auguries in poetic couplets. His peers questioned him, but he ignored them. He worked feverishly, only stopping to drink some water or to make some.

‘When the couplets were transcribed, he fell into a deep sleep, exhausted. While he rested, his friends and servants pored over the words he’d written, trying to make sense of them. They were puzzled, surely – but more than that, they worried for their beloved companion’s health and sanity.

‘When at last Nestorius woke, he seemed his old self again. He gathered all present – treating his peers and close companions and servants alike, as equals – and explained what had come upon him.

‘“I have seen what’s to come,” he said, “and the proof is there, written in my own hand. What I have recorded shall outlive me – I demand it to be so and beg you to copy and recopy what I’ve written, so that it may never vanish.

‘“The future belongs to mortal-kind,” he told them. “Not daemons, not gods.” And, he promised, if they watched coming events in the Mortal Realms closely and listened, many of them would live to see that his auguries – the first dozen or so, at any rate – would come to pass, and prove him right. If the first auguries were true, he reasoned, then so would be those that followed.’

Edinor stared. They had spent weeks discussing the inner workings of the Order of the Black Sun: its nine-person administrative enneads; the isolated, independent cells they coordinated; the ideologies of rival factions that divided the whole; its centres of power and strength. Not once had Orenna intimated that the order had its own set of written oracles.

‘And so,’ Edinor asked, ‘were they true?’

Orenna nodded, staring into the middle distance, as if conjuring Nestorius and his followers there, before her eyes, in the empty, darkening square.

‘When Nestorius presented his auguries, there were six companions and three servants present – the Holy Nine. Sound familiar?’

Edinor smiled a little. Yes, they’d discussed the recurring incidence of the number nine in Black Sun organisation quite often: how there were High Enneads who were the order’s ultimate leaders, the arbiters of all disputes; how local cells rarely grew beyond nine members; and, likewise, how it was exceedingly rare for even ranking members of a local cell to be associated with any more than eight other cells or lodges beyond their own via their enneads – meaning that even a powerful mid-level adept in the order was never connected with more than nine other lodges or individuals beyond their own ennead.

It was the geometry of secrecy and safety: keeping the larger organism safe by limiting each individual’s exposure to other sections of the membership.

But, Orenna had informed him, it was also a kind of holy symmetry: a cosmic echo of preferred forms and ideal ratios, constantly asserting itself in their operations.

‘Nestorius expired soon after that,’ she continued, ‘and those nine companions formed their own, formal lodge – one of the first formally organised lodges, in fact – with the express purpose of preserving Nestorius’ oracles and watching for proof of their veracity. All nine of them bore witness to and argued the proof of at least one foretold event apiece before their own, eventual deaths. One of them – who was the youngest at the time of Nestorius’ death – lived long enough to prove a total of twenty-seven oracles.’

‘Twenty-seven,’ Edinor breathed. ‘How many oracles were there?’ The sun was full-down now, the twilit Hyshian night fully upon them, and the air had grown crisp and cold. Edinor wished he had a better cloak: he was starting to catch a chill.

‘Seven hundred and twenty-nine,’ Orenna said. ‘To date, roughly four hundred and twenty have been deciphered and proven beyond dispute.’

‘Deciphered?’ Edinor asked.

Orenna nodded. ‘They were poetical works, sense impressions, transcribed according to Nestorius’ own personal genius for language. In those most readily proven, indisputable markers of their veracity are present – a unique name, specific locations, geographic indicators too strange in their combinations to be arbitrary. But their enigmatical nature is precisely what keeps them contentious. Four hundred and twenty have been proven, but some of our keenest historians still argue over at least a hundred of them, claiming they were never proven at all, while offering alternative explanations. Another two hundred are constantly under contention, with our intelligentsia arguing about their true meaning, their possible significance, whether they’ve already happened or might yet come to pass.’

‘It seems rather foolish,’ Edinor said.

Orenna stared at him, her expression neutral.

‘Explain yourself,’ she said. It was not a rebuke, but an invitation. In fact, her tone and demeanour reminded him of Thelana Evenfall then more than anything else she’d ever said or done. Though Orenna was human and, therefore, more emotionally present in their interactions, she yet possessed an energy – a sense of playful yet insightful encouragement – that reminded Edinor of his now-fled mentor.

‘It’s so arbitrary,’ Edinor said. ‘A sick man spends a day and a night hastily recording visions he absorbed in a fugue state? In poetical language? And then he simply leaves it all behind, telling everyone left to sort it out? To take what he offered on faith alone?’

‘You weren’t listening,’ Orenna said gently. ‘He wasn’t asking them to sort it out, or to take anything on blind faith. He himself did not understand the true import of what he’d seen and what he’d written – he only knew that it was important somehow. He asked his friends to solve the mystery of the visions, since he himself knew that he never would, and to find value in them, if there was any value to be had.’

‘And what value do they offer,’ Edinor countered. ‘In your opinion?’

Orenna smiled enigmatically. ‘They’ve been proven right well enough to suggest that he was onto something. I believe we may have mis-interpreted some and wholly missed the true import of others… but ultimately, I think they offer us truth. Most importantly, they point the way.’

‘Point the way?’

‘The oracles follow a pattern,’ Orenna said, voice dropping to a whisper. ‘They suggest that, in the long arc of ages and epochs, the world the Black Sun dreams of will come to pass. The gods will be cast down, and mortal-kind will rule itself, free of divine intervention, forever after.’

Edinor stared. Since the beginning of their association, he’d come to think of Orenna Karn as exceptionally practical and grounded. She was no frothing-mouthed zealot, no pious crusader, nor a scheming anarchist, eager to tear the world asunder for no good purpose. She was, rather, a dedicated craftswoman. Her craft was the shaping of the world itself, according to principles she believed in, and she knew that the ends she desired – that all members of the Black Sun desired – could only be achieved through careful planning and strategic, incremental execution.

Yet here she was, looking starry-eyed as she spoke of these strange oracles. Should that worry him? Or should it, instead, indicate to him how trustworthy those oracles might be?

That led him back to her exchange with Tyboria.

‘Who was the one you spoke of?’ he asked. ‘The Son of Fire?’

‘One of the auguries,’ Orenna said. ‘Nestorius wrote of a champion – referred to as the Son of Fire, the Scion of the Storm. In fact, in the original tongue, the title is genderless – neither a son nor a daughter, simply “the offspring of” or “one born of”. Son of Fire just has a ring to it, no?’

Edinor nodded, smiling in spite of himself. ‘Indeed.’

‘It is written that this Son of Fire, this agent of terrible yet necessary change, will be known by his or her possession of a long-lost treasure, capable of giving mortal-kind true power over the gods.’

Edinor stared.

Nerontes. Godsbane. Could it truly be…?

‘He’s prophesied to destroy the gods?’ he asked.

Orenna shook her head. ‘No – he’s prophesied to catalyse their fall. That could mean he starts a long military campaign that he himself ultimately finishes – or, it could mean that he simply strikes the first blow, and that the struggle to come lasts generations, even centuries, before the age we seek finally arrives.’

Edinor cursed under his breath.

‘Bloody prophecies,’ he muttered. ‘Always so circumspect…’

Orenna shrugged. ‘Well… where would the fun be in clarity and directness? We’re changing the world, Edinor, not balancing ledgers.’

‘But what does that mean?’ Edinor asked. ‘That Nerontes will be left to founder because Black Sun leadership don’t believe that he’s the prophesied champion? That they’ll simply sit back and watch as he and his armies are destroyed?’

Orenna shrugged. She did not seem to be dismissing Edinor’s question: she was honestly considering it.

‘I think Fane’s actions will force the Black Sun to tip their hand,’ she said. ‘Some may send him the support he needs, and stand to be counted among those who believe in him – and if he subsequently fails, those faithful supporters will look like fools to their brethren, and be outed in the bargain. If, on the other hand, some scurry to Fane’s aid and he’s successful – if he takes Settler’s Gain and launches a campaign from there–’

‘Then he’ll have a list of enemies within the Black Sun,’ Edinor finished. ‘And as his movement gains momentum, he’ll seek and destroy those who failed to support him.’

Orenna nodded. ‘Now you’re understanding.’

‘So, we’re not just at war with the gods,’ Edinor said quietly, ‘we’ll also be at war with ourselves? The Black Sun will devolve into anarchy?’

‘Not anarchy,’ Orenna said soberly. ‘A purge.’

Edinor shuddered. He’d read of such events through the ages: the growth of this faction or that; audacious strikes at the status quo, followed by internal sundering and violent strife. Such internecine conflicts rarely boded well for the cause, or for those working to advance it.

‘Wishing you hadn’t taken my offer?’ Orenna asked.

Edinor shook his head.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No second thoughts.’ He was lying, but only a little. It was true, he now had second thoughts about what his future in the Black Sun might look like, but he had none regarding his faith in their ultimate purpose.

Besides, he thought, I am finally, blessedly involved in something of lasting import. Orenna’s been aiding me in my magical studies. Because of her, I’ll not only become the mage I set out to be – I’ll have a true purpose laid out before me.

‘I’m not convinced,’ Orenna said, interrupting his reverie.

Edinor looked to her. ‘I just wonder… what side are we on?’

Orenna stared back at him, as if she did not quite understand the question.

‘I mean,’ Edinor pressed on, ‘we are low-level functionaries. We depend upon a network of informers and partisans who operate on the same level we do, while others decide our fate and control our destiny. Whom do we serve directly? And what side of this conflict are they on? Because, their beliefs – their designs – may end up defining how the two of us fare in all this.’

Orenna nodded soberly. ‘You’re even brighter than I thought.’

‘Well?’ he pressed.

Orenna, smiling enigmatically, said nothing.

That was when he heard soft, faint footsteps on the cobbled streets. Across the square, a man approached, stride even, heading right towards them. Edinor and Orenna waited, silent and tense.

The stranger halted a few paces shy of them. The three of them appraised one another. Edinor saw a scar on the left side of the man’s face clearly, the faint moonlight above catching the ragged edges of the scalloped tissue.

‘Behold,’ the scarred man finally said, ‘what shadow is this which falls upon the sun?’

Orenna replied without hesitation. ‘It is the shadow of the moon and a promise of things to come. Soon enough, that sliver shall become a full eclipse.’

The newcomer held out his hand. Orenna placed the small rolled missive into it.

To Edinor’s surprise, the man offered a missive of his own. Orenna took the sealed letter, nodded, and the man with the scar above his left eye withdrew into the darkness.

They waited a good long while before Orenna finally broke the seal on the letter and read it. When she had finished, she handed it to Edinor.

‘For me?’ he asked.

‘About you,’ she said. ‘Go on – read it.’

He accepted the letter and read it.

‘They want this… from me?’ He looked to Orenna, frightened and puzzled.

She nodded.

‘But,’ he began, suggesting the letter, ‘this is dangerous. Inside the university? Right under the watchful eye of my instructors and examiners?’

‘This is why I told you to keep to the shadows, Edinor. Now that you’ve revealed yourself to the magister, she wants to know if you’re truly valuable… and committed.’

Orenna’s ever-present half-smile never wavered, but, if Edinor was not mistaken, he thought he saw something like trepidation in her large hazel eyes.

‘Time to prove your worth, initiate,’ she said quietly.

Hasturath stoked the witchfire engulfing poor, screaming Myzeridd. The lambent green flames illuminated the fascinated faces of the scores of bloodthirsty Disciples of Tzeentch that he now claimed as his followers. Many of the Kairic Acolytes chanted, as though the sound of their voices raised in praise or adulation could stoke the flames as readily as their master’s magic. The hordes of many-coloured Horrors loped in nervous, uneasy circles among curselings and thaumaturges, like small packs of nervous carrion-pickers, unsure whose boot heels to lick, whose scratching fingers to seek a supportive pet from.

Myzeridd – once the most powerful Kairic Magister in Ruhlgurrad’s warhost – lay upon the iron wheel that Hasturath had him bound upon, magical wyrdling ropes unaffected by the hungry green witch-flames. Their spectral heat and transmutative powers worked in wild, disordered ecstasy upon the pretender’s flesh only, not the bonds that held him. As the horde watched, Myzeridd’s body blistered and disintegrated in small, agonising increments, legs collapsing into gaggles of spastic insects, chest hatching twisted horns and tusks that grew, atrophied and fell away in rapid, arbitrary succession, the bones within his strong arms splintering and growing outward in haphazard crystalline structures before once more curling back into his torn and seeping flesh.

Eventually, the pain would drive him mad. His suffering would destroy his body utterly, and he would expire. Hasturath hoped, however, that it would take a very, very long time.

He turned from the horrid spectacle and stalked away, cutting a path through the horde towards the pavilion he’d had raised at the farther end of the box canyon they’d claimed as their campsite. Let them watch as Myzeridd suffered. Let them all see what challenging Hasturath’s supremacy would cost them.

He only prayed that none of them had seen just how close he’d come to losing the duel he’d fought against Myzeridd. Truly, his victory was a matter of desperate luck more than an exercise in skill.

They’re getting restless, he thought. Restless and bloodthirsty. They need action, purpose. If I keep them here any longer – waiting upon some sign or portent that I myself cannot clearly define – I’ll lose control of them again.

And the next challenger might actually best me. I am powerful, but not all-powerful.

He threw back the flap of his pavilion – a construction of pure living magic, appearing as scintillating spider-silk of cerulean blue, interwoven with bizarre fractal sigils and mandalas of emerald, gold and crimson. It was, in fact, constructed of the aetheric material that made up a phalanx of many-coloured Horrors yanked from their battle groups, given the task of forming Hasturath’s private shelter. Within, he would find rest, order his thoughts, and decide upon their next course of action.

The space inside was crowded with magically crafted furniture, lamps and tables laden with living, animated maps of the landscape around them. It was lit only by the ever-shifting glow of half a dozen crystal spheres and flat scrying stones of various sizes, the interior of each alive with chromatic storms of colour and haze. These were Hasturath’s eyes and ears, keyed to a score of far-flung locations, disembodied avatars and deeply embedded spies. From here, he could monitor the many strands of the web that he was desperately, eagerly trying to weave from the torn, snapped remains of Ruhlgurrad’s dashed ambitions.

Hasturath seated himself upon a beautifully carved weirwood throne and stared at the coterie of crystals and stones. He was certain – absolutely certain – that there had to be some means of exploiting the chaos unfolding to his advantage; a clear, twisting path that he, as a loyal follower of the Changer of Ways, could exploit on behalf of his master… and his personal ambitions.

The trouble, thus far, was that there were too many players upon the board – too many variables to effectively manage. His inspection of the ever-changing fate-skeins that recorded the movements of the major participants in the current conflict, that led towards both inevitable and unlikely confrontations, was littered with loose strands, all dangling in the aether, dancing before his meditative, prying eyes.

Not only were the events now unfolding once classified as unlikely, or of exceptionally low probability, they formed, in fact, a devastating chain of cause and effect that refused to bow to probability, or fate, or any known force that might shape the affairs of mortal and immortal-kind alike. That was why their track through the world-web was so hap-hazard: at more than one vital juncture, the least likely thing had happened, snapping the fate-strands and resulting in the spontaneous generation of new threads.

It was like watching a stardrake plough its way through a chain of mountains, rerouting rivers as it went, its overall trajectory and ultimate destination impossible to guess.

But he had to guess, didn’t he? Or, at the very least, start weaving interfering strands that could close the probability gaps and ensure incremental changes that he could more readily insinuate himself into.

This was all Ruhlgurrad’s fault, curse him. The daemon prince had kept his plans secret from his lieutenants for so long that when he was finally destroyed in that Stormvault, it left a terrible power vacuum among his followers. Hasturath had barely been able to yoke the chaotic impulses of the daemons, Horrors, Acolytes, mages and thaumaturges under his master’s command to his own will. They’d lost a great part of their strength in the battle with the Lumineth and the Tempest Lords, and those remaining had, one and all, baulked under Hasturath’s leadership and organisation.

He’d managed to finally bring them to heel – most of them, at any rate. Only Myzeridd had been waiting in the wings, first acting as his loyal supporter, then challenging his authority with unwanted questions and enquiries, and finally, openly defying him.

Had Hasturath’s Tzaangor beak had lips, he would have smiled. He hoped – sincerely hoped – that Myzeridd still suffered on the wheel under the transmogrifying, agonising effects of his witchfires.

One of the crystal spheres began to sputter and blink, an image coalescing slowly but surely. Hasturath scurried to the crystal, peering eagerly into its depths, all but imploring it to show him some agent of his will that could be subverted to his ends.

The image came into clarity. It was from a high angle – probably the eyes of one of his Horror spies, disguised as a carrion bird in the mountains that surrounded them. What he saw was a great cloud of dust raised by the march of a large force, moving across desert hardpan. Orruks: at least a thousand, most on foot, others atop gore-gruntas, outriding to keep the undisciplined ranks in some semblance of order.

Another variable. Hasturath imagined what the fate-skeins would look like the next time he inspected them: more broken strands, more twisted threads, their angles and anchors irrevocably altered.

He called up the images of the other players, established already in several of the companion crystals.

A Kharadron sky-frigate, ploughing a slow, steady course in the air above Hysh, carrying a duardin crew, a clueless Stormcast and a pair of fugitives.

A massive phalanx of Vanari Dawnriders bolstered by squadrons of Tempest Lords Evocators mounted upon bounding Celestial Dracolines, speeding towards an appointment with destiny and their newly defined enemy.

And the architect of all this misery – the mortal man who had made Hasturath a powerful potentate, even as he had heaped the myriad maladies of leadership and fate-weaving upon him: Nerontes Fane, who had stolen Balestorm – which the mortals called Godsbane – and fled with it into the desert, where he lorded over a still-gathering army.

All those parties, on an apparent collision course.

One of these must be made to serve my ends, Hasturath thought, examining the animated images before him. One of these, certainly, must prove useful to me – vital, even – for if I cannot twist their ends towards my own advantage, what sort of servant of the Changer of Ways can I call myself?

A terrifying thought suddenly bloomed in his brain; a perfect, poisonous inspiration that both moved him and seemed to yank the physical world out from beneath his feet.

This is a test, Hasturath realised. Tzeentch is testing me, for I was formed for greatness. Ruhlgurrad’s death paved the way for my ascent. Myzeridd’s challenge vulcanised my purpose. Now, I must unravel all these myriad fate-skeins and weave my own pathway through them.

If I cannot make myself useful – cannot weave a path from all these broken, twisted strands – then I am unworthy to serve my master, unworthy to rise in his ranks and partake, by increments, of his beautiful and terrible power.

But if I can bend myself to this task – if I can create my own line through the web of fate – well, then, there is no limit to how he might reward me. No limit at all!

And so, Hasturath awakened each and every crystalline scrying stone that lay before him. In short order, his senses were taxed and his intellect scrambled like no challenge to his understanding that he had ever known. So many strands! So many opportunities for crossing, knotting, snapping or interweaving. It was heady stuff, alternately intoxicating and paralysing.

But he would bend himself to the task.

For failure’s only reward was an ignominious defeat, like Ruhlgurrad’s, or a slow, agonising death like Myzeridd’s.

Victory was his only option.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

There was a large spyglass mounted on a spring-loaded gimbal at the stern of the Aemick’s Blade. Given its length, the size of its lenses and the sky-ship’s considerable altitude above the landscape, it gave any viewer who peered through it a clear, stunning view for a great distance in the vessel’s wake.

Peering through it now, in the depths of the purple twilight that passed for night on Hysh, Thelana saw the plain beneath them stretching away for hundreds of leagues. If she aimed the spyglass just below the horizon, she could make out a broad, scintillating concentration of shadows and lights moving steadily, swiftly over the flat, rolling land behind them.

Dawnriders. Four squadrons, at least, perhaps more.

Settler’s Gain had disappeared from the spyglass’ view an hour or two earlier, which meant that the cavalry now thundering overland in their wake with calm, steady assurance had only left the city in that span of time and were already pacing the sky-frigate, even if they were still far behind. She knew they’d be delayed when they came to the coast and had to board ships to cross the Girdle Sea. Aboard the Aemick’s Blade, the progress of Thelana and her companions would not be so hampered.

But the Dawnriders would make up for it: Thelana was absolutely certain of that. She guessed they’d be hard on their trail for the whole of their five-day sky voyage to the ruins where Nerontes now gathered his army.

Removing her eye from the spyglass, Thelana studied the land beneath and behind them with her naked eye: a broad yellow-green sward of sere grasses, sand dunes and sun-bleached, rocky hills, bordered by a corrugated line of mountains to the north. The view was stunning, but it did little to enliven her spirits. They were being hunted, and they would be hard-pressed to outrun the enemies that followed them indefinitely.

She heard heavy footsteps lumbering nearer and knew that would be the ship’s captain, Wodrik Thunderall. The duardin’s tread seemed to vibrate subtly through the superstructure of the ship in a manner as unmistakable and distinctive as a signature on a contract.

‘All right,’ he said as he approached. ‘We’re underway and the crew’s about to end one watch and start another. What say you tell us where precisely we’re taking you?’

When they’d departed the city, Thelana had provided the captain with a heading – due east – and little more. The captain had accepted her request, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to stave off an explanation indefinitely.

‘Gather everyone on deck,’ Thelana said. ‘I’ll be along shortly.’

Wodrik Thunderall set to it. Thelana lingered at the aft gunwale, staring down at the windswept world beneath them, enjoying the soft light, the pensive silence. Everything looked so peaceful up here, so staid and untroubled. Did everyone down there, sleeping in their homes or hovels or castle keeps, know that the realm itself – everything they’d known and believed in for all their lives – now hung in the balance?

Of course they don’t, she thought. Ordinary folk never do.

She drew a deep breath and went to meet those gathered.

Once they had all assembled, Thelana stood before them, seeking the right words. In the hours that had passed since their departure, she’d made a point of observing each and learning their names: old Grikara, the aether-navigator and second-in-command; Moddek, the impossibly wizened aether-khemist; young Brannit, the fresh-faced youth who seemed to be the lowest-ranking member of the crew; and Helegrin, the endrinmaster, who had the pleasant face and blonde, braided hair of a rosy-cheeked baker, but whose grease-smeared coveralls and ever-present cogmunculus companion made it clear that she was the one who kept the rattletrap ship in the air.

None of them signed up for this, Thelana thought. I wish I could send them all on their way – I truly do…

‘I shall do my best to keep this brief,’ Thelana said. ‘My name is Thelana Evenfall. I am a teacher–’

‘You were a teacher,’ Sespyra said coolly.

Thelana scowled at the witch aelf. ‘I was a teacher at a university in Settler’s Gain, as well as a liaison between the authorities of this region and the Collegiate Arcane. I offer that information so that you understand I’m not simply some myopic professor buried in books and theory who never ventures into the real world, who’s never faced trials and tribulations.’

‘You’re also a fugitive,’ Wodrik said flatly. ‘Tell us, Lumineth, what laws have you broken?’

Thelana had hoped to approach her mistakes obliquely. Wodrik’s enquiry now made that impossible.

‘I made a terrible mistake,’ she said. ‘Persons I believed in, and trusted, plotted against the prevailing powers in this realm – in all the realms – right under my nose. First, one of my students. Later, I came to learn, an old friend and ally.’

‘The taint of Chaos?’ Daethus asked.

Thelana shook her head. ‘Not so far as I can tell, no. Their ideology is far subtler and harder to unmask. They are, it seems, members of a secret sect dedicated to the destruction of the gods – all of the gods – and to assuring mortal rule over mortal affairs forever after.’

‘Sounds like the taint of Chaos to me,’ Wodrik grumbled.

‘But it’s not,’ Thelana said. ‘That’s what allowed them to operate with impunity, in the shadows. They do not traffic with the gods of Chaos. They see those beings as a threat, pure and simple, just as they would count Sigmar or Alarielle or Tyrion or Teclis as threats.

‘They believe that mortal-kind are little better than slaves under the yoke of immortal, all-powerful masters, and they have long sought a means of changing that state of affairs.’

She paused. She could already see the disbelief, the incredulity, on all of their faces. All except Sespyra. She – as Thelana had suspected – remained grim-faced and unreadable.

‘My old friend and ally Nerontes Fane is the focal point,’ Thelana continued, moving slowly among those gathered. ‘Just days ago, we raced to a Stormvault deep in the desert to the north. There, we hoped to stop the daemon prince Ruhlgurrad from claiming an unknown treasure of destructive power. When Nerontes faced Ruhlgurrad in single combat, the daemon prince was destroyed, and Nerontes walked away unharmed… bearing with him the very weapon we’d come to secure.’

‘What weapon is this?’ Wodrik pressed. ‘Stop speaking in circles. To the point, aelf!’

‘It is a wizard’s staff,’ Thelana replied, ‘forged by duardin magesmiths in an ancient age. It took a great deal of research to identify it, but I’ve come to believe that it is a long-lost artefact known as Godsbane. That staff contains power sufficient to allow a mortal wielder to destroy an immortal, even godlike adversary. Further, it grants at least some measure – perhaps the greater measure – of that fallen god’s power to the possessor of the staff.

‘Nerontes stole that staff from the university’s armoury and killed half a dozen of my colleagues doing so.’

‘He used you, then?’ Endrinmaster Helegrin asked. ‘Tricked you into helping him? That’s why they locked you up?’

Thelana shook her head. ‘I tried to stop him, but failed. I was imprisoned for my close association with him – the suspicion that our long-time friendship cast upon me. Sespyra and I fled the gaol because I believe that I can wrest that staff from Nerontes and keep him from doing what he hopes to do, but I cannot do that from inside a cell.’

‘What is it he hopes to do?’ Wodrik asked.

Thelana felt a chill run through her. ‘He hopes to destroy the gods – all of them. I fear that, with the power of Godsbane, he can do it.’

A deep oppressive silence fell. It endured far longer than Thelana would have liked.

‘What troubles me,’ she said finally, ‘is the stealth and secrecy with which Nerontes and his co-conspirators have operated. This sect – this Order of the Black Sun – seems to be stronger than we realised, and more long-lived than we imagined. I suspect they’ve been waiting for centuries, biding their time, watching for signs and portents. Nerontes now feels that he is the saviour they’ve long awaited. I believe he will rouse the long-dormant forces of his order, then strike at a nearby target – perhaps Settler’s Gain itself. If I know Nerontes, he hopes to draw out one of the great immortals – Tyrion, Teclis, another – so that he can strike them down before the watching eyes of his followers.’

‘If he does that,’ Daethus said grimly, ‘his numbers will swell.’

Sespyra – who now sat forward, leaning on her poised knees, agreed. ‘They’ll see what he can do, and his armies will grow.’

Thelana nodded. ‘Precisely. More will flock to him, because they’ll see, with their own eyes, that he can deliver what he promises. And, if that happens…’

She could not bring herself to carry on.

For a long time, there was only the eerie silence of the night, underscored by the sough and sigh of the high-altitude winds.

‘I cannot face him alone,’ Thelana finally said, letting her steady gaze sweep over all present. ‘I have ideas about how to infiltrate his camp, how to steal Godsbane, but I’ll need each and every one of you–’

‘Steal Godsbane,’ Sespyra said. To Thelana’s surprise, she did not seem disbelieving or incredulous. She was, instead, intrigued…

‘Infiltrate his camp?’ Wodrik asked.

Thelana nodded. ‘Infiltrate, purloin and flee. That is what’s required. Wodrik Thunderall, I need this vessel to get us close to Nerontes’ camp – as close as we can manage without being seen. Then, we’ll need a means of swift escape–’

‘Meaning you want my crew and I to wait around for you?’ the duardin said bitterly. ‘Risking our ship? Our lives?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ Thelana said, hoping that the look in her eyes was enough to convince the duardin that she knew just how much she was asking. She then turned to Sespyra.

‘You are a shadow, Sespyra,’ she said. ‘An infiltrator. Your natural magic may be the key to penetrating Nerontes’ camp and seizing the staff.’

The Khainite stared back at Thelana, her head cocked ever so slightly. Thelana could not read her expression – it seemed a little bemused, a little embittered.

‘And when did my involvement become so vital to your great plan?’ Sespyra asked.

‘When you concealed me to aid in our escape,’ Thelana said. ‘If you could hide me so well, even with those cells dampening your natural abilities, your unhindered power would be most welcome.’

‘And I?’ Daethus Atairos asked. ‘You know you have my runeblade, Lady Thelana. How may I serve the cause?’

Thelana looked to the Stormcast. ‘By protecting us,’ she said. ‘And by assuring that the staff makes it back to Azyr – back to Sigmar himself – no matter what happens to me or anyone else.’

She heard Sespyra and Wodrik both draw breath at once, as though she’d just insulted the lot of them.

‘Azyr?’ the duardin snarled.

‘Sigmar?’ Sespyra hissed, as though the name were a curse.

‘If we succeed,’ Thelana said, ‘and Godsbane is seized, it cannot remain in mortal hands. It is far too dangerous. Sigmar hid it in a Stormvault once – he can do it again.’

‘And yet,’ Sespyra added, ‘he is not the only righteous, trustworthy power in the Mortal Realms! You would betray your own kind to deliver the most powerful weapon known to mortals to one of the very gods it was meant to challenge?’

‘Hear hear!’ Wodrik added. ‘And what about that staff’s provenance? You said yourself it was of duardin make! If it should go anywhere, it should be to my people, in their safe keeping–’

‘Please,’ Sespyra scoffed. ‘You’d sell it for aether-gold at the first opportunity.’

Wodrik rounded on her. ‘You impugn my honour, witch?’

‘You’re a sky-pirate and scavenger,’ Sespyra countered. ‘You only took us on because you were desperate and in need of fuel – admit it!’

Wodrik lunged, spittle flying from his gnarled beard.

‘How dare you, witch!’

Thelana was on the verge of intervening herself, but Daethus beat her to it. With incredible speed – barely believable, given his size and armoured bulk – the Stormcast took three long strides, drew his enormous sword, and brought the blade slicing down through the air between the Kharadron captain and the Daughter of Khaine.

The entire deck shuddered under the impact of his runeblade. The crew leapt back, alternately terrified and disbelieving.

‘Honour matters little in this!’ Daethus thundered. ‘What matters is the safety of the realms!’

Wodrik turned on Daethus, shaking one thick finger.

‘Oh, and I suppose you and your deathless comrades are the ones to keep us all safe, eh? You lightning lich! You deathless slave to Sigmar!’

‘I serve Order and Light!’ Daethus countered. ‘Nothing more, nothing less!’

‘Far less,’ Sespyra scoffed. ‘It’s the short-sightedness and duplicity of your God-King that brought us to these desperate straits! If he could not be trusted to keep this Godsbane safe and secure, why should it be returned to him now?’

Thelana tried to intervene.

‘I beg you – all of you – stop this! We need unity!’

‘Unity?’ Sespyra growled. ‘Under whose banner, white witch? The Lumineth? The Kharadron? Sigmar? I see your earnest intent – I truly do – but I cannot countenance being roped into folly of such titanic proportions without some promise of personal gain.’

Wodrik shrugged. ‘And I’m the pirate…’

‘What do you want?’ Thelana asked. ‘Free passage through a realmgate? A safe haven?’

Sespyra looked as though she were about to answer, then thought better of it. After a long moment, she finally lowered her head and shook it hopelessly.

‘What I want, you would not give me,’ she said. ‘You dare not.’

Thelana stared, not sure what she could mean. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

Sespyra shook her head and sauntered away. ‘Enough. It’s pointless.’

‘Sespyra!’ Thelana called. ‘Please, we need you! I need you!’

The Khainite rounded. ‘And you have me!’ she said bitterly. ‘It would seem I can go nowhere, do nothing, without your aid… and so, you have me. Right where you want me.’

Having said those words, she retreated to the far gunwale, her back to all gathered. Thelana decided to let her go. She wasn’t pleased about it – that much was clear – but the Daughter of Khaine had not refused.

She looked to Wodrik and his crew.

‘So?’ she asked.

Wodrik’s dark brows knitted above his large, broad nose.

‘So what?’ he responded.

‘Will you help us?’ Thelana asked.

The sky-captain seemed to have a great many thoughts whirling through his brain at that moment. For a time, he turned and studied his crew – their wide eyes, their weary faces, their frayed and grease-covered garments.

Thelana looked to Daethus. The Stormcast raised his sword and sheathed it. With a mordant glance – a glance that told her he understood her position, but could do little to fortify it – he retreated, resting himself upon a nearby barrel to await Wodrik’s answer.

‘I’ll need remuneration,’ Wodrik finally said.

Thelana nodded. ‘You’ll have it.’

Wodrik threw out one thick, calloused hand.

‘I need more than a word,’ he said. ‘I need a vow. Ten times the fuel that you and the Khainite provided, three months’ worth of ship’s rations, full restoration of my tool supplies, as well as a signed and sealed scroll of passage from the Lumineth high authorities. I want free rein – and exclusive rights – to roam this realm in search of aether-gold.’

Thelana considered all that he required. ‘I can promise none of that,’ she said. ‘I simply don’t have the power. I can only promise that I shall do everything within my power to see your needs met.’

Wodrik looked to Daethus.

‘What say you, Stormcast?’ he asked.

Daethus considered. ‘Were it up to me, duardin, I would give you all you ask and more – providing we succeed in our mission and survive it. Like Thelana, I simply do not have the authority to promise anything. I am but a soldier.’

Wodrik stomped closer to them now, leaving his crew some distance off. Suddenly – almost miraculously – the duardin’s broad face changed. His expression went from grim determination to beseeching desperation.

‘Help me,’ he said, almost begging. ‘I am in need. My crew is in need. We are poor, and tired, undermanned and underpaid. I respect your need, your desperation – I truly do – but we, too, are desperate. If you cannot help us–’

‘I swear,’ Thelana said, ‘that I will do everything in my power to see your terms met. Everything.’

‘And I swear,’ Daethus said, ‘that if you help us in this, if you take us where we seek to go and back again to Settler’s Gain, I will help this wise Lumineth to move the heavens and the earth beneath us to get you the rewards due to you, Wodrik Thunderall.’

Thelana felt herself deeply moved. Daethus spoke earnestly. She thought it impossible that he could ever tell a lie or fail to keep an oath he’d made.

Wodrik’s pained, divided heart was apparent – he was loath to enter into any sort of agreement that did not have clear terms spelled out, clear rewards prescribed – but in their present condition, there was little else he could do. He was gambling on Thelana and Daethus – not only upon the veracity of their oaths, but also upon their survival.

‘Fine,’ he said at last. ‘You have the use of my vessel – there and back again. That’s all. When we reach our destination, my crew does not leave this ship, is that understood? We are your transport – not your soldiers.’

Thelana grabbed the duardin’s thick hand and held it tightly.

‘You have my oath, Wodrik Thunderall.’

Daethus placed his large, muscular hand atop theirs. ‘And mine,’ he said.

Thelana felt a great warmth inside her – the first optimism she’d known in days. Only the sight of Sespyra, alone and brooding at the gunwale on the far side of the deck, gave her a sense of creeping dread.

Daethus Atairos found a quiet corner of the sky-frigate’s deck and a tall, well-stacked coil of rope to sit upon. There he reposed, staring out at the bruise-coloured Hyshian sky and the twilit world sliding by beneath them. They were just coming to the coast now, Daethus having recognised the low, humped mountains of the El Doir Range to the north during their palaver on deck. Far below, the Xintilian coast cut, jagged and meandering, through the gently foaming waves of the Girdle Sea.

Have I made a mistake? he wondered, knowing no one would reply.

Certainly, Sigmar dwelt within them all – his spirit, his goodness, his grace and fierce devotion being the better part of every Stormcast’s nature. But Sigmar would not appear to him. Sigmar would not deign to speak to him, whispering soul to soul, across the uncounted millions of leagues that separated the realms one from the other.

No. There can be no mistake – this is why I suffered in my fugue state. Why the runeblade was given to me. All my questions, all my confusion, have led me here, to this.

Sigmar, speak to me. Guide me.

‘Too good to mingle with the rest of us?’ a low, purring voice said.

Daethus was torn from his reverie. The witch aelf, Sespyra, stood off to his left. Her stance was casual but had a strange element of challenge in it: staring down her nose, hip cocked petulantly, thumbs hooked in her belt.

Something within him recoiled at the sight of her. Khainites. Bloody, murderous, idolatrous harridans, every one. He could only imagine how many throats her savage blades had slashed; how many souls she’d torn from dying bodies to dedicate to her foul master.

And here he was, in her presence – for all intents and purposes, her ally.

Not so strange, he supposed: the Stormcast Eternals frequently adopted dubious allies when greater threats presented themselves. And yet, there was still some deep, silent part of him that despised her.

‘Perhaps,’ the witch aelf now said thoughtfully, ‘you’re simply too good to mingle with me? Is that it, Undying One?’

Daethus could only speak the truth: his honour demanded it.

‘You – your kind – make me uneasy, yes. I am not proud to admit it.’ He tried to offer those words free of venom or vitriol – a statement of fact, devoid of feeling.

The Daughter of Khaine smiled a little. ‘I’m not sure if I should be flattered or insulted.’

Daethus felt a deep pang of regret. He stood.

‘My apologies, Sespyra Sepherys,’ he said, and bowed his head in contrition. ‘The will of Sigmar has brought us together, for common cause. I would be remiss in letting my prejudices rule my behaviour.’

Sespyra stared back, brows knitted. ‘You’re serious?’

He frowned. ‘You accuse me of lying? Or sporting with you?’

She crossed her arms over her chest.

‘I accuse you of being an upright prig,’ she said, ‘and yet, I do admire your willingness to correct yourself. Very well then, big fellow – I accept your apology.’

Daethus nodded, satisfied. The witch aelf suddenly moved nearer.

‘What do you think?’ she asked, lowering her voice.

It was his turn to cock his head quizzically now. ‘About what?’

‘Godsbane,’ Sespyra said, now only whispering. ‘This mad errand the white witch has set us upon.’

Daethus considered her question deeply and honestly.

‘I have no reason to doubt Thelana Evenfall’s words, less reason to doubt her intentions. True, the part of me that rebels at the wickedness inherent in disorder and disobedience – even for a good cause – struggles mightily within me. But I do believe I feel the necessity of this undertaking. I feel the truth of her intentions, and the import of our coming together to aid her.’

The witch aelf stared back at him, clearly puzzled.

‘Do you always talk like this?’ she asked.

‘Why do you trouble me if all you plan to do is belittle me?’ Daethus asked.

‘I confess,’ Sespyra said, shaking her head, ‘you’re the first of your kind I’ve ever interacted with in a meaningful way. Truth be told, I approached you because I thought you’d be the only one to answer me honestly – from your heart – so I can’t blame you for doing so.’

‘My heart,’ Daethus said, almost wistfully. ‘Where is that, precisely?’

‘You spoke of a fugue,’ Sespyra said. ‘Of visions. What sort of visions?’

He hesitated – should he even tell her this? The witch aelf was listening, though – rapt, clearly in suspense.

‘I saw war, engulfing all the Mortal Realms,’ Daethus said. ‘All against all, complete and utter chaos. Great cities torn down, stone by stone. The Gates of Azyrheim, sundered and fallen to dust. And all the gods – Tyrion and Teclis, Alarielle, the gods of Chaos, even Sigmar himself – slain, nothing but memories.

‘But most of all, I remember a darkness – a great, all-engulfing, still and silent darkness. A living void. A hungry void. After all the terror and fire, the blood and the ruin, that was all that remained… a hungry void. Still, silent, cold and unending.’

‘The gods were destroyed,’ Sespyra said, ‘and so the realms were destroyed?’

‘No,’ Daethus said, barely able to articulate the strange sense impressions that still haunted him. ‘It was not a result – it was the alternative. Either all the gods die and the world succumbs to Chaos… or a great void would open, and there would be peace. Rest.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Sespyra said.

Daethus shook his head. ‘Neither do I.’

‘I think I’ve heard of such things,’ Sespyra said. ‘Your visions make you a Questor, do they not? Bound to some end that you may not even understand?’

Daethus nodded. ‘Just so. Since recovering, I’ve gone about my business, obeyed my commanders, seen to my duties, all the while haunted by the things I saw, yet having no conscious idea what any of those visions might mean. None. I was adrift – aware that some purpose was ascribed to me, but having no ken of what that purpose might be. You and your kind may drift on the wind like leaves, Sespyra Sepherys, but I? I cannot abide unanswered questions, unfathomable purpose. Every waking hour has been torture–’

‘Relax,’ Sespyra said. ‘You saw visions. Sooner or later those visions will make their import plain. This is the way of things with information gleaned from outside ourselves – from the meeting place between our deepest interior and the boundless aether that surrounds us.’

‘Torture,’ Daethus said again, leaning into the word. ‘And then, today, my conclave was mobilised, to aid in the apprehension of a pair of escaped fugitives. I revelled in a mission – a clear purpose, a defined goal. I was given my assignment – the blocks of the city where I would patrol and watch for the reported fugitives. Yet when I arrived there, when I had barely begun my orderly search of the area, what do you think I found?’

The witch aelf wore a curious half-smile – an expression that Daethus found far too enigmatic and impertinent.

‘You found the white witch and me,’ Sespyra said.

‘Worse,’ Daethus said. ‘I found my purpose. Not entirely, you understand – for that would be far too easy. No, it was like a single, clarion bell ringing. When I saw the two of you rushing to the sky-docks, bearing those aether-gold canisters along with you, I knew that I had to follow you – and not to stop you, either, as I’d been commanded. I knew – knew, with absolute certainty – that my only answers would be found by going wherever you were going, and by tying my fate to your own.’

‘And why should that trouble you?’ the witch aelf asked. ‘Did you not just finish telling me what torture it was, not knowing your purpose?’

‘And this should assuage my inner turmoil?’ Daethus asked. ‘Learning that my purpose is to desert my brothers and sisters? To forsake my oaths and duties? To tarry off in the company of, of…’ He realised he had been about to say something horrible, something insulting about the lot of them, and that terrible guilt he’d felt upon first insulting the vile witch aelf returned. ‘Of all of you? I confess, witch – despite the fact that this sword at my side marks me as chosen – a special herald with a special purpose – I have never felt so bereft, so helpless, being shown only the barest, most nonsensical fragments of a still-hidden whole.’

‘Well,’ Sespyra finally said, after studying him long and hard, ‘let me just offer you one piece of advice, Stormcast – where gods and their whims are concerned, I find it’s best to expect the worst. Always. In the end, gods or no gods, we all make our own choices. Even if it feels like fate’s dragging us along by a hook in the gut, we still have a choice to make – dig in our heels and suffer, or alleviate the agony and stride on to where we’re led.

‘Make your choice, Stormcast, and embrace it.’

Without another word, she turned and sauntered away from him.

Once more, Daethus was alone. Alone with his thoughts. Alone with his confusion. He wanted to dismiss the witch aelf’s words – to scoff and toss them aside like scraps of rotten meat proffered as food.

Why, then, could he not shake the vague sense – the sneaking suspicion – that the witch aelf’s words were words that he was meant to hear?

Wodrik Thunderall haunted a small dark corner of his sky-frigate’s aft hold, alone and distressed.

A weapon capable of giving mortals the power of the gods? Capable of slaying the gods? A weapon of duardin make! Could it be? His means of salvation… at last?

No, he thought. It’s wrong. Unconscionable. You’ve made a covenant with these travellers, agreed to give them transport and protection. If you violate that–

But did I? Did I truly? What did I promise them? Transport in exchange for aether-gold ingots, that’s all. No protection. No active involvement. Not the lives of my crew, nor my own life.

But you’d be risking your crew, and yourself, if you cross them. If you try to wrest this weapon away from them once it’s been recovered…

And can it be recovered? Surely, the way will be hard, the road treacherous? They may die and that wizard’s staff may never come within a league of where you stand.

‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking,’ a wry, craggy voice rumbled from the darkness.

Wodrik spun on his heavy heel. It was his stalwart aether-navigator, Grikara.

‘You don’t know me so well,’ Wodrik snarled back. But Grikara was right, he knew. It was impossible that the old duardin matron could not surmise what her younger captain was thinking.

Old Grikara’s face – tanned by the sun, scoured by decades of high-altitude winds, lined and creased by age and experience, sporting as much scar tissue as tough, leathery folds – caught the diffuse purple light fanning down from the deck-grating above them as she limped out of the deep shadows at the hold’s edge on her spring-loaded peg leg. She had been endrinmaster and then navigator to Wodrik’s own father, Worald, and come into Wodrik’s service as a sort of gift on the occasion of Wodrik’s first command: between the two of them, old Worald and Grikara had decided that what Wodrik truly needed was a seasoned right-hand officer. Now, even more decades had passed, and Worald was gone, but Grikara remained, time-battered and sun-stained, her face weathered, her once-auburn mane of thick, ropy braids now a storm of cloud silver and fog grey with only a few dark coppery streaks remaining. Time and age aside, however, she still served Wodrik, and did so lovingly and loyally.

Even after my dishonour, Wodrik thought miserably. Even in the face of ruin and shame…

‘It’s a fool’s errand,’ Grikara said knowingly. ‘The way to madness, surely.’

Wodrik raised an eyebrow. He was well into middle age now – definitely living the second half of his life and long past its mid-point – but Grikara’s great age combined with her indefatigable spirit still made Wodrik feel like a young, untried cub-captain on his first voyage. His recent failures and dishonours did little to assuage that feeling.

‘You think I should offload our passengers?’ Wodrik asked.

Grikara smirked and lowered her chin, glaring at Wodrik through her arched brows.

‘No, lad,’ she said burrishly. ‘I think we should deliver them where they desire, per our agreement. We accepted their fuel, didn’t we?’

‘Our agreement was for a settlement – a city!’

Grikara shrugged. ‘Now, they want passage to the place where this Fane fellow hides. Six of one, half a dozen of another. We take them where they want to go… and then we let them go, no questions asked. I wouldn’t promise them a return trip, though. That was not part of the agreement.’

‘But this prize the Lumineth spoke of! This Godsbane–’

‘No,’ Grikara said, shaking her shaggy head. ‘That’s a honey trap, Wodrik, and you know it.’

There it was… that feeling of youth and inexperience again. You might as well be a callow, fretful boy, so vile and malign are your mistakes…

He tried to act as if it were only an idle consideration.

‘You’re probably right,’ he said, stroking his thick black beard. ‘I would never–’

‘Oh, you would,’ Grikara said, then limped closer, ‘because I would. It would have been the first thing to occur to me when they spoke of that terrible weapon they’re after – the first thing! So, I’m here to tell you, forget it.’

Wodrik decided the throw off all pretence. What was the point? The old sky-runner clearly knew his heart and mind. He could keep nothing from her.

‘I shan’t forget it,’ Wodrik snarled, edging nearer. ‘You heard them! A god-slaying wizard’s staff? Of duardin make? That’s our treasure they’re after – the legacy of our people!’

‘Some other folk,’ Grikara said. ‘Not the Kharadron. Not the sky-lords.’

‘All duardin are our kin,’ Wodrik huffed. ‘If we could deliver that weapon to the High Council–’

Grikara raised her chin defiantly. ‘You think it can restore your honour?’

‘Yes!’ Wodrik growled. ‘Of course it can!’

Grikara’s head began to shake again. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s a trap, don’t you see? Right out of an old bedtime story! The weapon that gives mortal men the edge over immortal gods? The ultimate weapon! Its power will buy you nothing but grief and ruin.’

‘I don’t want to use it!’ Wodrik said, throwing up his arms. ‘I simply want to give it to the council – to our people! Let it be our treasure, and remain in our keeping. Let all the Mortal Realms know of the power that we hold – that we once held – that they can never, ever again lay their greedy hands on!’

‘And if someone you grant this weapon to decides to misuse it?’ Grikara asked. ‘To play the same deadly game this Nerontes Fane is playing?’

Wodrik had no answer for that. He waved off Grikara’s protests.

‘Balderdash,’ he muttered and strode away. ‘Our people are strong! Upright! They would not be so sorely tempted by this thing. The honour is in its possession – and its protection – not its use.’

‘And what about the rest of us?’ Grikara called, barrelling on. ‘Let’s say they steal the damned thing. Let’s say they get back aboard our ship and we spirit them away. Let’s say we take the staff from them and leave them – unharmed – somewhere in the desert while we make straight for Barak-Thryng and the High Council. That’s a long voyage, lad… a long voyage during which a lot of terrible things could happen.’

Wodrik glared at Grikara. ‘Such as?’

The old navigator limped nearer. ‘Such as, the current owner of that blasted staff comes for us! If he gathers the forces that Lumineth witch said he could–’

‘Maybe he won’t,’ Wodrik said.

‘And maybe he will,’ Grikara shouted. ‘You think you’re buying our honour back, Wodrik, but you could just be signing our death warrants.’

‘And then we die!’ Wodrik shouted, the fury boiling over in him without warning. ‘We die gloriously, in battle, defending our honour – the honour of our people – nay, even the safety of the realms! Can’t you see, Grikara? Even if we fail, the very attempt could restore what we’ve lost…’

Grikara stared back at him, her pale blue eyes impossibly sad.

‘Why should I even confide this in you?’ Wodrik muttered. ‘You are not the one stripped of your honour, your stature. You were not the one who failed…’

‘You did not fail,’ Grikara said.

‘Then why was my covenant with the council revoked? My warrant stripped? My name blackened in every sky-port from Hammerhal to Barak-Thryng?’

‘Because you made a choice,’ Grikara said. ‘A choice that you believed to be right when you made it. It just so happens that choice had consequences, and the council thought those consequences were not worth the initial risk taken.’

Wodrik stared into the darkness surrounding them. He could still see the billows of smoke pouring from the beset sky-ship; still see the licking, roiling flames and smell the burning flesh as members of the unlucky crew, writhing and leaping about because they were aflame and could not be extinguished, sought the gunwales and leapt to their deaths rather than keep burning.

They were under attack. I tried to give aid. To do the right thing. But they were all nearly dead when we arrived, and my crew paid the price for my foolish need to play a hero.

A forfeit of the honour of my command, they said.

A sin against the Kharadron Code, they said.

The lives of my crew against the lives of strangers – human strangers, at that! A foolish and reckless trade, they said…

‘I broke the laws of our people,’ Wodrik said. ‘My crew paid the price. I paid the price. Are you telling me I should live the rest of my miserable, second-rate life never even attempting to balance the accounts? To regain what I’ve lost?’

The craggy old navigator’s face took on a surprisingly soft aspect.

‘I’m saying,’ she rasped, her voice as kind as it was weathered, ‘that the only thing you lost was the respect of strangers. The rest of us still remain, Wodrik, as loyal as ever. If you think, for even a moment, that you are what the council pronounced you to be, then you impugn our honour along with your own.’

‘I cannot live like this,’ Wodrik said. ‘A cautionary tale. An outcast. A nobody.’

‘Then pity us,’ Grikara said, her aspect hardening again, ‘for we loyally and lovingly follow a nobody.’

With that, she pivoted on her peg leg and turned to stride away. Wodrik thought he might stop her, but then decided against it. What was the point? Grikara was right. She was always right.

You shouldn’t pursue it, a voice in his mind said. You shouldn’t even consider it. To do so is to court disaster. Your poor judgement killed over half your crew once. This new folly could kill those who remain.

And yet, he could not banish the dream he’d painted in his mind entirely: the thought of a triumphant return to Barak-Thryng; of a parade through the colony to the Halls of Justice, his crew marching proudly behind him; of approaching the council and laying this Godsbane thing at their waiting feet. Of falling to his knees and declaring that he’d brought them this great prize humbly, and with all reverence.

He would not even ask them for the restoration of his rights and privileges – for the restoration of his honour. They would simply know that was what his daring and sacrifice were worth. They would know, and they would once more bestow all they’d taken away with pride and solemnity.

I could be myself again, he thought, standing there in the dark, alone. We could all be who we were once again… and we could start over.

All that was required was a betrayal of those he’d already sworn to safely transport and loyally protect…

Sespyra cursed her luck. She could not decide if it was, ultimately, a blessing or a curse.

Meeting a prisoner in need whose aims could bolster her own and effect their escape? A blessing. Throwing her lot in with that fugitive to escape Settler’s Gain? A blessing, more likely than not. Learning that a weapon existed which could aid her in confronting and destroying Morathi?

That was a double-edged blade.

I should forget about it, she told herself as she paced back and forth along the port gunwale of the sky-frigate, enjoying the way the cool, high-altitude winds whipped through her long, unkempt hair. I should forget she ever made mention of the thing and slip away at the first opportunity. I owe her nothing. She can demand nothing.

But the staff… this Godsbane…

She said she needs me to retrieve it, she thought. Needs me. My stealth. My obfuscation and concealment magic. My cunning and guile. She needs me to recover the weapon from the one who now possesses it.

What if I need it, just as desperately?

No. That way lies madness. You cannot consider it.

Shouldn’t I? If the staff is capable of giving a mere mortal the power to destroy any immortal, even a god… why shouldn’t I consider it? Because Morathi, if not a goddess already, is certainly on her way to deification; that terrifying, incontestable summit of all-encompassing power. Perhaps she can no longer be threatened or assassinated like any common, everyday despot or evil queen…

But with Godsbane…

No. You need to keep running. That is the only answer. Run and run and run further, until Morathi’s minions stop following you, or you can raise an entire army to go back to Ulgu and reclaim what you’ve lost. To challenge Morathi now is foolish – pure suicide.

Unless I have the staff… the thing they call Godsbane.

Sespyra gripped the gunwale rail and hung her head. Blast Thelana Evenfall and her stupid quest to save the realms! To vindicate herself! Did she have any idea – any idea at all – what an insoluble dilemma this presented? What a terrible trap of the soul and psyche she’d laid for Sespyra by presenting her with this foul temptation? And that realisation, that insight, suddenly exposed a terrible, undeniable truth for her.

I am not afraid to seize Godsbane and face Morathi, she thought. Nor am I frightened of carrying on as a fugitive, my beliefs about Morathi never vindicated, my home and standing never restored to me.

No, what I fear is the treachery I may undertake to see my cause through to its bitter end. Thelana saved my life when we fled the prison in Settler’s Gain. She had no need to do so. She did so only out of kindness – a sense of orderly, moral obligation. And now, I would repay her by lying to her, misleading her, appearing to support her cause – only to ultimately seize her would-be prize for myself.

Sespyra chewed on that revelation for a long time, studying it, turning it over and over in her mind, prodding it like a sleeping dragon-bat.

It cannot be betrayal, she thought. Because I owe her nothing. Who is she to me but a means to an end? I cannot let the opportunity pass. If a weapon exists that could allow me to strike at Morathi–

Then you should ignore it and keep running. Never look back.

Wrong! I am obligated to try to lay hands upon it! It is the only way to save myself! To honour Khaine! To retain the purity of our culture, our magical orders and our source of power! Morathi will enslave us! Only the power of Khaine can set us free!

But the only way I can protect the future for Khaine’s resurrection is by destroying Morathi. And the only way I can destroy Morathi is by seizing that wizard’s staff, the thing they call Godsbane.

She stared down over the gunwale, through empty air and hazy clouds towards the flat, half-lit world far beneath them. Low mountains, rolling hills, vast plains, small copses of trees and wind-scoured scrub and sedge – it all seemed impossibly small, many thousands of feet below them, sliding by like water flowing in the stream bed as the sky-ship was borne along on the wind currents by the aether-gold fuel now churning and burning in its iron belly. So strange, Sespyra thought, how this massive clanking abomination of alchemical engines and riveted steel could be held aloft and skate along the air so smoothly, so silently, somehow effecting in her a feeling of peace even though it was industrial know-how personified.

I am a killer, she thought, but I never thought of myself as a thief or a criminal. I believe in something. I honour something. I stand for something.

And now, here I stand… ready to sacrifice any stranger, any goodwill, any ally, so that I may stand against a tyrant and end my exile. What I stand for cannot withstand my desire to achieve my own ends and return to the place where I belong.

She sighed. Thelana, you fool. You should have never trusted me. Certainly never confided your need in me.

Her choice was already made.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Edinor stood in the shadow of the university library, admiring its complex, otherworldly beauty: austere yet elegant, sprawling yet balanced, domineering yet strangely welcoming. He had come here more times than he could count, lost himself in its stacks and special collections. And yet, at present, Edinor was gripped by the irrational fear that the great rambling temple was very much alive – a thinking, feeling being – and that it was glowering down upon him.

The missive had been clear: the ennead needed some clear notions about the limits – if any – to Godsbane’s power. They knew what Nerontes Fane had reported to them… but they were not entirely sure that Nerontes had told them everything. They needed to independently verify those facts.

‘I can’t do that,’ Edinor had tried to explain to Orenna when they were back in their sigil-protected sanctum. ‘The library is full of countermeasures and protections. If the texts necessary are in one of the forbidden collections, I cannot so much as approach them. I don’t have the permissions necessary.’

‘Arrangements shall be made to facilitate access,’ Orenna quoted from the now-immolated letter. ‘They’ve already thought of everything, Edinor. All that you need to decide is if you’re willing to do it or not.’

‘Well, what if I say no?’ he had asked.

Orenna had stared at him a long time, then held out her hands in a gesture of complete capitulation.

‘Then, I make no promises.’

‘Promises for what?’ Edinor asked.

‘Promises for your safety.’

And so, here he found himself, in the shadow of the great edifice, his student’s satchel on one hip. They’d provided him with a sigil pass for the special collections – a very rare item usually guarded by the librarians and their assistants like dwindling realmstone. Where the sigil had come from, Edinor could not say: it had simply arrived for them one afternoon, by messenger, contained in an ordinary-looking box tied with butcher’s twine. The pass – a flat, unusually heavy pendant a little larger than his open palm – now reposed in the inner pocket of his robe.

Orenna had coached him endlessly.

‘Approach as if you belong there,’ she’d warned. ‘As if nothing in the world should logically bar you from that building or its rarest holdings.’

‘And what do I say,’ he’d asked, ‘if someone questions me?’

They’d worked through a number of possible responses, and finally decided on that which was the most humdrum: he was a fourth-year student who’d been given special permissions to compose a treatise on modes and methods of securing questionable tomes and treasures. His access to the forbidden collections was intended as an investigation of the countermeasures already in place to protect them.

Now, all that remained was to put all their preparations to work.

Edinor mounted the broad front stairs of the library and let himself in through one of the enormous doors that sealed the place. Within, he approached the librarian’s desk, fishing in his inner pocket for the sigil. It was only when he reached the desk that he realised no one was there. He searched the foyer, the corridors that led away on either side and behind.

‘Hello?’

No answer came. It was inexplicable. Incredible! There was always a librarian on duty! Always! If he carried on, would whoever currently occupied the desk come looking for him? Would his passage through this place while the librarian was absent actually attract more attention?

Arrangements shall be made to facilitate access, they had said. Perhaps this momentary abandonment of the reception desk was just that: a facilitation. Not by accident, but by design.

Edinor strode on, consciously squaring his shoulders and forcing his chest out, desperate to project absolute assurance to any and all who might see him passing from the grand foyer into the great atrium-like reading chamber beyond. When he crossed the reading room, noting the scant, scattered students and scholars at work above and around him, each individual locked in silent contemplation of whatever texts lay before them, Edinor half-expected a challenge, even an unwished-for greeting. None came, however. On he went, doing his best to seem as though he knew what he was doing.

His quarry lay on a lower level, in Lore and Verse. Although Edinor had never been in that space before, he and Orenna had studied a magical projection of the library’s architecture to ensure that he knew where he was going. In practice, however, the staggered flights of steps descending into the subterranean depths of the library seemed to have multiplied, vaguely striking Edinor as more numerous and more widely spread than their projections had indicated. Nonetheless, he’d internalised the directions. He held to them scrupulously.

After only one wrong turn, which he quickly corrected, he finally located the flight he sought and made his descent. At the lower landing, he rounded a tight corner that opened into a long, low-ceilinged passage ending in a solid marble wall. Edinor knew that the Lore and Verse section could only be accessed by passing through that wall. At present, however, he was more concerned by the frightening collection of statues lining the passage: bronze and stone simulacra of cave-apes, cliff harpies and canyon wyrms. These, Edinor knew, were not simply decorations, but patient guardians. If the sigil he carried was in any way imperfect or poorly wrought, if its spells failed to tell the proper story to the walls and pillars around him, those statues would spring to life, separate themselves from the passage and pounce upon him without warning. Whether they were made to kill their prey, or simply subdue and hold said prey until the authorities arrived, he did not know. He only knew that Orenna’s handlers – and Orenna herself – had insisted that the sigil he carried would protect him from the guardians when he passed.

Yes, they had insisted. But what was their insistence worth?

Fool, Edinor thought. You chose this path – chose these people as your allies. Do what you came to do.

He forced one foot in front of the other, eyes fixed upon the bare wall ahead of him. Part of him thought he was moving so quickly – so eagerly – that his guilt must have wafted off him like the scents of sweat and fear. Yet another part of him felt as though the march down the passage took far too long – a veritable eternity, as though he were slogging through a muddy crannog. It took a great deal of self-control to keep from gawping at the fearsome stone guardians as he passed.

Finally, he reached the wall. He stood, nose just a finger’s breadth away from the bare marble, eyes fixed upon a spot just ahead of him, never daring to turn and glance back over his shoulder. Clearly, the sigil had worked – but would it continue to work if he revealed himself now with a furtive backward glance?

Through the wall now. Quickly.

This, too, was new magic to Edinor. By university standards, transparency was a few years beyond his current progression. Orenna had taught him, though, and he’d got it fairly quickly. Or so he’d believed.

‘Just don’t hesitate when you step through,’ she had warned. ‘Not even for a moment. Hesitation could break your concentration, and breaking your concentration could end the efficacy of the spell – and cause you to materialise inside the solid wall. A horrid death, I assure you.’

He imagined so.

Taking a deep breath, Edinor murmured the words of the spell softly, under his breath, and stepped forward.

The sensation of passing through the wall was bizarre, disorientating – but in three steps he was on the far side, inside the lore collection.

He studied the chamber: the many strange tomes and folios upon the recessed rows of shelves, many of them chained in place; the soft, soothing glow provided by the colonies of glow-worms that moved, slow and placid over the walls and vaulted ceilings; the night-flower lamps in their sconces, awaiting removal and an eager shake to awaken them.

I should like to have come here under other circumstances, he thought. More honest circumstances.

Fool. You’ve made your choice. To work, now.

His mission was to locate the tomes used by Thelana and Nerontes to prove the provenance of Godsbane. To aid in that mission, Edinor had been given a smoothly polished stone that Nerontes had once kept as a good luck charm, but left behind when he fled Settler’s Gain, as well as a few strands of Thelana’s dark hair, taken from the evidence gathered in her gaol cell following her escape. The two items, associated with his predecessors in this place, would create a sympathetic aura – a sort of magical smoke-trail – that Edinor could follow to quickly locate the volumes consulted.

Casting the tracking spell and rushing about the collection, yanking the necessary books from the shelves, went swiftly enough, but Edinor knew his labours were only beginning. Since the books could not be safely removed from the library, he’d been given two special journals – leather-bound volumes full of blank parchment pages that would fill with the words he read as he opened the books and perused the sections indicated by the tracking spell. He would have to linger here long enough to actually do the reading – and he would have to read carefully, to ensure that the words transferred to the journals exactly, and free of errors or omissions. But once he had completed that task, he could flee. They had even given him a special spell of erasure – a powerful, meticulously crafted contrivance that would erase any magically viable evidence of his presence once he’d departed. No one coming after him would be able to use a tracking spell like the one he now utilised, nor even discern that he had been here at all.

Books gathered, Edinor sat at a hidden corner table, hastily turned to the first magically marked page, and began reading. Beside him, his special journal lay open. As his eyes slid patiently, painstakingly over the words inscribed upon the pages, the journal did its work. It was magnificent: the words he’d read had appeared, as though by an invisible hand, on the page of the journal in perfect, uniform script.

Edinor continued to read. There were eleven volumes in all. The passages consulted were, in and of themselves, fairly short. But the simple act of laying out each new book, concentrating as hard as he could manage upon the words on the page, and reading them slowly, carefully, was excruciating. All he wanted to do was rise and run – to flee this place and never look back. He was certain – absolutely certain – that he would be discovered at any moment.

And yet, no one appeared.

Book after book, page after page. Steadily, the magical journals were filled.

Finally, after what seemed a veritable eternity, Edinor was done. He hastily stowed his newly filled journals in his satchel. As he jerked and pressed to get the two big folios inside, something shifted and came rolling out: a glass globe the size of his fist, its one spout stopped with a cork and sealed with special wax bearing a glut of pressed-in runes and symbols.

The glass globe rolled and wobbled towards the edge of the table. Edinor caught it just as it tipped over the edge. This was the spell-jar that Orenna had given him to cover his tracks. If he broke it now, before he’d even had a chance to return the books to their proper shelves, the whole purpose of the spell would be moot. It had to be employed as his final act, just before he exited, to be sure that no magical evidence of his presence remained.

‘Break it on the floor,’ Orenna had said. ‘The glass will dissolve into air and the potion within will evaporate shortly thereafter.’

Carefully, Edinor slipped the pot back into his satchel, then braced the latter between the chair and reading desk he’d been using. A near disaster, that. How foolish would that have been? Spending his only opportunity to erase his presence here with a clumsy accident? No doubt, even if he’d managed to deliver the journals at that point, the Black Sun might have decided he was too much of a risk – that he knew too much to survive.

He paused, right in the middle of the act of gathering up the books to return them. They would, wouldn’t they? he realised. They’d see him as a liability and end him, without hesitation. Even if Orenna tried to cover for him, to protect him.

And wouldn’t I deserve it? Acting so foolishly? Failing them so miserably?

That thought, strangely, revealed something to Edinor that he had never truly considered before that moment. They were his tribe now; at least, he wanted them to be.

Look at what they’d given him: access to secret sanctums; interaction with great leaders of power and influence; a purpose barely imagined – let alone known of – by most ordinary folk in the Mortal Realms! They’d even given him the power to make fools of his Lumineth instructors – allowed him to infiltrate this place, and steal their knowledge right out from under them, to prove that he wasn’t just as good a sorcerer as any of them, he was better! Or, at the very least, he would be.

I’m one of them, he thought, hastily moving among the stacks, returning the books to their places. I haven’t been formally invested yet, true, but this is what I want: meaning, purpose, fraternity. It feels good… certainly better than my years at this university ever did.

Someone arrived just as he returned to his satchel and set its strap over his shoulder.

Edinor recognised the man the moment he stepped through the solid wall and rematerialised: Tueldor, the elderly chair of the Adepts’ Council. Edinor had not dealt with Tueldor much on a day-to-day basis, but he knew the man by sight and reputation. His balding head, fringe of well-oiled silvery hair and whimsically curled moustache were fairly hard to forget once seen.

‘Oh, dear me,’ the old man said, noting Edinor’s presence. ‘I hadn’t expected to find anyone here.’

Edinor froze. Suddenly, horribly, everything had gone wrong.

The old man shuffled forward, smiling warmly. ‘I know you,’ he said absently. ‘Your face, at any rate, if not your name.’

Edinor opened his mouth. He had no idea what to say – what he could say. He only knew that he had to say something. No no no no! Not now! I have to break the spell-jar, to cover my tracks! How can I do that with this old fool watching?

‘What brings you all the way down here?’ the old man asked, his jolly tone indicating only curiosity, not any sort of suspicion.

‘Same thing that brought you, I’d suspect,’ Edinor blurted. ‘Research.’ He forced a smile. Tueldor smiled back.

‘Indeed! Indeed!’ the old man agreed, laughing a little. An instant later, his laughter subsided and his tone darkened. ‘I only wish my researches were as academic and banal as yours at the moment. Honestly, lad… these are dark times. Dark, indeed, when an old mage like me is down here trying to tease out some means of saving our realm – let alone all eight of them.’

‘Save the realms?’ Edinor asked, doing his best to sound clueless. ‘From what? New Chaos incursions?’

Tueldor seemed vaguely sad. He stared into Edinor’s brown eyes.

‘Wholly ignorant,’ he said, his tone suggesting that he wished he could be as well. ‘Go on, lad. You’ll hear the rumours soon enough. No need for me to lay the weight of the Mortal Realms upon you.’

And with that, he carried on past Edinor, heading for the shelves and the many ancient volumes that reposed there.

Edinor stood, still and silent.

That’s good. Let him retreat into the stacks. How long will it take for the spell-jar to dissolve, once broken? For its fumes to disperse? Will breaking it alert the old man? Are its fumes dangerous? Poisonous? Why didn’t we discuss these things?

Get out. Get out now. Go hide somewhere. Circle back when the old man’s gone and cover your tracks then.

He turned and strode towards the outer wall.

He wasn’t sure if that plan made any sense. Where could he linger? From where could he watch? If he wasn’t careful, someone else might happen along and come into this collection, and then where would he be? Dealing with two witnesses instead of one–

‘Edinor!’

Edinor froze. Blinked. Turned. ‘Excuse me?’

Old Tueldor was standing near the end of an aisle between bookshelves. He seemed delighted with his own powers of recollection.

‘Edinor Affrin,’ he said, ‘that’s your name!’

Edinor nodded. ‘Aye, sir. It is.’

Fool! What are you thinking?

I’m thinking there may only be one way out of this…

Tueldor’s expression, bright and amiable, suddenly darkened.

‘But you’re one of Thelana’s,’ he said, and took a few steps closer again. ‘That’s why I know you. She’s spoken of you more than once. Tells me you’re one of her best. Oh, my dear boy, what an ordeal this all must be for you – seeing her shamed, so. Imagining the worst things about her, whether they be true or not…’

Edinor suddenly realised his hand was in his satchel. It had crept there unbidden, without him consciously realising it. It now closed upon something long and thin.

It was a knife – small, used for sharpening quill nibs and separating stuck-together pages, but quite sharp. Edinor had never thought of it as a weapon before, but he supposed even a small blade could do what was now required.

Closer, now. You’ll have to be right up on him.

Why didn’t the old fool just see to his work? Why couldn’t he simply keep his mouth shut?

He approached Tueldor. The old man, thankfully, moved closer to him. His desire to chat clearly outweighed any pressing need he felt to see to his private investigations.

‘It’s not true, you know,’ the old man said quietly, as though sharing a secret. ‘I know the most terrible rumours are going round, but I’m here to tell you, lad, none of them are true. Thelana Evenfall is one of the purest, most trustworthy souls I’ve ever known. She’s capable of making mistakes, surely – especially when her trust is abused – but she is incapable of wickedness or malice. I just think you should know that.’

Edinor nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That’s a relief.’

You’ve got a choice to make. A terrible choice.

I can’t.

You must.

‘But, wait,’ Tueldor suddenly said, as though some half-forgotten thought had just occurred to him. ‘You’re a third-year, aren’t you? I hadn’t thought you so advanced! What’s even brought you down here, into this place? You know, if the librarians catch you here, they’ll assume the worst. I’ve already seen one student come to a bad end under such circumstances. I’d hate to see…’

The old man trailed off. Once more, his flighty intellect seemed to be interrupting itself, telling him something.

He’s innocent.

He’s unlucky, that’s all. Wrong place, wrong time. You could tell he was burdened by what’s afoot in the world. Do him the kindness of sparing his involvement. But do it now.

‘It’s wrong,’ Tueldor said, expression grave. ‘All wrong. You shouldn’t be here.’

‘No,’ Edinor said, staring into the old man’s rheumy hazel eyes. ‘And neither should you.’

He struck – a single slash to the artery under the old man’s right ear. Tueldor had a moment’s realisation – eyes wide, mouth working, as though seeking a valediction – but then he choked, sagged forward and hit the floor. Blood gushed out of him in steady arterial pulses.

Edinor took three steps back, eager to avoid either his boots or the hem of his robes being stained by the old man’s fast-flowing blood. The elderly wizard’s death took far longer than he’d wished.

He smashed the spell-jar upon the floor as he fled. He couldn’t make the old man’s corpse disappear, but at least there would be no magical means by which the Lumineth could link it to him.

The sense that he was being watched, or being followed, or both, was all-pervading. The willpower necessary to keep his eyes forward, to resist the urge to glance furtively back or seek evidence to support his paranoia, was considerable. Still, somehow, Edinor made it out of the library, off campus, and back to the low city without seeing a single soul, face to face. He half-worried, staring down from the precipice of the city’s central plateau, that he did not have enough focus or willpower to safely levitate himself down from the high city bluffs, but Edinor found his abilities powerfully responsive.

As though spilling blood, taking a life, had somehow empowered him.

By the time he reached the agreed-upon rendezvous point – a small, smoky back room above the kitchen of a mean little tavern – his worry and guilt had reached fever pitch. His disjointed thought processes and misgivings must have been clearly visible upon his face, for when Orenna opened the door and saw him, she yanked him inside and slammed the door behind him.

‘Do you have the journals?’ she demanded.

Edinor nodded, but made no move to hand them over.

‘Well?’ Orenna asked, extending one open hand.

‘There was a… a surprise. A complication.’

Orenna’s head cocked ever so slightly.

‘Tueldor,’ Edinor said, ‘from the Adepts’ Council–’

‘First things first, boy,’ Orenna said, voice sharp as well-honed steel. ‘Hand over the transcriptions.’

Edinor fished out the two big journals and placed them in Orenna’s waiting hand. She supported them in her arms, giving them a cursory review. Her eyes came alight as she perused the contents – but she did not waste much time. When she once more raised her eyes to Edinor, the old Orenna was back – not hard and sharp, but present, understanding, even a little playful.

‘Now,’ she said, moving closer. ‘Tell me what happened.’

He explained. The act of recounting the events – and Tueldor’s ignominious death, the man slowly dying as his blood ebbed away, pulse after pulse – seemed to unnerve him all over again. By the time he’d completed his account, his hands were shaking, tears stung his wide staring eyes, and his throat felt like it had closed to the width of a writing quill.

She’ll kill me now, Edinor thought grimly. I’ve made a terrible mistake, and she’ll see me as nothing more than a liability, and she’ll kill me. Maybe she’ll be merciful about it, quick… but she’ll do it.

And, honestly, it might be a relief. Knowing that I killed that old man, who didn’t deserve it, is a terrible burden to bear.

There was another feeling beneath that guilt and regret, however – a more powerful feeling that only revealed itself when Edinor lamented the situation he found himself in.

It’s not the murder that troubles me most, is it? No… it’s the notion that I let them down. The Black Sun. Orenna. My new tribe. They put their faith in me, and now I’ve let them down. What a fool…

There was suddenly a cup hovering beneath his staring eyes. Edinor blinked.

Orenna’s hand held the cup. It was filled with dark, sweet wine – the thick, syrupy sort favoured by grandees after a long, slow supper. Edinor took the cup, then raised his eyes to Orenna. She had a curious look on her face. Was it disappointment?

No: amusement.

How…?

‘Drink,’ she said. ‘It’ll steady you.’

Is this how it ends? Edinor wondered. He stared into the cup again, then raised his eyes once more to Orenna, standing above him, looking down on him where he sat slumped in his silent misery.

Very well, then, he thought. What have you got to lose at this point?

Edinor took down half the cup in a single draught, the rest in a second. After he swallowed the last, he set the cup aside, sat back, and waited for the end to come.

Nothing happened. He felt the ordinary warmth of spirits moving through him, limbering his muscles, calming his racing mind. But there was no sense of disruption, no indication of foul play or poison.

He looked to Orenna. She eyed him with a strange, bemused half-smile.

‘You thought that was the end of you?’ she asked.

Frowning, Edinor nodded. Orenna pulled up a nearby chair and sat before him.

‘You did as we asked you to do,’ Orenna said. ‘You lied, you cheated, you used proscribed magic to access a forbidden chamber, and you purloined information for us that we were hitherto not privy to.’

Edinor stared at her. Studied her.

‘But… Tueldor,’ he said. ‘They’ll find him. They’ll know.’

‘They’ll know that someone was there, and up to no good,’ Orenna said. ‘They’ll also know that Tueldor is dead. But they will not know that it was you – not if you broke the spell-jar, as I told you to.’

Edinor nodded. ‘I did.’

‘Then you’re safe,’ Orenna said. ‘From them… and from us.’

Edinor blinked.

‘To prove it,’ Orenna said, ‘you’re going to go to class tomorrow, like you always do. You’re going to go about your studies, like you normally would. And the Lumineth will be none the wiser.’

Edinor shook his head. ‘That’s impossible. Orenna – everything’s changed for me. Everything. I cannot simply go back to my ordinary life.’

‘But you can,’ Orenna said, ‘for right now, that is where you are useful. But you’re right about one thing, Edinor – everything has changed for you. The bloody work you’ve done tonight has proved your dedication – your true allegiance. So–’

She shifted, reaching into the pocket of her long coat, and drawing out a strange little bauble on an inexpensive chain. She offered the object to Edinor.

It was a pendant – a flat, polished cat’s-eye stone, thoroughly ordinary, easily acquired in any bazaar or marketplace for modest trade. Edinor stared at it, wondering what it meant. That’s when he noticed the small, cunning latch. He used his fingernail to trip the latch, and the stone swung up on tiny unseen hinges, revealing a symbol embossed on the black enamelled metal beneath it.

It was a black moon eclipsing a black sun, bearing the strange abstract suggestion of the shape of an eye.

He looked to Orenna. She smiled.

‘Congratulations, Edinor Affrin,’ she said warmly. ‘You’re no longer merely a cohort or a consort, outside the circle, apart from those who’ve treated with you. You are now within the circle, a member of the order – a fully invested neophyte.

‘Do you accept this honour?’

Edinor could barely find the words. When at last he managed a response, he could barely contain his tears of joy and adulation.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Nerontes made it to the lower slope of the hill just as he heard calls relayed from the front lines, still five hundred yards ahead of him.

‘Orruks! Ironjawz! Bloodtoofs! Coming in fast!’

His gathering army had spent days digging trench works, erecting ramparts and raising barricades at the foot of Kel Tallis’ hill. They were at the head of a small, narrow valley, so they were defended by treacherous bluffs and rugged hills on three sides. The only easy approach for a sizeable force was by way of the wide swathe of ground directly before the hill, ground that broadened as the vale opened onto the plain.

And that was the ground which the orruk warhost even now advanced across, heading right towards their still-gathering defenders.

‘There you are!’ Castigus said, rushing to Nerontes’ side. ‘I’ve been searching for you!’

Nerontes placed a hand on his comrade’s shoulder. ‘Apologies, Castigus – I came down at once. Do we have a spyglass?’

‘Spyglass!’ Castigus shouted.

A cloaked ranger hurried to answer Castigus’ call. He produced a trim, well-cared-for spyglass from under his cloak and presented it to Castigus.

‘For you, general,’ the ranger said.

‘I’m no general,’ Castigus said, accepting the spyglass and passing it to Nerontes.

‘Indeed not,’ Nerontes said, taking the spyglass and extending it. ‘I’d say you’re more of a lord marshal.’

Castigus stared. ‘What?’

Nerontes shrugged. ‘You’re my most trusted companion, and one of the most brilliant tacticians I’ve ever known–’

‘I don’t have the experience,’ Castigus stammered.

‘Time you got it,’ Nerontes answered. ‘I’ve made up my mind, so you can forget about arguing.’

Castigus’ shocked gratitude fled when he suddenly noticed something. ‘Where is the staff?’

Nerontes stared at his empty hands, as if suddenly surprised to find them so. ‘Why – it’s gone!’

Castigus was unimpressed by Nerontes’ attempt at humour. Nerontes gave a lopsided grin.

‘Quite safe, I assure you. Awaiting my return in the temple acropolis, protected by spell upon spell…’

He raised the spyglass to his eye and peered through, half-expecting Castigus to argue. Thankfully, he did not. Over the past several days, as troops trickled in from all corners of Hysh to swear fealty, the issue of the order of battle, the elevation of one commander or another, and the overall command of Nerontes’ mixed forces had become more pressing. There were all sorts among those present – Freeguilders and knights, adjutants and admirals, Fyreslayers, Idoneth, Drakespawn Knights of the Order Serpentis, Darklings and battlemages – some arriving as individuals, others in pairs, most in small troupes or modestly sized companies, none knowing or entirely trusting the others. Thus far, all intermingled, compared notes and shared their available resources reasonably. Now, however, with their first test of arms at hand, a clear chain of command needed to be established.

Castigus was the best – and most trustworthy – option available.

Nerontes focused the lenses of the spyglass. Out on the plain, a mass of swaying, lurching bodies tramped nearer, no more than a mile or so from the forward rampart. Their clumsy red armour marked with flares of yellow-painted fire made them easy to identify. Bloodtoofs, as the spotters had shouted.

There was too much dust and movement for Nerontes to make a dependable guess as to their numbers, but he guessed there were several hundred.

He lowered the spyglass. ‘Foot soldiers, mostly. A few dozen gore-gruntas, no more.’

‘We’ve got cavalry ready to ride out,’ Castigus said. ‘All our ranged weapons – blunderbusses, repeaters, long rifles and crossbows – are in the front rank. Another phalanx of crossbows and regular bowmen are set back, at the second barricade, along with the Fyreslayers and Freeguild foot soldiers.’

Nerontes studied the men arrayed around them. He had about five hundred as well, a good many of them mounted. It might be wise to let them loose, to set them against an enemy and see how they fought, side by side.

Or perhaps, he thought, this is the demonstration I’ve been waiting for.

Nerontes thought of Godsbane. He’d been practising with the staff for the past few days, plumbing its secrets and seeking some understanding of its limitations and capabilities. Its most terrible, potent powers, it seemed, could only be activated in the presence of an immortal – he’d felt nothing approaching the massive surge of sorcery that he received when he snatched it away from Ruhlgurrad in the Stormvault – but even without those titanic powers, the artefact still offered wells of destructive energy that he could draw upon for his own use – if only temporarily.

He’d drawn a great measure of those energies before descending the hill. He was eager now to set them loose, to show these sworn swords and supporters just what he could do.

He handed Castigus the spyglass.

‘Make me a promise, Castigus,’ he said.

‘Anything,’ Castigus answered.

Nerontes licked his lips. ‘Stay here, at the rear. Take command if need be. I’m going down to the line.’

‘The front line?’ Castigus asked, disbelieving. ‘Nerontes, the greenskin monsters are nearly upon us!’

‘I know,’ Nerontes said with a slight smile. ‘I’d better hurry.’

He started away. Castigus tugged at his cloak.

‘Nerontes, no!’

Nerontes was fairly certain he could do what he now set out to do… but he wasn’t absolutely certain. There was always some doubt, was there not? But he could not burden Castigus with his misgivings. Let him stay here, and do what only he could if Nerontes failed.

Nerontes swept his old friend into a strong embrace. He held him for a long time, praying that he wasn’t about to make a fool of himself.

‘Believe in me, Castigus,’ he whispered in his friend’s ear. ‘I do this for us. For all of us.’

Then, he was away.

His downhill path snaked between knots of soldiers, hasty defences and caches of ready weapons. As he went, the troops greeted him, or hailed him, or, just as often, simply stared at him, giving only a nod as he passed. They all knew who he was, as well as the power of the artefact he possessed. He could see, however, that a great many of those men and women – most of them, in fact – still had doubts about him. They might have answered his call hoping that he was the promised deliverer, wagering that he was the one to finally lead the Black Sun out of the shadows, to victory against the tyrannical gods of the Mortal Realms. But at this point, most yet acted on faith alone, nothing more. They had put their faith in him. He now had to prove to them that their faith was not misplaced.

As Nerontes worked his way downhill, greeting them, shaking hands, offering quick, soft words of affirmation, he prayed inwardly that he would give them cause for celebration this day; that he could provide them with an instant return upon their investments of faith and hope.

Who do I pray to? he thought idly. I seek to topple the gods. Do I seek one’s ear? Pray for one’s favour?

No. I pray to the Mortal Realms themselves. From them my power derives and to them I shall return if I fail. The gods have no claim on me, and nothing to offer me, save their abdication.

Nerontes made it to the first rampart, a line of sharpened wood stakes bristling outward along its raised, snaking line. The orruks were less than five hundred yards out now, closing steadily. He heard the drums of their Warchanters, the call and response of the Brutes and Ardboys as they exhorted their terrible champions and praised their bosses. Among the ranks, he saw flashes of sickly green light, indicating the presence of magic-wielding shamans.

Then, orders were barked and their pace quickened. It happened in an instant – every orruk turning their steady march into a trotting quickstep, the dust rising high in furious swales, almost concealing their vast numbers as they charged, closer and closer. Gore-gruntas trotted at the wings of the horde, ready to shield their foot soldiers from flank attacks.

Nerontes turned to a nearby long-gunner.

‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked.

The long-gunner nodded. ‘Of course, sir. You’re the one.’

Nerontes nodded and smiled. ‘I certainly hope so,’ he said. ‘Spread the word – I’m going out there alone. No one is to fire, or follow me, or move from this palisade unless I am slain.’

The long-gunner blinked. Those nearby murmured.

‘Sir?’

‘There will be many times in days to come,’ Nerontes said, ‘when I’ll rely upon all of you to save my skin. Today, let me do you that honour.’ And with that, he leapt over the palisade and strode out towards the orruk warband.

As if in answer to his solitary march towards them, the orruks raised a fierce, guttural battle cry. He saw their flashing red eyes, their bared tusks, their dully shining blades. Their heavy armour clanked and creaked as their boots and bare feet thundered over the valley floor.

Nerontes raised his hands, as if preparing to conduct a silent orchestra.

I feel it, he thought. I feel everything I drew from Godsbane inside me: raw, roiling, unadulterated power.

He set the power free.

Wild sun-bright skeins of scintillating white-hot plasma burst from Nerontes’ hands, arcing over the battlefield towards the charging horde. As each serpentine branch of lightning found a target, it charred and burned that target, then leapt outward, using each victim as a conductor to further redouble its power. In an instant, a hundred orruks – all in the vanguard of the horde – were on their knees, their backs, their faces, thrashing like fish out of water as the lightning storm cooked their flesh and viscera from the inside out. Scores of unwary victims, unable to arrest their forward momentum, charged to their own doom, colliding with the sea of bodies, ensnared and burnt by the lightning storm.

In seconds, it was over. A square quarter of the force arrayed lay dead, their charred remains trailing foul vapours into the dusty air.

The second and third waves of orruks hung back, milling about in small knots and big bands, waiting for the lightning to subside. They stared, they roared, they gnashed their teeth and beat their big, unwieldy weapons on their ironclad chests.

Behind Nerontes, the men on the ramparts cheered. Some even chanted his name.

Nerontes studied himself. He could feel his body coursing with the depthless arcane energies of Godsbane, a diaphanous glow engulfing him top to toe, slowly undulating off him like lazy iridescent flames. He was, he knew, bright and brilliant as a second Hyshian sun.

And all of that energy needed to go somewhere.

The second wave of orruks now clambered over their fallen comrades, stomping towards him across the field of the death he’d just created.

Nerontes gave them fire.

He’d summoned fireballs thousands of times in his life – it was one of the first offensive spells most mages learned. But what he summoned now were not simple fireballs at all: they were firestorms. Towering dust devils slithered upward into the air on either side of him, and his will ignited them, turning the spinning cyclones of whirling air into twisting, dancing serpents of flame.

Some orruks saw the fire-pillars and hesitated. Others roared and poured on speed, eager to cut him down. At the rear of the formation, the Warchanter beat a steady rhythm on his drums, a rhythm that worked the hesitating greenskins into a frenzy of violence and bloodlust.

Nerontes unleashed his new flaming pets. Each fire-pillar dipped forward, like a sand-serpent striking, and long liquid columns of flame exploded forth, engulfing the orruk hordes filling Nerontes’ field of vision. He felt the heat as the fire seized them, clung to them, cooked them. The orruks screamed and roared. Some kept charging, like blazing torches with legs, weapons still in hand, battle cries still sounding from their throats.

They did not last long, though. The fires burned too hot, and destroyed everything they touched.

One charging Brute – a great, hulking specimen nearly three heads taller than Nerontes – managed to stay upright though fully enveloped by flames, stumbling forward before finally collapsing in a sizzling, charred heap just yards from where Nerontes stood.

Beyond the wall of flames now formed by the hundred dead or dying before him, Nerontes saw the remainder of the orruk forces. Their megaboss must have been destroyed in one of the attacks, because now the various smaller brawls, fists and mobs had devolved into chaos. Some were already retreating, smart enough to know that there was no honour to be won against a single enemy likely to destroy them before they could so much as draw a drop of blood. Others argued – this one pressing to charge, that one demanding hasty flight. Some of the big bosses exhorted their fists and mobs onward, cursing them, berating them, threatening them. One big Brute even cut down two of his own Ardboys just to make the point that none of them were leaving the field without facing the enemy.

Nerontes delved into the founts of power within him yet again. He kept expecting to find the reserves tapped, his cache exhausted. But like a man dipping a bucket in a deep well, the bucket always rose again full to the brim.

He unleashed arcane bolts upon the remainder of the orruks. Any charging were blasted where they stood, some thrown off their feet when the ground exploded beneath them, others taking the brunt of the blast and sprawling, torn or burnt, shattered by the impact. Nerontes relished picking out individual targets and loosing powerful bolts of pure energy towards them. It felt good to hurt them, to break them, to humiliate them.

Soon enough, it was all over. Hundreds of slain orruks littered the valley floor. Their more sensible companions were visible in the distance, backs to Nerontes, fleeing as fast as their feet could carry them in a cloud of dust.

Nerontes turned to face the men on the ramparts. He said nothing, did nothing; simply stood and let them drink in the sight of him.

In the next moment, the cheers began. They shook the hills, like the exaltations sung to the God-King himself in ancient days.

From their hiding place in the shadows behind an ancient, half-collapsed wall of stone and marble, Thelana heard the soldiers down on the southern slope of the hill. It began as a dim roar, slowly rising up the hillside like a wave rolling in from a surging sea. She, Sespyra and Daethus looked to one another, exchanging puzzled, wondering glances. Sespyra’s magic concealed them presently, but that spell would be broken if any one of them did anything to give themselves away.

Before dawn, they’d left Wodrik and the Aemick’s Blade some distance behind them, hidden in a small box canyon a good distance from the ruins of Kel Tallis. They spent the early part of the morning wending through the washes and gullies that criss-crossed the ragged hills around the old city, and the afternoon creeping up the western slope. At last, they’d come within sight of the hilltop acropolis where Nerontes bivouacked, and presently they surveyed the meandering, cracked, old curtain wall in search of an easy ingress.

Thelana was lost in thought, considering the many variables that would affect their approach to the temple at the heart of the acropolis where Nerontes kept Godsbane, when second-hand conversation reached her ears from some distance away.

‘…slaughtered them,’ she heard. ‘All of them.’

‘All of them?’ another voice countered, incredulous.

‘All right, not all of them,’ the first admitted. ‘But more than half. The dregs fled. There are hundreds of orruk bodies down there, baking in the sun. The wizard slew every single one of them, single-handed.’

Thelana looked to Sespyra and Daethus. She already knew what they were thinking and leant close, so that she would barely have to whisper to communicate with them.

‘Sounds like we’ll have to await his return,’ Sespyra said under her breath.

‘The staff is here,’ Thelana assured them. ‘I feel it.’

‘Then he’s wielding godlike power without it?’ Daethus countered.

Thelana shrugged. ‘No doubt, Godsbane lends him power. It supercharges his own magical abilities. He would not face a true immortal or incarnate god without the staff in hand, but he can make mince of a horde of greenskins free of it.’

‘They said the survivors fled,’ Daethus muttered. ‘Orruks rarely flee a field. They nearly always fight to the death.’

‘Clearly,’ Sespyra said, ‘these orruks thought better of it, seeing what became of their comrades.’ She looked to Thelana, nodding towards the nearest intersection of dusty streets just a stone’s throw from where they hid. ‘Is the way clear?’

Thelana edged forward, peering around a span of crumbling wall. It appeared so. There was movement a few dozen yards away, in a small open space beyond the foundations of two toppled structures, but all that movement was far from where they now hid. There was ample cover between where they waited and where they hoped to go.

‘Clear,’ she said. She then indicated the great temple ruins about fifty yards on, across an empty street and up another short rocky incline. ‘That’s where the staff waits.’

‘Then we’d better hurry,’ Sespyra answered. ‘If he’s taken out the orruks, he’ll soon be back. We need to be far away from here before he even realises the blasted thing is gone.’

Thelana nodded in silent agreement. Sespyra – resident expert in infiltration and obfuscation – led the way.

Though they were cloaked by one of the Daughter of Khaine’s spells – a spell that would make the three of them, on open ground, look like nothing more than fleet shadows or a cloud of wind-blown mist to an observer – Thelana knew that the spell’s simplicity was also its potential weakness. If they separated, the spell would be broken. If anyone investigated and moved into the area of effect, the spell would be broken. It gave them cover, but only briefly and in the most limited fashion.

They covered the ground between where they hid and the front steps of the temple, then took cover behind a large piece of fallen masonry – a toppled lintel if Thelana was not mistaken. From where they now crouched, they could see a few soldiers moving about in or near the buildings surrounding the large open square before the temple ruins. They seemed to be few in number and spread out, but their slow, lazy ambulations, coupled with their watchful gazes, made it clear that penetration of the temple would have to be achieved under their watchful eyes.

More troubling, the temple itself was guarded, two soldiers pacing under the colonnades on each side of the great structure.

‘This won’t be easy,’ Thelana muttered. ‘The whole building is guarded.’

‘Midway along the west wall,’ Daethus said, pointing.

Thelana studied the place the Stormcast had indicated. In an elder age, a tall round watchtower placed near the outer edge of the acropolis had collapsed inward, towards the temple. It now lay heaped and broken, having smashed through the temple’s west wall. The ancient, long-fallen bones of that tower formed a sort of causeway that could – with skill and stealth – allow someone to work their way into the temple through the breach in its wall. The key would be to maintain a very low profile and time one’s movements so that the infiltrator could remain unseen by the guards pacing below them on either side of the fallen tower.

‘I can traverse that,’ Sespyra said. ‘Come on.’

She began a slow, low retreat from where they hid towards a line of old buildings standing some distance away at their backs.

‘Where are you going?’ Thelana hissed.

Sespyra waved them on. ‘Through these buildings,’ she said. ‘It looks as though we can reach the base of the tower under cover. If I can get there I can climb up and along its length, right through that fissure in the outer wall of the temple. Now, come on!’

They retreated, as she advised. In moments, they were inside the ruined buildings adjacent to the temple – barracks, perhaps, or administrative structures dedicated to the maintenance of the acropolis itself. Thelana could not precisely tell, seeing as all that remained were half-fallen walls, sagging archways and collapsed ceilings, all the furniture and bric-a-brac that had once choked those rooms during their livelier days having been stolen or simply fallen to dust long before they ever arrived.

Sespyra led the way, having a natural aptitude for navigation and movement through cramped, irregular spaces. They were stymied by two separate dead ends before finally finding a pathway that took them through the old cellars, and back up again into a walled courtyard right beside the base of the fallen tower. From there, they could peer out and see the west side of the temple. From their current vantage, only one guard – the one walking the south-west corner of the building – was visible. The other guard, on the north-west corner, remained obscured behind the cyclopean bulk of the fallen watchtower.

Sespyra hastily began organising the implements they’d brought to aid in their infiltration: two long coils of rope, a small sack of rusty old pitons, and a few pulleys – the latter pilfered from the tool trove of the duardin sky-frigate. She also made sure that her sciansá daggers were couched tightly in their scabbards, the spare, ordinary daggers that she’d brought as backups were well-hidden in her boots, and that her flowing purple-and-black hair was tied back and out of her face.

Thelana began her own preparations, along with Daethus. When Daethus removed his helm, Sespyra waved a hand.

‘Stop,’ she said. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Coming with you,’ he said.

‘No, you’re not,’ the witch aelf answered testily. ‘You’re too big and bulky in all that armour.’

‘I’ll remove my armour–’

‘We may need your armour,’ Sespyra countered. ‘No – you wait here. Or in one of the adjacent buildings. Keep your eyes open. If you see movement or activity indicating we’ve been discovered, then you can stomp in and cut down the lot of them, but until then, we need you here, maintaining this position and covering our retreat.’

Thelana studied his dark, handsome face. He seemed heartbroken.

‘I came here to aid you, in any way I could,’ he began.

‘And this is how you do it,’ Thelana said softly. ‘She’s right, Daethus – we can take care of the sneaking. You wait here until we need your strength and sword.’

The Stormcast seemed vaguely sullen, but Thelana knew he understood.

‘Ready?’ Sespyra asked.

Thelana nodded. ‘Ready.’

Finding a pathway onto the upper curvature of the fallen tower proved more difficult than first thought, but they managed. In short order, they were crawling up the shallowly inclined ruins, Sespyra in the lead, Thelana following. They crawled flat, bellies down, doing their best to hug the ruined wall and avoid notice from the sentries pacing under the colonnades below them. At intervals, they came to wide fractures in the masonry, forcing them to slither inside the tower itself and carry on, on foot, until they found another path up onto the exterior from which they could continue their slow, laborious crawl.

Half a dozen times, Sespyra gave silent signals for them to stop and hold. Thelana did as she was commanded, keeping her head and body as flat as she could, struggling to get a vantage on what might be unfolding below that had caused Sespyra to arrest their forward motion. It was nigh impossible: the angle was too steep, her vision too obscured by the rocky surface of the long-toppled tower and the moss and clumps of grass growing patchily along its length to always see where the guard below might be positioned. After each stoppage, they would wait, silent and still. Inevitably, Sespyra would carry on, waving Thelana along behind her.

It felt as though it took an hour, perhaps longer, but at last they made it to the roof of the temple. The fallen tower had collapsed a good portion of the roof’s western section when it had toppled, but it was easy enough for them to climb down from the structure’s spine and onto a portion of the gently sloping roof that yet endured. There were fissures and empty air everywhere – the roof was a treacherous patchwork – but Sespyra led the way, balancing readily on the struts and supports that had once borne its weight. Little by little, they picked their way across before dropping down to one of the great horizontal stone ribs that supported the roof inside the temple, and crouching there, balanced precariously above the dusty sanctuary beneath.

Thelana felt a strange unsteady wave of vertigo. She was not used to lounging about at such heights, capability of magical flight notwithstanding. Sespyra, however, seemed right at home. She sat almost lazily on the roof strut, one leg dangling, assessing the scene below.

The temple’s sanctuary was large, probably capable of accommodating several hundred people in its heyday. Presently, like most of Kel Tallis around it, it was a haphazard ruin. Most of its walls remained, though enormous cracks, fissures and damage let outside air and light in on at least three of the four sides. The pillars forming a long peristyle nearest the main entrance yet stood, but many of their fellows spread around the perimeter of the chamber had collapsed in elder ages and now lay in pieces, strewn about on the sanctuary floor. Stone steps rose from the floor towards a raised dais at the north end of the sanctuary – more or less directly below where Thelana and Sespyra now perched. Upon that wide dais was an altar. Set farther back from the altar was a free-standing structure, like a tomb or mausoleum of some sort. The smaller structure’s roof was still intact, making its contents impossible to see, but a ghostly blue-white light was visible from within, glowing in the gloomy sanctuary like a Nighthaunt fresh from its grave.

Four mercenary Freeguilders were present. Two sat apart on the east and west sides of the sanctuary, engaged in busy work. One slowly, methodically sharpened his sword; his fellow, on the far side of the sanctuary, slumped against a fallen pillar, smoking idly from a long clay pipe. The other two stood together talking, nearer the foot of the dais. They seemed to be staring at the open doorway of that small, lesser structure above them and conferring, one to the other.

‘Four guards,’ Sespyra said quietly, almost to herself. She removed the coiled ropes from her shoulders and wiped dust from her bone-pale face. ‘They don’t seem to have a programme. They’re just present, being idle.’

‘The staff must be in there,’ Thelana whispered, pointing to the small, mausoleum-like structure on the dais. ‘It’s a tabernacle or vault of some sort, probably designed to hold sacred treasures or magical artefacts.’

‘I concur,’ Sespyra said. ‘The challenge now becomes, how do we get into that structure without alerting the guards themselves?’

Thelana stared at her Khainite companion.

‘That’s why I brought you,’ she said. ‘This is when I need your cunning, Sespyra.’

‘No, white witch,’ Sespyra said, ‘you need my blades.’

Thelana blinked. ‘Sespyra, no…’

Sespyra’s eyes narrowed. She leant close, so that she could speak clearly without being heard by anyone other than Thelana.

‘I spared your Lumineth brethren for precisely that reason – they were your brethren, your people. These fools are just soldiers in the employ of our enemy, and I will not hesitate to slaughter the lot of them.’

‘But you can’t just charge in and tear them to pieces,’ Thelana countered. ‘We can’t risk any of them raising an alarm.’

‘Fear not,’ the witch aelf said, smirking ever so slightly. ‘They’ll never see me coming.’

With that, she rolled away from Thelana, moved with sliding, feline grace off the strut where they sat to a higher beam, closer to the ceiling, and began a quick, quiet shimmy away from where Thelana remained towards the outer edge of the sanctuary.

Thelana stared down into the chamber, wondering just what the Khainite now intended. Had she any magical means at her disposal to readily neutralise the men beneath them, she would have used them: a sleep spell, perhaps, or some means of enchanting them, closing their mouths and subverting their wills. But her spellcraft did not extend in such directions. She had a small coterie of offensive spells, coupled with double the number of defensive cantrips and spells for healing, recovery and mobility. It had never occurred to her that she might need to infiltrate an enemy space and silence a quartet of guards simultaneously.

‘I don’t get it,’ one of the men below said. ‘He just left it here? In there? With just the four of us?’

Thelana watched them, straining to hear their conversation. The two speakers were lightly armoured, one bearing a greatsword, the other a halberd. Obviously they were Freeguild soldiers, though Thelana could not immediately identify their home city or company by their garb. While their two companions sat, lazy and alone, on opposite sides of the sanctuary, the two speakers seemed to be enjoying a mutual appraisal of the small structure on the dais with the soft blue-white light emanating from within.

‘He’s a wizard,’ the one with the greatsword said. ‘And powerful. I’m willing to bet there’s some enchantment on it. Go ahead – go in there and try to grab it. See what happens.’

Thelana turned and looked all around, seeking some sign of Sespyra among the shadows clinging to the rafters, or the deep wells of darkness that still lingered in the sanctuary’s corners or behind its still-standing pillars. She found neither hide nor hair of her.

‘But what is it?’ the halberdier said. Thelana could now tell that there was an age difference between the two men – the swordsman older, the halberdier younger. ‘I mean – it doesn’t look like much.’

‘Who in the Mortal Realms initiated you, you ignorant pup?’ the greatsword-wielder answered, a rough sort of humour in his voice. ‘You’re Black Sun, aren’t you?’

‘You know I am, you prat,’ the halberdier snapped. ‘I’m Black Sun, you’re Black Sun, we’re all Black Sun. I’m in this, like you, because I’m tired of being a god’s pawn. I’m just saying, why does this stick make that wizard so bleedin’ powerful? So special?’

The greatswordsman shrugged and leant closer. His response was quiet, almost reverent. Thelana had to strain to hear him.

‘Word has it, he nabbed this from a Stormvault and killed a daemon prince with it. If it can kill a daemon prince, it can kill a god.’

‘Or two,’ the younger man said, ‘or three…’

Thelana glanced away from the two speakers, to see what the man smoking his pipe was up to.

To her surprise, he was gone. There was no sign of him. He’d simply vanished. A thin, still-dissipating cloud of smoke in the place where he’d been lounging only moments earlier suggested he hadn’t moved until the instant before Thelana sought after him.

Was that a pale shadow moving in the lee of the nearest pillar? The flash of unsheathed daggers? Thelana felt a strange shudder move through her. Had Sespyra already slain one man? In complete silence? Right under the idle gazes of the other three soldiers?

Thelana turned her attentions back to the two guards beneath her.

‘So, you think it’s protected?’ the halberdier asked. ‘Shielded, like?’

‘I told you,’ the swordsman said, chuckling a little, ‘go grab it and find out.’

‘Oh, no thank you, I–’

The man at the west wall suddenly shot to his feet. He dropped the whetstone he’d been using to sharpen his sword and fell into a reflexive defensive stance.

The two soldiers at the centre of the sanctuary noted his sudden excitement.

‘What’s got into you?’ the greatswordsman asked.

‘Thought I heard something,’ the other swordsman said, still staring into the shadows that choked the litter of fallen masonry – including the crown of the fallen watchtower – that dominated the north-western corner of the chamber.

‘Well, go see to it,’ the greatswordsman said irritably.

The swordsman stared. Blinked. Thelana felt her body tense. Had Sespyra given herself away?

The swordsman then moved forward – slowly, cautiously. He moved in front of the nearest pillar, but immediately came to a tall pile of tumbledown stones that were wholly impassable. Seeming to weigh his options, he moved to his left, seeking a shadowy path between the wreckage – a path that would lead him deeper into the half-broken shell of the old, fallen watchtower and the great fragments of the temple’s roof that it had torn down when it collapsed.

Below, the two guards stood idly by. The young halberdier had lowered his weapon’s blade, half on guard, but the greatswordsman still stood casually, his enormous blade balanced on one shoulder.

The swordsman at the west wall disappeared among the masonry, swallowed by towering piles of fallen stone and deep shadows. Thelana held her breath.

‘Well?’ the greatswordsman called.

‘Hold on,’ the swordsman shouted back irritably from within the ruins.

The young halberdier was turning now, turning and searching the world on all sides of them. Clearly, he was on edge and suddenly wary of an intruder among them.

The greatswordsman ambled away from his younger companion, towards the pile of wreckage that had swallowed their colleague. He still seemed idle and unconcerned, moving nearer only so that he could better hear or see once the swordsman once more emerged.

‘Well, what’s in there?’ he called tauntingly.

‘Rel?’ the halberdier said. Thelana swung her gaze back towards him and realised he was now staring at the spot where the pipe-smoking man had been. ‘Rel, Bettic is gone!’

When there was no immediate response from the greatswordsman, Thelana looked to where he’d been standing, nearer the west wall.

He was gone. Vanished.

The halberdier was alone now, turning and turning, searching the shadows for his friends. For a sad, pathetic moment, he actually uttered a nervous laugh.

‘Come on, you dogs!’ he said, trying desperately to chase away his own nervousness. ‘You’ve had your fun! Come out!’

Thelana did not even see Sespyra cutting a swift, steady path towards the halberdier until she’d halved the distance between them. Clearly, she was working one of her obfuscation enchantments, because her mobile form was dark and indistinct, like a literal shadow, trailing a low, roiling coil of black smoke in her wake.

As the man searched and slowly turned about, seeking some sign of his companions, Sespyra adjusted her approach, always remaining just outside his peripheral vision, yet still drawing closer and closer with each passing breath.

Thelana had to clamp her hand over her mouth to keep from uttering a reflexive horrified scream when Sespyra finally stood tall and straight behind the confused soldier and let her spell dissipate. Before he could turn and find her there, she locked one arm round the soldier’s throat, choking off any cry for help, then slid one of her daggers into his back, right between the ribs.

Thelana knew that wasn’t a killing blow. It was to puncture his lungs and make shouting or screaming impossible.

Then, she disengaged the arm around his throat, drawing her second dagger crosswise as she did so. Blood sheeted from the halberdier’s throat and he fell in a heap, the life leaving him in an instant.

Sespyra turned and looked to Thelana, high above her.

‘Get down here and help me hide him,’ she said evenly.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

In a few short minutes, they’d moved the dead man’s body into a deep, shadowy recess beyond a chunk of fallen pillar and beneath a leaning plinth. Since there was ample loose dirt on the floor of the ruined old temple, they covered the slain man’s blood readily enough. Sespyra assured Thelana that the other bodies were hidden, as well. If anyone ventured in, they’d have to search about for some time before they’d realise that all the sentries were dead.

Sespyra also hurried away, to peer out the main entrance and see what the forward sentries were up to. She was gone so long that Thelana actually lost herself in a strange cold sort of reverie.

‘Stop it,’ Sespyra suddenly said.

Thelana raised her eyes. ‘Stop what?’

‘You’ve gone away,’ Sespyra said impatiently. ‘Regret, mourning, guilt – not sure which, or perhaps all three. In either case, snap out of it. I need you here and present, white witch. We’ve still got work to do and we need to do it quickly, before someone comes in here.’

‘What about the guards outside?’ Thelana asked.

‘Down in the square, jawing,’ Sespyra said contemptuously. ‘Come on.’

They climbed the stairs of the dais, rounded the great altar, and approached the tabernacle near the rear wall. The low, narrow archway that marked its entrance glowed blue-white in the mottled half-darkness of the grand old temple. Within, Thelana could clearly see Godsbane, floating in lazy circles on the air, seemingly suspended inside an invisible bubble of some sort. The glow bleeding out into the sanctuary was a hazy spherical corona of light that seemed to demarcate the otherwise obscured edges of the magical sphere containing the artefact.

Thelana led the way into the chamber. Sespyra followed close behind.

Godsbane lay before them, right in the middle of the empty floor, turning, turning, turning. Sespyra kept her distance, yet nonetheless circled the staff, examining it, as though it were locked in a cabinet she could somehow manage to crack the locks on.

Thelana studied the floating staff. Using her magical senses, she could feel the energies latent in the artefact: an enormous, incomprehensible well of wild, aelemental force and potential, made all the more powerful by its intense concentration and density. Despite the fact that Thelana was aware the staff was contained in some sort of protective magical shell, she could not precisely feel the presence of that cell. The spell was apparently so artful and so subtle that her senses could not tease it out. It was the magical equivalent of looking through a pane of glass so clean that you could not actually see it before you.

‘What do you think?’ she asked her companion.

‘He’s good,’ Sespyra said under her breath, and it sounded like both admiration and a curse, all at once. ‘Subtle, deliberate. I’ve run into protective shields like this before. They’re nigh impossible to undo without the proper key.’

Thelana nodded. ‘A keyspell, then. Like the cipher key to decrypt an encoded message. The challenge is not simply that there’s a spell to be undone – it’s that we first need to identify what that spell actually is and how it works.’

‘And how do we do that?’ Sespyra asked. ‘Probe it? Challenge it?’

Thelana shook her head. ‘Nothing so clumsy,’ she said. ‘It may have a voice. Disturbing the protective field might set off an alarm of sorts. Or trigger an earthquake. Or collapse the temple. Or summon ravening hellbeasts to tear us limb from limb–’

Suddenly, from far outside, they heard a faint, distant roar. Slowly, it intensified. Thelana and Sespyra exchanged dreadful glances.

‘He’s coming up the hill,’ Sespyra said. ‘That’s the sound of his men, cheering him on.’

‘We’ve still got time,’ Thelana said, studying Godsbane once more.

‘Do we?’ Sespyra asked.

Thelana prepared herself. ‘I need your silence,’ she said. ‘I’m reasonably certain I can unlock this, given time–’

‘Time is in short supply, white witch,’ Sespyra said.

‘Then keep watch, and buy me what you can,’ Thelana snapped.

Sespyra nodded and retreated to the door. She took up a vantage that still sheltered her but afforded her the widest view possible of the sanctuary outside.

Thelana folded her legs beneath her, closed her eyes, and sought the place inside her where her intellect and the demiurge guarding Godsbane might commune.

There was a sound – not in the physical world, but inside Thelana’s own skull – as the last magical lock in Nerontes’ cunning invisible vault gave way. The sound was high, keening, nigh deafening, and Thelana collapsed onto her knees, hands suddenly clapped over her ears, struggling to assuage the terrible spiking pain running through her brain as the magic she’d been working against so desperately finally dissolved.

Something solid clattered upon the stone floor.

Thelana tried to open her eyes, felt another sharp, frightening pang of pain as the weak light outside the now-dark chamber assailed her. She clamped her eyes shut again. Her mind was awhirl, her senses reeling. The experience of trying to penetrate, analyse and undo the magical lock that Nerontes had placed upon Godsbane was akin to trying to pick a physical lock, while having the lock itself try to dissect her from the inside out.

It had not simply been a struggle to penetrate a forbidden space in the aether – it had been a battle of wills.

Someone knelt beside her.

‘It’s done,’ Sespyra whispered in her ear. ‘You did it, white witch.’

The light outside the tabernacle was better shielded in her new position, and she was able to keep her eyes open. Sespyra knelt nearby, staring at her, studying her. Godsbane lay before her, naked and unencumbered on the dusty floor.

Thelana crawled forward, snatched up the wizard’s staff, and studied it in the gloom. She could feel the power in it… the deep abiding wells of energy and malice and ambition and self-righteous anger. It placed in Thelana’s mind a wholly impossible, almost poetic image: a sea encapsulated in a tiny phial of crystal; deep, enormous, infinite, yet somehow bounded and imprisoned.

Then, for an instant, another image exploded into Thelana’s imagination.

Sespyra, standing over a defeated Morathi, Godsbane in her hands. The Shadow Queen screamed, thrashed, begged mercy. Sespyra granted no mercy, however: the fell energies within the staff were unleashed upon Morathi, and she exploded in a violent outrush of rapidly dissipated magical energies.

The image was so crystalline, so pure, that it startled her. Thelana emerged from the moment’s reverie and looked to her ersatz companion, suddenly suspicious of every word she’d uttered, every vow she’d made.

The witch aelf noted the change in her. ‘What did you see?’ Sespyra asked.

Thelana considered answering her… then shook her head.

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘A moment of disorientation – that’s all.’

Sespyra did not believe her – that was abundantly clear – but, to her credit, she did not press, either.

‘It’s ours, then?’ Sespyra asked.

‘It’s ours,’ Thelana agreed, voice barely above a whisper.

Outside, the noise of the crowd grew louder. It was still some distance away, but the change in the timbre and intensity of its manifold roar made it clear that it was approaching, even if it were not precisely upon them.

‘He’s coming,’ Sespyra said. ‘We need to go.’

‘Agreed,’ Thelana said, nodding, and climbed to her feet. She held Godsbane in one hand and offered the other to Sespyra, to help her up.

In seconds, they were up and out of the tabernacle, crossing the temple sanctuary towards the great ruined wall and the fallen watchtower. There, they clambered up over the toppled masonry, plunged into the horizontal, half-collapsed throat of the tower, and began a quick, uneven trot over the sundered stones away from the temple.

Unfortunately, when they reached the first great crack in the fallen tower – a crack that opened onto the dusty street on the west side of the temple – they found Nerontes Fane standing in their path. He stood idly, staring up at them as though he’d been waiting for some time. An enormous gathering of his followers choked either side of the vertical fissure in the watchtower’s tumbledown flanks, making escape impossible.

Sespyra turned, thinking that maybe – just maybe – they could hastily backtrack, find a rent above them, and climb to the tower’s upper curvature, the path they’d first taken to reach the temple. But, no – Nerontes’ soldiers were already scrambling over the fallen stones at their backs, blocking their escape.

Sespyra drew her daggers and adopted a battle stance.

Thelana suddenly lunged forward, throwing herself bodily between the witch aelf and Nerontes. She held Godsbane behind her, shielding it with her body, while extending her own staff forward, one-handed, like a swordsman en garde for a soon-to-commence duel. Nerontes bore no staff, but Sespyra guessed he no longer required one. The energies granted him by his possession of Godsbane would make questions of concentration and focus quite moot.

Silence reigned. There was only the sigh of the wind, the intermittent scurry of dust clouds up the street that separated them. Then, Thelana heard cries of alarm and the rattle of weapons and the thump of boot heels. More soldiers had been summoned. They had already been surrounded. Now, they were hopelessly, impossibly outnumbered.

Sespyra tightened her grip on her daggers. Let them come: Khaine would feast if they obliged her.

Thelana, meanwhile, did not move. She simply stood, Godsbane behind her, her own staff extended before her, gaze level with Nerontes’ own a few dozen yards away.

‘This pains me,’ he said, not shouting, yet still loud enough for her to hear at a distance.

‘Hardly more so than I,’ Thelana answered.

Nerontes extended his hand. ‘Return my property, Thelana.’

Thelana did not budge. ‘No.’

Nerontes’ fingers flexed, only the slightest. The spell they cast, however, announced itself instantly. All at once, Godsbane leapt in Thelana’s grip and tried to yank itself away from her, to fly towards its present master and possessor.

Sespyra watched as Thelana held the staff tight, refusing to yield it even as it fought her with a sudden will of its own. Then, she must have cast a counterspell of her own, for the struggle ended. Sespyra guessed it was a simple low-power shielding spell that effectively dispelled Nerontes’ own attempt to draw Godsbane to him through empty space. Suddenly, the staff in Thelana’s hands – moments before so eager to fly away from her – was at rest.

Sespyra studied the sunlit, dusty streets to either side of them. Where was Daethus? Had the Stormcast failed to see what was happening here? Had he fled? Perhaps – most troubling of all – he’d already been discovered and destroyed.

Below them, Nerontes opened both hands. Plasmic fire gathered in each, tiny pinpricks of light turning and expanding, second by second, until at last both of his outstretched palms were enveloped in sputtering, scintillating spheres of light and flame.

Thelana expanded the shield she had raised. Sespyra felt it enclose her, its power now protecting both of them.

‘Shields,’ Nerontes said. ‘Counterspells. Really, Thelana, we could do this for hours.’

‘Step aside, then,’ she said.

‘You know I cannot.’

‘You can,’ she said, ‘if you choose to.’

‘I will not,’ he said stonily. There was no boast or bravado in his voice: he simply stated a fact.

‘Then we do battle,’ she said. ‘Here. Now. You may win the day, Nerontes, but I promise you we’ll take a great many of your comrades along with us.’

Nerontes seemed to be on the cusp of answering when a huge, hulking figure in night-blue armour suddenly burst forth from the dark recesses of the fallen watchtower. It was like watching an ogor smash through a line of infantry men on a battlefield: one moment, a dozen of Nerontes’ Freeguild soldiers stood, perched upon fallen stones and toppled lengths of wall, blocking their advance. The next, there was an enormous moving body and a slashing blade, and at least three of the unwary mortals were nearly cut in half and scattered before they could have even realised they were in danger.

Daethus had arrived, and he held nothing back.

As the Freeguilders swarmed and overcame their initial shock, the Stormcast stomped onward, slashing this way and that with his enormous runeblade. He snatched up Freeguilders by their cuirasses and coats. He tossed men about, slamming them into one another and pitching them off their perches as though they weighed nothing. Any who opposed him with weapons were slashed, run through or viciously hammered down by that broad, heavy blade in his hands.

That was all Sespyra needed to see. Using the momentary distraction of Daethus’ personal shock and awe campaign, she charged the nearest soldiers and slashed both to ribbons in seconds. As their blood flowed and their lives ebbed away, she sang to Khaine, cried out to dedicate her kills to the god who’d given her power and purpose, then moved on to her next adversaries.

Suddenly, impossibly, their capture had turned into a valiant last stand.

Behind Sespyra, Thelana and Nerontes volleyed bolts of magic, a storm of spellfire, invisible shields and blasts of pure outbound force that shook the ruins of the watchtower and made the stacks of rubble they moved upon completely unstable. Soldiers from outside tried to stream in towards the centre, to aid their master to overcome Thelana, but the fell energies she and Nerontes now traded in were too wildly profuse, too deadly, to be braved.

Sespyra fought on, slashing, leaping, wheeling, ducking. Her adversaries drew blood of their own – the butt of a lance smashing against her lip, the tip of a spear tearing into her side, the slashing edge of a sabre opening cuts on her shoulder and bicep – but she refused to yield. She’d force these dogs to throw themselves atop her, to crush and smother her, and she’d continue to slash and stab even as they did so, before she’d simply give in and let them take the three of them prisoner.

It was good that she made that promise to herself, because soon enough it was precisely what began to happen.

She’d downed at least ten of the fools before those remaining – there seemed to be an endless supply – rushed in to crowd and subdue her. She felt strong arms around her throat. A pair of dirty fists stayed her left arm. The sharp rap of a spear shaft stunned her right arm into agonised immobility. No matter how she struggled, fought, spat or snarled, they would not stop. In moments, Sespyra was buried beneath a pile of sweating, grunting bodies, every limb held fast by muscular hands or locked arms. Fists pummelled her. Someone yanked at her hair and her scalp bled. One of her legs was torn out from under her and she fell into their grasp, helpless.

When next the storm of sweating, pressing bodies cleared, she was disarmed, bloodied and exhausted. They backed away from her, and Sespyra – rueing her own, fragile mortality – could not find the strength within herself to fight on. She lay on the stones, broken and harried, and searched about her for her companions.

On the far side of the gulf in the broken watchtower, she saw Daethus in a similar state. Two dozen men had crowded in around him, torn his runeblade from his hands, and yanked his helm off his head. The Stormcast’s face was a mask of bruises and blood, though his dark eyes still burned with a determined light and his teeth – smeared with blood and saliva – showed like those of a wild animal.

Thelana only noted that both her companions had been subdued after the smoke from a massive volley of fireballs cleared and she could peer out from beneath her wizard’s shield. She saw Daethus, then spun around and found Sespyra broken and sprawling on the stones above and behind her. The look of horror and desperation on her face was almost more than Sespyra could bear.

The white witch was aggrieved. Worse, she was frightened. She had a warrior’s heart and determination, Sespyra was sure of that now, but all of this – life-and-death contests, determined enemies, the body count required to secure one’s future and desires – was something of an undiscovered country for her. In her mind, no doubt, the safety of her companions was paramount. And to see them now, beaten and broken, tore her heart into bloody pieces.

Sespyra tried to shake her head, to tell Thelana – wordlessly – that it was all right: that she should fight on; that nothing should make her relent save her own death.

But Thelana would not. She was too compassionate for that. Too good.

Nerontes held out an open hand. ‘Return to me what you’ve taken,’ he said, ‘and you won’t be harmed.’

‘I cannot,’ Thelana replied, still staring at Sespyra.

‘Very well,’ he countered. ‘Return it to me and they won’t be harmed.’

‘You cannot harm me, wizard!’ Daethus barked from where he knelt, bound and immobilised by his enemies. ‘I am a Stormcast Eternal, a sworn servant of my lord Sigmar, and if you strike me down I shall simply be yanked back to Azyr for Reforging on the Anvil of Apotheosis. You cannot threaten me!’

‘No Reforging for the likes of me,’ Sespyra snarled as she strained to sit upright. Her captors no longer held her – they simply surrounded her, a gap open immediately before her so that she could clearly see Thelana, Nerontes and Daethus across the way. ‘But I swear,’ Sespyra continued, ‘there is no pain you could mete out that would even draw a whimper from these lips.’

Nerontes stared at Thelana even as Thelana stared at Sespyra: silent, impatient, even a little sad.

‘You put yourself and your companions in danger for no good reason,’ he said. ‘There is no escape from here, Thelana – certainly not with Godsbane in hand.’

Sespyra gave Thelana a simple sad nod. It was useless. They were surrounded. To move, Thelana would have to lower her shield. If she did not, Daethus and Sespyra would pay the price. Daethus would be reforged, true, and Sespyra might be seeking only the right moment to betray her, but…

But Thelana Evenfall, Sespyra knew, honoured her promises and did not spend lives idly.

She lowered the magical shield that protected her, turned, and tossed Godsbane into Nerontes’ hands.

Almost at once, his followers raised cheers and brayed laughter. They decried the would-be courage and bravado of the failed liberators of their master’s prize. They shook their captives and several surged forward to take Thelana roughly into their custody. Sespyra heard Nerontes barking orders that she could barely discern, because her world was nothing but leering, angry faces and grasping hands and strong bodies encircling hers and bending her into submission.

In short order, she had been yanked forward and forced down onto her knees. Thelana was held in a similar state beside her, their arms bent uncomfortably behind them, half a dozen different captors surrounding and belaying them, making escape impossible. A stone’s throw opposite them, Daethus was similarly ushered forward and displayed: kneeling, captive, humiliated.

Nerontes moved in the space between them. His followers made a terrible racket, all talking and jeering and cheering at once. Nerontes threw up his arms. Without hesitation, his followers fell silent. Nerontes Fane then moved among them, studying each in turn. Godsbane reposed in his hands as though it had always belonged to him, an extension of him rather than an alien adornment.

‘You still think you can stop me?’ he said, his voice clearly tinged by regret. ‘You think you can stop’ – he suggested the crowd surrounding them – ‘all of this?’

‘I had hoped to,’ Thelana said. ‘You’ve broken my heart, Nerontes. This is not the way.’

‘It is the only way,’ he said.

‘You cannot reshape the world with murder!’ she snapped back at him.

‘I would argue with that,’ Sespyra muttered.

‘Murder?’ Fane answered, incredulous. ‘Murder who? Murder the gods? They who have spent millennia murdering us at their whim? They who’ve spent millennia spending our short, mean lives like abundant currency? They who’ve cultivated their own petty wars and gambits that depended upon our support, our loyalty, our sacrifices?’

His companions all murmured and nodded.

‘The gods had their time,’ he said, ‘their place and purpose. But no more. Now, it is our time. It is the time for those who do the living and the struggling and the mourning and the dying to shape their world to our vision, not theirs. Now, it is time for those for whom these Mortal Realms were made to claim dominion over them!’

The crowd cheered. The sound was volcanic.

‘You cannot destroy the eternal,’ Daethus declared. ‘That, young man, is folly. The gods exist because the eternal must exist, if only to define the ephemeral by comparison. Your brief, bounded lives are rich with meaning precisely because they do not endure. The gods are simply pillars that the world rests upon – but all the temples, all the houses, all the palaces… they are for you, Nerontes Fane, and for your kind.’

‘Kind words from one of the undying,’ Nerontes said, looking to the Stormcast.

‘You know not of what you speak,’ Daethus said. ‘Were I not in my master’s employ for a purpose – as an act of eternal service – I would trade a mortal life for my endless existence in an instant.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ Nerontes said, ambling closer to Daethus. ‘They say that Reforging is not only painful but traumatic, that your souls are shattered and your minds muddled each time you die and are reborn.’

Daethus nodded grimly. ‘It is so.’

Nerontes stared down at the Stormcast. Sespyra saw a look in his eyes that suggested both pity and disdain.

‘I could use you,’ Nerontes said to the Tempest Lord, ‘someone like you, that is.’

Daethus stared up at him. ‘How so, wizard? Do you think I would betray my master and join your cause?’

Nerontes shook his head. ‘Oh no. I simply need to demonstrate.’

Sespyra had a sudden terrible realisation of what was about to happen. Beside her, Thelana screamed and tried to throw herself forward. Sespyra was not sure if she hoped to physically subdue Nerontes in order to stop him, or simply to beg mercy. The strong hands of their captors were iron, though, and the two of them could do no more than watch.

Nerontes drew back Godsbane as though it were a sword or spear that he was about to thrust through a humiliated adversary. Daethus, true to his courageous nature, stared into his murderer’s face all the while, never blinking, never even wincing.

The staff thrust forward. The moment it touched Daethus’ breastplate, there was a sudden fantastic explosion of heat and light. In an instant, Daethus’ armour erupted in a storm of magic and skeins of whipping, seeking lightning. His captors all threw themselves back, almost in perfect unison, and the Tempest Lord remained, unfettered but helpless on his knees. Daethus screamed and the lightning poured from his open mouth. His wide eyes bled stalks of electricity that shot straight into the air above him. For a brief, terrible moment, he was the nucleus of a globe of crackling, terrifying energies…

Then, he exploded.

It was not a physical dissolution. There was no flesh or blood; his armour did not rend and tear and scatter like hot shrapnel. Rather, it was as if he was simply unmade. Everything that was Daethus – flesh, blood, bone, clothing, armour plate – simply expelled all the latent energy it contained, blasting outward in an expanding corona of heat, light and kinetic force. Though the energies loosed seemed formidable – even destructive – they ultimately left all present still standing and totally unharmed; shaken, but not endangered.

The place where Daethus had knelt was empty, smoking like a blast crater.

Nerontes stood just as he had, Godsbane gripped tightly in his hands, tiny latent storms of magical energy still skating along its surface from one end to the other. He turned his fell gaze upon Thelana and Sespyra. His grim expression and the sadness in his eyes suggested that he had taken no pleasure in what he’d just done.

Sespyra felt the sting of tears, but refused to set them free.

‘You destroyed him,’ Thelana said beside her.

Nerontes nodded. ‘Entirely. No Anvil of Apotheosis, no Reforging, no eternal service to Sigmar. The Stormcast is no more, and never shall be again.’

He thrust Godsbane into the air, displaying it for his followers.

‘Such is the power I wield!’ he shouted. ‘Armies! Daemons! Even the mighty Stormcast Eternals! And yes – the gods themselves! None will stand against us, so long as I wield Godsbane in your name!’

The soldiers present were chanting Nerontes’ name again, surrounding him, reaching out to touch him, as though his garments could heal them, his grace somehow sufficient to absolve the slaughter and ruin that lay ahead of them.

Sespyra studied Thelana. The white witch hung her head, bereft. She had failed utterly, and she knew it.

Sespyra could only quash her grief with an utterance.

‘Pity,’ she said, mostly to herself, ‘I was just starting to like him.’

For a brief moment, Sespyra thought the world around her darkened – dimmed – either with the onset of post-combat weakness or, perhaps, in sympathy with the bleakness of her present state of mind. Only after raising her eyes and looking out into the open plaza before the temple did she realise that the darkening of the world was not subjective at all: the sky was suddenly, inexplicably choked with malignant black thunderheads when, moments before, it had been sapphire blue, the only clouds wispy tendrils torn ragged by the arid winds.

Though most of Nerontes’ followers were still in the depths of their adulation, Sespyra saw clearly that more than a few of them noticed the bizarre, sudden change in the weather. Thunder rolled ominously through the heavens, echoing through the nearby crevasses and canyons.

Thelana raised her eyes and studied the sky. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked.

Sespyra had no answers to offer. She did, however, look to Nerontes Fane, to see if, perhaps, the young mage was engaged in some new and vulgar display of the power afforded him by Godsbane.

It actually gave the witch aelf a strange sense of satisfaction to see that Fane’s face betrayed the same trepidation and absence of understanding as Thelana’s own.

Dog-legged skeins of lightning leapt from cloud to cloud, bathing the suddenly dimmed world in clear light. When next the thunder sounded, it did not roll: it pealed, shaking the sandy earth beneath them and causing more than a few of the mercenaries and zealots present to duck instinctively, as though something enormous were about to crash down upon them.

Sespyra suddenly realised that wasn’t too far from the truth.

Thelana seemed to have realised it as well. ‘When the crowd scatters,’ she whispered, ‘stay on Fane.’

Sespyra nodded.

Then, without warning, a searing bolt of lightning struck from the sky, and the ruined palace of justice adjacent to the temple exploded in a glut of dust and shattered masonry.

‘We’re under attack!’ someone shouted. ‘They’re all around us!’

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The remnants of the palace of justice’s ruins yet described their earthward arcs when the crowd surrounding Thelana parted chaotically and she caught a glimpse – only a glimpse – of several bulky armoured forms ploughing through Nerontes’ hastily massed forces on the periphery of the open plaza. Through the press of bodies and the mass of rattling weapons, she could just make out midnight-blue helms, the sweep and clangour of enormous mauls and battle blades loosed, and could clearly see that, whomever the attackers were, they seemed to bleed lightning in every direction as they smashed Nerontes’ followers, shearing shields, shattering blades, crushing bone.

‘Stormcasts?’ Sespyra asked, clearly not having the view Thelana did.

‘Tempest Lords,’ Thelana verified. ‘Daethus’ Stormhost!’

Before Thelana could suggest a plan of escape, the Daughter of Khaine took matters into her own hands. Without warning, the witch aelf launched upward, snapping her head back and slamming her skull into the exposed jaw of the swordsman directly behind her. Her captor reeled, blood sheeting from his broken nose. The two men on either side of him released Sespyra instinctively, her blurred movements and capable aim shocking both.

That moment of shock and retreat was all Sespyra required. She struck with each elbow in turn – first right, then left – crushing one man’s jaw, cracking the other’s occipital bone. The two guards that had been standing before her, distracted by the tumult out in the plaza, turned just in time for Sespyra to whip the body of one bleeding, dazed sentry towards them. The broken-jawed swordsman slammed into them hard; all three went sprawling.

Thelana sought her staff and found it in the hands of a dumb-faced lackey just a stone-toss from her, the possessor staring gape-mouthed at the battle in the streets. Thelana reached out with one hand and her staff leapt from the man’s loose fists, right into Thelana’s waiting grasp. Before her captors could subdue her, she unleashed a wave of arcane force that threw all three backward, sending them sprawling onto their backs as surely as an exploding mortar shell.

Thelana looked to Sespyra. The Khainite had reclaimed her sciansá daggers, and now stood wiping one bloodied blade on her tunic, already having slain two adversaries in the recovery. The two of them were all but ignored. The scores of soldiers surrounding them moments before had flooded the plaza, rushing to meet the oncoming maul-wielding Stormcasts or simply fleeing, seeking a means of egress from the walled acropolis.

Amid the confusion, Thelana saw Nerontes directing his soldiers, sending small, eager bands into the fray while urging others to summon reinforcements and prepare a defence outside the acropolis. Moving out of the shadow of the temple, Thelana could finally see two separate Stormcast retinues pressing Fane’s forces from opposite sides of the acropolis. Somehow, they must have crept up the hillsides and positioned themselves before summoning the storm to announce their arrival. Neither force was large – each half a dozen Sequitors, no more – but the champions of Sigmar towered above their mostly human adversaries and waded in among them like furious demigods among primitive hill tribes. When the deadly accuracy of their blades or the crushing force of their stormsmite mauls failed to break the enemy lines, the skeins of crackling, searing lightning that leapt and danced at their command succeeded.

There, far across the plaza: Nerontes was threading a winding path through the chaotic movements of his forces. He’d be beyond the walls and on the slopes in moments.

‘Follow me!’ Thelana shouted to Sespyra above the noise and confusion. ‘We’ve got to stay on Nerontes! This might be our last chance!’

‘Lead the way!’ Sespyra answered. ‘I have your back!’

Thelana broke into a run, plunging down the temple steps and across the plaza, weaving hurling bodies and exploding stone and stray strands of lightning as she went. By and large, Nerontes’ forces now had graver concerns than she and Sespyra, but more than once, some daring soul would espy the escapees and charge. Thelana dispatched every would-be captor with blasts of arcane energy, leaving them bruised, broken and half-conscious in the dust. She knew that Sespyra, trailing behind her, shouting exaltations to Khaine as she struck their attackers, was not exercising such restraint, but Thelana was determined to reclaim that staff without leaving a trail of corpses behind her.

Already, escaping the acropolis proved more difficult, for reinforcements had arrived and poured into the plaza, spreading out to aid their fallen comrades in repelling the Stormcast onslaught. Fane’s own egress was slowed by these newcomers, as he moved among their commanders, directing their forces and shouting orders as he went. The Stormcasts, meanwhile, seemed to be pressing towards the centre of the plaza, trying to crush Fane’s soldiers in a brutal pincer. Thelana dared a moment’s optimism as they closed the distance between them and Nerontes moment by moment, their approach largely obscured by the rush and press of bodies in the plaza.

Then, Fane suddenly disappeared among them, clearly pressing on towards the acropolis gate so that he could descend the hillside. The moment Fane’s mop of red hair was lost to sight, Thelana cursed and wheeled to face Sespyra.

‘He’s gone!’ she shouted. ‘We’re moving too slowly!’

‘Out of my way, then!’ Sespyra snarled. ‘I’ll clear us a path!’

‘I have a better idea,’ Thelana said, then swept Sespyra into a close, tight embrace and slammed the ferrule of her staff on the dusty earth. In the next instant, the two aelves were rocketing into the air above the plaza, describing a high, swift arc up and over the acropolis wall.

At the apogee of their ascent, they were afforded a magnificent view of the hillside ruins and the floor of the valley. Before and below them, a desperate battle was underway, skeins of lightning flashing and snapping amidst arcing fireballs, storms of lofted arrows, the close crackling of duardin guns firing and the thunder of close-quarters artillery. Their ascent and descent were too fast for close examination, but Thelana thought she saw the flutter of Lumineth Dawnrider stallion manes as well as the quick, savage movements of Stormcast Dracoline cavalry.

Then, the earth rushed up to meet them. Thelana’s brief flight spell dissipated the lion’s share of the force of their landing, and they quickly oriented themselves.

They’d alighted in a small, close courtyard, between three ancient tenements just outside the acropolis wall. Thelana led Sespyra out of the courtyard into the street, and there, a short distance ahead of them, was Nerontes Fane, rushing headlong across an open square towards the main street, which bent to the left down the slope of the hill.

‘Come on!’ Thelana shouted, and tore off after him. She’d made it four long bounds before she realised Sespyra was not behind her, but racing off on her own path, far to the left, towards a line of ruined old buildings on the crest of the hill.

‘This way!’ Thelana shouted.

‘Keep after him!’ Sespyra shot back, then disappeared into the shadows amidst the ruins.

Thelana kept after him.

After turning onto the down-sloping main road, she saw Nerontes far ahead of her. He had a good lead, but this span of the hillside road was long and unbroken. A few soldiers still dashed up the hill, to aid those fighting in the acropolis, but most of Fane’s forces were engaged on the lower slope, defending the city from the Lumineth and Stormcasts now slashing and crashing their way into it. Thelana had hoped to close the distance between her and Fane before he made it to the next tight curve below them, but it was not to be. She stumbled once, barely avoiding sprawling on her face. Those few lost seconds allowed Fane to pull ahead and disappear around the hairpin switchback.

She briefly considered cutting right, to plunge through one of the tight streets or alleys between the buildings crawling down the slope before her, but she was loath to leave the track if she did not know where she might come out. Another magically aided leap was out of the question, as well: she’d still have to defend herself when she caught up to him. She would need every magical reserve in her being to stand against him.

As Thelana rounded the switchback, she caught sight of Nerontes once again. Here, halfway down the slope, they were closer to the front line of the battle – a line that was gradually, convulsively working its way up the slope, through the streets and alleys of the ruined old city. Smoke swirled thickly, hanging over the ruins like frayed curtains, while fires burned high and hot in the crumbled tenements all around her. Small contingents of Stormcast Sequitors and pike-wielding Lumineth Wardens crashed through barricades and lines of the defenders, trundling uphill to take their enemies from behind, while Fane’s ragtag forces scrambled to mount hasty defences. Amidst the smoke and flames, the half-fallen ruins and swirling knots of sweaty, bloodied bodies in collision, Thelana saw steed-mounted Dawnriders and Dracoline-mounted Stormcasts smashing through the defenders on the street below. In moments, they’d be wheeling round the curve of the switchback ahead and below her – the switchback that Nerontes was plunging towards, moment by moment.

No! she thought. He’ll slaughter them! He’ll unleash the full might of Godsbane and–

Too late. A trio of Tempest Lords appeared from around the switchback, leading a phalanx of Lumineth Wardens. The stormsmite mauls of the Stormcasts swung side to side like blunt scythes, smashing any Black Sun soldiers in their path and filling the air with crackling lightning. Nerontes, seeing his way blocked, planted himself as his own soldiers fled around him and unleashed a frightening barrage of arcane energies and pillars of hungry flame. Tempest Lords exploded in showers of pale fire and electricity, their spirits yanked back to Azyr for Reforging even as Nerontes’ vicious attack destroyed their bodies utterly. The Vanari Wardens broke formation and scattered, seeking shelter or daring direct assaults, but most of them had the life blasted out of them or were engulfed in fire and fell, screaming and convulsing as the mage-flames devoured them.

Where is he going? Thelana wondered, doing her level best to close the distance between them, always gaining ground only to lose it as the forces fleeing uphill grew too thick and slowed her forward progress. He could have ducked into a side alley or sought a safer path downhill at any time… but still, he wades right through the thick of it, slaying foe after foe without hesitation, always where the fighting is thickest and bloodiest…

That was it. Nerontes was providing a demonstration for his supporters. Here, now, faced with powerful enemies – the sanctified forces of Order and Light – he wanted his followers to see that he wielded such power that none – neither Stormcast Eternals nor the finest fighters in the Vanari warhost – could stand against him.

She saw it now – how he turned to his fleeing, panicking subordinates and cried out to them to come and see, to bear witness to his might. They heard his cries. They ceased their mindless flight, panic assuaged, and they slowly, gradually flocked back towards him. Even as Thelana closed on his position, Nerontes was little by little surrounded by an ever-tighter cordon of followers, drawn to his exhortations, emboldened by his murderous onslaught against the invaders.

More Stormcasts and Vanari rounded the switchback now, pressing forward. Without hesitation, Nerontes’ nearby forces – ordinary men and women from mixed Freeguilds, apprentice wizards, hedge knights seeking fortune and glory – rallied to their leader, formed a tight cordon, and repelled the oncoming invaders.

As his followers coalesced and fought, Nerontes slowly retreated. Continuing down the main road was impossible. He turned, studying the ruins on the slope below him, assaying all the paths he might take through their narrow streets.

She’d never have a better opportunity.

Thelana charged, ready to engage him. Nerontes, having not seen her, stepped towards a narrow, shaded alley. That’s when Sespyra appeared, blocking his path.

Nerontes halted.

Thelana was amazed to see the witch aelf here, now. She must have sped ahead and lain in wait, knowing Nerontes would pass this way. Nerontes, seeing the witch aelf in his path, swung round to find another route. That’s when he saw Thelana barrelling up behind him. Thelana scrambled to a halt and raised her staff, the gem capping it now glowing brightly under the dark, stormy sky.

Nerontes was trapped: sharp knives on one side, his one-time mentor on the other.

‘Don’t make me do this,’ Nerontes said to Thelana. ‘I don’t want to destroy you.’

‘You’ll have to,’ Thelana said, feeling the subtle vibrations rushing up and down the length of her staff as its energies gathered, ready to attack or defend.

Nerontes opened a hand. Bright, pale energy crackled in a corona around it. He adjusted his stance, making it clear that Sespyra, not Thelana, was his target.

‘I’ll kill her,’ he said to Thelana.

‘More cunning men than you have tried,’ Sespyra answered, unafraid.

Thelana saw the look in his eye – bold threat and panicked mercilessness, all in one. She loosed a barrage of arcane energy blasts – four in rapid succession.

Nerontes lifted Godsbane, forming a magic shield.

Thelana’s bolts exploded upon Nerontes’ shield, crackling and dissipating, the barely visible dome around Fane rippling and shuddering with the spent energy. Behind Nerontes, Sespyra broke left, eager to be clear of the mage-fire.

Thelana knew what came next. She threw up a shield of her own.

Nerontes lowered his shield, opened his free hand and unleashed a return barrage. Every arcane blast from Fane struck Thelana’s magical shield like a battering ram. The hemispherical shield held, but each impact drove Thelana back, her boot heels sliding through the sandy earth. With each fierce attack, the energies binding her shield quavered and groaned, expending the force of Fane’s fire, but weakening incrementally with each deflection.

Thelana knew she could not maintain her shield indefinitely. And yet, Nerontes would not relent. He strode forward, hurling blast after blast, his own reserves of magical energy all but boundless given his possession of Godsbane.

It was just as Thelana first felt the heat of Fane’s arcane blast begin to penetrate her shield – a grave indication of that shield’s impending failure – that she suddenly heard Nerontes cry out. He jerked sideways convulsively, his last bolt firing wild, blasting a ruined dwelling across the street to cinders, showering Thelana in dust and rubble. When Fane whipped round, Thelana saw blood staining his robes – fresh, wet blood, newly drawn, flowing like a river.

Sespyra had slipped in behind him. One of her sciansá bore a freshly bloodied blade.

Nerontes, enraged, tossed a hasty fireball at Sespyra. The witch aelf leapt aside only a moment before the blast engulfed where she’d stood. Undeterred, Nerontes followed the line of her hasty retreat, firing arcane bolts, tearing up the earth and sending geysers of stone and dust skyward with terrifying force, using his will to tear down precarious, looming structures and crumbling walls in an attempt to crush the Khainite. Each hasty retaliation missed its target. Sespyra rolled, leapt, danced through the street, until she’d finally come to Thelana’s side and stood there, daggers ready.

Nerontes roared, lifted Godsbane, and unleashed a blast of energy from the staff’s headpiece.

Thelana threw up a new shield and prayed it would hold.

The force of the impact was terrifying: godlike. For an instant, everything was bathed in blinding light, the ambient heat of the mage-fire bleeding through Thelana’s shield to draw sweat from her skin and give her a moment’s fear of literal immolation. When the instant’s holocaust passed, she blinked and searched around her. Sespyra was close at her side, protected by the shield. The sand around them was red-hot slag, already cooling into smooth, pale glass.

Nerontes almost unleashed another bolt… but he hesitated. He seemed off balance somehow, unsure.

‘Was it a killing wound?’ Thelana asked Sespyra.

Sespyra shook her head. ‘It’ll bleed well enough, but it won’t kill him.’

Mortal or not, the thrust had had a definite effect. Nerontes was suddenly clammy, small beads of sweat dotting his forehead and upper lip, his pallor fading towards ashen. The great expenditure of magical power, coupled with the bleeding wound, was clearly wreaking havoc with his bodily functions and concentration.

He lowered Godsbane. Shook his head. Blinked.

Thelana stared. Could it be? Might they be fortunate enough to see him simply fall unconscious here, now?

Nerontes reeled forward a little, using Godsbane to catch himself before he fell. He leaned on the staff like an old man bent over a crutch. Thelana waited. Beside her, Sespyra breathed, deep and even. A pitched battle still raged a stone’s throw past Nerontes, tumbling nearer, moment by moment.

‘Lower your shield,’ Sespyra hissed. ‘End him.’

‘And if it’s a trick?’ Thelana asked.

Sespyra had no reply.

Thelana could almost read Nerontes’ unspooling, interior monologue; could just imagine his good sense at war with his instincts. He knew he was wounded. He knew another expenditure of energy might leave him comatose. He could tap Godsbane to heal himself, but even that action would cost him time, however marginal. Whether he attacked them or sought to heal himself, he would render himself vulnerable, however briefly.

‘Let him strike,’ Sespyra snarled, almost to herself. ‘Come on, boy – strike!’

‘Hush!’ Thelana hissed, never taking her eyes off Nerontes. She was on the threshold of lowering her shield, loosing an arcane bolt of her own.

A shadow passed over them. As Thelana raised her eyes to see what now threatened them from above, a massive leonine shape crashed down, heavy and sure, on the uphill side of the street. Its massive wings flashed like pure aetherquartz; its calm, mask-like features radiated deep wisdom and savage grace; its razor-sharp, moonbright talons fluttered expectantly on the sand of the ancient street.

Celennar, the lunasphinx.

But, that would mean…

There! Floating down angelically on unseen winds at Nerontes’ back: Teclis, the Great Mage, the Lumineth god of magic, lunar staff in one hand, divine sword in the other.

Nerontes swung round, gaze torn between the newly arrived god and his fierce enormous spiritual familiar. Nerontes’ nearby forces – engaged with the oncoming Tempest Lords and Lumineth, trickling down from the hilltop – saw that their master and commander was now trapped, back to a very literal wall, surrounded by a Lumineth sorceress and Khainite assassin, an aelven god, and the incarnate spirit of the Hyshian moon itself.

Even the oncoming Stormcasts and Lumineth allayed their savage onslaughts and froze in their tracks, so amazed and surprised by this unexpected development were they.

A small knot of Freeguild mercenaries close to Celennar raised their voices in defiance and charged the beast. Celennar swept them aside with a whip of its long tail, the five men slammed bodily into nearby ruins. Then, the lunasphinx reared and spun, moonbright talons striking mercilessly. Three men were decapitated or torn in half by a single stroke; two others narrowly escaped because their bodies were so broken they could no longer rise.

Seeing the lunasphinx striking – killing – snapped Nerontes out of his stunned reverie. He levelled Godsbane at his hip as though it were a duardin long-gun. It was aimed directly at Teclis.

Thelana plumbed the depths of the aether, seeking all the energy she could muster. The crescent-shaped headpiece on her staff crackled, arcane forces roiling, ready to be unleashed.

‘Stay behind me,’ she said to Sespyra.

The witch aelf obliged. ‘As you say, white witch – this is no fight for knives.’

Teclis stood tall and proud before Nerontes, wholly unafraid. His kind, impassive face betrayed only the barest hint of concern – the earnest worry that a friend might expend for another. His pale grey eyes stared, unblinking.

‘You have nothing to fear from me, Nerontes Fane,’ he said quietly. ‘I come to treat with you, not harm you.’

‘And yet,’ Nerontes snarled, ‘you arrive armed, with your beast at your beck.’

The lunasphinx snarled, hunched on the sand, ready to pounce. Teclis sheathed his sword and stood, arms wide in a gesture of surrender.

‘I come to speak with a fellow magician – that’s all. Seeker to seeker.’

Nerontes raised Godsbane slightly. ‘You’ve come to pour honey in my ear,’ he said, ‘or to offer some soft, silken intimidation, or an appeal to reason.’

Teclis cocked his head the slightest. ‘Is reason out of the question?’

‘Ask me my reasons,’ Nerontes growled.

‘Your reasons?’ Teclis repeated. He considered those words for a moment, then nodded. ‘Very well – enlighten me.’

‘Our kind,’ Nerontes began, ‘mortal-kind–’

Celennar took a single step forward. Nerontes swung the staff towards the beast.

‘Hold!’ he shouted. ‘Or your master will require a new familiar, I swear it!’

‘Nerontes, please,’ Teclis said, and Thelana’s heart ached for the honest plea she heard in the god’s voice. ‘Celennar will not hurt you, so long as you do not hurt me.’

Nerontes swung the staff back towards Teclis. ‘I shall do with you as I please,’ he said, and for the first time, Thelana thought she heard the true, abiding bitterness and hatred in his voice; the ghost of long-remembered slights and long-bound fears, all bubbling to the surface, the wizard’s injuries and imminent peril stripping away all of his mental defences.

‘I shall do with you as I please,’ he repeated, ‘just as the gods do with mortal-kind. Your playthings. Your expendable resources. Your worshippers and loyal subjects! You do with us as you please, and you dare feign disbelief, or ignorance, when we cry injustice? When we seek vengeance!’

‘You seek to destroy us,’ Teclis said. ‘Our absolute destruction cannot be just.’

‘So you say,’ Nerontes answered, ‘but there are so very few of you, and so many of us. Tell me, if I did not bear this staff in my hands – this weapon that levels the field we stand upon – would you even bother to hear my pleas? To consider our demands?’

Teclis stared, not responding for a long time. Finally, he swallowed and shook his head.

‘No,’ he said, incapable of lying. ‘No, Nerontes, I daresay we would not.’

Thelana’s heart was stung by a pang of recognition, of terrible sorrow, for she saw clearly, in Teclis’ normally unreadable face, how speaking that truth – that undeniable truth – actually pained him. The god had looked into himself, and found a blind, dark corner of his heart that he did not care to recognise… but because he was too wise, too honest, to lie, he admitted the presence of that blindness.

‘As I suspected,’ Nerontes said, and raised Godsbane. ‘For the dying.’

‘No!’ Thelana cried.

Teclis made no move to defend himself.

A massive glut of terrifying energy exploded from the staff. It did not thrust outward immediately, but instead seemed to engulf and inhabit Nerontes Fane. The mage’s eyes burned with pale fire, his hair itself became roiling flames, his entire body – top to toe – was engulfed in a blinding sphere of light and heat.

And then the bolt of destruction leapt forth and swallowed its target. Like a Stormcast of untold provenance, Teclis became, for an instant, pure light, pure heat, pure radiance – and then, came undone. All the energies bound up within him exploded outward in showers of starfire and waves of concussive force. That force slammed into Thelana and Sespyra – into all bearing witness – and scattered them. Amid the thunder of all those outrushing energies, Thelana thought she heard Celennar howling and roaring in sorrow and fury.

When sense returned and Thelana lifted her head again, the firestorm was extinguished and Teclis was gone.

Nerontes Fane, satisfied, gave Thelana a final, baleful glare, then fled into an alleyway.

Thelana was so sore, so stunned, so disorientated, she could not even bring herself to rise to her feet. She could only stare at the place where Teclis had stood, only moments before, tiny dust devils of sand and smoke still swirling in the wake of the energies expended by his destruction.

She saw Nerontes’ forces once more lay into the Stormcasts; saw the Stormcasts smashing their lines and crushing all opposition. She was vaguely aware of Celennar, spinning and snarling, whipping tail and moonbright claws rending enemies limb from limb. She knew that Sespyra had her harridan’s talons dug into her, and kept tugging at her, telling her they had to go.

Thelana’s stunned, grief-stricken paralysis only fled when she realised that a new, dark shadow had filled the sky above them, and that voices were calling from some high place. She raised her eyes. Wodrik Thunderall’s sky-frigate hovered directly above them. Ladders had been lowered and the Kharadron captain and several of his crew were visible at the gunwales, waving them up, begging them to climb aboard with all haste. As Thelana stared, blinking, incendiary missiles streaked across the cloud-choked sky and cannons roared in the near distance.

That was what drew her back; what forced her to act: the realisation that the longer the frigate hovered there, waiting for her and Sespyra, the greater the likelihood that stray grapeshot or mage-fire would blast it from the sky.

In moments, she and the witch aelf were back on deck, and Grikara spun the wheel hard. The whole suspended bulk of the airship banked hard right, and in moments, they were sliding through the sky, leaving the battling forces and ruin and waste behind them.

‘Teclis,’ Thelana said, wholly to herself. Perhaps, if she could say his name again and again, she could will him back into existence.

But she could not summon the faith to make it so. Their hasty retreat was all the sign she needed that Nerontes’ forces were stronger – more determined – than they’d ever imagined… and that Godsbane itself contained more power than even she had expected.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Nerontes heard Castigus before he saw him: the light but confident step; the distinctive creak of his custom-forged armour on his lithe, muscular body; the particular smell of his sweat and hair oil. Since the close of the battle, Nerontes had been here, alone, in a small ruined chapel mounted on a rocky outcrop at the base of the hill. The ancient statue of the deity this place was once dedicated to stood in barely recognisable pieces at the far end of the little chamber, only its base and the shape of its feet remaining, while larger pieces that might have once been its torso, its arms and its head lay scattered about. The roof had caved in long ago, so the little vestry was open to the air, and the midnight Hyshian twilight cast a dim, comforting glow upon everything before him, the shadows fat and pregnant, the outside world calm and strangely still.

‘Have you been here all this time?’ Castigus asked, finding Nerontes reclined on the floor, back against a long-overturned altar.

Nerontes nodded and scraped at the dirt with the ferrule at the base of Godsbane.

‘All this time,’ he said hollowly.

Castigus seemed on the cusp of saying something – making a report, providing necessary intelligence – but he hesitated. Nerontes knew that he was studying him, troubled by his blank stare and lackadaisical appearance, slumped there on the floor of the old ruin as he was. Without speaking, his old comrade chose a nearby hunk of fallen masonry and used it as a camp stool. He settled in, staring at Nerontes with compassion and concern.

‘You look terrible,’ Castigus said.

Nerontes nodded. ‘I don’t doubt it.’

‘How can I aid you?’

Nerontes raised his eyes, studied his old friend. Castigus was, indeed, ready to aid him, in any way. He knew that if he asked the fellow for anything in that moment – a slaughtered auroch roasted on a spit, some lost treasure from an ancient fairy tale, a slain dragon whose bones could build him a war wagon – Castigus would have simply nodded, risen to his feet, and gone about delivering whatever had been requested. In all of Nerontes’ forty-odd years moving and breathing in the Mortal Realms, he had never known a more dependable, stalwart companion, or been able to name a better friend.

‘I need a report,’ Nerontes said finally.

Castigus leaned forward. ‘A report?’

Nerontes nodded. ‘I’ll be calling upon the ennead soon. I need to give them hard numbers.’

Castigus sighed. It was clear that he had hoped to provide some more personal, more vital support for his long-time comrade and boon companion; that Nerontes would not allow him that luxury disappointed him.

‘When the day dawned,’ he said, ‘we had about eight hundred troops in our retinue. So far, we’ve counted close to three hundred dead, but we’re still trying to compile hasty rolls and account for those who’ve simply gone missing.’

‘Injured?’ Nerontes asked.

‘About the same number,’ Castigus said, ‘though most are walking wounded. They’ll recover, and they can still fight. Forty or fifty are fighting for their lives and may not last much longer.’

Nerontes nodded and sighed. ‘Less than ideal,’ he said.

‘We can still expect more,’ Castigus said. ‘When you sounded the call, the pledges we received put our numbers close to two thousand. The simple fact is, many of those troops just haven’t arrived yet – transit takes time.’

‘Do we truly have so many pledged?’ Nerontes asked. ‘Known commanders promising specific numbers?’

Castigus nodded. ‘Aye, no question. It’s just a matter of time.’

‘Well,’ Nerontes said, ‘they’ll have to find us on the move. We can’t stay here any longer.’

Castigus nodded, though a moment’s hesitation told Nerontes that he thought the idea of pulling out and moving on was, at this juncture, hasty.

Nerontes struggled to his feet. He’d seen to the wound left by that vile witch aelf, and so he no longer suffered any true injuries. But he was exhausted, physically and mentally. If it were up to him, he’d go find a quiet cave somewhere and sleep for a week.

‘Where are you off to?’ Castigus asked, also shooting to his feet. ‘You need rest.’

‘I need to make my report,’ Nerontes said, moving to his personal pack nearby and rifling around in it for his seeing stone. ‘Plans must be made. This was only a single battle, Castigus. The war has yet to even begin.’

‘But, Nerontes–’

‘Stay with me,’ Nerontes said quietly. ‘I need you. I need your strength. You need not speak to them – nor even be seen by them. I just… I want you here. With me.’

Castigus laid a hand on Nerontes’ shoulder. ‘Always and ever, by your side.’

Nerontes smiled. ‘And I by yours,’ he said, briefly resting his hand on Castigus’ cheek. His voice sounded thin as paper in his owns ears.

Castigus retreated to a dark corner of the chapel, only a short distance from where Nerontes set about preparing the Spectralith. When all was in readiness, the crystalline veins running through the stone were pulsing with a cloudy, lambent light. Nerontes reached out into the air and held his hand in the empty space above the Spectralith upon its little frame.

One by one, the other members of his ennead faded into existence, like a horde of ghosts summoned out of the aether: hard-faced Duke Allobrand; proud, austere Magister Tyboria; filthy, ruddy-cheeked General Mhysa; the resplendently armoured consul, Vitareus; the sallow-faced, sharp-cheeked Idoneth, Warden Kotaarn; the Darkling sorceress, Xytaria; and the duardin chieftains, Rombli Throndhammer and Yuttrex Mountaincleaver.

No matter how many times Castigus was present for one of Nerontes’ communiqués with his conclave, it never ceased to amaze him: nine peers, each spread hither and yon throughout all eight Mortal Realms, all seemingly present in this dark, quiet space. Truly, such communications were miraculous.

‘Is it true?’ Xytaria Shadowcast spat, the moment Nerontes had offered a curt greeting.

‘Is what true?’ Nerontes asked.

‘Teclis,’ Warden Kotaarn interjected. ‘Did you, in fact, destroy him, once and for all?’

Clearly, only the Idoneth and the Darkling had received this news, for the surprise and incredulity displayed by the other six members of the conclave was unmistakable. The Fyreslayer, Yuttrex, looked irritated, as though such a strange occurrence were not even in the realm of possibility.

‘It’s true,’ Nerontes said. ‘Teclis is no more. Godsbane did its work.’

Stunned silence followed, punctuated by a few wondering gasps and heads shaken in absolute disbelief.

‘Then you’ve been engaged,’ Consul Vitareus said abruptly. ‘I assume Teclis led a force of Lumineth against you?’

Nerontes nodded. ‘A mixed force – Lumineth and Stormcasts. There was also a failed charge by a band of Ironjawz and the unpleasant discovery of a smaller force – infiltrators, would-be thieves – attempting to purloin the staff.’

General Mhysa’s arched brows rose.

‘All in a single day?’ he said, clearly impressed.

Nerontes sighed and nodded. ‘A single day… and what a day it’s been…’

All at once, he seemed weary and found that same piece of masonry that Castigus had formerly occupied. He sat upon it, still within the area of effect of the Spectralith.

‘I salute your audacity, lad,’ Duke Allobrand said finally, nodding with pride. ‘Clearly, you’re still in the fight. What of your forces?’

‘Thinned,’ Nerontes said. ‘We started the day with eight hundred. Three hundred were lost, another three hundred are nursing wounds. Most are still capable of fighting, but we need reinforcements badly. I’m told we can still expect more – we were pledged two thousand when the call went out – but, of course, movement takes time.’

‘We can rally far more than that,’ Magister Tyboria said, the faintest trace of a smile on her thin lips. ‘You’ve proven your worth, boy. I commend you.’

‘Aye, that,’ Rombli Throndhammer boomed. ‘Slaughtered orruks and repelled a mixed force of Lumineth and Stormcasts? I’d wager nothing can stop you.’

‘Nothing shall,’ Nerontes said soberly, ‘so long as I’m delivered the troops and weapons I was promised.’

‘You said yourself,’ Consul Vitareus answered, ‘movement takes time. I recommend you withdraw to a safe redoubt – some place out of the way and readily defended. Wait there. Nurse your wounded. Do daily drills to stitch the mixed forces you’ve got into a cohesive army. In a week or two, your reinforcements will be at your beck and–’

‘I’m not waiting,’ Nerontes said flatly.

Silence answered that pronouncement. Magister Tyboria was the first to break it.

‘Not waiting,’ she repeated.

Nerontes nodded. ‘The time is now. Word of Teclis’ demise will travel fast, and we’ve already got more forces on the way. If you can speed at least two more warhosts to my aid, we can lay siege to Settler’s Gain–’

‘Lay siege?’ Duke Allobrand scoffed. ‘You’ve only got half-a-thousand fighters, lad!’

‘There are more on the way,’ Nerontes said, determined and unwavering. ‘If two thousand can make camp outside the city and five thousand more can join them–’

‘Why Settler’s Gain?’ Tyboria interjected. ‘It’s not even the richest or most strategically important city in Hysh.’

‘But it’s their heart and soul,’ Nerontes said. ‘The home of their greatest minds, their most dedicated scholars and mages. It is likewise the place where everyday men and women interact the most with the Lumineth, in the latter’s element. Nothing could better place us in a position to be seen as liberators rather than raiders and brigands–’

‘You plan to turn the human inhabitants of the city against their Lumineth warders?’ Xytaria said. She seemed impressed by the audacity of the idea.

Nerontes nodded. ‘That’s the plan.’

‘It’s a good plan,’ Warden Kotaarn said, ‘but I agree with our comrades – you should exercise patience and better prepare–’

‘No,’ Nerontes said. ‘No patience. No preparation. We’re riding a feral stardrake – this is when we determine if we can bend it to our will, or if it shall devour us.’

‘That’s reckless,’ Allobrand said quietly.

Nerontes shrugged slightly. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘but Godsbane is mine, which means this campaign is mine… Which means we shall prosecute it in the fashion I see fit, or not at all.’

Castigus saw the ripple of shock and defiance that moved through all present: the sense of pride and aristocratic descent all being trumped by the courage and vision of one determined upstart.

‘We march on the morrow,’ Nerontes said, rising and moving closer to the Spectralith. ‘Overland and over sea, we’ll make Settler’s Gain in four days, five at the most. Do all you must to speed your forces to our aid.’

‘And if we do not?’ General Mhysa asked, his lip curling ever so slightly in challenge.

Nerontes gave a slight, enigmatic smile of his own.

‘Then you won’t share in the glory, general.’

He waved his hand in the air above the seeing stone, and the phantoms all disappeared in an instant.

Castigus stood on the half-collapsed roof of a villa hugging Kel Tallis’ lower slope. Flickering cookfires and embers swirling up from raked coals in braziers glowed in the Hyshian twilight beneath him. Already, some of those who’d come to join them were saying prayers over their dead, setting funeral pyres alight or laying their bodies in the cold, dry earth of this long-abandoned place. There was also at least one mass pyre spitting flames high into the half-lit sky, for unclaimed bodies – or their constituent parts – in need of immediate immolation. The dead who were unclaimed, the dead with no faith or belief in an afterlife, bits of the slain, the maimed and the dismembered. Five hundred. A pittance. Half a dozen companies. Barely a cohort, in the parlance of the Free Cities.

We can still expect more, he’d said. When you sounded the call, the pledges we received put our numbers close to two thousand. No question. It’s just a matter of time.

He’d been foolish, he knew. He should have been more honest with Nerontes, more forceful. But, deep down, he knew there was no point in that tack, either. Nerontes was a dreamer, an idealist. When he set out to do a thing, the notion that he might fail was simply banished from his outlook. After almost ten years in his company – first as a young soldier in a Freeguild retinue assigned to support Nerontes’ endeavours for the Collegiate Arcane, then as the commander of that retinue, then as a free agent, travelling at Nerontes’ side simply to protect him in trial and comfort him in ease – Castigus had learned the hard way that even hard truths had to be couched in precise language, and delivered in the proper tone, if one hoped for them to take root in Nerontes’ psyche and alter his behaviour.

He never imagines he could fail, he thought bitterly. And the rub of it is, he rarely does. Those around him? Surely. They fail; they fall short; they are tested by circumstance and found wanting. But never Nerontes. He presses on, barrelling blindly towards the next horizon, the next ambition, the next lofty goal…

If I’d told him that we have too few soldiers and that we cannot rely on the two thousand yet pledged, he would simply have told me what I told him: they’ll come. Trust and press on. If we but act boldly, mighty forces will come to our aid.

And so, he’d given Nerontes the report that he required: their numbers were greatly reduced, but more would come, any day now. They need only bury their dead, bind their wounds, and begin their march towards Settler’s Gain. It was a certainty – almost mathematical in its surety – that by the time they reached their destination, the troops they required to begin and sustain the siege would be present and accounted for.

He’ll get us all killed, Castigus thought, and we’ll have accomplished nothing.

The thought was not tinged by bitterness, only a resigned sadness. All their endeavours – their investiture in the Black Sun, their side-by-side adventures and intrigues and midnight dreams of heady new ages to come in their brief, bounded little lifetimes – were bent towards this end: the toppling of rule over mortal-kind by gods and monsters. Oh, they did not begrudge the immortals their religions, their temples, their worship or even their mere existence… they simply wanted them to withdraw to the periphery of mortal undertakings; to influence from the shadows – obliquely and infrequently – like ageing old warlords and queens whose best days and greatest potency was far, far behind them.

But what could they accomplish with so few?

Five hundred. Barely a cohort. And so many of those wounded, or grieving, or simply disillusioned…

But he slew a god today – Teclis himself! The Archmage! That has to count for something!

He grunted to himself. Aye, it might. It might be enough to motivate the men and women and aelves and duardin that he now watched, down below him in the night-long Hyshian twilight. That simple fact might get them to press on, to march to the coast, to board ships and cross the sea and spew up clouds of dust as they marched to Settler’s Gain. But would it sustain them if reinforcements never arrived? Or if too few arrived? Perhaps Nerontes could summon another miracle – cause the walls of the city to crumble, turn all of the Lumineth mages and Stormcast Eternals ready to defend the place into ghosts of smoke and shadow?

Or perhaps he could not… And then, what would become of them?

Castigus was too weary to consider all the permutations, all the variables and probabilities. He was bone-weary, and he needed sleep. And so, urging himself to leave his doubts, his fears and his troubles for tomorrow’s dawn, he climbed down from the half-crumbled roof of the ancient, abandoned villa, wended his way through the sloping streets of the long-dead city on that knob of hill, and made his way down to the camp at the hill’s base. There, his tent awaited him. It was not well appointed or particularly comfortable. Despite its size – large enough to stand up in, at any rate – he possessed remarkably little when on campaign. He had a good courser for riding; a pair of well-oiled swords and other smaller, more personal weapons; two changes of clothes; and a few scraps of armour. Inside his tall tent, he slept on a bedroll and several blankets, all laid out flat upon the ground, and his meals usually consisted of something dried or salted or pickled, with some warm water out of one of the skins he carried.

He might be the second most powerful man in this army, but he was no prince or potentate: he was a soldier, plain and simple, and most of the time he lived like one.

He was more than a little surprised to duck in through his tent flap and find a complete stranger waiting within. He was a young man, blond-haired and baby-faced despite a strange darkness in his blue eyes and a terrible stony set to his narrow mouth. He seemed to be pacing in a tight little space in the middle of the cramped tent, as though he’d been waiting for Castigus for some time.

Castigus froze just inside.

‘What are you doing in here? Did no one tell you this is the marshal’s tent?’

‘I know it’s the marshal’s tent,’ the boy said. His aspect changed at once: the sense of dissatisfaction and concentration melted away, and all at once, he looked contrite – even embarrassed. ‘That’s why I came here.’

Castigus thought the young man’s air rather puzzling, but he supposed there was nothing wrong with his presence, in and of itself. How old was he? Sixteen? Eighteen at the most? Once more, his weariness got the better of him: if he had any desire to remain suspicious or on his guard, he simply could not maintain it.

‘Very well,’ he said, letting his shoulders sag. ‘Tell me why you’re here and be quick about it. Start with your name.’

‘My name,’ the boy said haltingly.

Castigus nodded. ‘You’ve got one, haven’t you?’

‘Is it so terribly important, really?’ the boy asked. ‘After all, I’m not even the one you need to treat with. I’m just a messenger.’

Castigus felt a strange trepidation worm through him. He might be tired, but he was not so foolish as to accept the boy’s strangeness without question. He let one hand fall to the pommel of his sheathed sword.

‘You have five breaths before I cut you down from simple impatience,’ Castigus said, by way of instilling some urgency in the strange boy. ‘Your name.’

‘Just one of your four hundred and eighty-two still-walking, still-combat-ready followers,’ the boy said, and now his aspect had changed again. He seemed sly now, as though he knew something Castigus did not.

Castigus’ hand tightened on his sheathed sword. ‘That’s a very exacting count,’ he said. He had no way of being sure if it was correct – his own count had been an estimation, nothing more. But it seemed terribly specific…

‘The word’s already moving through the companies,’ the boy said. ‘We march at dawn, for Settler’s Gain. We’re to support Nerontes in his bid to seize the city now that the Archmage, Teclis, is destroyed. You and he expect our numbers to swell as we march, and by the time we reach the plain before the city, but no one knows – not with any certainty. We’re marching on hope, praying to gods none of us serve or believe in that we’ll be delivered a miracle.’

Castigus drew his sword from its scabbard and levelled the broad, sharp blade. Rivulets and runnels of dried blood still stained its length from that day’s fighting.

‘I’ve heard enough,’ he said.

‘That’s merely the prelude,’ the boy said, and reached into his tunic.

Castigus drew back his sword, ready to make a killing thrust if the next thing he saw emerge in the boy’s hand was a weapon.

But it seemed to be no weapon at all. In fact, what the boy drew out of his tunic was, at first glance, far too large and bulky to have fit within at all. It was a good-sized fragment of cloudy crystal, as big as a Ghurian breadfruit. It seemed to be realmstone of some sort, though Castigus could not say what sort. It was blue, perhaps purple, perhaps blood red – the dim light in his tent seemed to preclude the stone being a single, stable colour. And, of course, its magical provenance was readily notable for strange energies swirled and pulsed within its rough-hewn, faceted depths.

A well-wrought iron frame hugged its lower quarter and supported it – a stand of some sort, its fit so snug that it had remained attached to the crystal even as it reposed, impossibly, inside the slender young man’s tunic.

Castigus was about to decry all this nonsense as the foul sorcery that it probably was and simply run the boy through on principle, when he suddenly realised what the item in the young man’s hand was.

It was a Spectralith. Of a different quartz, colour and make than Nerontes’ own, but a similar device nonetheless. The whirling luminescence deep within it cast swirling, dancing figures on the interior walls of his tent, like some tinker’s lampshade that a parent might spin over a candle for a child settling down to sleep.

Spectraliths are for two-way communication, Castigus reminded himself. Who, then, is trying to communicate with you?

‘My master wishes to have words with you,’ the young man said, ‘to offer his aid. Simply hearing the offer is no guarantee that you’ll accept–’

Castigus had heard enough. He yanked the crystal out of the young man’s hands, tossed it onto his bedroll, and slammed the boy into the nearest support beam. The whole tent shook around them. He laid the keen edge of his sword against the boy’s throat with one hand and shook him roughly with the other.

‘Who sent you?’ he snarled. ‘One of the ennead? Am I to betray Nerontes now and take his place, is that it?’

‘Marshal Castigus, I assure you–’

‘I’ll ask once more!’ Castigus spat. ‘Who sent you, and what do they want?’

‘I sent him,’ a terrible, hoarse voice said from behind him.

Castigus threw the boy down – roughly, so he’d stay there for at least a breath or two – and spun towards the unfamiliar voice. Its owner was projected in the air before him by the cast-down Spectralith, the ghostly apparition shimmering and unsteady, due to the strange angle it lay at.

Nonetheless, Castigus knew a Tzaangor well enough when he saw one. By the look of this one – bedecked in colourful, tattered robes and jewellery, crowned by a pair of gnarled, irregular horns and possessing a body hewn of tight, ropy muscle and sinew – he was a creature of some power and distinction indeed.

‘Greetings, marshal,’ the Tzaangor said.

Castigus felt a strange wave of horror. He turned to the prone boy and levelled his sword blade.

But the boy was no more. The creature on the ground beside him was a strange, twisted horror – once human, perhaps, now transformed and reshaped by foul Chaotic magic into something from one of the hellish pits of legend. The once-boy creature’s toothy mouth fell open and it chortled raspily at Castigus’ confusion and revulsion.

He looked back to the ghostly Tzaangor.

‘Save your words, you fiend,’ he snarled. ‘There is nothing you can say that could interest me.’

‘Pity,’ the Tzaangor said, ‘for I was about to offer you more bodies for your burgeoning army.’

Castigus tried to arrive at a pithy retort. He found none. He was too weary to pretend that those words did not mean everything to him in that instant.

No. It’s a trick. It has to be.

‘I cannot,’ he said aloud. ‘I will not. Twisted and tinged by Chaos as you are, you are incapable of speaking the truth–’

‘I am Hasturath,’ the Tzaangor said, ‘a Disciple of Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, the Architect of Fate. It was my master, Ruhlgurrad, who was the first to fall to the weapon you call Godsbane. For centuries, I have laboured and bent under the yoke of his demands, his insults, his mountainous arrogance and his cruelty. In an instant, my greatest wish – my highest ambition – was realised, because your master slew mine, and cleared the way for me to seize power. For that, I am grateful. And I wish to show my gratitude.’

This is foolish. Smash the stone. Toss it out of the tent. Slay that horrible thing skulking at your feet. Gratitude, he says. What gratitude could a Disciple of Tzeentch know? What good could such a beast ever do for us? For me?

And yet… he was still listening.

‘What gratitude?’ he finally managed.

Though the Tzaangor’s beak could not smile, Castigus thought he heard a smile in the creature’s hoarse voice.

‘Like my master, I toy with fate. I make the improbable probable, and undercut the likely with random acts of subterfuge, sabotage and skulduggery. I can hobble your enemies by undermining their efforts in the subtlest and most seemingly insignificant ways, all the while dragging them down, down, down to their inevitable ends – death by a thousand cuts, as it were.’

‘No,’ Castigus said.

‘I can smooth the way for your victory – or, at the very least, the best possible outcomes of your endeavours. I can help your reinforcements move speedily along. I can ensure that you cross paths with like-minded companies of roving bandits or Freeguilds whose personal impulses make them likely allies with you and yours. I can put the wind at your backs.’

‘No,’ Castigus said again – though he was starting to believe he was speaking to himself rather than the Tzaangor.

The creature carried on, unfazed.

‘All this and more, I can do for you,’ it said. ‘And not with miracles or wonders or magic of the highest order and potency, but with subtlety, ingenuity and influence. We, the Disciples of Tzeentch, are champions at doing a great deal with scant resources.’

‘You’re lying,’ Castigus said.

‘Am I?’ the creature countered, sounding eminently reasonable.

‘Why, then?’ Castigus asked. ‘Why do I need you? Why should I trust you?’

‘You know well why you need me,’ the Tzaangor said, and to his credit, he sounded terribly troubled by Castigus’ predicament. ‘As to why you should trust me… Did it ever occur to you, Castigus, that our aims are aligned? That the gods you seek to topple are the gods I, too, seek to cast down from their lofty thrones? Tzeentch is no tyrant, no conqueror, no despot – he seeks freedom for all. The freedom of altered fates and altered states, the freedom of choice borne by endless – and boundless – possibilities.’

‘I’ll not be twisted by your dark magic,’ Castigus said.

‘Nor am I offering to do so,’ the Tzaangor replied. ‘What I offer is simply mutual aid. I help you and your champion take Settler’s Gain. By doing so – by setting your own revolutionary plans in motion – you help mortal-kind to make their own choices, to seek their own ends, to know their own power.’

‘Through Tzeentch,’ Castigus said.

‘By any means available to them,’ the Tzaangor said.

This is wrong, Castigus thought. I should end this, now. Tell Nerontes at once.

And yet…

Visions now filled his head. Visions of a vast army gathering on the plain before Settler’s Gain. Visions of Nerontes performing miracles before ten thousand eager followers, bringing the great curtain wall of Settler’s Gain crumbling down with a word…

I cannot.

I should not.

‘Tell me more,’ he said, and sheathed his sword.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

They brought Thelana to the Concordia early in the morning on the day following her return to Settler’s Gain. As they had been on the day of Palembra’s trial – exactly twenty-one days prior – all members of the Regents’ Council were in attendance… save Kelarion, of course. Thelana had almost forgotten that the cunning Syari spellwright had been one of the first casualties of Nerontes’ treachery. Such a loss; such a waste. The sight of his empty chair on the tribunal dais filled her with sadness and regret: if only she had been more insightful, less blind to her old friend’s potential for betrayal, that good and excellent councillor might still be alive and well and in this chamber to censure her.

The Tempest Lords – led by Lord-Arcanum Petreus and the ever-present Lord-Exorcist Malkeus, as well as a small contingent of conclave leadership – were also in attendance, as were the representatives of the Adepts’ Council. Everyone present on the terrible day when this ordeal began – the day Palembra died – was there, save one honest regent, one unlucky old adept, and one duplicitous human mage.

All rose when Thelana was escorted into the hall and marched to the space before the dais. She stood there, unshackled but no less humiliated, armed Wardens on either side of her, as though she might try to flee justice.

Signs were given. All took their seats – all save Inquisitor Sembaris. The stalwart champion of truth, as the speaker of the tribunal, remained standing and announced the business at hand. Thelana could see the war raging inside him upon his face. No human or duardin would have been able to read the signs – they were far too veiled, too subtle – but she was Lumineth, just as he was, and she knew well what the small, hard creases at the corners of his eyes and the barely perceptible indicators of a clenched jaw portended.

Sembaris had tried so hard to defend her, to stave off her interrogation – and she had repaid his support by running away, making her guilt look all but incontrovertible.

‘The tribunal is in session,’ he proclaimed, ‘convened to pass judgement and sentence against Thelana Evenfall, a member of the Lyceum Fundamental’s faculty charged with negligence, malicious intent, deliberate duplicity and circumspection, and unlawful flight from lawful imprisonment. Before we begin, I ask the defendant to answer these charges in her own words.’

Thelana let her gaze linger upon his. She would not shrink. She would not show reproach or fear.

‘Guilty,’ she said.

Sembaris nodded gravely and returned to his seat.

‘Let the matter be discussed, then,’ he said. ‘The floor is open.’

She had remained in the custody of the Lumineth officers who commanded the Dawnriders from the time of their withdrawal all the way through to their return to the city. Never once did she argue or protest. Her companions – Sespyra, Wodrik, Wodrik’s still-surviving crew – had remained close to her during their three-day journey from Nerontes’ headquarters back to Settler’s Gain, even though it was clear she was not free to do as she pleased, to go where she pleased. Even as the Dawnriders and Tempest Lords they moved among made her understand – implicitly if not explicitly – that she was a prisoner, her companions continued to treat her as one of their own; their leader, in fact.

Wodrik had been the first to broach the subject of her prosecution.

‘I’ve heard them talking,’ he began one evening, voice low beside the fire.

They rarely stopped for long, or bothered making a proper camp. Usually, the company would simply spend a few hours bivouacked, enough time to feed and rest their mounts and Dracoths, get a few fires going, and make hasty hot meals before carrying on with their retreat.

Thelana had known immediately what Wodrik was referring to.

‘I am prisoner, am I not?’ she asked.

Wodrik nodded. Then, after a moment’s pause, he leant forward.

‘Do we need to get you away from here?’

Thelana shook her head emphatically. ‘No,’ she said, ‘you cannot and you will not. I risked a great deal to escape them once, because I thought I was right. Because I thought I could succeed where an army might fail. I no longer believe that.’

She had raised her eyes then, to assay those nearby, to see how they looked at her and make assumptions about how it made them feel. The Stormcasts were impossible to read, of course, for almost every one of them wore their great implacable helms, every expression, every outward sign of their thoughts or feelings, hidden and unknowable. Her fellow Lumineth, meanwhile, were more readily accessible to her. They, too, were implacable and dour of countenance, but she could understand them: their fleeting glances as they passed her; the way she caught some staring if she glanced towards them quickly and surreptitiously enough.

They saw her as both a pitiable wretch and a dangerous liability.

‘I’ve already spoken to Sespyra,’ Wodrik had whispered. ‘She’s in, if that’s what you require–’

‘Thank you, Wodrik, no,’ Thelana said firmly. ‘I made a terrible mistake. I must return home and face the consequences of my actions.’

Wodrik had stared at her a good, long while when she had answered him thus. After a time, he’d dragged his eyes away from her and trained them towards the fire before them. When he spoke, there was a hitch in his voice, as though something were caught in his throat.

‘I know what it’s like,’ he’d said quietly. ‘To make a bad decision. To fail. To pay a terrible price for it.’

Thelana moved to the Kharadron captain and studied him. The duardin could, when they chose, be quite subtle and circumspect, but there was always the feeling that the emotions inside them were raging tempests, firestorms like subterranean magma and pressurised heat, always in danger of erupting through their calm veneer – violently, even.

‘I have been an outcast among my people for some years now,’ he said, ‘because I made a choice – a choice of conscience – that violated our written edicts. Lives were lost because of my choice, as was my honour. I would not wish such a feeling of despair and isolation on my worst enemy…’ He turned to her. There was the barest glint of tears in his eyes. ‘Let alone a friend.’

Thelana thanked him for his kind words. He had lost a great deal as a result of his association with her: one dead crewman and an entire Arkanaut frigate, to be exact. She only hoped that, somehow, once they were back in Settler’s Gain, his losses could be, in some small way, remunerated.

‘I admit to negligence,’ Thelana said, before any of the members of the tribunal could speak, ‘because I failed to see the hidden corruption, the veiled ambition, that my old friend and colleague nursed inside himself.

‘I admit malice, because, in the wake of Palembra Edast’s trial and death, I was determined to prove this tribunal mistaken. I believed that there had to be an explanation for her treachery that was personal, bounded, understandable. I failed to see that her treachery portended larger threats to our safety.

‘I admit duplicity, because I wanted surety – certainty – before I could trust this august body to accept the information I sought, the suspicions I had. Even as I gathered facts and created my own suppositions about the criminal conspiracy unfolding, I kept all that I learned and supposed to myself, afraid that sharing the information I had acquired might destroy my unproven hypotheses… or, worse, confirm my worst fears before I was ready to face them.

‘And, finally, I escaped from my imprisonment, because I was determined to be instrumental in bringing Nerontes Fane to justice. He was once my student. In the intervening years since that association, he has become a peer – a friend and boon comrade, in fact. Rightly or wrongly, I felt responsible for him. I thought that our closeness might shield me as I attempted to thwart his ambitions and make right what had gone so, so wrong.

‘I was wrong about all of those things. I did wrong, despite the fact that I did it all for what I thought of as the right reasons. I stand, humbled and broken, before you now, ready to accept my punishment.’

She had been preparing those words all through the night. She needed them to know that she was not blind, was not haughty, and was not obtuse: she understood precisely why she was here, and she would take responsibility for all of her misguided actions.

The tribunal, to her great astonishment, remained silent. As that silence persisted, she started to believe that she had, perhaps, oversold her own guilt: she had so readily accepted their theses about her failures that she had shocked them into wordless acquiescence.

Sembaris looked to Nendira. The High Regent’s eyes never left Thelana: she simply stared, undertaking some strange cold-eyed appraisal without ever arriving at a decision. It was old Dakhir who finally stood and spoke for his peers.

‘We thank you for your ready admission of guilt,’ he said quietly. Even he seemed more than a little moved. ‘We are not in precise agreement as to the specific nature of your missteps and poor decisions, but we are in agreement as to your sole responsibility for all the terrible events that have unfolded.’

‘You should have trusted us,’ Hetassa said from her throne.

‘When have we isolated or abandoned you,’ Tamhir said beside her, ‘even in all your years of teaching, when your fellow faculty-members distrusted you and accused you of veiled sedition or ideological heresy?’

Thelana felt those words, though not, perhaps, in the way intended. The tribunal had just admitted that she had been accused silently, behind closed doors, for years, of being somehow unworthy or belligerent.

When have we isolated or abandoned you? they asked.

Thelana spoke without realising she intended to.

‘I was never formally charged, or prosecuted, or ejected from this university,’ she said quietly, though the acoustics in the enormous hall carried her voice clearly to all before her. ‘But you have never, ever defended me, or given me the opportunity to defend myself. I would say you have repeatedly isolated me and abandoned me by failing to raise your voices in my defence, by failing to argue on my behalf, or to give me the opportunity to directly answer my accusers.’

Dakhir seemed troubled by her words. ‘See here!’ he said. ‘You cannot simply accuse us of–’

‘I accuse you of locking me out,’ Thelana snapped. ‘I accuse you of isolating me, abandoning me, and making me a convenient scapegoat. I am solely responsible for the choices I’ve made and the laws I’ve broken, from the day of Palembra’s death in this chamber to this present moment… but whatever suspicions or misgivings the lot of you had about me – whatever assumptions you made because of my otherness – all of that lies at your feet. Do not presume to tell me now that I should have trusted you and confided in you when only one among the lot of you’ – she looked to Sembaris – ‘ever trusted or confided in me.’

‘This is not our trial,’ Nendira said forcefully. ‘Belay your tongue, girl, or we shall stop it wagging for you.’

‘You shall do no such thing,’ someone boomed.

Thelana’s head whipped to the right, towards the loud voice now raised in her defence.

It was Lord-Exorcist Malkeus. Thelana could hardly believe her ears or her eyes. The cold-eyed, grim-faced Lord-Exorcist faced the tribunal fearlessly, Lord-Arcanum Petreus still sitting behind him, as though nothing untoward or out of the ordinary were underway. The other Stormcast officers present likewise remained silent and still behind their un-removed helms, the Azyrite faces sculpted upon them as unmoving as cliff walls.

‘It is well known I have no love for this sorceress,’ Malkeus said, suggesting Thelana. ‘Nor do I believe in the stated aims of this school. Many are the times I’ve made it clear that I believe your entire mission here – to train humans to wield magic with the same control and facility as the Lumineth – is ludicrous, bordering on dangerous.

‘And yet,’ he continued, ‘one of our own, one of our best – a now-slain Sequitor of impeccable spirit and unbounded courage – was chosen, given a quest, to find this loreseeker’ – he indicated Thelana – ‘and to follow her. If the mystery hiding inside Daethus’ quest found its answer in aiding and abetting this Lumineth’s actions, then I cannot prosecute her – no matter how passionately I might want to.’

‘Your point?’ Sembaris prompted, sounding both eager and impatient.

‘Daethus did not make mistakes,’ Malkeus said gravely. ‘His was a true heart. If, upon finding Thelana Evenfall at the sky-docks, he chose to follow her rather than belay or arrest her, then I, for one, am willing to trust his judgement.’

Thelana stared at the Lord-Exorcist. She could not believe what she was hearing. Malkeus – previously having directed his words to the tribunal on the dais – looked to her and gave her the simplest, the subtlest, of nods. It was a silent acknowledgment that, sometimes, right and wrong were not so readily extricated from one another; a vindication of her attempt to set things aright, even if that attempt had failed miserably.

‘What are we to do, then?’ Dakhir asked from his chair. ‘Commend her? Reward her for her insolence and arrogance and disobedience?’

Malkeus shook his head. ‘Daethus risked his life for her – gave his life for her, forever and always. I can only imagine he would do so if he believed in her cause. You need not commend her, or even reward her – but you can certainly listen to her. She knows our enemy. She has known him, from his youth to the present moment. She may have insights, if you only allow her to share them.’

Nendira was the next to speak.

‘This is not an enquiry towards a means to thwart Nerontes Fane,’ the High Regent said slowly. ‘This is a trial. Thelana Evenfall has broken our edicts and our laws, and those trespasses must be dealt with before other pressing matters can be addressed.’

Thelana heard the High Regent’s words and felt the weight of them. She knew that it was right that she should pay a price – some price – for her actions. To escape prosecution and censure simply because they were in the midst of a crisis was both illogical, and a dangerous precedent to set for the future. There was always one crisis or another in the world, was there not? Everyday order and the basic principles of cause and effect, actions and consequences, could not be suspended because of those crises.

Now, shockingly, Nendira rose from her throne and stepped forward on the dais. She looked down at Thelana, eyes narrow, thin lips pursed, clearly troubled by what she saw before her: a one-time colleague, a formerly trustworthy peer, now standing trial because she was too headstrong, too impatient and individualistic, to serve the greater good in a time of calamity.

‘Thelana Evenfall,’ Nendira began, ‘do you deny your violations of this university’s edicts and of the Teclamentari code of ethics?’

Thelana had a moment’s impulse to argue – then decided against it. It would profit her nothing. She must accept her position now, without regret or bitterness.

‘I do not,’ she said.

‘Do you deny that your friendship and history with Nerontes blinded you? That your curiosity kept you silent when you should have voiced your growing concerns? And that your failure to involve this council in your affairs resulted not only in the deaths of members of this faculty, but also in a grave existential threat to Hysh and all the Mortal Realms?’

Thelana lowered her eyes.

‘I do not,’ she said, voice catching in her throat.

‘And do you admit,’ Nendira pressed on, ‘that your determination to recover our stolen property and stop Nerontes Fane, once and for all, and to do so alone, without our aid or support, was ultimately short-sighted? Even misguided and reckless?’

Thelana wished she could argue against that point… but she could not. The proof was in her current state: here, now, a prisoner, while Fane was still free and Godsbane still in his hands.

‘All points are true,’ Thelana said. ‘I cannot deny them, despite my righteous intentions.’

Nendira studied her. The silence that passed between them was long and uncomfortable – a horrid absence that made Thelana feel like she’d suddenly been imprisoned alive in a tomb.

‘Very well, then,’ Nendira said. ‘I move that the accused is guilty of all the charges levied… and that her punishment be suspended.’

Thelana blinked. What had she said?

Dakhir said precisely what Thelana was thinking. ‘Apologies, High Regent – might you repeat yourself?’

‘I said,’ Nendira repeated, ‘that I move Thelana Evenfall’s sentence be suspended, at least until the city is out of imminent danger. She admits her guilt, and we all acknowledge it. We have more terrible forces now gathering against us – we shall need every capable hand and spellcaster in our arsenal to arrive at a plan and strike back at Nerontes Fane decisively.’

The others on the dais were responding in kind: disbelief, stunned silence, blustering incredulity – she saw all in evidence. Even those who she suspected might have been ready to show her mercy seemed shaken by Nendira’s pronouncement, so unexpected had it been.

‘Concurred,’ the normally reticent Velathrin said.

‘Concurred,’ Hetassa and Tamhir agreed, in unison.

‘I protest!’ Dakhir coughed.

‘Concurred,’ Sembaris said, now looking at Thelana with a mixture of awe and disbelieving admiration, as though proud of her unexpected victory, despite the fact that she probably did not deserve it.

Thelana looked to Nendira. The High Regent stared back, gaze level, thin lips curled into the barest, most razor-thin semblance of a half-smile Thelana had ever seen. That expression seemed to say, I am taking a chance on you, commuting your sentence when I know I should not – do not disappoint me again.

Thelana was determined to justify Nendira’s faith in her, even if it meant her death.

Dimveryn and Kolothir both concurred. Dakhir was the last hold-out now. Nendira looked to the hidebound old mage and raised an eyebrow.

‘Very well,’ he said, sighing. ‘Concurred.’

‘The motion is carried,’ Nendira said. ‘The prisoner is to be released, immediately.’

Though she wore no chains or manacles, Thelana yet felt as if a great weight had suddenly been removed from her.

‘Go not far from us, though,’ Nendira said, spearing Thelana with her iron gaze. ‘There are plans to be made, and we must know all that you know.’

Thelana strode forward and did the only thing she knew how to do to express her gratitude: she knelt on the flagstones before the dais and bowed her head.

‘I am at the disposal of this tribunal,’ she said quietly. ‘All that I know – all that I am – is yours.’

‘Very well, then,’ Nendira said. ‘Simply know that all you are may be what is required to save this city… and this realm.’

Most of the Free Cities in the Mortal Realms were ruled and administered by a council modelled on Azyrheim’s fabled Grand Conclave, consisting of the most respectable, learned and influential citizens of the principality and their foremost artisans and engineers. The Grand Conclave of Settler’s Gain mirrored those ancient assemblies in miniature, numbering only sixty-eight members. The primary peculiarity of the Grand Conclave of Settler’s Gain was not its form or its function, but the subtle power-balances that ruled and defined it. Even though the Grand Matriarch, the High Arbiter, the High Architect, the Prime Commander of the city’s Freeguild companies and nearly half the remaining members of the conclave were human or duardin, it was the Lumineth High Magister, his coterie of Lumineth allies, and the Lord-Arcanum Petreus Mars who truly guided the ship of state and set the conclave – and the city it ruled – upon its daily course. The subtle but undeniable influence of this powerful minority within the council chafed and troubled its human councillors, but there was little they could do to change the prevailing power dynamic.

Thelana had attended conclave meetings on several occasions in the past, either as a representative of the Lyceum Fundamental itself or simply to observe, in order to better learn lessons about the subtle and not-so-subtle uses of power. Now, she was enlisted as a key witness of sorts – one of the only living beings to have seen Nerontes Fane’s military and magical machinations up close. She accompanied High Regent Nendira, Inquisitor Sembaris and noble, patient Regent Kolothir, instructed in-transit of her particular interest to the conclave – and where her advisory capacity would and should stop.

‘You accompany us to offer insight into the enemy’s desires and methods,’ Sembaris told her, she riding behind him upon a winged Tauralon – one of several provided by Lord-Arcanum Petreus Mars to convey their party to the conclave. ‘You shall speak to the extent of his power, the specific dangers posed, and – if asked directly – what means you might see to counter those dangers. You will not, however, offer advice or strategy save in answer to direct questions, do you understand? You are a field agent in this, not a contributing member of the military tribunal.’

Thelana assured the elder Lumineth that she understood all too well.

The Grand Conclave met in an enormous domed hall of justice near the heart of the high city, known as the Juristaceum. Therein reposed endless chambers and sub-chambers housing mountains of city records, a library and archive tracing the city’s history and evolution, the administrative chambers of a hundred or more functionaries, high and low, and the primary barracks and armouries of the Freeguild companies, Vanari Auralan Sentinels and Wardens that protected the city and maintained order in her streets. Though the Juristaceum was not the tallest structure in the high city, its convocation of shining domed roofs and its prominent placement at the centre of the forest of rising spires, peak-roofed temples and myriad houses of worship and mystery that made up the heart of Settler’s Gain yet marked it as the most important and splendid construction therein.

Their party swooped down out of the skies – yet alight with arbitrary skeins of magical lightning and swirling clouds – to alight upon one of the many rooftop gardens that graced the vast, rambling Juristaceum. There, they were greeted by Talvaras, one of the chief artisans of the Grand Conclave, and led inside. Within, they descended winding staircases, traversed enormous atria and long, high-ceilinged corridors, and navigated a labyrinth of chambers and arcades before they finally arrived at the enormous circular chamber where the Grand Conclave of Settler’s Gain convened.

Though the chamber was vast and well populated – the Grand Conclave numbered sixty-eight voting members, and another score-and-more of assistants, functionaries, secretaries and non-voting auditors – there was a strange, chilling hush upon the place that made Thelana uneasy the moment they entered. Under normal circumstances, this place would be abuzz with private conversations and excitement, the natural reticence of the many Lumineth present more than counteracted by the readiness of the human and duardin members and auditors to chatter or grumble with one another. Now, however, it was as if all had been summoned for either a mass rebuke or a grief-stricken memorial to a fallen comrade. What words Thelana heard were hushed, whispered, and the chamber itself – normally alive with strange echoes and acoustic illusions – now seemed almost abandoned for the funereal pall that lay upon it.

The meeting of the conclave took place in a sunken space at the centre of the great chamber, a sort of circular, enclosed amphitheatre that descended in tiers towards the speaking place at its bottom. There was room in the amphitheatre for three times as many observers, so all in attendance had wisely spread themselves out, leaving large spaces between where conclave members and their allied assistants or associated observers congregated together.

As Thelana descended into the amphitheatre with their large party – she, the three members of the Regents’ Council, three more personal scribes and half a dozen Tempest Lords of the Sacrosanct Chamber – she sought and marked the faces of those she knew and could identify in the Grand Conclave.

There: old Ariphon the Magister, an Iliathan wind-mage of legendary capability and insight, sitting straight-backed and silent upon the amphitheatre’s lowest tier, patiently stroking the long, wispy beard that trailed down from his otherwise-smooth chin. Directly below them, on a nearer tier: the Lady Humaira, the city’s High Arbiter, as renowned for her immovable sense of justice as for her grim determination in battle. Off to their right: a trio of the most prominent members of the Artisans’ Council – a human armourer, a duardin gunsmith and a Syari spellwright, all huddled close and speaking in low tones, keeping their own counsel.

And there, down below, slowly, easily pacing about the circular stage that marked the base of the amphitheatre: Raemora, the Grand Matriarch, a human archmage whose ascendence to her current position of trust and leadership had been the first, in over a century, that was ratified unanimously by all members of the conclave.

Thelana was filled with a sense of awe and humility: she, having just suffered her worst defeat, having made some of the most deadly and damaging miscalculations of her life, now stood in the presence of legends, of magical and intellectual giants. She prayed to Teclis – lost, ever-shining Teclis – that she could acquit herself in a manner worthy of their attention.

Matriarch Raemora raised her hands, as though begging silence from her already silent audience. As Thelana wondered just who she was trying to quiet, she realised that the lights in the chamber – hitherto bright and warm, provided by a dozen enormous magical lanterns swaying from the high domed ceiling on heavy duardin chains – all began to dim in response to the Matriarch’s silent spell. There were murmurs, whispers, many present wondering why the Grand Matriarch would darken the chamber.

That was when Raemora reached into her robes, rooted about in an inner pocket, and produced a small, irregularly shaped crystal. This, she tossed idly into the air. At the height of what should have been a shallow arc, the crystal hung suspended, spinning in the empty space as though it hung on the end of an invisible string. Matriarch Raemora withdrew a little, waving her hand as she did so.

Light burst out of the spinning, floating crystal, creating in the empty air a large spherical projection of a span of ground, viewed from high above, as if through the eyes of a stardrake rider or a soaring falcon. On the smooth, rolling countryside visible in the lower half of the ghostly three-dimensional projection, an enormous host moved over the landscape, leaving roiling clouds of dust in their wake.

‘Here, we see a span of the Glib Stretch,’ the Grand Matriarch said without preamble, ‘just a few miles from the Crumbling Coast. The area of ground you see is roughly a mile square.’

More murmurs and whispers, most of them expressing disbelief. Thelana understood at once, but one of the human representatives present – a Freeguild captain, by the look of him – asked aloud what all in the chamber were coming to realise.

‘That’s his army, isn’t it?’

Matriarch Raemora nodded as she slowly, deliberately paced around the perimeter of the large magical projection cast by the airborne crystal.

‘It is. These images were relayed via farsight only an hour ago. As you can see, his host has grown considerably since the engagement at the ruins of Kel Tallis. Estimates put his force at five thousand.’

More whispers, more disbelief, expressed in little above a sigh or a groan. Thelana felt a great deal of trepidation herself: at the ruins, Nerontes could have had no more than a thousand under his banner. How had their numbers grown exponentially in the space of just a few short days?

‘Are they all mages?’ someone asked.

‘No,’ the Matriarch answered, not bothering to look towards the speaker. As she continued to slowly circle the projection, she seemed to be lost in thought, staring into the middle distance or into the image of the projection itself, never once turning to acknowledge those whose enquiries she answered. ‘No, it would appear that their mage-strength is limited – though not to be scoffed at. More importantly, reconnaissance tells us that what we see here is a mixed force unlike any ever encountered. Freeguilders, Rangers, Ironweld gunners and batteries, Fyreslayer berserkers and magmadroth riders. Four Akhelian phalanxes of the Deepkin, several squadrons of Drakespawn Knights and a handful of dragon-riding Dreadlords. Darkling Dreadspears and sorcerers, covens of battlemages, including several on griffons – the roster goes on. Suffice to say, such a mixed force as this has never been encountered… and it will fall to us to break them here, at Settler’s Gain.’

‘Who are they?’ a Syari artisan asked pointedly. ‘Servants of Chaos? A warhost cobbled together by servants of more than one Dark God?’

‘It would appear not,’ Raemora said, once more failing to make eye contact with those she responded to. It seemed to Thelana as though the Matriarch’s mind was deep in concentration, questioning and challenging itself to run through a thousand different strategic calculations and permutations, even as she carried on her briefing and answered the questions levied.

Before continuing, Raemora reached out a hand and made a swift sign in the air. The image contained in the spherical projection shimmered and shifted, and now they were much, much closer, on the ground, or just above it, looking at a closely packed forest of standards swaying and jouncing as the possessors marched along among the mixed ranks. The banners all bore variations of the same symbol: a strange eye-shaped sigil with two pupils, one overlapping the other.

Staring at the symbols and the variations visible in the close examination of the moving image, Thelana realised, at last, the clear significance of it: it was supposed to be a symbolic representation of an eclipse.

‘This is the banner they march beneath,’ Raemora said, now stopping in her perambulations to point directly at the ghostly images of the swaying, wind-whipped standards. ‘They bear no signs or sigils of any of the Dark Gods, or their followers. Instead, our agents and researchers believe they have uncovered that this is the sign of a long-gestating, secret order of revolutionaries. A few scattered references to banners, pennants and personal jewellery bearing this symbol – or some variation of it – have been uncovered in all eight of the Mortal Realms, in libraries, in museums, in personal collections and in the records of local magistrates and constabularies.’

Thelana shuddered. All at once, she was reminded of the pendant she had found among the last effects of Zabayus Tarn… and Palembra Edast.

‘We have very little information,’ Raemora continued, finally facing all present and addressing them directly. ‘This is what little we know. They are called the Esoteric Order of the Black Sun. They are widespread, fully integrated with a thousand distinct populations in all the Mortal Realms. They seem to have existed for some time – at least several centuries – and they operate in enviable secrecy. That they have increased their numbers so enormously to allow for a mixed force of this sort’ – she indicated the projection – ‘to so quickly gather in answer to a call to action should terrify us. All of us. For if this force is but a small part of the whole – the part nearest at hand, ready to come to Fane’s aid – then we cannot underestimate how widespread and deeply embedded their adherents might be.’

A chill seemed to have fallen over the chamber and all in it. Eyes darted about. Voices murmured. Breath faltered. Thelana could see clearly the effect that Raemora’s declaration had upon all present. Instantly, unmistakably, all in the chamber distrusted one another. Every set of eyes sought every other, their owners aiming to penetrate the secrets of their cohorts in this room and to ask themselves who among them might be in the enemy camp?

‘What do they want?’ Nendira asked, her voice low and clear in the near silence of the great chamber. Thelana knew for a fact that the High Regent already had a firm grasp of what the Black Sun wanted, but she thought it best to make sure all present knew what she already understood.

Clearly, Raemora agreed with her.

‘Based upon what little we’ve been able to glean,’ the Matriarch said, ‘from your own agents, Mistress Nendira, and from our hasty researches, it would seem that the Esoteric Order of the Black Sun is a populist, egalitarian fraternity dedicated to the destruction – or, at the very least, the capitulation – of immortal influence upon mortal affairs.’

‘The destruction of the gods?’ one of the human engineers in the Artisans’ Guild blurted in disbelief.

‘Just so,’ the Matriarch said. ‘The gods, and all who would appear – to most reasonable mortals – as godlike. That would include all daemons, all the lesser, invested deities of more obscure pantheons, and even such as the Lumineth themselves’ – she suggested the many aelven occupants of the chamber – ‘given that your inherent magical natures and unnaturally long lives make all of you, to mortal-kind, decidedly godlike.’

‘Impossible,’ one of the arbiters in Humaira’s cohort boomed. ‘That which is immortal cannot be so readily threatened or cowed by mortal passions, no matter how large their armies or webs of secret agents might be.’

‘Under normal circumstances, no,’ Raemora said with a sigh. ‘But, these are not normal circumstances, for the leader of this army’ – she waved her hand again and the image rippled and shifted, focusing now on Nerontes Fane, riding a sleek, muscular stallion at near the head of the host – ‘possesses an ancient weapon of untold power which, by first-hand account, has proven capable of destroying a god incarnate.’

Several of those present began to whisper again. Thelana could tell they were responding so because they did not want to believe what Raemora was telling them – and yet, they could not deny her honesty.

‘It is true, then?’ someone said, and Thelana could clearly hear the note of sorrow in the breathless voice.

‘It is true,’ Raemora said. ‘The Archmage Teclis – the creator and great teacher of the Lumineth, their father and forebear and the first among equals – met Nerontes Fane in battle, and was destroyed by the weapon the mage wielded against him.’

The veiled disbelief and denial and terror and sorrow that had been choked and silenced before that moment now ran through all assembled like an ill wind on a blasted heath. Nothing had changed in the chamber fundamentally, and yet Thelana could feel that everything had changed, in the hearts and minds of all those present.

Her own grief revisited her with stunning suddenness, for in her mind’s eye, she could still see Teclis withering under that enormous arcane blast from Godsbane; see him disappearing in the flash of light and heat; see smoke and blasted atoms – or so she imagined – loosed into the air as he was vaporised and ended, once and for all.

It took all her strength to keep that grief, that terror, and the waves of despair that accompanied both, locked inside herself.

‘Can we stop them at the Crumbling Coast?’ one of the Freeguild captains asked, his determination clear in his voice.

‘It is too late for that,’ Raemora said. ‘At last report – just moments before this conclave began – our spies informed us that a large fleet of mixed vessels, everything from Corsair frigates to fishing boats and freighters, had started gathering in a broad band along the coast to receive Fane’s army and ferry them from Ymetrica to Xintil. Discussions were broached regarding a naval blockade, but we could not coordinate our efforts in time.’

‘Then we should have smashed them on land!’ another shouted. ‘Crushed them before they reached the coast!’

‘Impossible,’ Raemora said, ‘and worse, risky.’

She surveyed all present, her dark, baleful gaze sweeping over every individual perched upon the tiers rising around the basin of the chamber.

‘This threat reared its foul head less than three weeks ago, and our understanding of it was slow to coalesce. Before that time, none of us even knew that such a weapon as Godsbane – the staff wielded by Nerontes Fane – existed, let alone of the existence of the Esoteric Order of the Black Sun. Clearly, these would-be revolutionaries have been seeking Godsbane – or something like it – for decades, perhaps even centuries. They have been waiting, and watching, and preparing for a day that none of them knew would come, on the off-chance that it might. That they were never exposed, never discovered before the present is a blight upon the peace-loving peoples of the Mortal Realms. But as well, the fact that these architects of mischief remained hidden, unseen, unknown for so, so long, indicates their patience and the depth of their dedication.

‘They come here, to this city, to claim a prize. What happens here will determine what is to come. If they are successful, if Settler’s Gain falls, then not only will the rest of their foul cabal see the way clear for a larger uprising, but hundreds of thousands – even millions – of frightened, frustrated, angry, undecided free peoples could flock to their banners. If those with divided hearts see a Black Sun victory, then those divided hearts will choose a side… and it may not be ours.’

‘Where is Sigmar, then?’ someone interjected. ‘What of Tyrion? Or Alarielle?’

‘They will not intercede,’ High Arbiter Humaira answered, not even allowing Raemora to do so. ‘More importantly, they cannot. This man carries a weapon that gives him the power to destroy a god. The gods, then, cannot save us. This time, we – all mortal-kind – must stand and defend them.’

‘But if he wields the power of a god–’ someone began.

‘Power or no,’ one of the Syari spellwrights broke in, ‘he is still but one man. If he can be destroyed, then his army is nothing more than an army – no stronger or more dangerous than any other. If the full might of the Tempest Lords will stand with us–’

Lord-Arcanum Petreus rose. ‘The Sacrosanct Chamber stands ready to defend Settler’s Gain,’ he said, voice booming out across the great chamber, ‘but no more than a few, swift-moving conclaves from the larger Stormhost can arrive before Fane is at our doorstep. For the time being, the one thousand Stormcasts currently garrisoned in this city are all we can count on.’

One of the duardin engineers below stood and shook his fist.

‘You’re not alone in this, manling!’ he shouted. ‘The number of my folk in this city is not small. We shall stand by you, right on the ramparts! Shoulder to shoulder!’

‘Aye,’ one of the Freeguilders added, shooting to his feet. ‘And my companies, as well. We are all Freeguilds, it’s true, and unaffiliated, but I’ve been given leave to offer our full complement – two thousand swords and spears – to support you.’

‘We thank you,’ Petreus answered, ‘and we accept you all. Any who will stand with us are welcome. But we cannot forget what is at stake in this. This city must be the first and last line of defence. We cannot simply hold it – we must strike, and strike swiftly, to smash the Order of the Black Sun and send a message, far and wide, that their blasphemies and murderous purge will not hold sway! Not anywhere in the Mortal Realms!’

Cheers rose from many of those assembled. Thelana noted that her own folk – the Lumineth – were conspicuously silent. No doubt a great many of them felt the same determination that Petreus himself did; the difference was, they would never show it. Their silent acquiescence was all the indication he would ever receive of their sympathies and loyalties.

‘Admirable,’ Raemora said, raising her arms again. ‘Admirable, indeed! But, there is still much to be done before this city will be prepared to repel a besieging force. This conclave was called, in part, to serve as a planning session – an opportunity to coordinate our separate efforts and focus our resources. Before we go further, however, there is one last matter to attend to. You all must understand who and what we stand against. To that end, we’ve summoned a survivor of a direct encounter with Nerontes Fane – and a one-time ally of his – to aid in our understanding.’

Thelana suddenly realised that Nendira, Sembaris, Kolothir and the Tempest Lord contingent were all looking to her. As they redirected their focus, so too did those directly around them. Below, Matriarch Raemora lifted her steady dark gaze to spear Thelana and isolate her in the chamber.

‘Thelana Evenfall,’ she said, and Thelana could not believe that her name was even on the legendary archmage’s lips, ‘will you come here, where I now stand, and address the conclave?’

All eyes turned towards her. The chamber was still, silent.

Thelana stood, feeling terribly exposed.

‘Grand Matriarch?’ she said.

‘Come,’ Raemora said, her hard, powerful voice suddenly softened. ‘The acoustics are better here, where I stand.’

Thelana did as she was told.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Nerontes could not sleep, despite a feeling of intense, all-pervading exhaustion. Their oceanic crossing had been smoother than anticipated, his Idoneth allies providing them with strong, easterly winds and ample protection during their transit from Ymetrica Coreward to the south-eastern corner of Xintil. During a day and a night, they had disembarked and begun their final trek across the El Doir Range towards their destination. All along their path, Nerontes had expected resistance from the Lumineth and Stormcast forces that he knew to be garrisoned at Settler’s Gain: a direct assault, an ambush, perhaps a multi-front strike, crushing them in a pincer between sea and hill country shortly after their landing.

There had been no strike, however. That could only mean one thing: they were preparing to defend the city. They knew his destination, and its relative importance. Rather than stop his march, they would make a stand and crush him on a broader stage, as he attempted to breach the city and claim it as his own.

Deep down, he had expected such a response. He simply thought he might get lucky and draw them into the open. All it took was a single lord marshal or field commander too impatient to sit and wait for them to come to the threshold.

If they broke camp with the dawn and marched hard through the day, they would arrive at Settler’s Gain just as the Hyshian sun waned the following evening. Then…

Then, the battle would truly begin.

His sleep patterns had begun to be disrupted long before the present. In truth, he hadn’t slept well since before their arrival and entrenchment at Kel Tallis. Part of him thought it might simply be nerves, or anticipation of the hard struggles ahead. Another part of him thought it was simply a function of his position of leadership now: the weight of the crown often robbed one of the comforts of the pillow. He might not be a king or war duke or the ruler of a people, as history reckoned it, but he was a leader. A leader of significant power and influence. His army depended upon both his example and his judgement. Everything that happened now was fraught with significance and meaning; every action, every decision, had enormous consequences.

And, so, sleeplessness…

Fane rose from his camp bed and crossed his tent, to where Godsbane waited for him. It remained enchanted, a spell upon it to alert him if any hand touched it but his own. He had eschewed the complex invisible vault spell that he’d left upon it in Kel Tallis because it now seemed pointless. Those he marched with were his followers, his cohorts: there would be no more attempts to send sneak-thieves into his midst to spirit the staff away from him. All he needed to be on the lookout for now were betrayers and usurpers.

Those who would try to claim his destiny as their own.

The staff felt good in his hands: solid, real, consequential. Its simplicity of design was always a source of comfort and pride for him. It seemed to embody the notion that true power need not announce or inveigle itself; it simply was. The world was full of wizards – and wizards’ baubles – that wore their power and their purpose as vulgar outward displays. Godsbane, he felt, mirrored his own feelings about such vulgarity. One should make no attempt to look like one fulfilled a certain role, or met the expectations of one’s supporters or detractors: one should simply be, and the rest would see to itself.

That is what I lack, at this particular moment, he thought. Comfort. Closeness. The presence of a mind and heart that is equal to my own – open to my own – not a subordinate, a pretender or a challenger.

I need my companion.

I need Castigus.

They’d taken to dwelling in separate quarters, apart, in Kel Tallis. At first it had only been a matter of convenience – Nerontes would often sleep at odd hours, spending long spans intervening exploring Godsbane’s mysteries and full range of power. Once he had named Castigus, formally, as his marshal, it had become necessary for his old friend to keep a tent of his own, so that he could meet with unit heads and incoming volunteers as the hour demanded, and keep Nerontes blessedly separate from the day-to-day logistics of commanding and moving an army.

Now, though, more than ever, Nerontes needed Castigus to make him feel grounded again, human again; to remind him that lofty goals and world-altering crusades aside, he was also a man, who needed things like food and sleep and the comfort of one who knew his true heart, who was willing to listen to all the worries and doubts that weighed upon him.

And so, he left his pavilion and ventured into the cool, clear night. A walk in the Hyshian twilight would do him good… and he would make sure that his path bent towards Castigus’ tent.

A chill breeze blew from the east, making the standards and pennants of all who marched with him flap ghostlike in the twilit Hyshian night. A few cookfires still burned here and there, but by and large the camp was asleep. Only the guards at their posts around the ragged perimeter and some of the beasts of burden were yet wakeful and stirring. Here and there, he saw men or women playing late-night card games or rolling dice, or even sitting alone by lamps or crackling fires, trying to read from a favourite quarto or scroll. For the most part, though, the vast, rambling camp was still and silent: his followers, it appeared, having none of the issues with restful sleep that he himself had developed.

Nerontes ambled on, Godsbane acting as little more than a walking stick, giving him something heavy and solid to lean on, to hold to, as his mind wandered and his heart made war with itself. He knew that his purpose was true, and clear. He held no doubts as to the fitness or the efficacy of his cause. He simply wished that he could find some measure of peace within himself; some sense that all would work out as it must, so long as he held true to his principles and his hopes for the future. He desperately wanted to give these men and women who had pledged their lives to him – his followers, the believers in his cause and the cause of the Black Sun – a reason to hope, a reason to invest in him. He desperately wanted to help them change the world – forever – so that they would finally know their worth, their place in the universe, and their incalculable value to it. In his quiet, lonely hours in his pavilion at night, that was what he prayed for, the truth he sought.

To whom did he pray? He could not say. He only knew that someone – something – was in the dark, in the silence, listening to him. Whatever it might be, he could not secure his victory without it.

Up ahead, between a long line of hastily erected camp tents and snoring Freeguilders wrapped in their bedrolls, he saw Castigus’ tent, plain and barely remarkable, save for the special, rank-bearing standard that stood just outside its entrance. No one seemed to be about – no bodyguard, no sentinel – which gave Nerontes a great sense of relief. He had no desire to interrupt the business of their ersatz army, nor to compromise Castigus’ power or authority in the eyes of his peers and subordinates. The realisation that no one seemed to be around suggested that, perhaps, Castigus was currently enjoying the weary sleep that so eluded Nerontes. This moved Nerontes to pause and second-guess his whole purpose for coming there. Was Castigus himself not entitled to a good night’s sleep, even if his commander could not manage it? Would it not be presumptuous of him, even a little cruel, to interrupt that simply to assuage his own loneliness, to seek a balm for his own troubled, isolated soul?

Go, he thought. Leave him in peace.

But what of my peace? My need? Am I not human? Am I not entitled to a good night’s sleep and the comfort of a dear friend’s company and sympathetic ear?

He would just look in on him, for a moment. If Castigus slept, so be it: he would not wake him. He only wanted to be alone with him, even if it was simply to watch him sleep for a few moments before silently creeping away.

So, he approached, suddenly filled with a sense of relief, of quiet anticipation: seeing Castigus, possibly speaking with him, sharing his most intimate thoughts, fears and doubts with him, was always a sure way to straighten out his mind and align his body and spirit. With luck, the soporific effect of his friend’s faith and good sense would have him dreaming and at rest in no time.

Nearer the tent, Nerontes noticed something odd. In the small space where the lower seam of the great shelter brushed along the bare ground they had camped upon, he saw a faint lambent glow, dim and choked, but unmistakable. It was a bright, brilliant cerulean, as though something inside Castigus’ tent were emitting an undulating, unearthly light. There were no lamps or candles that would cast a glow like that. The light he now saw was magical in origin. It had to be.

A slumber-lamp, perhaps, Nerontes thought. Some bauble given to Castigus by one of his officers or supporters. Perhaps that was what gave him such good, uninterrupted sleep? If that were the case, Nerontes intended to borrow the item and avail himself of its effects.

The light puzzled him, piqued his curiosity, but in the moment it did not truly worry him. It was simply a curious detail; minor trivia that pricked at his imagination.

Therefore, Nerontes moved to the tent’s entryway and gently lifted the flap. Within, there was a small dark space – a double door, of sorts, one flap opening to the outside, another hanging before the inner chamber of the pavilion. It was a dust trap – no more, no less – but it forced Nerontes to pause momentarily in the darkness, between exterior and interior, before pressing on. In that darkness, the cerulean glow beneath the canvas surrounding him was stronger, clearer. He now heard voices, as well.

One voice was that of Castigus, speaking in low, hushed whispers.

The other voice was not one that he recognised… and it did not sound human.

‘…still waiting,’ the inhuman voice croaked, sounding rather impatient.

‘The timing is all,’ Castigus answered. ‘If I try to reveal the truth to him too soon–’

‘You shall be at the gates of Settler’s Gain tomorrow!’ the other snapped. ‘I suggest you fulfil your oath, Castigus, and petition your leader forthwith! If he will not willingly enter an alliance with us–’

What treachery is this?

Nerontes could not help himself. In a sudden blind fury he threw back the inner flap and stepped into Castigus’ private tent. What he saw caused his innards to drop into a pit in the centre of him, as though he’d suddenly stepped off a high precipice into a bottomless abyss.

There knelt Castigus, on a large carpet rolled out upon the otherwise-bare ground. Before him was a large magical projection – not unlike the image created by a Spectralith – of the creature he spoke to now at a distance.

The other speaker was not human at all: it had the diabolical avian features of a Tzaangor shaman.

A Disciple of Tzeentch!

‘No,’ Nerontes breathed.

Castigus leapt to his feet and spun around. The Tzaangor in the ghostly projection peered into the dark, trying to see what lay beyond the borders of their communication spell and failing.

Castigus’ face was ashen white. ‘Oh no,’ he muttered, and Nerontes thought he heard real despair – true, heartbroken loss – in the pronouncement.

‘Castigus!’ the Tzaangor snarled. ‘Castigus, you fool! What’s happening?’

Castigus lashed out with one foot, knocking over the assembly of larger gem and iron support that he had arranged to create the speaking spell connecting him to that foul, vulture-faced sorcerer and minion of Chaos. Instantly, the projection sputtered and disappeared, leaving the interior of the tent dark and shrouded in shadows, save for the dim, golden light of a pair of oil lamps.

‘Castigus?’ Nerontes managed.

‘Listen to me,’ Castigus sputtered, ‘Just, please, listen–’

Nerontes shook his head and raised his voice.

‘Guards!’ he cried. ‘Guards, here, now! To me!’

His alarm woke the entire camp. Castigus was seized by the first sentries to hear Nerontes’ cries, and those arriving late were sent forth to summon the company captains and the wing leaders of the separate, distinct elements of the warhost. In short order, Nerontes found himself at the centre of an enormous, hasty gathering of soldiers and officers, sorcerers and magisters. The officers elbowed their way to the head and stood close nearby, while the rank and file were forced to jounce and shove one another for a better view of what unfolded.

There stood Nerontes, the fabled Godsbane in his hands. Held before him, on his knees, flanked by armed sentries, was Castigus, humbled and humiliated before all of those he had been commanding only hours before.

More than once, one officer or another approached Nerontes and asked him to conduct his enquiry somewhere apart, away from all who could hear or see. Let them listen to Castigus’ explanation; let them gather facts and make a decision, away from prying eyes. The men and women who fought for him did not need to see this.

It all sounded reasonable to Nerontes – preferable, even. And yet… something in him refused to accept it.

If we meet in secret, we make decisions as masters, as a chosen cabal, instead of an army of equals, each with a distinct function and role to play. If I start gathering secrets now, allowing power pyramids to form, I shall never get it under control again.

No, this is a matter of justice: it will be undertaken under the watchful eyes of all present.

The gathering was huge, and Nerontes knew more were still trailing in, the word still spreading through the camp like wildfire. But he could wait no longer. Decisions had to be made. Secrets had to be aired.

‘Who was he?’ he asked Castigus.

Castigus, mouth bleeding from where one of the guards had rapped him in the process of subduing him, shook his head.

‘Nerontes,’ he said quietly, ‘I beg you… let us talk about this alone, in private.’

‘There is no privacy here!’ Nerontes roared, surprised even at his own fury. ‘All who have gathered here gathered for a purpose, to further a cause! To risk their lives in the service of an idea larger than themselves! If there are traitors in their midst – at the apex of power – they must all see those traitors exposed and hear, first-hand, of their misdeeds! Now, tell me who he was!’

One of the Freeguild captains stepped nearer. ‘Fane, please–’

Nerontes addressed all present, ignoring the captain entirely.

‘I found this man,’ he said, suggesting Castigus, ‘this long-time friend of mine, this ally and trusted confidant, holding commerce with a Tzaangor sorcerer! One of the foul, twisted Disciples of Tzeentch! In his tent, alone, away from all prying eyes!’

A ripple of muttered words moved rapidly through all gathered.

‘Nerontes, please,’ Castigus pleaded quietly, ‘they want to help us.’

Nerontes leaned closer. ‘What did you say?’

Castigus shouted his reply. Now, he too wanted to be sure everyone present heard him.

‘They want to help us!’ he roared. ‘They will fight beside us! They will help us shatter the walls of Settler’s Gain so long as we agree to give them access to the magical armouries! They ask no more than that!’

Murmurs and whispers ran through the crowd on all sides. Some could not believe their ears – Nerontes heard it in their words. Others were less reticent: no doubt, they spoke with desire, with acceptance. Why not welcome the Disciples of Tzeentch? The enemy of one’s enemy was a friend, after all.

Nerontes shook his head, barely capable of staring at his old friend.

‘How long?’ he asked.

Castigus shook his head. ‘I’m no Arcanite! I’m no disciple of the Changer of Ways! They simply approached me as a liaison, to help you understand–’

Nerontes reached out, one fist closing on Castigus’ tunic and shaking him violently.

‘How long?’ he roared.

‘Since the battle in Kel Tallis!’ Castigus answered.

Most of those close by, within earshot, heard his response. There were more than a few audible gasps. Nerontes himself was stunned to silence. He stared at Castigus for an interminable period, unable to summon words, to make sense of what he was hearing.

‘Since the battle…’ he repeated.

Castigus was in tears now, nodding feverishly. ‘You were so determined to march on, to lay siege to Settler’s Gain, and our numbers were so few… I had no idea who would support us, or how many…’

‘You sold us to the servants of the Great Schemer!’ Nerontes snarled. ‘To the foul, twisted minions of the Architect of Fate! Why?’

Castigus drew breath, seeking the right words.

‘We were alone, Nerontes… alone against an entire realm – against all the realms! We needed allies!’

‘Not those allies!’ Nerontes roared in answer, and threw Castigus back to the dusty earth. He turned then and found himself pacing, back and forth, back and forth, like a caged Ghurian sabretooth awaiting its evening ration of bloody meat. All around him, he still heard murmurs, dissent, doubts and fears given voice.

It was one of the duardin artillery commanders who stepped forward and spoke first.

‘Manling,’ the stout gunner said, ‘I have no love for the servants of Chaos. But I think your lord marshal may have the right of this.’

Nerontes turned on the gunner, staring, barely believing his ears. ‘The right of it?’

The duardin nodded. His gaze never wavered. There was no fear in him.

‘We are outnumbered,’ he said, ‘and the defenders have the advantage. If we’re to breach those walls, the magic of the Changer of Ways may be an important weapon in our arsenal–’

‘Are you mad?’ one of the Freeguild captains blurted.

‘No, he is not,’ one of the Akhelian Wardens of the Idoneth host snapped. ‘We’ve assembled a massive force here, but added strength is never to be refused.’

‘Save when it is offered by the untrustworthy,’ a Darkling sorceress answered. ‘Tzeentch is incarnate treachery and untrustworthiness. We cannot consider this. It is pure folly.’

‘We must consider everything,’ one of the Freeguild knights spat back. ‘Every alliance. Every advantage.’

Nerontes could see the conflict and disunity among his captains and generals. Worse, he could see it working its way through all present in the ranks. Already, heated discussions were underway farther back in the crowd, men of the same company suddenly turning against one another, barking and arguing and snapping like hounds.

This cannot be, Nerontes thought. They cannot be allowed to devolve to rivalries and factions.

‘Very well, then,’ Nerontes said loudly, addressing all his commanders present. ‘Let us weigh all possibilities, without judgement. Who among you believes that an alliance might be forged with the Disciples of Tzeentch? That accepting their aid could help us attain victory?’

No one responded immediately. There was a great deal of glancing and sizing-up and silent consideration. Finally, a few of the generals stepped forward – five in all. Following their volunteering of sympathies, a number of the company commanders joined them. Already, many of the men and women in the ranks were shouting, cursing, cheering and exhorting. It seemed that all present were handily divided, some believing that such an alliance – however dangerous – could gain them a decisive victory, while many more saw the inherent dangers and pronounced the entire undertaking as madness.

‘We mean no disrespect,’ one of the Freeguild captains said, meeting Nerontes’ burning gaze. ‘We suggest only that we consider what the twisted folk offer. Consider, mind you. There is no reason to welcome them with open arms.’

‘We would be fools to refuse them,’ the Idoneth Warden added. ‘We can set traps of our own, to protect ourselves.’

‘He is your oldest friend,’ one of the cavalry generals said, eyes pleading as he suggested Castigus, still held prisoner before all their wondering eyes. ‘You’ve said it yourself a hundred times, my lord. If you trust him, why not listen to him?’

Nerontes considered their words. The logic of them. The sense in them. He turned and ambled about, studying the faces of all the men and women surrounding them, watching, waiting for a resolution. A hundred-thousand thoughts and contingencies whirled and tumbled through his fevered mind, optimism and pessimism at war in equal measure.

I am responsible for all of these people, he thought. Their lives are in my hands. I must do what is right for all of them, not only for my own pride…

But do they not look to me to lead? To make decisions? To guide them? Destiny chose me, not them. Godsbane is in my hands, not theirs.

He looked to Castigus. His old friend stared back, frightened and humiliated, clearly begging him with his eyes not only for mercy, but also for good sense and understanding.

The Lord of Change would be a powerful ally, Nerontes thought. And that, at last, was what pointed the way to the only resolution possible.

He looked to the armed sentries and soldiers nearby.

‘Seize them,’ he said quietly, indicating those who had stepped forward to plead Castigus’ case.

The officers protested, but it mattered little. The soldiers did as ordered, with relish, rushing forward and surrounding the dozen officers who had tried to argue in favour of Castigus’ suggested alliance. Curses were hurled, rebukes cast, but none of them escaped once the soldiers had them, and wrestled them away from the edge of the circle and into its centre. There, they were all disarmed – some with bloody force – and made to kneel or fall on their faces, just like Castigus.

Some of the rank and file protested, begging mercy or crying about injustice. Nerontes would do nothing to them, so long as they made no move to defend the treacherous officers. He could hear the exhortations and cheers of his supporters, after all. Words of affirmation and support rose up from the enormous throng surrounding him, and they were far louder, far more supportive, than any dissenters.

‘I charge you all,’ he said, ‘with treason.’

A few tried to argue. The rest were dumbstruck.

‘For a thousand years, the Esoteric Order of the Black Sun has cultivated its edicts, its ethos, its purpose, in secrecy. For a thousand years, this fraternity has remained hidden, and thrived in the darkness, away from the prying eyes of those who are not sympathetic to our cause, who cannot understand its import.’

Cheers. Words of support. Nerontes addressed the prisoners, but his voice rose, carrying to all present.

‘We seek an end to immortal dominion over mortal lives,’ he said slowly. ‘We seek an end to gods walking amongst men, and men walking in the shadow of gods. All gods! Any gods! If we would accept an alliance with any of the immortals we ultimately seek to displace, we would make ourselves slaves and hypocrites!’

The throng raised a massive cheer that shook the night.

Castigus’ eyes were wide, wild. ‘Nerontes, listen to reason,’ he begged.

‘What reason?’ Nerontes asked. ‘You only speak madness.’

Castigus shook his head. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said, ‘the Changer of Ways – this has been his fight from the start, his plan. We owe our reinforcements to him! He made smooth the ways, affected all probable outcomes, gave aid in the subtlest and smallest of ways–’

Nerontes felt something within him tie itself in a knot.

‘I beg you, Castigus,’ he said quietly, so that his old friend alone could hear him, ‘say no more–’

‘His plan!’ Castigus stammered. ‘His machinations! Ultimately, his ends! We are not in command of this movement, Nerontes – we never were! If you will just–’

Nerontes had heard enough. He raised his voice so all could hear.

‘There will be no alliance with Chaos,’ Nerontes declared. ‘No alliance with Order and Light! No alliance with Death! We will gather, and charge, and make war as free peoples – mortal peoples, whose lives are brief and mean and circumscribed!

‘And if we cannot attain victory on those terms, we will not have it!’

Castigus was in tears. ‘Nerontes, please–’

‘You are guilty of treason,’ Nerontes barrelled on. ‘All of you! And the sentence is death!’

Godsbane gave him the power necessary. Fiery death burst forth from his open hand. In seconds, the traitors were all in flames, screaming, writhing and thrashing upon the open ground. The mob cheered and exulted in their slow, agonising ends. They bade their former comrades bitter farewells as the traitors twisted and collapsed in smoking heaps, skin burnt black, blood boiling.

And all the while, they chanted a name.

Nerontes Fane. Nerontes Fane. Nerontes Fane.

Nerontes did not turn to acknowledge them. Instead, he kept his eyes upon the traitors – upon Castigus – waiting for the betrayers to slowly, painfully succumb to the flames.

Castigus held on for a long, long while. More than once, Nerontes considered ending his suffering with a word: a spell to stop his heart; a cantrip to slide him into unconsciousness as a prelude to death. But no matter how forcefully his heart bade mercy, his intellect knew it would be foolish to offer it.

And so, his true love burned, and Nerontes bore witness to every terrible, agonising moment.

Sespyra watched from the roof of her inn as a triptych of enormous catapult-hurled incendiaries swooped down in flashing arcs over the curtain walls and pulverised a mass of homes and hostels nearer the southern gate. Great roiling clouds of fire and smoke enveloped whole blocks at once as they rose into the sky. Though she was too far from the site of impact to truly hear or see anything, she imagined she could make out the screams of those unlucky enough to survive the strike, now scurrying about in flames, begging for a merciful end, floundering about in the sandy streets, hoping to extinguish themselves. A fusillade of cannon fire answered the incoming barrage from the south wall of the city, and the air above the battlefield was filled with swirling smoke.

‘Folly,’ the fat merchant beside her sputtered, and guzzled down a cupful of wine held in shaking hands. ‘Absolute folly! I never should have come here.’

Sespyra slowly sipped the sour duardin ale in her hand. Folly, indeed. She should have left the city when she had the opportunity. Upon their return to Settler’s Gain six days ago, she and Thelana Evenfall had been held in soft custody for a day and a night. In the end, Thelana was retained, and Sespyra set free, given a small bag of mixed realmstone for use as currency, and urged along with an implicit message from the city’s High Magistrate: her continued presence in the city would be taken as an ill omen, and her freedom would not be assured.

I should have run then, she thought ruefully, but it was not her fault. The realmstone fragments given to her had not been sufficient to purchase passage out of the city with any of the sky-frigates or caravans fleeing ahead of the coming siege – although she thought her lineage and religious proclivities more responsible for the many refusals she received than the stone she had to trade. And so, here she was, trapped, and a deadly, escalating siege underway.

She simply wanted to be away from this place, to put it and all her affairs with Thelana Evenfall behind her so that…

So that what? What awaited her out in the world? In another realm? Here, now, she could be fighting with the city’s defence forces. She could stroll right up to the city gates and offer her skills with a blade to the first Freeguild commander or Stormcast adjutant she encountered. Then, she need only wait for a sortie from the walls into the thick of their besieging enemies. How many lives could she claim for Khaine if she took to the field? How glorious might her death be if it came in battle, for a purpose, instead of as the prisoner of Morathi and her sycophants?

But strangely, she had no desire to do so. This was not her fight, not her war. Fate had put her in Thelana Evenfall’s path and she had followed where she thought fate bade her go… but that had proven a dead end, hadn’t it? How close had they come to dying at the ruins of Kel Tallis? Too close, so far as she surmised. She did not fear death in and of itself, but she most certainly disdained a pointless death, for no higher cause.

And, she thought, I failed to snatch Godsbane when I had the opportunity. How easy might it have been to simply take it, and stun that Lumineth fool with a hard blow, and be on my way? I could have left her for Fane and fled the city before he’d even discovered her in the empty vault in the temple. I was foolish to aid the white witch. I gained nothing from it, aside from a bit of realmstone that might help me buy better accommodations once I leave this place.

I will not make that mistake again.

Now, there was only the immediate future. She had to wait out this siege, hope against hope that the defenders held the city and smashed Fane’s ragtag army of partisans and revolutionaries. If she managed that – simply surviving to see the end of hostilities, even if that meant a Black Sun victory – she guessed that she could find a way to slip out of the city and be on her way. More than once, she’d considered trying to find an escape route – a sewer emptying into a river, perhaps, or some long-hidden tunnel placed by the ancient architects who built this place. Certainly, with a little casting and scrying, she could tease something out…

But no. The Lumineth were cunning, and so were Fane’s soldiers. Given her fortune of late, she’d either be snagged in some ancient Lumineth booby trap, or run afoul of Black Sun operatives trying to find their way into the city.

All of her options were dismal. All she could do, then, was wait, and keep her eyes open for an opportunity.

‘You’re not Lumineth,’ the fat merchant said suddenly.

Sespyra turned towards him. There were only a handful of guests in this particular inn – most of them traders trapped in the city when the siege had begun. They were safe here, more or less: nearer the low city’s centre, far from the walls and stray artillery or the reach of siege engines. When she’d come to the roof, early that morning, to watch the day’s hostilities unfold, she had found this overfed, overanxious fool already here, breaking his fast and swilling wine before the Hyshian twilight had even given way to the light of morning. Now, they’d been here for hours, watching, waiting, pacing, sighing… but never sharing words.

Not until now.

‘No,’ Sespyra said quietly. ‘I am not Lumineth.’

He poured more wine from his flagon – which now came up empty. Muttering to himself, the merchant hurried to the brass bell hanging near the door that led to the roof and clanged it several times.

‘Girl!’ he cried down the stairwell. ‘More wine!’

Sespyra sipped her ale again. Good. Let him be busied with something else. She did not feel like making idle chit-chat.

‘You’re one of the murder aelves,’ the merchant said, swilling down the dregs of his wine. ‘A Khaine worshipper, isn’t that right?’

Sespyra turned slowly to assess the round little man. She could not believe he even had the wherewithal to speak to her, let alone ask her questions.

‘I am a Daughter of Khaine,’ Sespyra finally said.

A roar filled the sky, drawing both their gazes from one another to a span of the city’s curtain wall a mile from where they stood. A great broad volley of incendiaries came rocketing in from the field, streaking over the battlements and slamming hard into the tight labyrinthine Duardin Quarter a short distance ahead and to the left of the inn. The shallow arcs of the missiles made their landings all the more devastating, for they did not fall: they scudded and dragged. In their impacts, they tore through the Duardin Quarter, crossed the nearest major boulevard, and kept sowing fire and smoke in their destructive wakes, leaving a vast swathe of destruction and immolation behind them. Black smoke swirled into the sky in rippling sheets, obscuring a large part of their view of the curtain wall to the south-east.

Sespyra could feel the merchant’s eyes upon her again. She slowly turned to meet his panicked gaze.

‘You’re a killer,’ he said quietly, the words catching in his throat. ‘An assassin?’

Sespyra’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think,’ the fat man said, ‘that I could pay you to get me out of this city. Safely. In one piece. I don’t even care where we go once we’re away – I just want to be away.’

Under normal circumstances, Sespyra would have laughed in the fellow’s face, or simply turned and walked away. Under certain circumstances, she might even have considered his offer. But at present, there was no way for her to accept. Getting herself away from this place, safe and alive, would be trial enough; trying to do so with his overfed, cowardly frame in tow would be nigh impossible.

She leant closer to him, knowing that doing so would intimidate him. She was not wrong.

‘You could not afford me,’ she said, then drained her cup and strode away from the rooftop garden. Without looking back, she thumped down the narrow stairwell to the second floor and traversed the short low-ceilinged passage that led to her door.

The room was as she’d left it – shutters closed, air still. The smell of smoke and sulphur wafted in from outside. It made her edgy, frenzied, filling her with the first stirrings of bloodlust. She was tired of hiding. Khaine help her, she was actually considering marching to the city gates, volunteering. She needed to kill something. She needed to feel the reassuring warmth and slickness of fresh blood on her pale skin…

Her nose suddenly caught a new scent, just beneath the pungent stench of the warfires and gunsmoke. For a moment, Sespyra thought it was perfume, then realised it was too subtle. Not perfume, then… perhaps the faint, latent traces of it?

No. Not perfume. Incense.

The spicy, smoky incense favoured in Khailebron blood rites.

She spun, a sciansá dagger in each hand. She could not believe she had not seen the witch aelf hunkering in the chair in the darkest corner of the room.

She did not move when Sespyra rounded on her, knives out. She barely blinked. She remained in her chair, knees drawn up, arms encircling her folded, pale legs, flashing sciansá daggers hanging lazily from her crossed hands. For a moment, Sespyra thought that her time was finally up – Morathi’s servants had found her! This single witch aelf would not be alone, surely. If she was here, in the rented room, others must be waiting – just outside, in some adjacent room, even in a building nearby – ready to leap through the windows or dive down from a neighbouring roof.

Then, her momentary, all-encompassing panic subsided, for she realised this was no stranger at all.

‘Miserine?’

The witch aelf in the chair, Miserine, smiled. ‘You look horrible,’ she said.

Sespyra sheathed her blades. Miserine sheathed her own and stretched expansively, reclining in the chair as though she might take a nap in it. It occurred to Sespyra that this, too, could be a trap – that Miserine, being a fellow conspirator in the plot against Morathi, might have made a deal of her own with the Shadow Queen.

But it hardly seemed possible, did it? They were sisters in every way but by blood itself. They had been raised together in the Khailebron temple, trained side by side, driven one another to more fanatical and bloodthirsty heights; even comforted one another in more than one seemingly hopeless cornering by the gods of death. And always – always – they had escaped to slay another day.

Nonetheless, Sespyra would remain cautious.

‘How did you find me?’

Miserine cocked her head. ‘Endless scrying and trances, temple sister. It was no easy feat.’ She paused for a moment, as if considering a question that had not been asked. ‘Good instincts, by the way. What gave me away? Heartbeat? Breathing?’

Sespyra felt one eyebrow arch.

‘Incense,’ she said.

‘I haven’t burned incense for weeks,’ Miserine countered.

‘It’s in your flesh,’ Sespyra said. ‘Any creature with sufficiently attuned senses would have noted it.’

‘Well,’ Miserine said, shrugging, ‘I suppose this is new territory, trying to surprise one of our own.’

Sespyra tensed. Her hands hovered ever so slightly towards her daggers.

‘Easy, sister,’ Miserine purred. ‘I come with glad tidings, not thirsty blades.’

‘What tidings?’ Sespyra asked.

‘We’ve reconvened,’ Miserine said, leaning forward now. ‘The Coven.’

That was the only name their little conspiracy had ever borne: the Coven. Each of them knew what was implied if the word was spoken aloud, and yet it remained so banal and ordinary a descriptor that any unwanted listeners might never tease out its true meaning.

‘Everyone?’

Miserine shook her head. ‘Nyphias and her ilk were all rounded up, interrogated and flayed. We have no way of knowing if any of us were exposed, or how many. But… after months on the run, a few of us managed to seek each other out and find a new hiding place, somewhere to hatch plans from.’

Sespyra raised her chin.

‘Then there is still a plan?’

Miserine nodded. ‘Oh, yes. Our exposure forced us to scatter, but we remain dedicated… no matter that our worst fears have now been realised.’

‘Worst fears?’ Sespyra asked.

Miserine’s brows rose. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t have heard, would you? Morathi’s aspirations are aspirations no longer. She attained her godhood – proclaimed herself a living incarnation of Khaine.’

Sespyra could barely believe her ears. ‘No…’

Miserine nodded gravely. ‘Afraid so, sister. It changes nothing, so far as we’re concerned – it simply makes our ultimate task more, uh, complicated.’

Morathi, the incarnation of Khaine… ascended! A goddess! And I know where a weapon capable of slaying a goddess waits…

Miserine’s words had driven a dagger through Sespyra’s cold, murder-hardened heart. But the simple knowledge that Godsbane existed – that it was out there, in the world, ready for the taking…

Was that hope she now felt? Did she dare hope?

‘So,’ she said, ‘you’ve come to call me home – our new home, at any rate?’

Miserine nodded and stood. ‘Elegba, Celestine, Haitha and I – four. We’re confident we can find at least a few others and bring them back to the fold.’

‘And how long may we remain in this new place, safe and hidden? Surely not long?’

Miserine shrugged. ‘Perhaps not. But we’re a coven again – a sisterhood – and our pact endures, bound by our blood. Morathi’s ascension simply means that we were right all along – that the course we plotted was the right one. Now, we simply have to plot a new course – however treacherous – to the same ultimate destination.’

‘And what if I said I did not trust you?’ Sespyra asked. Miserine seemed unsurprised.

‘I would think you a fool to be overly trusting,’ she said. ‘I’ve come here to offer guidance, not to drag you off if you are not so inclined.’ She reached into a pouch at her belt and produced a small crystal shard. It was shadowstone, the realmstone of their home in Ulgu, and Sespyra could see, simply with a glance, that there were colours and small specks of light swirling lazily within its faceted recesses. Miserine tossed her the shard.

Sespyra knew what it was without any explanation: a shade map – a living cartograph that would guide her, in stages, towards the place where her sisters waited.

‘Now you know where to find us,’ Miserine said, ‘and I know where to find you.’

‘Is this your promise of safety and good intent?’ Sespyra asked with a smirk.

‘We could betray you,’ Miserine said, ‘or you could betray us. I suspect, however, that you know I speak true, and that I intend no harm. We still have bloody work to do, sister. I intend to do it.’

Sespyra stared at the shade map.

‘How long will it take me?’

‘It may take you some time,’ Miserine said. ‘How fast you can reach an open realmgate will be the first determiner. But there is no rush. We shall abide. We’ll keep the rites of Khaine. And we’ll plan. Someday, sister – someday, Morathi will fall, and it shall be by our hands.’

Sespyra was struggling to keep her eagerness, her optimism, bound. Part of her knew she should remain wary, but her mind and heart rushed ahead of that weak, warbling piece of her. Her sisters, together! Waiting for her! Their work was not yet done! Their plans for Morathi not yet exhausted!

And how glorious would it be, she suddenly thought, if I could return to them with the perfect weapon in our arsenal?

No. Impossible. Too many obstacles stood between her and Godsbane now. To imagine she could still claim it and flee with it was, surely, beyond consideration.

Wasn’t it?

‘Where have you gone?’ Miserine asked. ‘I know that faraway look in your eyes, sister.’

Sespyra did not answer her. Her mind was awhirl now, full of plots and machinations.

‘Sister,’ Miserine said. ‘Speak to me.’

‘What if I said I have a weapon?’ Sespyra asked. ‘A weapon to use against the Night Queen?’

Miserine lowered her chin. ‘I’m listening.’

‘Well,’ Sespyra hissed. ‘I do not have it… but I know where it is, and I believe I could retrieve it, given an opportunity.’

‘Well, then,’ Miserine said slowly, ‘I would say do not return to us without this weapon you speak of. To see the way to our salvation, and to fail to do all that you may to assure it… that is tantamount to betrayal.’

Miserine was not making an idle threat, simply making it known that they needed every advantage available to them – even those that some might deem nigh impossible to seize.

‘Go, then,’ Sespyra said. ‘If I can claim it, I’ll come to you.’

‘And if you cannot?’ Miserine asked.

‘Then you’ll never see me again, sister, for I’ll be too ashamed to show my face before you.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It was no easy task to gather the remaining Kharadron Arkanauts in Settler’s Gain. Several vessels had fled the city ahead of the coming conflagration. The few remaining – risking a late departure, barely ahead of the approaching army and the siege they promised to set in place – did so because they were trying to take on paying passengers or freight commissions from desperate merchants seeking to evacuate. According to Spento – who himself had fled the sky-dock just a day earlier – only five sky-ships would remain after the one he’d booked passage on was away from the city.

Five, plus the Aemick’s Blade, was hardly a fleet, but Wodrik had little choice. He had to work with what he had.

Grikara and Helegrin accompanied him to the appointed warehouse in the heart of the sky-dock complex. Brannit and Moddek had been left back on the ship, for the sake of security. In truth, Wodrik knew not what to expect from the Kharadron he was about to treat with. The proposition he hoped to present them with was foolish, indeed – perhaps wantonly suicidal. Given the part they’d played in supporting the assault on Kel Tallis, and the assistance they’d rendered to the Lord-Exorcist Malkeus in helping to evacuate wounded Lumineth and Stormcasts, they’d been exonerated of wrongdoing and handsomely rewarded for their efforts. At this point, they were free to leave the city. Perhaps Wodrik could no longer dream of snatching that blasted wizard’s staff as a prize for his people, but what of that? He had proved himself useful. Worthy.

Why, then, was he now contemplating further entanglement?

Because there was glory in it? Perhaps. Because it was the right thing to do, and he was in a position to do it? That, he supposed, was closer to the truth.

When he’d shared what he was contemplating with Grikara, the old navigator had surprised him by instantly embracing the idea.

‘There’s a good death, indeed,’ she’d said with no small relish.

Three of the other captains brought only a single member of their crew along for the parley, while two had entire coteries. Einara Bendbar – a middle-aged duardin female with a swaggering young male navigator – had a veritable entourage of Grundstok Thunderers at her beck.

The first words of insult spat from Kommbri Galeheart, an old, leather-skinned captain who’d long ago replaced a missing right eye with a pocket-sized aetherscope.

‘What’s this?’ he snarled, scowling as Wodrik entered. ‘Who called this piece of offal to our solemn gathering?’

‘I did,’ Wodrik answered, never breaking stride. ‘This piece of offal called the solemn gathering in the first place.’

‘What’s your objection, Kommbri?’ Tumuera Windscream asked. She had a ship of her own but looked young beside the other, more seasoned captains gathered. She also seemed to be the only one who did not immediately recognise Wodrik and find him wanting. ‘He’s Kharadron, isn’t he? What makes him unworthy of your foul company?’

A few of those present chuckled. Kommbri was quick to educate the younger captain.

‘This is Wodrik Thunderall,’ he said, levelling an accusing finger. ‘Maybe you haven’t heard in Barak-Zilfin, but among those of us from Barak-Thryng, he is notorious… and shunned. He lost crew to folly because he failed to keep the Code–’

‘Aye, we know him well by reputation,’ said Djubbek Starborne, a dark-skinned duardin whose drawling accent marked him as a son of Barak-Zhoff. ‘This scavenger came to me not long ago begging to buy fuel at a fraction of its prevailing cost, like a beggar at the door!’

‘Oh, he’s come to all of us,’ Einara Bendbar said from the far side of the gathering. ‘And we all sent him scurrying away, empty-handed. What now, dog? You’ve come back to beg?’

The captains chuckled amongst themselves. Only that younger female – Captain Tumuera, from Barak-Zilfin – failed to join in their japes. Wodrik realised it was because she was a late arrival: he’d never seen her before, nor had she been among those he’d begged for fuel. In truth, the only thing that saved him from ignominy now, coming before this group to beg their aid and understanding, was the fact that he’d engineered the theft of aether-gold that belonged to none of them, but instead to a cartel of Lumineth bankers – a precious resource kept under lock and key like old, unwanted currency from a country seldom traded-with.

‘Well,’ Tumuera said slowly, ‘I may not know Wodrik Thunderall as a beggar or a ne’er-do-well, but I’ve heard his name whispered of since my arrival here. Is this not the same, brave sky-captain who just volunteered his aid to a Lumineth sorceress who sought to stop the very same conqueror now holding this city hostage?’

They fell silent.

Tumuera looked to Wodrik. ‘Is that not so?’

He nodded. ‘It is. Although, in defence of verity, I did not sign on willingly, knowingly or readily. I accepted a charter from a single passenger. Through her, I met the sorceress. It’s a long, complicated sort of story…’

‘Well, I won’t hear it,’ Kommbri declared. ‘If you called this parley, there can be no reward in it.’ He snapped his fingers and the crewmen accompanying him leapt to their feet. ‘Good day to the lot of you.’

‘Four ticks, that’s all I ask,’ Wodrik said.

Kommbri shook his head. ‘You’re not worth one.’

‘Aye, that,’ Djubbek said. ‘We’re under the gun. We’ve no time to waste–’

‘The lot of you impugned my honour!’ Wodrik thundered.

All froze in place. The silence that met his declaration was deafening.

‘My honour! The honour of my crew! The honour of my people, for bearing me! I seek now to reclaim that honour, and I would do so with the lot of you beside me, as allies!’

Kommbri sneered and spat. ‘I would not ally with you for all the aether-gold in Chamon. A Kharadron without honour cannot lift himself up without dragging others down alongside him.’

‘It would appear that a Kharadron with honour can do no better,’ Captain Tumuera answered. ‘Shut your mouth and listen to him, you old vulture. It’ll only take a moment.’

Wodrik shot the female captain a look of approving gratitude. She nodded in answer. He could tell that she was not convinced, precisely – merely willing to be gracious, because an open ear cost her nothing but a few precious moments.

‘Very well, then,’ Captain Einara said, throwing up her hands. ‘Go on and speak as you will, you dishonourable dog…’

Wodrik gathered himself.

‘You’ve seen the army at the gate,’ he said. ‘To the untrained eye, it’s a chaotic patchwork – humans, aelves, duardin, all sorts – fighting in small bands, side by side, each link creating a vast unbreakable chain.’

‘A mixed army,’ Kommbri scoffed. ‘Who’s ever heard of such nonsense? The Lumineth will make short work of them.’

‘Don’t be so certain,’ Wodrik said. ‘This city, despite its apparent prosperity, is small and isolated. No reinforcements are forthcoming, for the powers that be elsewhere would rather see this place fall, and braver stands made elsewhere, than risk their forces in a bloody action here and now. For them, this place is expendable.’

‘Which is why we need to be on our way,’ Djubbek said. ‘We’re wasting time here.’

‘No!’ Wodrik said. ‘You must listen! The Stormcasts and Vanari who protect this place will fight with every weapon in their arsenal – magical and otherwise. They will mount a defence, and they will scrap until not a single soul remains, because they know what a terrible foe we face. I say, if all of us gathered here would call ourselves Kharadron, we must stand with them!’

‘Stand with them?’ Einara said slowly. ‘For what, Thunderall? If this army is as ragtag as you say, there will be no honour in defeating it. And if these defenders are as determined as you say, their victory is a foregone conclusion–’

‘Anything but,’ Wodrik countered. ‘The army that marches to besiege this city may be mismatched and forged from a thousand unlike links, but it has unity and purpose. All those who march under its banners are united by a common cause – a high and perfect ideal, in their eyes – and I fear that unity of purpose may give them the advantage when battle is joined. All that can answer their unity is a unified front of our own.’

There was a long, quiet pause. Somewhere, high in the rafters of the warehouse, a breeze slithered through the roof beams and strained the eaves.

‘This is not our city,’ Kommbri said. ‘Not our home. We have no reason to fight for this place.’

‘Aye,’ Djubbek said. ‘And where’s the profit in it?’

Wodrik wrangled his own desire to spit on the honour of the lot of them. To speak of honour but always defer to profit – bah! He’d learned the hard way that some things were more valuable than mere profit.

And yet, he had to couch his argument in terms they would understand.

‘You all do business here,’ Wodrik said. ‘You enrich yourself by trade and commerce. You accept their riches, their realmstone, their trade goods. You swill ale in their taverns and fatten yourselves on their food stores. Perhaps you – perhaps all of us – only come to this place once or twice each season, but it has always been good to us, has it not? Should we not, now, be good in return? Can we not risk something for this place that has enriched and sustained us? Our profit lies in the honour we gain by doing the right thing on behalf of those who need us, when our instincts tell us to run.’

‘Why do they fight?’ Captain Tumuera asked.

Wodrik looked to her. ‘What’s that?’

‘You say they have unity of purpose,’ Tumuera said. ‘An ideal that rallies them. What is it? We’ve heard rumours and whispers, but you say you’ve faced them. Why do they fight?’

‘They seek the death of the gods,’ Wodrik said. ‘All the gods. And they can do it, as well. Their leader – the one called Fane – wields an ancient weapon capable of giving mortals the power of the gods themselves, the power to slay gods on a whim. I saw what his foul weapon could do. I watched Teclis, the Great Mage – the creator of the Lumineth race – blasted into oblivion and destroyed.’

His pronouncement was answered with stunned silence.

‘That is what moves them, what strengthens them. Each member of the army fights not for their own gods or their own leaders or their own selfish ends. They are believers. They have taken unto themselves this single, unwavering purpose – to free mortal-kind from the tyranny of the gods, and by doing so, usher in a new era of mortal rule over mortal affairs.’

‘Forgive me for saying so,’ Djubbek interjected, ‘but that seems a reasonable end. I would have no quarrel with such folk, were I to encounter them.’

‘But they would have quarrel with you,’ Wodrik said. ‘At least, they would if you would not lay down all your burdens and personal business and submit yourself to fighting alongside them. They are zealots. They would rather butcher their fellows than win their hearts and minds. They see only the end, and they’ll smash a hundred thousand bodies and cast down a hundred thousand souls – or a hundred thousand times more – if it means the world they seek will come to pass.

‘You speak truly, Captain Kommbri – Settler’s Gain is not our home. It never will be, for our homes go with us, in the sky. But we will have no home – not anywhere in all the Mortal Realms – if these godslayers tear down every obstacle in their path. Today, they seek the death of the gods. Tomorrow, they may burn our codes, our chronicles, our calendars and our ancient stories, because those things stand between their supremacy and our hungry hearts.’

‘What do you suggest, then?’ Djubbek asked.

‘We have ships,’ Wodrik said, ‘and weapons. I say we help to defend the city. Aerial support will be needed, badly. We can provide it.’

‘Six of us?’ Einara asked.

Wodrik shrugged. ‘Six ships are better than none.’

‘Our fuel reserves are low,’ Captain Kommbri answered. ‘We’ve barely got enough to be clear of this place before the siege begins in earnest.’

‘I have fuel,’ Wodrik said. ‘I’ll happily disperse it among you – an equal portion to each vessel – if you’ll agree to stay and fight.’

‘You’ve got my ship,’ Captain Tumuera said, stepping forward.

‘Foolish girl!’ Captain Kommbri snarled. ‘You’d die at this wastrel’s side? To defend a city not your own?’

She eyed the older captain askance. ‘Gladly,’ she said. ‘I only wonder why you refuse to.’

‘We’ll need more ranged weapons,’ Captain Djubbek said suddenly.

Wodrik, amazed to hear the Zhoffrini answer in the affirmative, sputtered before he could respond. Captain Kommbri, unfortunately, beat him to it.

‘Djubbek, you fool! You can’t be considering this?’

The Zhoffrini captain, Djubbek, stared back at Kommbri, unyielding.

‘Your folk may not honour the gods, Kommbri, but mine do. I begrudge no man, aelf or duardin his personal faith or objects of worship – but I would begrudge any attempt to cast down and crush another creature’s idols under booted feet.’

‘Aye,’ said Captain Einara.

Kommbri stood alone now. The old sky-captain turned, studying his peers, shaking his head and sputtering.

‘Fools! The lot of you! You’d cast your lots in with this honourless dog? This disgraced vagabond, without home or hearth?’

‘I have home and hearth,’ Wodrik snapped. ‘It’s the ship I captain, and the crew I call my family. That’s my home and hearth, Captain Kommbri, and it goes where I go. Now, what say you? Do you stand and fight, or do you run… like the craven cur I know you to be?’

Kommbri looked as though he might take up the nearest blunt instrument and beat Wodrik to death with it… and, truthfully, Wodrik would welcome the attempt. He refused to live in fear any longer – not of dishonour, not of his reputation, and certainly not of a thing so small and impossible to avoid as death.

And if he stood, proud and brave, as Kommbri attacked and beat him into oblivion, that would only prove he was always the better duardin, wouldn’t it?

Kommbri threw up his hands and collapsed onto a nearby hogshead, using it as a sort of impromptu throne.

‘Very well, Wodrik Thunderall,’ he grumbled impatiently. ‘What’s your bloody brilliant plan?’

It was only after an interval of silence that Thelana Evenfall realised the boom of artillery and the thunder of falling incendiaries and magical firestorms had ceased. She was deep in the university library, poring over old texts, but the siege had nonetheless provided a scrim of distant noise and subsonic vibration through the day.

Realising that the world was suddenly still and silent, she rose from the table she sat hunched over and moved to the nearest window. The glass in the leaded panes distorted the world outside to a certain degree, but she could see the shape and colour of the city in the evening twilight well enough. A few fires burned, whisps and whorls of smoke hanging on the rooftops and towers like flocks of carrion birds, but, for all the long interval that she watched, Thelana saw no active bombardment, either from the walls, or incoming from the plain beyond. She waited for a long, long time, staring, watching, sure that at any moment, the onslaught would begin again. It did not.

Had hostilities ceased for the evening? Were all parties hastily retreating, even now, to lick their wounds and gather their slain and take stock of those yet capable of fighting? The stillness, the silence, suggested as much.

The city had been under siege for several days, thus far. Thelana knew that such a stalemate could last for the foreseeable future – weeks, even months – so long as the defenders were well entrenched, and those attacking them could resupply themselves. Nerontes’ forces, she knew, would grow stronger over time, for a great call had gone out to all the Mortal Realms. If those loyal to the Black Sun imagined that the siege of Settler’s Gain was, in the end, attainable, that the city could fall, they would make their way here, join Nerontes’ ranks, and bolster his forces, no matter how many they lost in each sortie, each daily skirmish.

Settler’s Gain, meanwhile, was isolated. Reinforcements might come from all the corners of Hysh – even from the other Mortal Realms – but the cold calculus of the Vanari high command and the practical necessities of each realm protecting its own vulnerable cities meant that it was possible – just possible – that no help would ever arrive. Settler’s Gain would hunker down, and wait, and repel every bombardment and charge thrown against it by its besiegers. If the powers that be decided that the city was worth defending, they would come to its aid. If they decided that sacrificing Settler’s Gain was more sensible than risking precious resources to defend it, they would abandon it.

The greater good was always of greater import in Lumineth strategy. Sacrifices – even terrible ones – were both common and unavoidable.

Thelana knew that, sooner or later, the defence forces would be worn down, meaning that she, too, would have to take her place on the battle line. She was not afraid of that eventuality – welcomed it, in fact. She was here, in the library, because she hoped to find some small fragment of information, some vital clue embedded in the hearsay and lore surrounding Godsbane, to suggest a weakness, a means of counteracting its power. She was not ensconced here to hide from the battle; instead, she sought a means of ending it, decisively.

So far, she had found nothing.

Oh, certainly, there were scattered bits of information about the weapon’s provenance, or the materials it had been forged from, the sorcery contained within it and the mechanisms that powered its inherent magical properties. But there was nothing to suggest a means of destroying it, or subverting it. She had managed to translate that strange inscription in Old Mielitic that had helped her identify the staff shortly after they had acquired it, but the inscription itself was so bizarre and enigmatic as to be no help at all.

God uses man, man destroys god, a direct translation had revealed. Man becomes god, god uses man.

She imagined in the original tongue, it might have been more artful, possessing pleasing metre or ending in rhyme. Translated literally, it revealed nothing to her. All that couplet told her was that the pattern prophesied by the staff was circular.

God uses man.

Man destroys god.

Man becomes god.

God uses man.

Man destroys god.

On and on and on…

And yet, something within her told her – assured her – that the answer lay buried, somewhere, in that bizarre, impenetrable little precept. It was so strange, so mysterious, so seemingly absurd that it could not be otherwise.

And what else did she have? The lore and writings centred upon the staff were scant to begin with. Time had erased the larger portion of the realms’ collective memory of Godsbane’s existence. Perhaps if she had months or years to scour every library in every corner of the Mortal Realms, she could uncover something useful, but with destruction looming…

The answer had to be arrived at here, now, while the barbarians were, very literally, at the gate. She was not naturally given to despair… but in the present situation, she saw little alternative.

It was in the course of his evening meditations that the Tzaangor shaman appeared to Nerontes Fane. Nerontes recognised the avian monstrosity instantly, the very same apparition he’d seen in Castigus’ tent, the night he discovered his dearest friend’s betrayal.

Somehow, the vile mage had located Nerontes in the place where he sought solitude and clarity in the aether. The world projected around Nerontes – wholly a product of his mind – was a rocky, jagged storm of mountain peaks and deep valleys, viewed from the vantage of a wind-wracked outcropping. The light was twilit, very early or very late – the molten, red-gold light of sunrises and sunsets. And though all of this unfolded in some tucked-away inward place that Nerontes reserved for himself, he yet imagined the bracing cold of a mountain breeze tugging at his clothes, entangling his tightly curled hair.

The Tzaangor materialised beside him, tall and strong, its foul avian countenance thrust forward on its bent, horribly mobile throat.

‘How did you find me here?’ Nerontes asked.

The Tzaangor’s lipless beak seemed to smile – impossible, Nerontes knew, but this was a dream state, was it not?

‘I have my ways, Nerontes Fane. No paths are barred to Tzeentch… or his most cunning disciples.’

Nerontes stared out at the austere jagged peaks before him. He was determined to say nothing, to ignore the creature. Then, perhaps, it would go away.

‘I have come to offer my services,’ the Tzaangor said.

‘I want nothing from you,’ Nerontes said.

‘Hear what I offer first,’ the Tzaangor replied.

‘No, hear me,’ Nerontes said stonily. ‘You stole my one true love from me – and with him, my capacity for trust. Castigus was my closest companion, you fiend – for all intents and purposes, my only friend! Whatever I do henceforth, I do alone and isolated. He shall never be replaced, and if I ever trust another as I trusted him, it will be a miracle. If you were to appear before me – truly, physically – I would use all the power at my disposal to end you, and do so with agony and a fury such as you have never imagined.’

The Tzaangor’s head tilted slightly, as though fascinated by the pain evinced in Nerontes’ bitter recriminations.

‘You still need help against the Lumineth,’ the Tzaangor said. ‘I could provide that help.’

‘I want nothing from you,’ Nerontes said. ‘Nor from your vile master.’

‘Your friend was wise,’ the Tzaangor said. ‘A pity none of that wisdom lives in you. Hasturath does not offer his assistance lightly–’

‘Then go, Hasturath,’ Nerontes said, leaping to his feet and lunging towards the apparition beside him. ‘Leave me and never again appear in my presence. I would rather die than accept the aid you offer.’

‘This is your last chance, Nerontes Fane–’

‘No,’ Nerontes said, and felt the power of Godsbane welling up within him. ‘This is your last chance, Hasturath. Depart from me and never let me see your disgusting face again! Present yourself to me again, and I will destroy you!’ Could he summon Godsbane even here, in a meditative state? Could the power he commanded allow him to hurt this thing – perhaps even destroy it – at such a remote distance, linked only by their thoughts?

The Tzaangor lifted its chin slightly.

‘Foolish, proud young man,’ it croaked. ‘The next time we meet, I shall teach you the meaning of humility.’

And then, it was gone.

Nerontes woke, his peace of mind blasted to oblivion, his fury stoked and flaming hot enough to consume him as though he sat upon his own funeral pyre.

In a tentative effort to clear her muddled, exhausted mind, Thelana left the library and wandered into the waning light of the Hyshian evening. She lingered at the summit of the library’s front steps, looking out across the greensward at the sprawling campus and the high city towering over it. Fires still burned both within the low city walls and without, and twisting, lofty columns and fluffy tendrils of black, grey and white smoke rose lazily into the darkening sky, but there was, so far as she could tell, no more movement. No hurled incendiaries streaked across the sky. No Idoneth Deepkin rode oceanic mage-currents through the air itself. No squadrons of Stormcast mounted sky cavalry climbed thermals to rain ruin upon the enemy. All had retreated to their corners for a night’s respite.

Thelana lifted her gaze. Above, the clouds crowning the high city turned slowly in the easy vortex created by the magical energies that propagated and danced above and around them. Lightning of every shape and shade crackled between those clouds. For the moment, belying all that she knew of the terrible conflict underway, and the many conflagrations to come, the world seemed quiet, at peace. Why, then, could she not quiet her mind, her heart? Why, then, was her only refuge a tempest of fears, haphazard suppositions and desperately drawn, quasi-formed conclusions?

She had thought to take a walk. She opted to fly instead.

With an impulse of will and an outpouring of magic, Thelana was borne aloft. Slowly, steadily, she rose from the ground like a duardin sky-ship slipping its moorings, climbing away from the glow-lamps and paved pathways of the Lyceum Fundamental; away from the classrooms and administrative chambers, the library and the amphitheatres. By the time she had reached sufficient altitude, she knew where she should go.

She alighted onto the level verge of one of the university’s floating gardens. She took a moment – only a moment – to look back down at the cities, high and low, reposing beneath her; the scattered, winking lights and miniscule movements visible in Nerontes’ vast camp, far out on the plain beyond the city walls. Then, after a moment’s survey, Thelana turned her back on conflict and murder and wanton destruction, and trudged silently into the close-packed trees and undergrowth.

Per usual, the path bent and twisted, arranging itself just ahead of her footfalls into a subconscious pattern suggested by her own restless spirit. The night flowers and luminescent nocturnal foliage already bloomed, bathing the shadows around her in an aethereal glow that provided direction and a sense of safety without sacrificing, even for a moment, the comforting beauty of the verdant darkness.

As Thelana trudged on, she heard strange sounds: trilling nocturnal insects; cooing night birds; the fleet, scampering movements of small animals in the underbrush. Each and all, she knew, were neither dangerous nor intended as veiled threats: they were, rather, specifically chosen, each living thing in the meditation garden placed there for its effect upon an overworked, underfed psyche. Each trill, each coo, each whisper and rustle, was intended as an invitation to let oneself go, to release expectations and desires, to find what might hide within oneself by not actively, ardently seeking it.

The pathway opened onto a small glade, shaded by a canopy of wind-stirred leaves. A burbling stream cut through the glade, no doubt born of a magically imbued rock spring some short distance away. The darkened glade was peaceful, welcoming, alight with luminescent fungi and softly glowing plant life. Its shadows were soothing, welcoming even.

Thelana folded her legs beneath her at the stream’s edge and sat. Her mind raced and reeled, the garden doing its sedative work, but far too slowly. Like wild horses broken from a weak paddock, her bolting, breakneck mental processes would not be so quickly wrangled and brought to heel.

She tried to concentrate upon her breathing. By slow, painful increments, she inched towards calm.

That was when she heard the soft sound of footfalls on the glade-grass behind her. It was low, barely more than a whisper, but it yanked her gathering trance. She half-rose, spinning to see what stranger had stumbled upon her in this quiet, out-of-the-way place.

The Archmage Teclis stared back at her.

Thelana blinked. Impossible.

Teclis was no more; she’d seen it with her own eyes! This could not be the Archmage of myth and legend, standing before her, staring with his pale, silver-blue eyes and his calm, implacable face.

‘Is this a vision?’ she asked.

Teclis’ head cocked slightly. He took a single step forward.

‘I occupy your visions, true,’ the Ancient One said, ‘for I stand before you. But am I a vision? A product of your imagination or some deep-set desire to reconstitute me from the aether? No. I am, as they say, here, before you.’

Thelana could not believe it. She almost did not want to believe it.

‘Was it an illusion?’ she asked. ‘A simulacrum?’

‘No,’ Teclis said. ‘He – the one slain by Nerontes Fane – was Teclis. But I, too, am Teclis. We are, the two of us, neither more nor less Teclis, one over the other. We are both, entirely, Teclis.’

‘Fane killed you,’ Thelana said.

‘One of me,’ Teclis said, ‘yes.’

She shot to her feet, losing her patience. ‘Stop talking in riddles,’ she demanded.

‘I am a god, Thelana Evenfall,’ he said, and she thought she detected a slight, barely perceptible weariness in his voice. ‘I am vast. I contain multitudes.’

‘Then Godsbane cannot destroy a god?’ she asked.

Teclis gently shook his head. ‘It most certainly can. In fact, it did. You bore witness to it. I did not escape death, Thelana… There simply happened to be more than one of me.’

Thelana could barely contain her wonder, her frustration, her anger and disbelief. More than one of him? He spoke as casually as a man or woman might say, I am wearing my azure cloak today, rather than my saffron. Tomorrow I might wear fur.

Thelana held out her hand. It was not an invitation, nor even a timid gesture: it was a silent command. Teclis did not hesitate. He reached out and placed his hand in her own. It was warm, strong, soft… but real. Very, very real.

‘You’re alive!’ she said, almost childlike, and the moment the words escaped her, she felt a pang of shame at her foolish enthusiasm. It was most un-Lumineth-like.

Something enormous and shadowy moved beyond the scrim of the trees. Thelana heard a rumbling, as of a distant storm, and realised it was a low, throaty growl. Doing her best to trace the obscured profile of the thing in the trees, she realised that it must be Celennar, the lunasphinx. Back at its master’s side.

‘You can face him again,’ she said breathlessly. ‘You can help us to defeat him.’

‘Should I?’ Teclis asked enigmatically. ‘There is only one of me left, Thelana. If I risk what remains of me and Fane once more destroys me, I truly will be no more.’

‘Then divide yourself again!’ Thelana said. ‘Become more than one. Two! Three, even! We need you, Master Teclis! We need your wisdom! Your poise! Your power!’

‘One might suppose that a god – such as myself – is infinite,’ Teclis said slowly, as though explaining something to a precocious but very young child. ‘This is not true. There is, at the bottom of all the multitudes I contain, an ultimate end. I can be one Teclis – godlike, powerful, beyond all mortal reckoning – or, I can be many Teclises, each sub-division carrying a portion of my power. But my power does have limits, ultimately. As I become more than one, that power is diluted, stretched thin. Each divided Teclis is but a shadow of the whole.’

‘But,’ Thelana began, ‘in order to protect yourself–’

‘I cannot protect myself if my death will assure the life of this realm – of all the realms. Concurrently, I cannot face Nerontes Fane, so long as he bears Godsbane, without all of my remaining power in hand. That is why I stand before you now, one, complete and indivisible. I have already sacrificed a portion of myself to Godsbane. I cannot sacrifice more without sacrificing all.’

‘Can all the gods do as you’ve done?’ Thelana asked. ‘Divide themselves? Save a part of themselves, even if another part is destroyed?’

Teclis gave a charmingly diffident shrug. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘I have never asked them. Suffice to say, my ability to do so was not innate. I had to study and struggle, and finally arrive at the means to do so. I would imagine if any of the other gods of the Mortal Realms can do so, it was a similar struggle for them as it was for me.’

Thelana shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘there must be a way! Master, tell me! I beg you! How do we defeat him?’

Teclis’ mouth bent into a faint, enigmatic half-smile. ‘This subject, Thelana, is your area of expertise, not mine. You have been poring over the records, not I. If there is a solution, you should be the one to find it. You are best positioned to find it.’

‘Then we’re doomed,’ Thelana spat back. ‘Because I’ve found nothing! That staff is too powerful, and the man who wields it too determined. Any who might stand against him – you, Tyrion, Alarielle, Sigmar – are vulnerable to its power and incapable of claiming or wielding it themselves. Meanwhile, those of us capable of wielding it are in no position to challenge him – for it makes him as powerful as a god.’

There was that enigmatic half-smile again. What was Teclis so bloody amused by?

‘Is that right?’ he asked. ‘As powerful as a god?’

‘Even if he fell in the field,’ Thelana continued, ‘one of his mortal subordinates could easily take up the staff and press on, wielding it.’

‘Could they?’ Teclis asked. ‘A child may pick up a sword – does that mean they know how to use it? That they have the strength and stamina to do so?’

‘You’re saying Nerontes is an uncommon foe?’ she asked.

‘I am saying,’ Teclis continued patiently, ‘that Nerontes Fane is a trained and determined magic-user. Before Godsbane ever fell into his hands, he was a formidable foe, and a man in full control of his mental and physical faculties. Anyone could pick up Godsbane if it were dropped on the field of battle, but not just anyone could effectively wield it.

‘But let me caution you on another front. Even without Godsbane – without the power to truly destroy me, or any other god or immortal who faces him – Nerontes Fane is dangerous. His own determination and excellence, coupled with the power that he’s no doubt drawn from Godsbane into himself, makes him a deadly, nigh-invincible adversary – even for one such as myself. He may not be able to destroy me, if Godsbane is taken from him, but that does not mean he cannot hurt me, or make me useless to the greater cause I serve with the destruction he could heap upon me.’

‘Then, he would have thought of that,’ Thelana said. ‘He’s no fool. If he’s truly bent towards his cause, if he truly sees the cause itself as the end, rather than his own might or ascendency, then he shall be surrounded by those capable of taking up the mantle if he falls – wizards, warriors, zealots ready to continue what he started.’

Teclis considered that pronouncement for a moment.

‘They worship him?’ he asked.

‘They believe in him,’ Thelana corrected. ‘They believe in the cause, and in his importance to it.’

She heard the couplet in her mind, as though someone were reciting it to her.

God uses man, man destroys god…

‘They place him upon a pedestal,’ she said impatiently. ‘He’s a god in their eyes!’

Man destroys god, man becomes god…

‘A god,’ Teclis said quietly. ‘Indeed…’

Thelana sighed. All the peace and calm that she was on the cusp of acquiring before Teclis arrived had left her. She was spiralling back into exhaustion and desperation now: a feverish cyclone of thoughts and impressions, but a notable lack of actionable, useful ideas.

God uses man, man destroys god.

Man becomes god, god uses man.

What did it mean? Was it a prophecy? A maxim of the application of power? A principle? Some ancient magical axiom?

God uses man, man destroys god.

Man becomes god, god uses man.

Round and round.

God uses man, man destroys god.

Something twisted in the centre of her, like a knife. It was not sickness or dread, but insight. It fluttered through her conscious mind like a fleet butterfly, escaping her grasp almost as quickly as it revealed itself.

‘Thelana,’ Teclis said quietly, ‘you look as though something troubles you.’

God uses man, man destroys god.

Man becomes god, god uses man.

Man destroys god…

Thelana closed her eyes. It was right there, closer than she’d ever realised, yet still just out of her grasp. She tried putting it in new terms.

The master abuses the servant.

The servant destroys the master.

The servant becomes the master.

The master abuses the servant.

And so the servant destroys the master… again.

No. No, it could not be.

‘I believe,’ Teclis said, ‘I should leave you now.’

‘Please,’ Thelana said, reaching out but not daring to lay hands upon him. ‘Please, Master Teclis, I beg you–’

‘You seek a solution to an intractable problem,’ Teclis said. ‘I cannot give that solution to you, Thelana, for I do not have it.’

Suddenly, Thelana was desperate to return to the library.

‘I believe,’ she said, ‘that I just found one.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

On the eighth day of the siege of Settler’s Gain, Nerontes Fane emerged from his pavilion before the Hyshian sun had even begun to dim the bright moon in the sky. He strode down a meandering lane of tents, small corrals and hasty armouries, past the watching eyes of soldiers and their commanders, battlemages and beast-wranglers. His close guard – half a dozen hand-picked Freeguild knights of great renown and proven loyalty – flanked him on both sides, keeping pace with their master as he advanced. Despite their proximity, and the protection they provided, Nerontes felt that he walked alone. Every eye upon him, every outrider, handgunner, pikeman or mage in their retinue, paid little attention to the comrades who marched with them, the like-minded partisans who fought beside them: they only watched him, weighed him, appraised and studied him, for on his shoulders all their heavy hopes rested and depended.

By Fane’s order, they had gathered here. At Fane’s insistence, they had dug in, repelling lightning attacks from the forces defending the city, losing troops and weapons in the process, all the while trusting that their master – their saviour – had a plan to win them ultimate victory. While the defenders struck and fled back to the walled city to recover and lick their wounds, the revolutionaries sat on the plain, encamped less than two miles from the towering city walls, still unsure as to whether they would be called upon to simply wait out the defenders of Settler’s Gain, or if it would fall to them to storm the city and somehow shatter or scale those immense walls.

Fane had been biding his time, awaiting a moment when a miracle was called for. Before performing that miracle, he’d done his level best to watch and wait, getting a sense for the strength of the city’s defences while, simultaneously, hoping that new reinforcements would arrive to enlarge his army.

They’d been waiting for weeks. As of the previous night, his forces numbered three thousand – a feeble number, beside the ten or fifteen thousand that the city could muster. Their only hope, Fane had come to realise, was to create an unguardable breach in the city’s defences, and then to draw out the defenders and thin their numbers on the field.

He’d promised them a miracle: it was time he delivered.

‘For the dying,’ someone uttered as he marched past. Nerontes could not pick the speaker out of the crowd.

‘For the dying,’ another cried from the rear of those gathered.

Little by little, the call caught on.

For the dying, they repeated. For the dying.

Nerontes’ stride slowed. He surveyed the crowd – their eager, hopeful, haggard, combat-hardened faces – and nodded his approval. As he’d heard it, the use of that simple, enigmatic phrase as a battle cry had developed naturally among the adherents some decades before that moment, probably born among the human Freeguilders who swelled their numbers, then gradually spreading to other ranks – even the long-lived duardin and the nigh-immortal, magically imbued aelves who fought beneath their banner. It had struck Nerontes as strange at first, perhaps a little too vague, but gradually he had come to understand the significance of the words to those speaking them.

When they spoke of ‘the dying’, they meant those whose lives were finite and bounded, those who could not wait, indefinitely, for slow change and philosophical evolution to change their world, improve their lot. They meant those who died, in slow increments, daily, from the moment of their birth – who needed hope now; succour now; freedom and justice now.

Those mortals – those who lived even as they died – waited, now, here, upon this field, for the freedom, the new dawn, the great transformation that those in this field and far from it had promised them.

Ahead, a small squadron of horses waited, saddled and bridled, snorting and stamping in anticipation. Grooms combed their flanks, double-checked their girth-straps and tack. Nerontes had been offered other, more intimidating mounts, from a magnificent battle griffon and a fierce black dragon to a swift, air-swimming Idoneth Deepmare. But Nerontes had demurred: a good, strong horse would do. He wanted his deeds to speak for him, to aggrandise him, not his choice of battle mount.

He swung himself up into the saddle and took the reins from his groom. His bodyguards mounted their steeds in turn, couching their glaives, unsheathing their swords, gripping their spiked truncheons tightly. So mounted, Nerontes turned his horse round and round, drinking in the view afforded: from his place in the saddle, he could see the whole of their sprawling camp, as well as the defensive trenches and barricaded ramparts in the near distance that marked the front line. Covering the field before him, spread throughout the camp and all along the defensive line, three thousand grubby, unwashed faces – human, duardin, aelven – stared back at him.

Nerontes Fane stood tall in his stirrups and raised Godsbane over his head.

‘For the dying!’ he cried, voice echoing across the field.

‘For the dying!’ they roared in one voice.

Then, he settled into his saddle and put his spurs to his mount, and the steed broke from the paddock at a steady gallop. His armoured knights thundered close behind.

They rode hard and swift, through the haphazard byways of the crowded camp, taking what felt like a very long time to clear the cheering crowd, to thread the hastily erected defences and cross the forward trenches and finally break out onto the open plain between their camp and the high walls of Settler’s Gain. Though Nerontes felt no fear, no trepidation, the immensity of the curtain wall and the looming towers of the city gave him a sublime and dreadful feeling of ephemerality, even humility. Upon the parapets, he saw the crabbed forms of Celestar and Starshard Ballistae, Ironweld cannons and organ guns, all aimed down onto the field… aimed at him; arrayed against him.

If he delivered the miracle he’d promised today – before all their watching eyes – he must remember, always, that he had done so only by virtue of circumstance: he was the right person, in the right place, at the right time, to seize a weapon of immense power and change history. He was not chosen, was not destined, was not preordained – for to suppose so would assume that some unseen power, some god or daemon, had a hand in shaping his fate.

Whatever he accomplished, whatever became of him, was a combination of blind luck and mental preparation – nothing more.

To him, this task had fallen. By him, the day – and a new era – would be won.

The siege had devolved into a stalemate quickly, and remained so for over a week. Every day, Fane’s forces opened with duardin artillery bombardments, sun-blotting flights of arrows and battlemage spells – both individual and in concert – designed to rattle the defenders and prompt sorties on the open field. When the defenders rode forth, Fane’s forces met them, and frequently acquitted themselves like the champions they were. During the slow days – the days when no attack came, and no ammunition could be spared, his troops were busied with enhancing their fortifications, guarding the enormous camp, foraging in the countryside or searching for signs of oncoming reinforcements.

Two nights earlier, Aegira, his most recently promoted general, had confided that they were reaching a breaking point.

‘We cannot maintain this,’ Aegira had quietly admitted. ‘We either need to double our numbers, or we need to breach those walls and prompt a massive response.’

‘We’re expecting reinforcements,’ Nerontes had assured Aegira. ‘The Idoneth and Ordo Serpentis both assured me that they have allies in transit, and there are still several Freeguild companies as yet unaccounted for.’

General Aegira had shaken her head gravely. ‘I understand that we expect relief,’ she’d said, ‘but I am starting to think we cannot count on it.’

Nerontes could only sigh and hang his head in reply. She had taken Castigus’ place readily enough, proved an honest advisor and first-rate strategist. Sometimes, though, he wished that she was not so grudgingly pragmatic.

‘What do you recommend?’ he had asked her.

She considered long and hard.

‘If that weapon you wield can deliver us a coup, I suggest you use it.’

He’d been afraid she would say that.

Ever since he’d first claimed Godsbane and fled Settler’s Gain, Nerontes had been struggling to understand the staff and precisely what it was capable of. Each day, each night, he experimented, sometimes using the deep wells of power within the ancient staff to bolster his own, at other times employing the artefact itself as a weapon. He had discovered its power to be almost limitless, allowing him to turn small mountains into slag, to turn desert dunes into mounds of molten glass, to summon earth-rending storms and lightning from the heavens and fire out of the bowels of the earth itself. It had given him the power to consign a Stormcast’s immortal soul to oblivion eternally, and likewise had given him the power sufficient to destroy the Archmage Teclis.

But he had also come to learn that there was a price to its use.

If he drew power from the staff – as he had that day he destroyed the orruk warband on the plain before Kel Tallis – he could bolster his own, innate magical abilities and spellcraft immensely, giving him almost-godlike power… but only for a short time. Once the energies he had absorbed were unleashed, Nerontes found himself exhausted almost unto death’s door. Under normal circumstances, only a great deal of rest, a large quantity of food, and much sleep could restore his strength.

There was an antidote to that exhaustion – but it, too, carried with it a price.

That day he had returned to the summit of Kel Tallis to find that Thelana and her cohorts had attempted to abscond with Godsbane, he’d been on the verge of collapse, the energies he’d spent upon the field against the orruks nearly rendering him unconscious. Even as his army crowded around him, cheering and lifting him aloft and calling his name, Nerontes had fought, desperately, to remain awake and present, if only just long enough to return to his sanctum in the ruined temple.

It was only when Thelana and her companions – the Stormcast and the Daughter of Khaine – were subdued and he could once again lay hands upon the staff that Nerontes had felt normal again. Better than normal, in fact: positively reborn!

But late in the day, after they’d repelled the invaders and Teclis had been destroyed and Nerontes was alone with Godsbane and his thoughts, he had realised what was happening.

The staff was in and of itself powerful.

After destroying Teclis, its power seemed to have grown exponentially, as if all that Teclis had encompassed now resided within the artefact. But that increase in power also seemed to give the object a gravitational pull, a consciousness, even, that made Nerontes’ use of it unsettling. For it had begun to whisper to him.

I am your power, it seemed to say. Hold fast to me. Use me. Draw all you need from me. I shall give it gladly.

Once or twice in the intervening weeks, he had done just that. To his horror, the more he utilised the staff, the more insistent its voice, its determination to seduce him, became.

Tell me what you need, Nerontes, and it is yours.

I need you. Already, you are mine…

And so, ever since their arrival here, at Settler’s Gain, Nerontes Fane had done his best not to use the staff directly. He drew power from it to enact various spells and enchantments, as required – to power his Spectralith, to disperse unfavourable weather, to heal wounded or dying soldiers if he managed to reach them before Nagash claimed them, once and for all.

But he did not want to take the staff in hand and walk onto the field with it again, for he knew, if he did so, its voice would grow more insistent, more seductive.

Oh, certainly, he knew he could not avoid it forever. Sooner or later, a display of power would be required, not only to break the stalemate, but also to prove to his followers that they did, indeed, have a weapon at their command which the enemy could not stand against. But he had hoped to stave off the inevitable; to ignore the blasted thing for as long as he could, drawing power from it as necessary, before finally having to take the weapon itself into battle with him, to awaken and unleash its full fury, and to make himself its pawn.

Now, however, the hour had arrived. He could stave it off no longer.

And so, he rode out, bodyguards close beside and behind him, Godsbane clutched in his right hand. Above them, the purple sky was gradually lightening towards morning. Before them, the southern quadrant of the city’s great curtain wall stood tall and impenetrable, like a wind-scoured cliff face.

The time had come to open the way. His army required it.

More importantly, Godsbane demanded it.

Above, behind the wall’s crenellated battlements, Nerontes saw figures moving. They were aelven Vanari, for the most part – he knew them by the distinctive sweeping crests of their helms and the way they seemed to gleam, ghostly and white, in the gradually increasing morning sunlight. There were Stormcast Eternals visible as well – larger, bulkier than their lithe, swift aelven allies, their dark blue armour in marked contrast to the shining white carapaces of the Lumineth.

He half-wondered what they were all thinking and discussing up there, as they saw him ride nearer, his true knights close at hand. Would they open fire upon him? Call up Lumineth battlemages to counter his spellcraft or curse him before he could unleash his full might? None of it mattered. He’d come here, into the shadow of the walls, to work a miracle. He would work it, and every sentient being up on that wall would tremble when they saw what he was capable of.

Nerontes reined in his mount, swung himself out of the saddle. He surrendered his stallion to one of his still-mounted bodyguards, then strode out a little further, standing, small and alone, on the field before the city wall. He stood directly before the towering, gargant-sized southern gate, the outer portcullis – one of four – merely a long sprint from the place where he’d rooted himself.

He enacted a simple amplification spell so that he could speak to those above without shredding his vocal cords.

‘Who has authority here?’ he said, voice booming across the field like a cannon’s roar.

Upon the walls, the defenders exchanged glances, moving back and forth in haphazard formations. He took a moment to turn and glance back at his camp, to see if his army’s assembly was underway.

Indeed, it was. Even at this distance, he saw the fluttering movement of battle standards and banners, the scurry of small, distant bodies, that bespoke of activity and artful arrangement. Beyond the vanguard, he could just make out the smooth movements of the enormous air-swimming leviathans of the Deepkin, the flutter of black dragons’ wings, and the hasty rearrangement of artillery and siege engines.

Nerontes was satisfied. They would be ready. He turned back to the curtain wall.

A vast strike force assembled along the broad boulevard that cut through the centre of the city. Scryings and the testimony of a few brave spies had attested that Fane’s army would make some brave – or foolhardy – play to penetrate the city soon. Though assembling such a force in one city quarter in anticipation of an unverified attack carried with it a number of inherent risks, it had been decided preparation was preferable to risk. If no attack came, so be it – they had expended little more than effort. If it did materialise, however, they would be ready.

Massive reserves of ammunition for the Celestar Ballistae, greatbows and duardin cannons upon the city walls had been gathered, while the streets before the southern gate were choked with close-pressed cavalry units – Dawnrider steeds to one side, Stormcast Dracolines to the other – while retinues of Redeemer Sequitors and scores of Vanari Warden and Sentinel phalanxes amassed through the night, ready for deployment at a moment’s notice. Some whispered that they would not wait for an attack, at all; that the city’s marshals had already decided to loose the full might of Settler’s Gain upon the Black Sun partisans – but such talk, at the last, was only conjecture.

No one, it seemed, knew precisely what destiny the day held for them, or who would be standing when the Hyshian twilight once more returned.

As the massive mixed force jostled and bristled around her, Thelana Evenfall threaded a meandering path among the Redeemers and Justicars, the Calligraves, Cathallars and Bladelords. Thelana had been seconded to a specific Dawnrider squadron – the First Banner, sure to be in the vanguard if the gates were opened… or fell. She would prefer to find her unit before the day’s hostilities began.

She’d been late arriving that morning because she’d spent most of the previous night in the library. Following her talk with Teclis, guided by a strange notion, she had pored over the texts and legends of Godsbane yet again, believing that she may have stumbled upon an inherent weakness, ripe for exploitation. She had presented her theory to the Regents’ Council, then to the Grand Conclave. She’d offered every bit of evidence that she had – which was, admittedly, scant – and even offered to venture out alone to face Nerontes and test her theory – even if it meant her own destruction.

But the city’s leadership had accepted her reports and suppositions soberly, weighed her pronouncements against the alternatives, and delivered their own mandate.

‘If we open the gates and attack at dawn,’ they had asked, ‘can you ride at the fore? Are you skilful enough – both as rider and warrior – to hold your own until you can reach Fane on the field?’

‘Attack at dawn?’ Thelana had asked, stuck on those words and barely hearing any that followed them.

That was when they revealed to her that they were already discussing a means of swiftly and decisively ending the siege. Given Thelana’s notions about Godsbane itself, the conclave decided that both actions in conjunction – their massed counter-strike and her individual attempt to confront Fane on open ground – could best be achieved with combined action.

Reluctantly, Thelana had agreed: it was now or never.

So, there she was, in the dim early-morning light, pushing her way through the forces arrayed, desperately trying to reach her squadron before the gates were thrown wide and the horns blew. The smell of hay and horse manure suggested she was at least heading in the right direction. When she actually saw the squadron to which she’d been assigned – notable by the runes upon their lofty banners, fluttering in the wind – she knew that she’d finally reached her destination.

She presented herself to the first rider she encountered.

‘Thelana Evenfall, reporting for duty.’

The young cavalryman studied her. ‘I think you have come to the wrong unit, my lady–’

‘No, she has not,’ a voice called.

It was the Dawnrider lord regent, Kitaria Swordwind. She strode to meet Thelana with confidence and poise, crested helm tucked in the crook of one arm, greatsword jouncing in a scabbard on her hip.

‘This way, Mistress Evenfall,’ she said, suggesting a path and leading Thelana onward, ‘we have a mount all sorted out for you.’

Lord Regent Swordwind led Thelana past armoured riders double-checking girth- and saddle-straps, honing blades, polishing the crystals of aetherquartz that encrusted their plate and shields. As they moved among them, Thelana saw the subtle, powerful bonds between each Dawnrider and their animal on display: the way the riders seemed to coo and caress, the way the stallion steeds remained calm and at ease, accepting proffered rewards and amenities – hay, apples, sweet sungrass – without a hint of eagerness or rude behaviour.

Kitaria presented Thelana with a magnificent bone-white destrier with grey on its underbelly and fetlocks, its flowing, silken mane interwoven with bronze bells and leather ribbons.

‘This,’ Lord Regent Swordwind said, ‘is Lightfoot, one of the finest animals from my personal stable. He has carried me into battle on many occasions. Today, I offer him to you, as partner and protector.’

Thelana approached the magnificent animal, raising one hand above his long, gracefully shaped snout. The stallion snorted, then bent his head forward. Her hand fell upon his warm, soft coat. Slowly, Thelana caressed the animal, experiencing a strange, tingling frisson as she did so.

‘Lightfoot,’ she said, loving the poetic simplicity of his name. ‘I pray I shall do you honour.’

‘When the horns sound, stay close to me,’ Kitaria said, offering a light, barely perceptible smile. ‘Do your duty, Thelana Evenfall, and we shall do ours.’

Thelana nodded, and the Lord Regent left her. As she stroked the horse’s snout and ran her gloved hands over his rising, falling flanks, Thelana felt a strange, inexplicable calm – a sense of peace and purpose – washing over her. Here, now, bedecked in the beautifully forged armour that her mother and grandmother had worn before her, bearing at her hip the deadly keen, graceful loreseeker blade passed down through her father’s line through several generations, she felt equal to the task before her. Even her Eclipsian staff – currently cradled in the crook of one arm as she stroked the lovely horse – seemed to be an extension of that armour – a natural complement, earned by a lifetime of hard work and discipline.

She might not win the day – an adversary’s strength and excellence might always outstrip one’s own – but she would not fail for lack of capability or preparation. She was equal to the challenges before her, magical or martial, and her ultimate success or failure now lay in the hands of powers she could not enumerate or name.

It was as she prepared to mount Lightfoot that she caught sight of a fellow Dawnrider nearby. The horseman was of ordinary height and dimensions, adorned in bright white plate nearly identical to that worn by those around him. But as he spoke softly to his own mount, caressing its snout, sharing soothing words in a language Thelana could barely discern, the rider turned and gave Thelana a long, slow, silent greeting.

Thelana instantly recognised the pale, silver-blue eyes peering from beneath the great helm, as well as the gentle thin-lipped smile that graced his sculpted face.

She nodded to the rider. The rider nodded back.

There’s no turning back once that gate opens and we ride, Thelana thought. Tyrion, Teclis and Celennar, guide me in this. All that I do, I do for this city, this realm, and our people…

Silent prayer ended, Thelana couched her left boot and swung herself onto Lightfoot’s saddle. As she situated herself, the sound of a loud voice cut through the morning air.

‘Who has authority here?’ a familiar voice roared beyond the wall.

Thelana felt a shudder move through her. Nerontes! If she could hear him here, on the far side of the wall, at the far end of the gate, his voice must have been magically amplified.

‘You are the one they call Fane?’ someone atop the wall shouted, their voice also amplified, though by a duardin thunderhorn.

‘I am,’ Nerontes answered. ‘My name is Nerontes Fane. I come here in command of an army of the Esoteric Order of the Black Sun, and we demand the surrender of your city.’

Thelana saw movement in the ranks, Dawnriders, Tempest Lords and Vanari all preparing themselves, up and down the street.

‘Be ready,’ their regents and commanders said. ‘The time is come.’

Thelana heard the incredulous reply of the lord marshal as he addressed Nerontes.

‘The surrender of our city?’

‘You heard me,’ Nerontes responded. ‘Open the gates now, lay down your arms and welcome us, and we shall commit no more violence. I would sit at a table with the Grand Conclave so that we may plan a path forward.’

A long pause answered him.

‘A path forward,’ a silky voice purred, as though it were right in Thelana’s ear.

Thelana’s head jerked sideways, towards the sound. There, mounted atop a sleek black courser without livery or armour, sat Sespyra Sepherys. Her armour seemed hastily assembled from cast-offs and oddments gleaned from the dead. Thelana could have sworn that some of those pieces of armour were yet stained with blood. Had the witch aelf killed to acquire them? Or taken them from men slain in the small skirmishes fought in the weeks past?

‘What are you doing here?’ Thelana asked, genuinely incredulous.

‘I volunteered,’ Sespyra said. Her sciansá daggers were sheathed, one on each hip, while a long curve-bladed scimitar hung against the flank of her horse, ready for use. ‘I thought you could use already-bloodied hands to enact whatever sneaky business you’re up to.’

‘Business,’ Thelana said to herself. She cannot know, she thought. Only the high command knows. ‘This is not your fight.’

Sespyra’s eyes narrowed. She smiled mordantly.

‘Isn’t it? Murder is my stock-in-trade, white witch – my religion. Can I not feed hungry Khaine and aid you, as well?’

Thelana had no ready response. Before she could form one, she heard heated words volleyed between Nerontes and the lord marshal up on the wall. All around her, the horses of the other Dawnriders stamped and snorted, as though stirred by the harsh, hasty words being thrown from the wall to the plain and back again.

That’s when Thelana felt strange vibrations emanating up, through the muscles and sinews of her mount, through the very ground beneath them. Sespyra felt it as well, for Thelana saw the look of disbelief clearly on the Khainite’s normally implacable, pale face. All around them, steeds baulked and jostled as horrifying tremors shook the earth beneath their hooves. Nearby houses, inns and temples lost scores of tiles from their peaked or smashed roofs, large chunks of masonry calving away from the walls and archways they supported.

Thelana looked to the barbican, directly ahead. That was the source of the tremors. The enormous city gate itself – a towering construction of titanic timbers, five or six times the height of ordinary men, banded by riveted sunsteel and couched in a massive duardin-forged framework – now buckled and strained against its bonds, as if the door itself had suddenly realised it was held prisoner. As Thelana, Sespyra and all around them watched, the sunsteel supporting the gate began to smoke, as though somehow superheated.

‘What in the foggy hells…’ Sespyra began.

The iron bands started to glow bright red. Thelana’s nostrils caught the stench of burning wood and superheated metal.

‘Back!’ Lord Regent Swordwind shouted, spinning her mount and retreating up the street. ‘Clear the gate! There’s dark magic afoot!’

Each Dawnrider swung their mount round and fled up the street in swift, orderly succession. Behind them, the Corpuscant Evocators on their Dracolines retreated deeper along the line of the wall, while the infantry forces followed in the wake of the withdrawing riders. Thelana and Sespyra sped along, carried by the press of bodies and horseflesh more than following it. As they went, Thelana dared to look back over her shoulder.

The red-hot gate fixtures had finally set the enormous timbers aflame. The gargant-sized city gate was a roiling wall of fire, belching billows of black smoke and glowing gold embers, the conflagration so voracious and its heat so intense that the machinery which had ignited the wood already sagged and twisted, losing solidity as it melted into searing hot liquid. In the gatehouse tower and along the walls, Stormcasts and Vanari rushed about, clearing the way for aelementiri mages to summon water and wind spirits to try and quell the flames.

Just as Thelana’s squadron reached a safe distance and turned their mounts once more to see what ruin they’d fled, the great gate collapsed in a whirlwind of sparks and embers, consumed to the point of dissolution in moments. As its burning bones crashed to the ground, a glut of black smoke shot through with flame-blooms rose like a poisonous flower and all but engulfed the barbican.

Beneath the inferno, Thelana saw the massive portcullises that guarded the passage into the city glowing red hot, sagging in their enormous frames, the heat so intense that it even made boulder-thick bars of sunsteel turn molten. The gatehouse tower looked like a gigantic oven, its open maw aglow with melting wreckage and mountains of sun-hot embers. The intense ambient heat therein made the air before the passage shimmer, turning the open plain beyond into a rippling mirage.

He did this, Thelana thought, staring at the inferno. He did this as a vulgar display of power.

Ahead of her, Thelana saw a retinue of Stormcast Evocators atop snarling Celestial Dracolines spur their mounts towards the flame-engulfed barbican, the lamp-like headpieces on their enormous golden staves already scintillating with arcane power. They fanned out before the inferno, surrounding it, and offered, in concert, a barrage of occult incantations to summon the living embodiment of their master’s power.

The power of the storm.

Above the city, the formerly clear sky darkened in an instant. Clouds coalesced out of nowhere, swirling together and colliding from the four cardinal directions. Thunder shook the heavens as the clouds wheeled on an unseen axis, tumbling, combining, enlarging. Lambent lightning flickered and flashed along the belly of the fattening cumuli above, intensifying into crackling skeins of aelemental destruction as the chants of the Evocators grew louder.

Then, the lead Evocator raised his lantern-headed staff and cried into the hastily gathered storm, as if in supplication. Lightning exploded from the clouds in all directions as peals of thunder rocked the city around them. As the lightning burst forth, so did a massive deluge of falling rain. It was sudden, violent, as though some great water tank in the sky had been shattered and emptied instantaneously. All at once, Thelana herself and the world around her – everything visible for a mile in all directions – was pummelled and soaked by the tidal fall. The sand in the empty streets turned to mud. The flanks of the horses grew damp and pungent.

But the flames devouring the barbican were, at last, extinguished. Every twisted, arcing rib and bar of molten metal screamed and groaned as the falling rain flash-cooled it, freezing the gate-works into the likenesses of strange broken bones. In seconds, every flame was doused, and the barbican and the broad, high passage beneath were enrobed in swirling clouds of smoke and steam.

It was only when the steam cloud began to thin, as the torrential rain abated, that Thelana could finally see out through the littered, ruined gateway, to the plain before the city. Far out there, a long sprint from where the barbican stood, she espied a small, lonely figure in the rain, a wizard’s staff in his hands.

Nerontes.

‘The way is clear!’ Lord Regent Swordwind cried, spurring her mount. ‘Dawnriders – charge!’

The thunder from the clouds was replaced by the thunder of hooves.

Thelana put spurs to her mount and joined the charge.

The moment Wodrik saw the Stormcast wizards call down the storm’s wrath to douse the flames engulfing the barbican through his gimbal-mounted spyglass, he knew the time was upon them.

‘Helegrin – stoke the endrin-furnace! Brannit, Moddek – I want shrapnel and explosive shells ready by the sky cannon! Boarding weapons arrayed! Grikara–’

He expected to hear a hearty yawp from his navigator. Instead, he heard nothing. He spun about.

The old navigator stood right behind him, staring at him with an enigmatic smile on her wrinkled, sun-hardened face. She seemed to be hiding something large and unwieldy behind her back.

‘What are you leering about?’ Wodrik snarled.

‘Nice to have you back in form, captain,’ the navigator said, then presented the enormous, weighty object she’d been hiding. It was wrapped in soft, oil-streaked cloth and had the heft of something deadly.

Wodrik knew precisely what it was. He hadn’t touched it since his failure… since the day that his shame had been secured.

‘Take it,’ Grikara urged.

‘We’re providing air support,’ Wodrik Thunderall said, trying to swing around her. ‘I’ll have no need of it.’

Grikara’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re a captain leading troops into battle – and this, this is both your sceptre and your weapon. Take it, Wodrik, before I brain you with it.’

Wodrik opened his hands. Grikara laid the long, heavy object into them, then began unwrapping it.

It was his old grudgehammer – the one his father had presented when he’d acquired his first command. It shone brilliantly, even under the now-cloud-choked Hyshian sky, its sharp edges and engraved surfaces and wrought intricacies adding delicacy, even elegance, to a massive blunt instrument designed for one purpose alone: death-dealing.

With tears in his eyes, Wodrik hefted the big bludgeon onto his shoulder and turned to survey the world falling away beneath them. Already the Aemick’s Blade was rising, its berth at the sky-dock receding beneath. In the near distance, port and starboard, Wodrik saw that the others – Kommbri Galeheart, Einara Bendbar, Tumuera Windscream and Djubbek Starborne – had seen their ascent and given orders. Their separate vessels – two Arkanaut ironclads, a frigate much like Wodrik’s own, and a small, swift gunhauler – were ascending in concert.

‘Think they’ll hold to the plan?’ Grikara asked. ‘Or will they go where the fighting’s thickest, in search of richer booty and bloodier glories?’

‘Truth be told,’ Wodrik said, ‘it makes little difference. So long as they pound the enemy and give our allies some support from above.’

Grikara’s smile became a wolfish grin. She tied her long grey curls back with a leather thong.

‘About bloody time, if you ask me,’ she said. ‘Now, captain, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got ranging pistols and volley guns to load.’

Nerontes had to admit, he was genuinely shocked. He knew the defenders would be on the alert, but he never imagined they’d already have forces amassed on the other side of the gate, ready to charge onto the field.

Here they came, though: a diamond-shaped formation of Dawnriders thundering forth from the wreckage-choked barbican onto the open plain. Behind the vanguard came two more squadrons, their tight column fanning out smoothly and swiftly into wide chevrons on either side of the charge-leaders. Right behind the three retinues of cavalry, Nerontes saw massed phalanxes of Auralan Wardens marching at a quickstep, supported by bow-wielding Sentinels, whose scryhawks already wheeled on stray thermals into the cloud and smoke-choked sky. Behind the Lumineth forces came the Tempest Lords, their leaders mounted on snarling, hissing Dracolines, their Evocator retinues bringing up the rear and spreading out to create a broad unbroken line of bulky armoured night-blue forms to back the advancing forces.

Strangely, Nerontes Fane felt neither fear nor anxiety: he was, instead, embraced by a sense of unearthly calm – an assurance in the day’s outcome being just and necessary, whatever it might be.

‘Very well, then,’ he said, and spun around to face his forces. They were massed behind the hasty ramparts several hundred yards behind him, the ragged edges of their fortifications and trench works protected by their mixed forces of cavalry, large and small, landed and aerial. He saw the crews of Ironweld gun and rocket batteries double-checking their already-loaded weaponry, saw Irondrake gunners lowering their barrels and taking aim, and every pikeman from every mismatched Freeguild unit forming tight triple-deep lines, glaives and lances bristling outward, awaiting the enemy’s charge, ready to cover the gunners’ quick retreat.

‘Cavalry!’ Nerontes shouted, his amplification spell making his voice a roar to match the thunder of the Tempest Lords’ storm now raging above them. ‘Cavalry, now! For the dying, comrades! For the dying!’

The glaivers and gunners on the front line raised their voices as one, and a trio of fierce black dragons took wing from the rear, all but clawing at the air to climb higher and higher, then falling into dives that allowed them to spread their great leathery wings and swoop down, swift and sure, to strafe the field. From the right, Drakespawn-mounted knights and charioteers, Freeguilders on snorting warhorses, and half a dozen Fyreslayer Runemasters on hulking, galumphing magmadroths thundered onto the plain, their haphazard company hooking inward towards the centre of the onrushing Dawnrider charge.

Nerontes smelled the tang of salt spray on the arid plain and turned fully round, looking west. There, fearsome Idoneth mounted upon terrifying beasts of the deep – Allopexes, Fangmora eels and titanic Leviadons – swam gracefully through the air itself, the atmosphere around them thick with magically manifested ocean mists roiling in the unseen, mystical currents that kept their sea beasts aloft.

Nerontes Fane was no longer alone: his army sped to his aid.

Turning back to face his onrushing foes, he lowered Godsbane. A bright, searing pillar of mage-fire blasted forth from the headpiece. The cone of murderously concentrated arcane energies slashed through the empty air and half a dozen Dawnriders charging right into its path were vaporised, riders and mounts instantly reduced to dissipating clouds of ash. If Nerontes was not mistaken, he’d taken their lord regent with that blast.

The remaining Dawnriders in the vanguard separated, the two halves of their bisected force peeling off in opposite directions, their new trajectory driving them right towards Nerontes’ forces on either flank.

The sky grew suddenly dark. Nerontes lifted his eyes just in time to see a massive cloud of lofted Vanari arrows reaching their apogee. There were so many, they blotted out the cloud-choked Hyshian sun and the storm clouds summoned by the Tempest Lords still wheeling overhead.

Not today, he thought.

He threw up a shield just as the storm of razor-sharp missiles slashed down upon him.

Nerontes’ arcane onslaught missed Thelana by such a narrow margin, she had felt its ambient heat, and had a clear – if glaring – view as the Dawnrider and mount just two arms-lengths to her right discorporated into a cloud of ash and smoke. Nine riders had been obliterated by that blast – Lord Regent Swordwind among them.

Many more will die today, she thought, struggling to settle her fear-fevered mind. Eyes forward, lay in your spurs. You have work to do!

The rider now leading their wing of the broken formation lifted his sword, turning the course of the whole squadron, angling away from the centre of the field towards its far edges. To Thelana’s left, Sespyra dared a glance back over her shoulder, gape-mouthed and horrified. No doubt, she’d seen oceans of blood and endless fields littered with the dead in her travels and travails – but, clearly, she’d never seen so many yanked out of the world of the living so quickly, so mercilessly.

Ahead of them, closing fast, a massive force of mixed cavalry thundered across the plain. Thelana saw Drakespawn-mounted knights at the centre, lances couched, while Drakespawn-yoked chariots jounced and careened alongside, speeding so recklessly that Thelana thought they might rattle apart. Behind the Drakespawn were Freeguild cavalry on snorting warhorses and Fyreslayers on lumbering magmadroths, the bright golden runes tattooed upon their bodies pulsing in anticipation of the bloody battle to come. From out of the sky, a black dragon dipped into view, banking slightly so that its oblique dive turned into a headlong charge across the field. Thelana could not tell who or what rode the beast – a Darkling sorceress, perhaps, or a knight of the Ordo Serpentis – but what did it matter? Whoever rode the monster, it was a deadly foe.

The world around her was rushing wind, flying ground and hurtling bodies.

‘Arm yourself!’ Sespyra snarled, snatching up the scimitar sheathed upon her saddle. A look of narrow-eyed, grinning ecstasy appeared on the Khainite’s fearsome, pale face. Clearly, she relished the carnage about to unfold.

Thelana took hold of her sorcerer’s staff and held it before her like a lance in a joust.

The cavalries met, swords and spear-points ringing, clanging, slashing, stabbing. Drakespawn and horses collided and collapsed. Lumineth and armoured knights hit the dusty earth in bloody, hurtling embraces. Thundering chariots slashed through the suddenly knotted formations, leaving crippled and slain soldiers in their wake. Blood and earth were churned and tossed as combatants slew, horses screamed, and Drakespawn reared.

Thelana hurled arcane force towards a passing chariot, blasting the swift conveyance sideways into a murderous spin, the Drakespawn hissing and thrashing as they struggled to tear free of their traces. The rolling chariot slammed hard into a pair of Freeguild knights and their surprised mounts and kept on rolling.

Something warm and wet hit Thelana’s face and she sputtered: blood gushed from an oncoming rider’s now-lopped head, courtesy of Sespyra’s terrible scimitar. In startling clarity, Thelana saw the headless rider jounce by her, body sagging in the saddle, his Drakespawn mount still thundering along at full speed, unaware that its rider was a corpse.

Just ahead: something sharp, gleaming, deadly – a lance-point hurtling nearer, aimed right for Thelana’s armoured breastplate.

Thelana raised a magical shield. The oncoming rider and his mount slammed into the invisible barrier as though it were a solid wall. His lance bent and shattered, his Drakespawn screamed as every bone in its scaled body was pulverised, and the rider ricocheted off the shield, hit the earth head first, and was trampled an instant later by the thundering hooves of Thelana’s unstoppable steed, Lightfoot.

Confused, affrighted, relieved, Thelana lowered her magical shield, seeking the next imminent danger, the next oncoming adversary. It was in that instant – that moment’s surrender of her concentration – that a charging knight’s lance plunged deep into Lightfoot’s chest. The animal screamed, its agony and terror painfully apparent, almost sounding in Thelana’s soul as well as her ears. The steed reared high, hooves wheeling, bloody foam already visible in his nostrils. He was seconds away from toppling and crushing Thelana beneath him.

Thelana yanked her feet from the stirrups and threw herself sideways, hoping only to clear Lightfoot’s falling bulk.

She hit the ground, the melee closing in around her. She rolled away from thundering hooves and stomping boots, separated from the fallen, dying Lightfoot almost instantly. She had to use her staff – still clutched in her hand – to wrestle herself back onto her feet again. Once upright, she drew her loreseeker’s blade. The Tyrionic and the Teclian were in balance within her, meaning she was just as deadly with her blade as with her staff. Adopting a familiar en garde stance taught to her at the aelementiri temple in her youth – staff forward, as if it were a shield, sword back, ready to strike – Thelana advanced.

The chaos around her was all-encompassing. Thelana could see only movement, brute force, wanton bloodshed; faces and identities were meaningless. Here, all were at war with all.

Where is he? Where is Fane?

She blasted a charging Drakespawn Knight, then spun just in time to parry a sword-strike from a Freeguild mercenary before running him through. Extracting her blade, she felt hot blood anoint her face. Thelana whirled using the head of her staff like a maul to sweep a lurching knight’s legs from beneath him before he could attack a fallen Dawnrider.

As she searched the chaos for nearby perils, Thelana caught sight of Sespyra, also dismounted, dancing and wheeling among a constant barrage of would-be opponents. She’d lost or discarded her scimitar and now wielded her two ceremonial sciansá daggers, seeking the spaces between armour plates and mail hauberks with deadly accuracy. As she whirled and sliced, thrust and slashed, she seemed to be shouting, or perhaps singing – offering prayers to foul Khaine, dedicating each and every life stolen on the field to his everlasting, bloody sanctification.

Thundering hooves; a roaring voice. Thelana spun just in time to see the enormous form of a magmadroth galloping towards her, the Runesmiter in its saddle raising his great glowing axe for a skull-shattering strike. Thelana unleashed an arcane bolt. The crackling energy blasted the Fyreslayer from his saddle. His smoking, heat-scarred body turned end over end in the air even as his mount left him behind.

It was as she dived out of the magmadroth’s path that Thelana caught sight of a figure on a low knoll some distance from where she now crouched: Nerontes Fane, alone, hurling pillars of arcane mage-fire, pausing between barrages to tear up the earth itself with aelemental force, slaying or maiming every adversary or troupe of adversaries that drew near.

If I could only reach him!

Thelana pressed forward towards the edge of the brawl that surrounded her, dodging hurled bodies, charging horses and at least one still-circling chariot. When a Freeguild swordsman veered into her path, charging with his two-handed blade held high, she whipped her own sword forward to skewer him through the liver. The Freeguilder sagged. Thelana yanked her blade free and carried on.

The cavalry fracas fell away behind her, while Nerontes lay dead ahead. Further along, in among the besiegers and defenders engaged upon the field, Thelana saw battlemages unleashing deadly spells in murderous waves as Stormcast Evocators and Sequitors called down the power of the storm, holy lightning tearing at the field and blasting enemy troops en masse, all amid the crack of field guns and the ring of metal striking metal.

Thelana quickened her step. Nerontes was distracted, engaged, his back to her as he picked off unwary foes from a distance and tipped the balance of melees unfolding on all sides. If she could reach him now, in that state–

All at once, the air changed, and it was no side effect of any of the magics currently expended upon the field. From the outset, the battlefield had been overhung by dark coagulations of storm clouds amassing in answer to the call of the Tempest Lords, as well as the ill winds unleashed by Nerontes’ battlemages and his sorcerous Idoneth allies whose leviathan mounts rode shimmering, salt-tinged sea mists and magically gathered fog banks.

But this was different. All at once, the sky coruscated in streaks of strange colours and indistinct shapes; clouds of light and shadow shimmering as green sparks and bright, vermilion embers rained down from unseen sources above and around them. There even seemed to be a new smell in the air – bizarre, nostril-stinging perfumes commingled with the vague scents of air scorched by lightning and fires quenched by falling rain – though no rain fell that Thelana could see.

She searched the skies. Above and around her, striated chromatic bands of scintillating light rolled over the blue firmament, darkening the already cloud-choked skies as they went, twisting and snaking between storm banks and giving shape and pigment to the dreadful, sea-befouled air currents supporting the attacking Deepkin.

From the distance, beyond the farthest rear lines of Nerontes’ camp, a new enemy appeared – an enormous winged humanoid swooping in above the heads of all on the field, skimming at deadly velocity through the air, straight towards Nerontes.

Thelana recognised the vaguely avian features and foul blue skin of the newcomer at once, and suddenly knew why the air itself seemed alive with strange energies and the world around them turned bizarre and nightmarish.

The onrushing arrival was a Tzaangor shaman, mounted upon a great flaming, flying disc. The strange energies in the air, the strange colours in the sky, the mysterious embers sifting down out of nowhere like snow made of wyrdfire – all were hallmarks of the Disciples of Tzeentch.

She heard the sounds of new and deadlier paroxysms from the combatants on the battlefield. Screams doubled. Curses and howls of rage intensified. A number of the mobile components visible – Lumineth cavalry and Idoneth Deepkin among them – suddenly seemed to break their bloody close-quarters engagements and wheel to meet some new and more troublesome foe. Then, the hallmarks of Chaos magic exploded across the open field: scintillating bursts of green, blue and purple tearing through close-massed troops – both attackers and defenders – twisting their bodies, flaying their souls, undoing everything that they were to make of them something blasphemous and vile. Black, winged forms came diving out of the sky, tooth-lined mouths gaping wide as they swooped and raked the unsuspecting Black Sun fighters and Lumineth Wardens that tried to stand against them.

Screamers, Horrors, monstrous Kairic Acolytes – Thelana could see them all now, roving and roiling among the forces already engaged, their spells lobbed left and right like carelessly flung grenades, their blades and weapons wetted with the blood of both parties.

Their two-way brawl had just added a third – and deadlier – party.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Kharadron frigates and ironclads first cut a broad swathe up the middle of the field, dropping dozens of incendiary bombs as they crawled through the air above the chaos below. Their bombing run cleared a ragged path right up the middle of the enemy lines, levelling a number of their barricades and flattening several of their forward entrenchments. Ironweld duardin manning gun and rocket batteries hastily adjusted the placement of their arrays, sighting upon the drifting airships and unloading a barrage of skyward fire even while the flames of the bombing run still burned.

Wodrik and his Kharadron allies answered the ground fire with shrapnel shells from their sky cannons, blasting the Ironweld gun emplacements and leaving their crews dazed or stone-cold dead. Just as they thought they’d cleared the path beneath them, however, more ground-shells whizzed through their riggings and spanged off the iron hulls of their sky-ships. Four different batteries of Irondrake gunners spread out along the lines below had sighted the airships and now returned fire with deadly precision and patience. A stray shot forced Wodrik back from the gunnel, and a too-close ricochet nearly cost Grikara an eye.

‘More bombs!’ Wodrik roared above the tumult of the rushing air around them and unending barrage from below.

‘Still loading!’ Brannit shouted back, hard at work trying to load the drop-bays again in preparation for another pass.

A strange telltale hiss sounded from far off to their right. Wodrik rushed nearer the starboard gunwale just in time to see Kommbri’s ironclad loosing a trio of aethershock torpedoes that wound in tight spirals towards the ground. Upon impact, the torpedoes threw mountains of blasted earth skyward, enemy bodies and shattered guns no doubt mixed in among the detritus and slag. Between the Aemick’s Blade and Kommbri’s ironclad – the Thunderdrake – a swift Grundstok gunhauler, also Kommbri’s, careened along the air currents, pressing up the centre between the two larger ships, a volley of shots barking out from the aethershot carbines of the crew arrayed at the gunwales. Just as the gunhauler reached a point far ahead that filled Wodrik with panic at the thought of the small, swift vessel being downed by a stray cannon or mortar shot, its navigator cut the wheel hard and the sky-ship all but spun on its axis, banking hard left until its nose finally pointed back towards where its fellow Arkanauts waited.

Just as Wodrik feared, ground crews loosed a barrage of cannon fire at the ship now hovering above them. Several mortars coughed and shells arced high into the air, exploding uncomfortably close to the nimble gunhauler.

‘Get back here!’ Wodrik shouted, knowing full well the crew of the ship couldn’t hear him. ‘You fools, get back–’

The gunhauler answered the ground fire with a single blast of its drill cannon. As Wodrik watched, a whirling shell blasted from the cannon’s wide bore and plunged down into the ground just ahead of the gunhauler. As the shell hit the earth, it threw up a font of churned earth, actually digging drill-like into the ground itself between a trio of gun crews. Before the gunners even realised what was about to happen, the drill-shell exploded, and all three crews – along with their munitions – were reduced to flotsam and jetsam on the field.

‘Captain!’ Grikara shouted. ‘The Shining Sun! Off the port bow!’

Wodrik raced across the deck just in time to see the crew of the Shining Sun – Captain Djubbek’s frigate – swing their sky cannon about to blast a fast-approaching airborne enemy: a terrifying black dragon, wings gliding swiftly along the wind currents as its long, sleek head hung low, jaws gaping to loose a gullet-full of drake-fire.

The blast from Djubbek’s sky cannon missed the target, and there was no time to reload.

The dragon roared and spat a long, roiling tongue of flame into the air that it sliced through. Those flames raked across the portside and open deck of Djubbek’s frigate, and Wodrik saw several crew members engulfed in the conflagration. At the last instant – just before it looked like it would ram headlong into the frigate’s hull – the dragon banked and dived, avoiding the now-blazing sky-ship, circling for another pass. Even at the distance separating them, Wodrik could clearly hear the screams of Djubbek’s unlucky crew members – the ones engulfed in fire yet still not granted the reprieve of death. Those untouched scurried to and fro on the deck, trying to douse the flames on their comrades.

‘Hard to port!’ Wodrik called. ‘Take us right at them! We’ll get the survivors aboard!’

Grikara was already at the tiller. ‘Hard to port! Aye aye, captain!’

Wodrik stomped across the deck towards his own sky cannon.

‘Brannit, give me an explosive shell!’

The young Arkanaut bent to his task, extracting a large explosive shell from their munitions cache and hauling it to the gun.

‘Explosive shell! Aye aye, captain!’

Something hard hit them from below – cannon fire, a blast of arcane energy from a battlemage, Wodrik could not tell. The impact shook the whole ship beneath him, though, causing the deck to jump and the crawling frigate to shudder and list. For a moment – only a moment – everyone on deck was thrown off balance and fell sideways. Wodrik could literally feel the endrinworks beneath him, belowdecks, shuddering and winding down.

‘No no no!’ he cried, and scurried over the deck on all fours towards the hatch. ‘Don’t you let those endrin-furnaces fail!’ Wodrik shouted down into the belly of his beast.

‘Rattled but not undone, captain!’ Helegrin shouted back. It was impossible to see her: there was too much smoke belching out of the hold.

‘We need full power, now!’ Wodrik demanded.

‘Full power, aye aye!’ Helegrin answered from the haze below.

‘Captain! Company!’

Wodrik raised his eyes. They were closer to the Shining Sun now and slowly drifting nearer as Helegrin fought to get the endrinworks up and running again – but the enormous black dragon had withdrawn, wheeled round, and now sped nearer second by second, flames already roiling at the back of its gaping jaws, ready for another blast.

Wodrik threw himself across the deck in a headlong rush to the sky cannon. When his body collided with the gunworks, he used all his weight to swing the enormous, bulky cannon round and sighted down its length.

The shot was mad – foolhardy, even: the Shining Sun lay between the Aemick’s Blade and the swooping dragon, and though the dragon was a large, hurtling target, closing fast, risking a shot right across the deck of the Shining Sun was putting Djubbek and his surviving crew at terrible risk.

But if you don’t, Wodrik thought, they all die. And you’ll see it all, Wodrik – you’re so close, you’ll not just see them burn or hear their screams, you’ll be able to smell it.

‘Collision course, captain!’ Grikara shouted from the tiller. ‘Closing fast!’

‘Hold her steady, blast you!’ Wodrik snarled, sighting down the barrel of the sky cannon. ‘I’ve got the beast in my sights!’

‘Danger close, captain!’ the navigator shouted.

‘Aye,’ Wodrik snarled, only to himself, ‘and I’m the danger.’

He triggered the cannon. There was a massive explosion and the mounted cannon recoiled in its gimbal, the air in Wodrik’s view suddenly choked with smoke. He bent sideways – just in time to see the explosive shell collide headlong with the oncoming dragon.

The beast took the shot right down its gullet. The shell only exploded when it collided with the foul monster’s guts. Suddenly, the fierce black dragon came apart, its armoured aelven rider thrown into the air, plummeting earthward as the hurtling, now-bisected body of the beast collided head-on with the port side of Djubbek’s frigate.

The collision drove Djubbek’s ship back – right towards the oncoming prow of the Aemick’s Blade.

‘Brace for impact!’ Wodrik shouted.

The two frigates collided, every trace, band and rivet on the Aemick’s Blade groaning in protest as its considerable forward momentum was arrested by its impact with the listing Shining Sun. Once more, Wodrik heard – nay, felt – the endrinworks beneath-deck groan and shudder, and a massive gout of black smoke belched out of the hold, swirling up into the sky.

Wodrik did his best to settle his scrambled senses. They’d have only moments.

‘Belaying lines!’ he shouted, crab-crawling across the canted deck towards the place where the Shining Sun’s prow was dug into his portside. ‘Hold the Shining Sun! Get every survivor!’

Brannit, Grikara and Moddek rushed to the gunwales, obeying their captain’s orders, trying desperately to maintain close contact between the two ships so that Djubbek and any of his surviving crew could climb aboard. Already, Wodrik saw half a dozen Arkanauts clambering over the rails onto his deck, some bleeding, some streaked with soot or nursing terrible, blistering burns. He did not, however, see Captain Djubbek himself.

No time. See to the endrinworks! Hurry!

Wodrik dived to the hatch. There was a great deal of smoke now. It was impossible to see down there.

‘Helegrin!’ he cried. ‘Helegrin!’

He heard the groan and scream of twisted metal, felt the resonant thud-thud of heavy footfalls. Suddenly, an ovoid metal face with shining, goggle-like eyes loomed out of the smoke below.

Helegrin’s cogmunculus – but where was Helegrin?

Wodrik was about to dive into the hold when the cogmunculus lurched forward and climbed out of the hatch, blocking his descent. The tall, awkward clockwork monster was carrying its mistress in its riveted, jointed sunsteel arms. It rose onto the deck, stomped away from the yawning hatch, and gently laid Helegrin down upon the deck.

Wodrik was terrified, mortified, furious: he wanted to run to his young endrinmaster, to assure himself that she still breathed, that she would survive the day – but there was no time! They had to get the ship moving if they were to escape the fate of Djubbek’s fast-burning frigate beside them.

Down he went, right into the smoke and flames.

Nerontes saw the Tzaangor screaming towards him on its flaming disc and silently cursed himself for so summarily dismissing Castigus’ rebuffed cohorts.

‘Nerontes Fane!’ the Tzaangor shouted. ‘The time of your reckoning is at hand!’

Nerontes wasted no words. He simply lifted Godsbane and bade it unleash its full force upon the foul vulture-headed monstrosity now rushing towards him.

A spiralling column of heat and flame burst forth, but to Nerontes’ chagrin, the Tzaangor deftly swept its scintillating flying disc out of the arcane bolt’s path. Nerontes blasted again, again, each column of arcane mage-fire slithering forth in bright, searing spirals, like striking serpents seeking his onrushing enemy. The Tzaangor banked right, left, right, avoiding every blast.

Then, the beast leapt down from the skimming disc and landed only a stone’s throw from where Nerontes stood. The foul creature was taller than he, all ropy muscles and taut skin painted strange shades of purple and blue, great leathery wings rising from its back, its beaked, beady-eyed head thrust forward on an unnaturally long, hunched neck.

Nerontes levelled Godsbane.

‘Back!’ he commanded. ‘I destroyed the daemon prince Ruhlgurrad to claim this staff! I won’t hesitate to destroy you!’

The Tzaangor’s eyes narrowed. If it’d had lips, Nerontes thought it might have sneered.

‘Ruhlgurrad was a fool,’ it snarled, ‘A preening cockatrice! You face Hasturath now, mageling! And you will pay the price for your overweening pride!’

Nerontes unleashed another arcane blast. The Tzaangor raised a magical shield, deflecting the onslaught with ease.

‘We could have been allies, you and I,’ the Tzaangor said, eyes alight with malice. ‘I would have borne you no grudge for the murder of my master. But, no, the mageling had to hold onto his pride…’

A shudder of bitter remorse suddenly moved through Nerontes.

‘Castigus,’ he said. ‘You twisted him! Corrupted him!’

Somehow, that immobile avian beak seemed to smile.

‘I offered him nothing that he did not seek,’ the Tzaangor, Hasturath, answered. ‘He came to me, mageling. He begged my aid, saw our forces as natural allies. Pity that you lack his vision – his ambition!’

No. Not Castigus! He could not have thought this creature a natural ally. He was tempted! Twisted! Our dire straits forced him to make a daemon’s bargain…

Out on the field, Nerontes saw shimmers of wyrdfire and whorls of spectral light. His forces, engaged only moments before with the defenders of Settler’s Gain, now fought new enemies ploughing through their ranks: scintillating Horrors, all colours of the rainbow; toothy, lamprey-mouthed Screamers shrieking out of the skies to rend and tear; Tzaangor mages and Fatemasters twisting unsuspecting victims with their terrible, transmogrifying magics; Kairic Acolytes striking with their foul talons and their sharp, naked blades.

‘Your servants will be mine!’ Hasturath snarled. ‘Settler’s Gain will be mine! And Godsbane? Godsbane will know a new master before night falls!’

Nerontes felt something crumble inside him, breaking under the weight of all that unfolded. He wielded so much raw, destructive power. He was capable of defending himself against the onslaught of gods and destroying them where they stood – but he could not countermand all the barbarous magic and brutality now unleashed on the battlefield.

He almost failed to realise that Hasturath was summoning a massive, coruscating globe of wyrdfire, the growing sphere amassing between his taloned fingers, moment by moment.

Nerontes raised Godsbane – and a magical shield – just in time to deflect the deadly blast as Hasturath struck.

A blast of ambient heat and a blinding glare forced Sespyra to whirl away from her newly downed opponent. She half-expected to turn just in time to be consumed by some mage’s firestorm – but, no, the conflagration came not for her. It exploded a short distance from where she now fought: one lone figure – human by his silhouette – facing off against another. The foul avian head and spread wings of the man’s adversary made it clear that the wyrdfire’s summoner was a Tzaangor – and a powerful one, at that.

It had to be Fane – there was no one else on this field that a Tzaangor of such size and magical might would waste its strength upon.

As the glare of the firestorm subsided, smoke and spent energy bleeding off Fane’s hastily raised shield, Sespyra noted another figure, further behind Fane. They had been blasted off their feet, sprawling upon the dust, by the force of the blast.

The sprawling figure was Thelana.

There Fane stands, locked in combat, Godsbane in his hands! And there goes that fool of a Lumineth witch, trying to creep up on him!

I’ll never have a better chance. Never!

An enormous shadow suddenly lurched into Sespyra’s field of vision: a hulking greatswordsman, hefting his enormous blade to cleave her in two. Sespyra dived in close, plunging both her daggers into opposite flanks, then tore them out again, enlarging the stab-wounds and ruining the greatswordsman’s balance and strength in an instant.

The greatswordsman swayed, struggling to keep his blade – himself – aloft. His face twisted in agony in answer to Sespyra’s savage attack.

She slashed his throat and kicked him, hard. He toppled like a tree with shallow roots.

Sespyra broke into a mad dash, eager to place herself on destiny’s threshold.

It was the groan of twisting metal and the thunder of a massive explosion that drew Thelana out of her sprawling daze and yanked her upright. She’d been thrown to the ground by the deflected force of the Tzaangor’s attack upon Nerontes, but the explosion that had shaken her, awakened her, came not from the wizard’s duel unfolding just a short distance from where she lay.

It was one of the Kharadron sky-ships – though frigate or ironclad, she could not say. All she saw was the massive hull, shattered and twisted upon the ground in the near distance, the broken hull haemorrhaging titanic flames and roiling black smoke into the sky. The wreckage seemed to have come down atop one of the great magmadroths ridden by the Fyreslayers, for she saw the beast’s scaled, bulky haunches sprawled upon the ground beneath the scuttled hulk. Warriors from both sides of the conflict were scattering in all directions from the crash site, already seeking new adversaries to engage… or, perhaps to escape in the confusion.

Thelana’s heart ached within her. Had that been Wodrik’s vessel? She knew not where the valiant Kharadron captain had been before that moment; the world around her was so malign and insane that she had barely noted the presence of the small ad hoc Arkanaut fleet in the sky.

Death, contention, malign magic and physical peril: the plain was a hellscape – a three-way battle to the death, with the power to slay the gods themselves being the ultimate prize.

So many dead, Thelana thought, trying to summon her courage, her conviction. So many lost!

Let not a single soul have died in vain today…

On the knoll ahead, Nerontes unleashed a storm of magical assaults – daggers of ice, balls of mage-flame, blasts of hurricane wind, murderous hordes of scuttling shadows – against his vulture-faced foe. The Tzaangor, in answer, raised walls of wyrdflame, formed capering Horrors from the empty air and set them loose to rend and tear Nerontes’ murderous shadows; even summoned large, upthrusting staves of seeking stone from the ground itself, each blasting up from beneath Nerontes’ feet, seeking to slice or skewer him. Nerontes almost made Thelana proud, dancing, whirling, evading with swordsmanlike grace. As their armies tore one another to pieces, the archmages threw every offensive spell in their arsenals back and forth between them, seemingly oblivious to the slaughterhouse sprawling all around.

‘You bore me!’ Nerontes suddenly roared, his entire body now shimmering with the heat haze of arcane energies flowing out of Godsbane and into him. ‘Prepare for extinction, Hasturath!’

Hasturath screamed and raised his shaman’s staff, babbling hasty magical formulae just as Nerontes gathered the shimmering, glowing nimbus of energy whirling around him, cyclone-like. Then, Nerontes unleashed those energies in a single destructive blast.

Thelana threw up a defensive shield just as the explosion engulfed her. Though her shield held, she felt the pummelling, irresistible force of Nerontes’ shockwave. For an instant – only an instant – the battlefield and everything on it disappeared. Thelana was engulfed in pure energy; pure, blinding light.

And then, it all returned again.

There stood Nerontes, untouched atop the now-sundered knoll.

There stood the Tzaangor shaman, large, muscular body and leathery wings shredded, bloodied, blackened by the searing heat Nerontes had unleashed. Thelana imagined that Hasturath must have thrown up a shield to protect himself – he would have been vaporised otherwise – but his shield must have failed him after the initial impact. It had saved him from instant destruction, but not from mortal injury and the slow, agonising death that might now follow.

Thelana scanned the field. The shockwave had travelled far. On all sides, from the trench work lines of Nerontes’ army to the far ranks of Stormcast Evocators on the field, combatants lay dazed, smoking, screaming… or dead. The blast had claimed scores – if not hundreds – from all three armies now occupying the field.

The momentary respite afforded by the apocalyptic release was brief, however. Already, at the ragged edges of the explosion’s extent, adversaries once more charged and fell to fighting again, even as some tried to reach their injured companions and drag them off the field.

Above, on the knoll, the Tzaangor shaman fell to his knees, rasping, his small, malign eyes bulging from his avian head.

‘Impossible,’ he croaked, and stiffly lifted his half-blasted, soot-blackened shaman’s staff.

Nerontes made a minute hand gesture. The staff turned to dust in the Tzaangor’s blistered, gnarled hand.

‘You are powerful, Hasturath,’ Nerontes said, ‘else you would not have been able to resist me for so long. But ultimately it is I who win this day, not you – and to the victor go the spoils.’

The Tzaangor’s eyes narrowed. ‘If the Changer of Ways has use for you,’ he croaked, ‘then he shall have you.’

Thelana realised what was about to happen.

Nerontes unleashed a massive wave of arcane energy. The energy engulfed the Tzaangor, deconstructing and undoing him, cell by cell, atom by atom, from his most basic elements outward. As Thelana watched, horrified, the Tzaangor’s body and life force were torn asunder, swarming away like colonies of mad, hyperactive fireflies.

And as those energies were freed, Nerontes held Godsbane before him, capturing them and drinking them in, cell by cell, atom by atom. His body rocked with the tremendous wells of raw power that now poured into him as excess emanations shimmered from his frame like ambient heat. Sun-bright light shone from his eyes and, to Thelana’s horror, he opened his mouth and screamed. It was a scream of ecstasy, and of terror.

To take so much into oneself; to absorb such vast unfathomable energies into a frail mortal body… it had to feel like death itself, or worse.

Then, Hasturath was no more. Nerontes stood alone on the churned-up knoll, ambient energies still rippling off his body. Thelana saw the desolation, the vertiginous terror that he now felt, painted upon his slack face. Whatever he’d just endured, it had shaken him to his core. She wagered the experience had either awakened the last human part of his soul, or destroyed it, once and for all.

The thunder of hooves behind her, approaching rapidly. Thelana wheeled round. Half a dozen Dawnriders galloped across the field, towards Nerontes. She stood between the Vanari and their target.

When she turned back to Nerontes, she saw that he, too, noted the approaching riders – then, almost as an afterthought, saw Thelana herself half-knelt upon the ground beneath him. In that instant, he had her: he could have destroyed her on a whim, a stray thought, if he so desired. Perhaps her magic could protect her from an initial attack, but it could not protect her indefinitely.

She saw a moment’s consideration in his eyes – a baleful stare, a sense of loss and regret, a fleeting recognition. Then, his choice was made.

He lowered Godsbane, aiming it towards the galloping riders.

‘No!’ Thelana shouted.

Arcane fire engulfed the lead rider and her mount. It was not the sun-bright blade of heat that he’d unleashed upon the field earlier, either – the sort capable of instantaneous immolation. No, this was far less powerful but horrifyingly more effective. The horse and rider screamed and fell, their deaths coming slowly, painfully as they burned.

Godsbane swung. Strange energies sprang from its capstone. The earth beneath the rider thundering by on Thelana’s right exploded upward, as though packed with munitions. The steed and rider rose upon the air, wheeling and limp, the life blasted out of them in an instant, landing in bloodied, boneless heaps.

Still, the others charged. The shadow of death would not assuage them.

Thelana summoned all the power within her. A bright-white arcane bolt – crackling and dog-legged, like lightning – leapt from her staff and struck Nerontes square in the chest. He was so intent upon the oncoming riders, he failed to defend himself. He was thrown backward with frightening force, rolling and flailing down the shallow far slope of the knoll, Godsbane still in his hands.

Thelana was running before he’d even come to rest. Reaching the head of the knoll, she unleashed another blast, taking the just-rising Nerontes square in the chest again. Fane sprawled and thrashed, Godsbane still gripped greedily in one white-knuckled fist.

Thelana charged.

Nerontes skidded to a halt in churned, bloodied earth. He used Godsbane as a crutch to lever himself upright, reeling to his feet.

Thelana unleashed another blast.

Nerontes deflected the crackling energy, dissipating it into the empty air.

Thelana fired again, again, again, still charging. Every arcane bolt that struck Nerontes flew wild, tearing up turf, blasting small craters, crackling into the empty air. She kept up her barrage as she closed the distance between them. Her onslaught became a storm of light and sparks, smoke and fire, levelling the earth around Nerontes, searing away the grass, enflaming the air, blasting up clods of turf and soil.

But not once did any of her attacks penetrate Nerontes’ shield. Not for an instant did his concentration slip, his defensive spell fail. Thelana felt the magical energies inside her ebbing away. She had attacked too aggressively, in too short a span of time. She still had shards of aetherquartz embedded in her armour that might serve as reserves, but those, too, were finite.

She had to conserve her energies, now. Her wild, headlong charge had been an opening, not an endgame.

Nerontes lowered his shield. Master and student faced one another, battle yet raging around them.

‘You force my hand,’ Nerontes said, and she thought she heard sadness. ‘I cannot let you leave this place – you’ve proven too troublesome.’

‘Do what you must,’ Thelana said. ‘I’ll fight until there’s no life left in me.’

He shook his head. ‘You belonged at my side.’

‘No,’ Thelana said. ‘Not upon your present course.’

‘Very well,’ he said, and raised Godsbane. Standing before him, with the headpiece pointing directly at her, Thelana felt a terrible dread.

I’ve failed, she thought. What else can I do?

The head of Godsbane dipped the slightest. Nerontes was no longer fixed upon her. Something above and behind her had fixed his attention. Thelana turned, half-expecting him to destroy her when she dared turn her back.

A last Dawnrider sat on his horse atop the little knoll, staring down at them. His silence, his stillness, touched Thelana inwardly in a way she could not articulate or understand. Then, she saw the eyes staring from beneath his helm: pale, silver-blue in a calm young-old face.

She turned back to Nerontes. He was puzzled, but did not realise who stood before him.

‘One last brave soul,’ he sneered. His eyes flicked then to Thelana. ‘Stand and die, so that my teacher can have one more purposeless death upon her conscience before I end her.’

He thrust Godsbane out.

Nothing happened.

Thelana was so shocked, so amazed, that she actually stumbled back a step. Nerontes lowered the staff, pointing it directly at the rider.

‘What is this?’

‘This,’ the rider said, swinging out of his saddle, ‘is the limit of your power, Nerontes Fane.’

Nerontes stared at Godsbane. ‘Impossible!’

The rider slapped his mount on the rump and the horse fled. The rider then ambled down the slope of the knoll towards Thelana. He moved slowly, as if he had not a care in the world.

Fane thrust the staff forward again, trying to unleash some deadly magic that refused to materialise. ‘What is this?’ he muttered. ‘What’s happening?’

The Dawnrider removed his helm and let down his flowing silver-blond hair. The face of the Archmage Teclis stared at Nerontes Fane, calm yet seemingly saddened by the young man’s predicament.

‘No,’ Fane breathed. ‘It cannot be! I destroyed you!’

‘You did,’ Teclis said. ‘One of me, at least.’

‘One of you…’

‘This is godhood, Fane,’ Teclis said with a shrug. ‘Multiplicity. One soul in many bodies. Had you arrived at the place you now occupy with more time to investigate and experiment, you too might have mastered the process.’

Fane swung the staff sideways, pointing it once more at Thelana.

‘There!’ he said. ‘Not spent! I can still destroy her!’

He loosed a sun-bright blast.

Teclis intervened. In an instant, the Archmage stood between Thelana and Nerontes, his magical shield absorbing Nerontes’ blast. When the air cleared, Thelana peered past Teclis towards Nerontes. The young mage’s mouth was hanging agape in disbelief.

He tried to throw another bolt at Teclis. The staff gave him nothing.

‘Impossible!’ he cried.

‘All too possible,’ Teclis said, and unleashed an arcane bolt of his own.

The bolt struck the ground before Nerontes. The earth exploded beneath him and sent him reeling skyward, end over end. As he rose and fell, arms and legs flailing, Godsbane finally left his grasp. Nerontes and Godsbane hit the earth together, separated by a span of several yards.

This is it, Thelana thought, eyes fixed upon the staff, and broke into a run.

Nerontes stumbled to his feet. Guttering spheres of mage-flame formed around his knotted fists, the power inside him gathering.

‘I don’t need Godsbane!’ he snarled, eyes ablaze. ‘I have all the power I need within me!’

He unleashed arcane fire at Teclis – four arcing pillars of living flame, corkscrewing through the air like swift, fiery ballista bolts. The first bolt blasted Teclis, enveloping him. Just as Thelana feared that her theory about Godsbane’s – and Fane’s – finite limitations were misguidedly optimistic, she saw the Archmage step forward through the engulfing flames, barely raising a magical shield, to deflect the next three fiery missiles.

Fane wasn’t wrong: Godsbane might no longer grant him the power to slay a god, but he had amassed more than enough power to stand toe to toe with Teclis and challenge him mightily.

Teclis’ quick defence nearly proved Thelana’s undoing, for she had to move swiftly to dodge the deflected balls of mage-flame, shrinking from their bright glare and plunging through coils of smoke left in their wake, until she believed she was almost upon Godsbane. And yet, when she reached the place in the dust where she thought that it waited, it was not there. Certainly, there had been a great deal of smoke and flame swirling in the air around her only moments before, but had she become so lost? So disorientated?

‘I suppose you want this?’ a familiar voice asked.

Thelana turned. There stood Sespyra. She held Godsbane in her hands.

‘No,’ Thelana said quietly.

Behind Thelana, Nerontes hurled curses and fireballs and skeins of lightning at Teclis, determined to best his immortal adversary. The Archmage continued to defend himself bravely, maintaining a powerful but ever-diminishing magical shield against the young mage’s desperate, pummelling attacks. Whether Teclis deigned not to fight back because self-defence was his only option, or because he simply sought to exhaust Nerontes, Thelana could not say. There was no ease left in the aelf god’s normally placid expression, though: his young-old face was stony, determined, even slightly haunted by the desperation of the situation he found himself in.

We’re running out of time, Thelana thought, Teclis can’t hold out indefinitely. She returned her attentions to Sespyra.

Thelana did not like the look on Sespyra’s face, however, nor her present stance: one leg bent, one extended, as though she might at any moment dash off into the melee around them.

Thelana held out her hand. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘We have to end this.’

‘I need this,’ Sespyra said, drawing the staff closer. Thelana heard the desperation in her voice, the desire. ‘This staff is not just my salvation – it is the salvation of all my sisters. Of Khaine himself!’

‘Sespyra, I beg you,’ Thelana said.

The witch aelf exploded in rage. ‘Fane is disarmed, you fool! You can finish him now!’

‘No,’ Thelana said, shaking her head. ‘Not without Godsbane itself. This only ends if that weapon is in my hands.’

Sespyra’s fists tightened on the staff, almost wringing it. Her face – so angular, so pale, so severely beautiful and enigmatically unreadable – betrayed a storm of warring emotions. Thelana could see it in the way her body trembled, the way her muscles tensed and shook. Sespyra was truly at war with herself, eager to turn and run, yet tempted to relent and hand over her prize.

If she runs, Thelana thought, I’ll never catch her. She’ll use her magic to disappear, to hide her escape, and all the chaos around us… it will swallow her.

Sespyra fell to her knees, threw back her head, and loosed a terrifying, blood-curdling scream. Sorrow, rage, despair, defiance – all commingled in that single animal howl. The torment it signified brought tears to Thelana’s eyes.

And then, the scream was silenced. Sespyra Sepherys levelled her fell, red-eyed gaze upon Thelana Evenfall… and tossed Godsbane into her hands.

‘Consider that a favour, for a friend,’ the witch aelf snarled. ‘Now, go do your filthy work, white witch!’ Then, Sespyra turned and fled into the melee around them, disappearing in an instant.

Thelana, Godsbane in hand, turned to face Nerontes Fane.

Nerontes stood, staring at his flaming hands, as if he could not believe that his powers could now fail him so stunningly. He was soaked in sweat, breath deep and ragged, his weariness apparent. Teclis stood a short distance away, no shield in evidence, the ground about him slagged and smoking from Fane’s onslaught. He, too, looked exhausted – so pale and wan that Thelana almost imagined he was merely a ghost of himself, and not a physical figure at all.

Two mighty adversaries, summoning their last reserves, Thelana thought. It falls to me now…

Fane only noticed Thelana approaching when she was but steps away from him.

‘No!’ he roared, and unleashed a new storm of mage-fire.

Thelana’s hands tightened on Godsbane just as Nerontes unleashed his attack. She felt its power, its pull, its malign intent. But that moment of frisson, of communion, was interrupted when she willed a barrier into existence between her and her attacker. A mystical shield appeared, and Nerontes’ mage-flames exploded against that shield, spent.

He stared, eyes swinging back and forth between Thelana and Teclis.

‘I destroyed you once, Teclis,’ Nerontes said, mage-flame gathering around his fists once more. ‘I can destroy you again.’

‘I am afraid you cannot,’ Teclis said. ‘You’ve reached the extent of your power.’

‘There is no extent to my power!’ Nerontes roared, mage-flame now swirling in tiny storms between his outstretched hands. ‘I am more than a man now! Greater than any daemon prince or Lumineth master of the Teclamentari!’

‘Precisely,’ Thelana said, lowering Godsbane. ‘You’re so powerful, you could say you’ve become a god.’

Recognition dawned on Nerontes’ face.

‘And while gods cannot wield Godsbane,’ Thelana said, ‘they can be destroyed by it.’

She unleashed the staff’s power.

By her will, Nerontes Fane was not engulfed, nor unmade as Hasturath had been. Instead, he exploded. In a sudden blinding flash of light and concussive force, all the latent magical energies that Nerontes Fane had possessed were unleashed, throwing all within half a mile of where he stood onto their backs and sending a massive toroid cloud of dust, wind and smoke speeding towards the farthest reaches of the field.

When Thelana finally regained consciousness, she was not sure how much time had passed. Blinking, sitting up, she saw only one person standing near the place where Nerontes Fane had been unmade. It was Teclis, silently mourning the young’s man’s end, no relief or sense of victory apparent on his weary young-old face.

Thelana struggled up onto her knees, using Godsbane as a lever. Her body ached, from her crown to her toes. The armour upon her felt as though it were made of thrice-massive star iron, far too heavy for her lithe Lumineth body.

A thick ribbon of smoke tumbled across the field, engulfing Teclis for a moment. When it was once more blown away, the Archmage was gone. Far beyond where he’d stood, out of another gout of roiling smoke, Thelana saw a number of low, broad forms lumbering towards her. She recognised the black-bearded, blue-eyed duardin at the fore.

When Wodrik Thunderall saw her, he froze. Even across the distance that separated them, Thelana saw tears glinting in his icy blue eyes. She felt them in her own eyes, as well – Lumineth self-denial be damned.

Wodrik had his entire crew with him, as well as a number of dark-skinned duardin whom Thelana did not recognise. A few of those in the ragged company wore bulky endrinharnesses. At least one struggled along in a now-grounded dirigible suit. All were armed, most were bleeding, bruised, scraped or limping – but they were alive, weren’t they? Gloriously, gratefully alive.

‘Yours?’ Thelana asked, suggesting the great smoking hulk far out on the plain.

Wodrik threw up his arms in an exaggerated shrug.

‘Just hurtling machinery,’ he said, then suggested the duardin now crowding around him. ‘Everything of value is right here, beside me.’

Thelana smiled, held out her hand, and waited for Wodrik to come and help her to her feet. She was exhausted, and needed a friend to lean on.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Once more, Thelana Evenfall found herself in the Concordia. Once more, she stood before the Regents’ Council, the leadership of the Tempest Lords Sacrosanct Chamber, and the Council of Adepts. Once more, she was faced with a choice, and the unpleasant duty of explaining herself to respected peers who would, she feared, never understand her.

High Regent Nendira’s stare was most severe as it appraised her and, Thelana was certain, found her wanting.

‘This is your final answer, Thelana Evenfall? The choice before you is a heavy one. Your decision should not be made lightly.’

Thelana nodded in the affirmative, even as she kept her head bowed in respect.

‘That is my final answer, High Regent,’ she said solemnly.

‘Let it be recorded in the annals, then,’ High Regent Nendira said after a long, pregnant pause, ‘that Thelana Evenfall has been offered the empty seat on the Regents’ Council created by the death of Master Kelarion, as well as the title of regent. She has declined.’

Thelana knew all too well that if any other member of the faculty had been offered that position on the council, they would have accepted it graciously and with all humility, all the while assuring themselves that a lifetime of study, hard work, applied self-control and rigorous intellectual and magical standards had earned that seat for them. Thelana, unfortunately, found no part of her that was willing or able to accept the seat. Certainly, a part of her desired it: a part of her even felt vindicated by the offer itself, for she knew that Nendira and the others did not have to make the overture. They could have simply expunged her record of the blight of an arrest and incarceration and sent her back to her common work – the work she loved – as an instructor and mentor for the eager, inquisitive humans who came here seeking guidance and illumination.

In the end, however, she had simply known that this was not her time. A seat on the council might materialise for her at some future date, under different circumstances – or, it might not. She was certain, however, that the present moment was not the right one. She still felt there was too much to learn, too many avenues for growth and self-understanding that she had not yet ventured upon. To put herself on the Regents’ Council at such a comparatively young age felt not so much like a promotion or recognition of her excellence as an attempt to calcify her and keep her better hemmed-in and under control.

And so, she had kindly, humbly, emphatically refused their offer.

‘This is most irregular,’ Dakhir said as the secretary scribbled Nendira’s pronouncement as to Thelana’s refusal. ‘In all the history of this council, not a single soul has ever refused the honour when it was offered.’

Thelana kept her head bowed, her eyes down, but once more nodded.

‘If I were not the outlying variable in a sea of dependable likelihoods,’ she said, ‘then I would not be myself.’

That response was, perhaps, too tart for the council’s ears. Their silence in answer to it was deafening. Though Thelana was not looking at Regent Dakhir, she felt she could almost hear him frown.

‘And if the opportunity never comes again?’ he asked. ‘If you are never again in the whole of your life offered a seat on this council, will your refusal still satisfy you?’

‘It shall have to,’ Thelana said. ‘I only know that I still have things to learn, milestones to pass, and achievements to count my own before the time comes when I shall feel worthy to join this august body. Until that day comes, no offer made will suit me, I am afraid.’

They had no response to that.

‘Not the response they were expecting,’ Lord-Exorcist Malkeus said beside her.

‘But the only response I could give,’ Thelana said.

‘It is a great honour,’ Malkeus said, and she clearly heard judgement in his voice.

‘It is,’ Thelana answered. ‘Such an honour that I would not accept it unless I felt equal to it. And, at this moment in my life, I do not. Surely, Lord-Exorcist, you can understand one’s own desire to be fit for a position of respect before accepting it?’

He had no response for that.

After the conclave in the Concordia adjourned, Malkeus had asked for her company as he and the honour guard accompanying him ventured to the university armoury to fetch Godsbane. The six Stormcasts marching behind him and Thelana carried between them a mighty ark of enchanted wyrdwood, fortified by sigmarite hinges, locks and bands of duardin forging. It was, for all intents and purposes, a warded sarcophagus, and within it, Godsbane would rest as Malkeus and a full conclave of Retributors accompanied the terrible bauble back to Azyr, for storage in one of Sigmar’s personal, perpetually guarded Stormvaults in Azyrheim. Thelana had suggested – and all involved had agreed – that the only safe place for such an artefact was under the God-King’s watchful eye, in the only realm untouched by Chaos.

‘I suppose I should commend you, then,’ Malkeus said as they approached the great doors to the armoury, ‘for knowing your limitations… however scant they may be.’

Thelana felt an unbidden smile creep onto her face. ‘Lord-Exorcist Malkeus… was that a compliment?’

He glanced down at her, so tall that he seemed to be standing on a platform, even as he marched beside her. She saw the ghost of a smile on his thin lips.

‘Perhaps it was,’ he said.

They hove up to the great doors to the armoury. Malkeus lifted the great knocker and banged it against an inset brass plate three times in slow succession. Thelana almost imagined she could hear the loud, echoing reverberations beyond the enormous doors.

She was happy to be here, happy to know that, very soon, Godsbane would be away from this place, away from Hysh, out of idle hands and beyond arbitrary discovery or abuse. Some things, she had decided, were too powerful to even exist. In the heated discussions about what to do with the ancient staff that had unfurled in the days and weeks after the great battle on the plain, many options had been broached.

Parties from all the Mortal Realms treated with the Regents’ Council, the Tempest Lords, and the Eldritch Council of Settler’s Gain in a vain and knotty attempt to find a solution that would satisfy everyone. Some suggested destroying it – but no one knew if that were even possible, or what would happen to the fantastic energies contained within the thing if the vessel itself were disintegrated. Others argued for its removal to some secret place, hitherto unknown – a new, freshly hidden Stormvault somewhere, or perhaps the personal armoury of some trusted entity in an out-of-the-way corner of one realm or another.

In the end, the Lord-Arcanum Petreus and the Tempest Lords had got their way: it was their suggestion to remove the troublesome staff to Azyrheim, where it could be guarded until the Day of Doom itself. Thelana, much to the chagrin of her fellow Lumineth, had supported their plan above all others.

Godsbane was a weapon of terrible power, designed for the use of powerless folk without the discipline or understanding to use it responsibly. Therefore, it needed to disappear. Preferably, forever.

There was a loud clunking and grating as the locks on the armoury were thrown back and the great doors opened to admit their party. The new armourer and chief spellwright was an Scinari Calligrave whose age Thelana found impossible to fix – perhaps young, perhaps old. Even by Lumineth standards, her features – bright, young eyes surrounded by suntanned skin evincing tiny cracks and wrinkles that could be a sign of age or simply hard use – defied explication or understanding.

Brief pleasantries were exchanged. Despite the armourer’s clear understanding of the Tempest Lords’ mandate and purpose, Lord-Exorcist Malkeus found it necessary to present the signed and signet-stamped scrolls to her from the Regents’ Council, the court of Sigmar, and the command echelon of the Tempest Lords, before allowing her to close the door behind them and lead them deeper into the complex, where the sealed vault lay that contained Godsbane.

‘What of your companions?’ Malkeus asked as they walked. ‘Did they come through the conflagration safely?’ His voice, normally sharp and cutting, like a sword in the dark, was lowered and reverent, as though they moved through a church or a library.

Thelana nodded. ‘They did,’ she said, ‘praise Tyrion, Teclis and Celennar.’

‘The duardin and all his crew?’

Thelana nodded again. ‘Wodrik and all of his crew survived the siege, lending the garrison their considerable skills as cogsmiths, tinkerers and weapons-makers. As I understand it, the defences they helped to bolster on the south wall were instrumental in keeping the city safe from invasion. They were rewarded quite handsomely. When I spoke to them just a few days ago, Wodrik had purchased passage for the lot of them back to Barak-Thryng. They plan to acquire a new sky-ship once they have returned to their ancestral home.’

‘And the Khainite?’ Malkeus asked.

Thelana hesitated.

‘She survived the battle,’ she then said, perhaps too quickly. ‘Shortly thereafter, she was on her way.’

She hoped Malkeus would ask no more questions. In truth, she did not want to discuss Sespyra, or her whereabouts. Thelana had thought that the two of them understood one another, even respected one another, in the end, even if they did not precisely love or trust one another. When last she saw the witch aelf, Sespyra had spoken as though she were still trying to decide where she would next travel to, how she might prolong her existence and keep the agents of Morathi guessing as to her whereabouts. She had spoken as if the two of them would speak again before she departed.

But then, when Thelana had returned to the boarding house where Sespyra kept a cheap room in a high, rear garret, she had found her gone. No trace of the witch aelf or her scant possessions remained. The housekeeper said that they’d found sufficient coin to cover her expenses with a little extra thrown in, but beyond that, they had not heard from her. One day, the Khainite was simply gone. Since her bill was paid, they thought it best not to enquire after her.

Thelana had tried to tell herself just that: best not to enquire. Best not even to wonder. She is a fugitive, and she’s gone now. You shall never see her again. Sigmar knows how long she might even survive, living on the run.

It was a small, silent part of her that feared a different end for Sespyra entirely – an end that was far more final, without even the hope of redemption or retirement.

The armourer led the eight of them through the bowels of the complex, down stairs, along dark, bending passages, until finally, they arrived at their destination. It was a honeycomb of small and medium-sized vaults, all waiting at the top or bottom of various flights of overlapping and interwoven staircases. None of the vaults were numbered or otherwise marked, making it impossible to distinguish one from another, and the navigation of the overlapping, interlocking stairways would have surely driven an ordinary person – without sufficient mental acuity or magical training – stark mad. Even Malkeus and his fellow Stormcasts seemed more than a little disorientated by the twisting path the armourer led them on.

‘Here,’ she said at last, reaching a high landing and stepping aside so that the rest of them could crowd in around the vault door. Thelana placed herself as far to one side as she could, to give the six Stormcasts bearing the warded ark preferred placement before the vault door.

‘I must admit,’ the armourer said as she worked the multifarious combination and lever-driven locks that sealed the chamber, ‘I shall be relieved to see this piece remanded to you and your fellows, Lord-Exorcist. The mere fact of its existence makes me profoundly uneasy.’

‘Agreed,’ Malkeus said, waiting patiently for the door to be opened to them.

The armourer completed her actions. Thelana heard the clang and thunder of an enormous lock being sprung, the landing and the stairs all seeming to vibrate in answer.

The armourer grasped the enormous handle of the vault and yanked. The door, perfectly balanced on its hinges despite weighing as much as a magmadroth, glided open easily.

Thelana was not looking into the chamber when it was opened. It was the look on Malkeus’ face that alerted her to something untoward. She looked to the armourer. The young-old Iliathan stared, her bright blue eyes as large as stones. Her mouth hung agape in a look of abject, disbelieving horror.

Thelana swung around and peered into the vault, already fearing what she knew she would find.

The little vault was empty.

Godsbane was nowhere in sight.

The tavern on the square was one of many, and always had been. That was why the city criers began their morning and evening rounds of Settler’s Gain from this square: they knew that, be it morning or evening, there would always be a large gathering of citizens and travellers, breaking fast, swilling ale or wine, relaxing after a hard day’s work or simply preparing for a laborious evening – no matter what their purpose, there were many ears here to listen as they declaimed and shared the news of the day.

‘Let it be known,’ the high crier shouted, his stentorian tones enough to make a stage actor envious, ‘that the rebellion underway in Anvilgard, realm of Aqshy, has been quelled and suppressed at last! Despite fierce resistance and hard fighting in a barricaded quarter of the city, the Stormcasts and the city watch were, in the end, successful in crushing the rebels and scattered the few survivors who escaped justice by hammer and blade! Praise Sigmar!’

‘On this day,’ the junior crier declared, his voice not half so forceful as that of his more experienced superior, ‘in the realm of Chamon, multiple uprisings in both urban and rural centres are reported. Despite indications of fierce fighting and entrenched resistance, Eldritch Councils and local military garrisons remain assured that the revolts will be indecisive and short-lived. Victory is assured. Praise Sigmar!’

The female crier stepped forward, looking wholly underwhelmed by the news she had to share. ‘Riots and civil unrest are reported in the slums of Greywater Fastness, as well as the lower quarters of Hammerhal Ghyra and numerous cities throughout the Mortal Realms. Though details are scant, local authorities assure all that the troubles are minor and isolated, and represent no concerted effort to undermine prevailing authorities or open the way for the depredations of Chaos. Praise Sigmar!’

Orenna drained the dregs of her wine and placed her cup down heavily on the table before her. Edinor, seated opposite, was hunched over his own cup. He’d been listening as the criers shared their news, a slow, sly smile creeping onto his lips all the while. Now, he raised his eyes and looked to his mentor and companion, asking a silent question with the arch of a single eyebrow.

‘Rebellions,’ she said quietly, ‘uprisings, revolts. Isolated. Short-lived. Indecisive. My goodness, it’s as though someone laced the drinking water with something to stir up the natives…’

Edinor nodded approvingly and sipped his own wine. He could not keep pace with Orenna. Her tolerance for the stuff far outstripped his own. He was about to say something snide of his own, when words whispered at a nearby table reached his ears.

‘Way I heard it, the Godslayer hied out the moment he realised his army couldn’t take the city.’

‘He didn’t run,’ someone at the adjacent table said hastily. ‘They destroyed him. I had it from my sister’s banker, whose brother is in one of the Freeguilds who stood with the Lumineth and the Stormcasts to defend the city.’

‘Destroyed, ha!’ the first speaker answered with a snort. ‘That’s what they want us to believe. If the truth got out, you’d see a lot more of these uprisings, riots and conflagrations through the Mortal Realms, I assure you. Why, if the little folk of all the realms thought the Godslayer lived, what would stop them from flocking to his banners?’

The other tsked and scoffed. ‘Not bloody likely,’ he grumbled. ‘I’m telling you, he’s dead. We won’t hear from him or his would-be revolutionaries again. They’re just a footnote to history now… a curiosity.’

‘Baaaah, baaaah,’ the first taunted. ‘Bloody sheep.’

Edinor looked to Orenna again. She was smiling now as well, the overheard conversation clearly delighting her. She leant forward and whispered conspiratorially.

‘What would stop them from flocking?’ she asked quietly.

Edinor snickered. ‘The little folk.’

‘Come on,’ she said, fishing out a few coins and dropping them on the table. ‘We’ll be late. It’s a long walk.’

Edinor nodded and the two of them fled the tavern.

They ambled along a deserted street, deep in a seedy quarter of Settler’s Gain. The sun was already falling, light fading from the sky and the familiar Hyshian twilight descending. They had secured a humble property here – a small three-storey townhouse sandwiched between two low, broad tenements. Orenna had deemed it a fitting location for their base of operations while they remained here, until duty or opportunity forced them to pull up stakes and move elsewhere, ever in search of the next opportunity for the Esoteric Order of the Black Sun to exploit.

‘I never could have imagined it,’ Orenna said as they strolled. ‘He may prove more useful dead than alive.’

‘Ironic,’ Edinor said beside her, careful to keep his voice low. ‘An unadulterated failure – a debacle – somehow bent towards our ultimate success.’

‘It wasn’t a debacle at all,’ Orenna said soberly. ‘Only a setback.’

Edinor blinked, hardly believing her pronouncement. ‘We lost thousands of soldiers and munitions,’ he said. ‘Not to mention one of our most powerful champions, and an even more powerful weapon.’

Orenna smiled enigmatically as she suddenly turned right, cutting across his own path to dart into a narrow, meandering alleyway. Narrowly avoiding running into her, Edinor redirected and followed her into the musty, mould-encrusted passage.

‘There are other champions,’ Orenna said as they walked, ‘greater champions. But look what the small folk now have to sustain them? A legend! The legend of a man who stood against the gods and immortals who’ve so long oppressed and misused them! The legend of an ordinary mortal man who slew a god!’

They came at last to the back door of their newly leased property. Orenna fished out the keys she carried. Not only did the ring sporting the key to the outer door have almost a dozen nearly identical keys affixed to it – to confuse and confound any pickpocket who might come into their possession – but they were also magically charged. Only the right key, in the right hand, used on the right door, would ultimately open the way into their warded sanctum within.

‘Is it legend?’ Edinor asked. ‘Or is it a tale of folly? Or, worse yet, a bedtime story – the sort of thing too incredible for any sensible person to believe, save fools and children?’

‘All three and more,’ Orenna said, opening the door and ushering Edinor inside. ‘And that works to our advantage. Where the truth is obscured by myth and legend, or hidden in plain sight behind campfire tales and prescriptive parables, our cause can grow.’

When they were both inside, she closed the door behind them.

Edinor found the lamp he left in the vestibule – the small space now pitch-black – and muttered the cantrip that lit the wick. Suddenly, they had a small globe of warm golden light to guide their way. On they went through the lower floors of the house, seeking the back stairs and climbing them, flight after flight, until they reached the attic floor.

As Edinor opened the windows to admit a view of the city’s rooftops and the night sky and a gust of fresh air, Orenna saw to the communication seals scrawled in chalk on the chamber floor and retrieved her Spectralith from its protective chest.

‘Myths and legends can grow in a way that simple, recorded and verified facts cannot,’ she said as she prepared for the conclave to come. ‘It matters not if Nerontes Fane was victorious or a failure, a real man or a hero out of myth. What matters is that his story, however it is received, outlives him, and grows in the shadow he cast. In a generation, maybe two or three, his stature as a champion of mortal-kind – the man who challenged the gods – will be settled and assured. His factual failure will be of little consequence compared to the inspiration and guidance his mythic stature will provide.’

Edinor lit the candles and the lamps around the room. ‘I suppose,’ he said, working hard not to be dismissive. He believed in their cause, after all: deeply, truly. Orenna Karn had opened the world to him, and shown him visions of a new order that he never could have imagined possible. If Nerontes Fane’s failure ultimately paved the way for the Black Sun’s success… so be it.

In the balance, perhaps that failure would prove a valuable boon, instead of a costly liability.

‘I’m ready,’ Orenna said. ‘Into the corner with you.’

‘Have I congratulated you, by the way?’ Edinor asked. ‘Lector and Master-Adept Karn!’

She smiled. ‘You have,’ she said, ‘but I urge you to do so again and again – when we’re alone, of course.’

He nodded and withdrew to his dark corner. ‘Of course.’

Orenna reached out her hand and placed it in the air above the Spectralith. In slow succession, the other members of the conclave faded into visibility, like a convocation of shimmering spirits materialising in a deserted Shyishian graveyard. Allobrand, Tyboria, Mhysa, Vitareus, Kotaarn, Xytaria, Throndhammer and Mountaincleaver – all were present.

‘There she is,’ General Mhysa said, ‘our newest lector. Welcome to the fold, young lady.’

‘A proper greeting, before we stoop to pleasantries,’ Magister Tyboria said sternly. The handsome middle-aged woman turned her heavy gaze upon Orenna.

‘Behold,’ Tyboria said, ‘what shadow is this which falls upon the sun?’

Orenna answered with relish. Edinor clearly heard the pride and exultation in her voice.

‘It is the shadow of the moon and a promise of things to come,’ Orenna Karn said. ‘Soon enough, that small sliver of shadow shall become a full eclipse.’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dale Lucas is a novelist, screenwriter, civil servant and armchair historian from St. Petersburg, Florida. Once described by a colleague as ‘a compulsive researcher who writes fiction to store his research in,’ he’s the author of numerous works of fantasy, neo-pulp and horror. When not writing or working, he loves travel, great food, and amassing more books than he’ll ever be able to read. His first story for Black Library, ‘Blessed Oblivion’, features in the Age of Sigmar anthology Oaths and Conquests, and he has since penned the novel Realm-Lords.

An extract from Realm-Lords.

Ferendir stumbled on loose rock resting in dry soil. He first fell forward, overcompensated by shifting his weight backwards, then felt gravity – sure and inexorable – seize him. There would be no course correction – he was falling, and the steep, thinly wooded slope was about to thrust him away from its cold, sere face as though disgusted by him. In desperation, Ferendir whirled his arms, hoping to save himself from a painful impact and a merciless slide back down the steep incline. Further on, ahead and above him, he saw his master, Serath, turn back to stare.

Surely that was the worst – not the slip, not the fall, not even the impact to come, but Serath’s cold, appraising glare and silent disapproval.

Then a gentle pressure upon Ferendir’s back steadied him. His fall was arrested, his humiliation postponed. His other master, Desriel, had stopped his backward fall with an outstretched hand. Regaining his balance and planting his feet widely to stabilise himself, Ferendir lowered his eyes. Deep within him, buried beneath layers of physical conditioning and mental inculcation gained throughout his years as a supplicant to the mountain temple, he felt the seething, roiling forces of his emotions, like subterranean waters warmed by geothermal vents, made turbulent by a sudden underground tremor. Embarrassment, relief, fear, self-loathing – all were so close in that horrible instant, so present just beneath the mask of calm he fought to project to his mentors, that he could almost taste them.

Breathe, he ordered himself inwardly. Just as they taught you. Regain your composure. Centre yourself. It was just a misstep… an understandable accident.

But was it? He raised his eyes to Serath again, further up the slope.

Serath makes no such missteps, does he? That is why he looks upon me with such disdain, such disappointment. Nothing I do will ever be good enough for him.

And Desriel. Quiet, compassionate, supportive Desriel. He makes a good show of believing in me, maintaining his patience no matter how often I make mistakes, but he is probably ashamed of me on some level, as well… certain that I’m unequal to what’s ahead.

The trial. My final trial.

Perhaps my final anything.

Stop, that cold, quiet voice within him said again. Fear will destroy you. First things first, now – just get up the mountain without another fall.

Ferendir forced himself to follow the voice’s command. He continued to breathe evenly, consciously, to count slowly backwards as he did so, inhaling on the even numbers, exhaling with the odd.

Inhale. Exhale.

His heart rate slowed. The subtle tremors in his hands disappeared and the sweat upon them began to evaporate.

‘Shall we continue?’ Desriel asked quietly.

Ferendir opened his eyes. Looked up the steep incline of the mountainside. Saw Serath up ahead, silently impatient, still watching, radiating a vaguely disdainful air.

‘Onwards,’ Ferendir said, and resumed his climb.

Today, he faced his final initiation rite as a supplicant and acolyte of his Alarith temple. He could not afford to let a single misstep, a single, foolish mistake, ruin the calm and confidence he had worked so hard to cultivate within himself in preparation for this final, harrowing rite. He must be present, mindful, ready for anything yet expecting nothing.

Today, he would suborn himself to the mountain’s will and beg its blessed sanction.

Today, he would be buried alive.

If the mountain accepted him, he would survive the ordeal. If, on the other hand, it found him unworthy…

‘We linger too long,’ Serath said from above.

Ferendir forced himself not to raise his eyes or meet Serath’s disapproving gaze. From behind him, Desriel answered.

‘Patience, Serath,’ his master said. ‘Our young supplicant was simply recomposing himself.’

Serath persisted. ‘Had he stepped carefully, noted all possible impediments to his passage and skilfully avoided them, he would not have slipped, or fallen, or lost his composure.’

He could hide no longer. Trudging on, never breaking stride, Ferendir raised his eyes to meet Serath’s, however difficult doing so might prove.

‘I beg pardons of both of you, my masters,’ the supplicant said. ‘Please, let us continue.’

He lowered his eyes to the path, set one foot before the other and said no more. He leaned into the steep slope and chose his footholds swiftly but carefully.

The terrain they moved through – deep in the Ymetrican mountains of the realm of Hysh – was sparsely wooded and dreary, slate-grey knobs of cold stone and dry, subalpine soil scattered with towering sentinel trees and blanketed here and there with cushions of moss and islands of sedge. Hand- and footholds were not hard to find – there always seemed to be some jutting stone, the gnarl of a tree root or a narrow shelf of tightly packed earth awaiting his employ. Ferendir concentrated on finding the best of these, determined not to slip again simply because he had failed to closely examine where he planted his feet. As he trudged onwards, he sometimes used his small, delicate hands to assist in his ascent. He could still hear the burbling rush of the last stream they had crossed before beginning their climb, far below them, because the wind-wracked forest around them was so deathly silent, so funereally still.

Ferendir stole a glance upwards at Serath, to see if his stoic mentor yet lingered above him. To his chagrin, Serath had not moved. His master stood, bedecked in his shining white plate armour chased in gold, leaning upon his long-handled stone mallet. One of Serath’s booted feet was braced upon a bleached-white tangle of deadfall wedged between two thin, sickly trees, and the stoic Stoneguard stared down at his long-time apprentice with his familiar reproachful glare. Ferendir could not tell if that expression – so subtle, so inscrutable – was a sign of complete disdain or simple pity. Serath held Ferendir’s upturned eyes for only an instant, then turned his back and began to climb again.

Behind him, Ferendir heard Desriel begin to hum quietly – a slow, melancholy tune. Ferendir recognised the sombre melody at once as one of the temple’s hymns, a wordless song taught to all the servants of the mountain. Its dolorous melody and slow, lilting cadence were designed to sharpen one’s senses, to suppress one’s conscious thoughts and widen one’s consciousness – a sort of musical state of meditation, useful when undertaking laborious physical tasks such as a slow climb up a steep, wind-scoured mountainside. Ferendir was tempted to join Desriel in humming the old hymn – he had always loved the sense of plaintive peace that it stirred within him – but a part of him was reticent.

It was Serath. Though Ferendir now bore down upon his master with his senses and struggled to listen closely, he could not hear Serath humming. Serath, apparently, was centred, focused and fully present without the benefit of the hymn’s quiet, hypnotic power. Therefore, Ferendir, determined to earn Serath’s respect if not his affection, would do as he did, and remain silent, no matter how much he wanted to join Desriel in his song.

They had set off in the early hours of the morning, when the dim Hyshian twilight that constituted night was yet upon them and most of the temple Stoneguard and acolytes yet slept. His masters were each fully armoured and carried their personal weapons – an elegant diamondpick hammer for Desriel, a massive, long-hafted stone mallet for Serath – while Ferendir himself, facing a trial, wore a supplicant’s tunic and had only been permitted to bring along his well-worn yew staff and a small dagger. Their path led them north-west, along one of the many narrow hiking trails that criss-crossed the rolling ridgelines and deep valleys of the mountain, taking them far from the lovely, well-hidden, tree-packed dell in which their temple resided towards the thick, shadowy forests that blanketed the mountain’s western slopes. After hours of following the hill-hugging trail, they finally came to a rocky stream tumbling down out of the woods. At the stream, they left the path and followed the wending waters deeper and deeper into the shady hollows and rough-hewn gullies that formed the uneven geography of the mountain. Just as the full light of day began to bleed back into the world – Ulgu’s darkness waning at last before the imminent glow of the Perimeter Inimical – they finally came to the lower edge of the thinning subalpine forest that marked the beginning of the end of the mountain’s life-sustaining lower slopes. Whereas before the rolling, climbing landscape had been thick with intertwined, leafy decidua and tall, needly dreampines shading banks of shaggy verdibrush and beds of sprouting toadstools, the world above the stream suddenly exhibited signs of weariness and surrender. The spaces between the trees widened. Green turf and fronded ferns were replaced by dry soil, bald stone and isolated beds of spongy moss or obdurate sedge.

Hour by hour they climbed, the light invading the thinning woodlands growing brighter and brighter, even as the gusts blowing down from the mountain’s heights grew colder and more insistent. The world stirred little, only a few lonely birds offering sad songs while from the last clinging shadows beneath the thinning trees they heard the rattle of tiny claws on stone and the soughing, subtle passage of small, fleet bodies. The moribund forest, the steepening mountainside, the air above and around them – everything, no matter how austere and faded it appeared, showed signs that it was alive, awake, hungry. This was one of the most basic lessons imparted to young supplicants of the mountain temple – or any temple, for that matter.

There is life in everything, desire in everything, will in everything. One forgets that fact at great personal peril.

Around them, the pines fell away. The only trees remaining upon the mountainside as they climbed, higher and higher, were stunted, pale and permanently bent by the hitching winds that raced down in gusting squalls from above. Those trees – spread far and wide, no hope of creating anything like a true canopy – hunched and curled against the slope, leafless and ragged as sun-bleached banners frozen forever in a wind-whipped frenzy.

Here, even that which grew slowly and stood impassively against the elements was bent into submission, subject to the implacable will of the mountain and its cold, furious winds. Seeing before him the evidence of just how merciless and unrelenting the mountain’s will could prove to be, Ferendir was suddenly filled with a mingling of both awe and dread at what he was about to undergo.

Seeking the desires of the mountain, testing the will of the mountain that he called his aelemental master, was the sole aim of Ferendir’s trial that day. Per the immutable laws of holy Teclis and the aelementiri principles held sacred by his temple, Ferendir would, like hundreds before him, be taken by his masters to a place of solitude and reflection – a place close to the heart of the mountain, in the direct path of the rushing, invisible pathways of deep and ancient energy that its sublime soul radiated. There, he would dig what was, essentially, his own grave. In that deep burrow, his masters would bury him alive. And there, beneath cold, arid soil and rock, slowly, inexorably crushed by the physical presence of the mountain’s will and desire, Ferendir would dare asphyxiation and a slow, panic-stricken, forsaken death in the close darkness, in order to earn the mountain’s approval for his lifelong service. If he was found worthy, the mountain would not allow his expiration. It would, instead, feed him the air required to survive, so that he could rise again transformed and sanctified – no longer an eager supplicant but a hallowed and holy acolyte, warranted, transformed, devoted evermore to the mountain’s service and maintenance.

If it found any part of his mind, body or spirit unworthy, however, he would die.

No amount of preparation, no words from his mentors or the high priests and Stoneguard he served at the temple, could penetrate the mystery of what the mountain had in store for him. The trial, he had been assured, was his only path to enlightenment, and, likewise, the only means of proving his potential worth. To become what he hoped to become, he must dare the nullification of his very existence. Only courting death in so direct and terrifying a fashion would galvanise his spirit, assure his worthiness and empower him to carry on – to begin to lead the life of usefulness and service that he had always hoped to lead.

Behind him, Desriel spoke.

‘Do you see the end of the shoulder above us?’ his master asked.

Ferendir raised his eyes. He saw a place, fifty yards ahead and above them, where the sparse, bent trees simply disappeared, leaving only broad, bald rock pocked with sickly, sere moss and even more stunted furrows of sedge. Though the sun shone brightly upon that vast, empty expanse, he knew it would be cold there, for the gales blown down from the mountain were strong, and there, upon the tundra, there was no shelter, not even so much as a clump of low scrub to break the wind’s cold, crashing force.

‘I see it, Master Desriel.’

‘We are almost at our destination,’ his master said easily. ‘The place of your trial lies just beyond the lower barrens, over that shelf and deep into a box canyon cut into the mountainside. You can almost see the cleft from here, though the colours of the stone hide it well.’

Ferendir stared as he climbed. He thought, squinting and half imagining what the colours visible on the far side of the treeline suggested, that he could see what his master described, but he could not be certain.

‘Must he be entertained?’ Serath called from above. He had pulled far ahead, now almost to the rocky shoulder. ‘The boy is a supplicant, Desriel. Let him make his own discoveries and draw his own conclusions.’

‘There is nothing indulgent in being informative,’ Desriel called back amiably. ‘Ferendir can draw his own conclusions – I was merely imparting information.’

Serath gave a short, swift glance backwards, but never broke stride. ‘You coddle him.’ It was spoken flatly, baldly – a simple fact. It sounded neither like an indictment nor a recrimination.

‘Perhaps,’ Desriel said, so quietly that it might have been only to himself. Again, there was no feeling in the statement – no indicator of shame or embarrassment – only quiet, assured agreement. Perhaps he did… or did not.

Ferendir kept climbing.

Part of him wanted to look back at Desriel, to see his sharp-featured face, his kind brown eyes, the vague ghost of a smile haunting his usually implacable expression. But he would not. If Serath saw him looking to Desriel for comfort, for encouragement, he might take that as a sign of weakness, an indicator – however subtle – of Ferendir’s unworthiness to undertake the final trial.

I need nothing, Ferendir told himself. I desire nothing. I expect nothing. I go to meet my trial willingly, fearlessly, begging only that the mountain will know my heart and find me worthy of being taken into its service and confidence.

Those were the words he told himself, inwardly, silently, ever eager to settle the emotions that stirred and seethed deep, deep in the darkest centres of his consciousness.

Desriel was as encouraging as Serath was dismissive, as supportive as Serath was challenging. Though Ferendir had always drawn a great deal of his strength and confidence from Desriel’s serene, unwavering support, some impulse inside him always strove to impress Serath, to earn his respect and admiration, to draw even a single word of praise from him, however subdued such praise might be. Ferendir knew it was foolish to feel such things, but some dim, deeply buried part of him always seemed to regard his desire for one master’s praise or support as a subtle betrayal of the other, even though their particular temple made it clear that every supplicant had two masters for a very pointed purpose.

This is Hysh, the High Stonemage had said all those years before, when Ferendir was just a young aelf, presented to the temple for training as a supplicant. This realm – the realm that gave birth to our kind – is a place of balance… a place of harmony… a place of reconciled opposites. Just as our twin gods, Tyrion and Teclis, embody warring impulses yoked to the same divine ends, just as the two halves of the Great Mandala express those warring and reconciled opposites, so your masters will push and pull each of you to the very extremes of your own, still-under-formation natures. They will be the warring forces that help each of you to reconcile the war inside yourselves.

Thus, from the start, Ferendir knew precisely why his two masters were so different, and how their differences should have helped him to reconcile the conflicting halves of his own nature. What he had not anticipated was the strange sense of impatience and jealousy that often gripped him when under their tutelage – how he maintained his will to go on, his desire to try just one more time, because of Desriel’s subtle, artful teachings, yet how he craved – all but demanded – even the smallest acknowledgement of his excellence from Serath. One gave a great deal, yet Ferendir felt he’d had enough and required no more from him, while the other gave him nothing, made him scratch and claw and struggle and humiliate himself for even the smallest, most underwhelming compliment – and still, from that master, the one who withheld, Ferendir wanted more. He strove to be like Serath, to be worthy of Serath, even to someday best Serath, yet he constantly found himself circling back to Desriel for some sense of his worth, his potential, his true value.

No matter how hard he tried to be independent and unshakeable like the one, he could not help but seek support and encouragement from the other.

And so, now he would not look back. Nor would he look up again to see if Serath watched him. He would simply climb. He would make that shelf above the treeline. He would follow his masters into that box canyon where his destiny awaited, and there, sheltered from the world and at the mercy of the mountain, he would face his final trial.

And he would not, under any circumstances, let Serath know how truly, deeply frightened he was of what that trial might reveal.

Foolish, he knew, to let his emotions assail him. He was reasonably sure that outwardly he revealed nothing. Nonetheless, the storm raging within him was impossible to deny. He’d come a very long way since his early years as a young supplicant, told time and again that his feelings – and his failure to control them – would be his undoing. He had struggled all through childhood and adolescence, always winning praise and high marks for his understanding, his spellcraft and his physical capabilities, yet also always falling short in the realm of suppressing his emotions and robbing them of their latent power to manipulate and sway him. Now, he found himself on the cusp of maturity, the threshold of adulthood, the very precipice of his initiation to become a committed and invested Stoneguard of the Alarith temple. And yet, for all the prowess and confidence and insight that his many years of study, toil and struggle had given him, there was still a small, isolated part of Ferendir – a part buried deep within him, yet still burning bright with some stirring, combustible force – that constantly assailed his sense of self-worth.

All the Lumineth of Hysh were trained, by the means most useful to their various tribes, to suppress their emotions, to always seek solutions that were, first and foremost, best for the realm itself and all the people who inhabited it – never to put their own desires, their own fears, their own petty preferences ahead of necessity and the maintenance of life and balance.

Emotions, they were taught, were anathema to rational thought, the bane of right and beneficial action.

They were taught to suppress their emotions, to ignore them or to redirect them… but they could not be entirely free of them, could they? That, it seemed, was Ferendir’s eternal struggle – to suppress the powerful, contradictory, wholly unconscious forces that roiled and raged inside him, so that he could do his duty and be of service.

Emotions such as his fear of failure, and dying within the mountain.

Emotions such as his abiding desire to please Serath and earn his respect, while simultaneously hating and resenting him for never granting even a modicum of that respect or praise he so desperately sought.

It was as if no matter how many times he proved himself equal to a task, worthy of a responsibility, he was still, inexorably, assailed by the sense that he was an imposter – a place-holder for some unnamed champion who had yet to arrive upon the scene, to take the place that he’d kept warm and ready for him.

Why should he feel that way, he wondered during his meditations, or in his loneliest hours, alone and unable to sleep. Why, after so many accomplishments, should he still suspect – however subtly, however quietly – that he was unworthy of trust, unequal to challenge?

Was it because he did not trust Desriel’s confidence in him? No. That was foolish. Desriel was the most trustworthy, the most dependable person that Ferendir had ever known. He would not be such a well-respected Stoneguard if his skills and character were not of the utmost strength and purity.

Was it, perhaps, because Serath always seemed so disappointed in him? So dismissive of his achievements and doubtful of his successes yet to come? Perhaps… but that still seemed unequal to birthing and cultivating his many, ever-swirling doubts and their adamant hold upon him. Ferendir’s fears and misgivings were far more intrinsic than anything the actions of any person – even his masters – could inflict upon him, buried so deep inside him, so far beneath his seemingly calm exterior that he could barely imagine Serath’s outward attitudes having anything to do with their creation and sustenance.

Eliminating those two possibilities left a third one, far more disturbing – Ferendir, despite all of his strengths and capabilities, lacked the great, final component that would elevate and distinguish him, that special alchemy of character that made the difference between being merely a talented supplicant, and truly earning his place as a fully fledged, wholly empowered Stoneguard.

He was not unworthy in essence. But because he doubted himself, he would prove unworthy… because the worthy never doubted themselves or their worthiness.

Did they?

A paradox. And a maddening one, at that.

Ferendir glanced upwards. Serath had reached the rocky ledge above. There he stood, just beyond the ragged edge of the sere alpine grass that faded against the mountain’s stony shoulder, his silent impatience subtly palpable even though his face was as stony and unreadable as a sheer cliff. Ferendir forced himself to move swiftly over the last uneven span of ground between where he climbed and where his master waited. He scrambled over the ledge and took his place beside Serath, Desriel following quickly behind.

They stood upon a broad, bare rocky shoulder that receded from the steep slope towards a more sheer, vertiginous cliff wall a few more yards behind them. For a moment, the three aelves – masters and student – stood silent and exultant, the rising cliff at their backs, the sparsely forested slope falling away sharply beneath them. They drank in the stunning vista that sprawled before them: widely scattered spruce and pines, sickly and stunted beside bent, curling birch and giving way to bare alpine rock; the thicker, darker forest lying like a green blanket on the slopes and hills beneath, a broad green valley bounded by the declining spurs of the mountain’s roots, tumbling away below until the land once more rose towards the peak of a neighbouring mountain some great distance away. In the great gulf separating them from the nearest peak, they saw raptors whirling lazily on the thermals rising out of the valley below and heard the echoing screech of a bird of prey carried on the breeze to their waiting ears.

Ferendir studied the sublime scene, awed and reassured by it in the same breath. Birds in flight. Balmy, upswept breezes intertwined with fierce, chill gusts from the heights, the whole of the world before him burnished with gentle golden Hyshian sunlight. Far away, on the far side of the ridgeline to the east of them, lay their home temple nestled warmly into a beautiful, shady dell on a misty promontory beside falling waters. They had set out from that place mere hours before, but now it felt a world away.

Desriel dared a subtle, satisfied smile as he studied the view.

‘Ennobling,’ he said.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Ferendir agreed.

‘It simply is,’ Serath added flatly. ‘It can be nothing else. Come, we’re wasting light.’

He turned from the ledge and began a steady march up the shallow stony slope towards the cliff face. Now that they were out of the forest, Ferendir could finally see their destination – a high, narrow cleft in the slate-grey stone of the mountainside, barely visible because the pattern of light and shadow upon the cliff face painted the sharp rent in a sort of camouflage. Somewhere, deep within the mountainside, his fate awaited him.

Ferendir looked to Desriel. His master only swept his arm sideways, as if to say, After you, supplicant.

Ferendir fell in behind Serath, following his stone-faced master up the sweep of the grassy sward towards the beckoning shadows of the canyon.

The cleft gave the appearance of allowing only narrow passage, but as they entered, it broadened beyond. Though the canyon floor was wide enough for three Dawnriders to gallop abreast, it was nonetheless strewn with fallen boulders of various sizes and mounds of rocky scree deposited by old wash-outs and landslides. A shallow, snaking brook burbled along the canyon floor, under large rocks and over smaller ones, really little more than a steady seep. The walls of the canyon climbed high on either side, angling outwards to a certain height then ominously contracting inwards again, looming precipitously, as though threatening at any moment to collapse. Because the canyon was so narrow and uneven, little light penetrated. As a consequence, the air was still and cool, the silence oppressive. Worse, the meandering path of the canyon meant that Ferendir could not see more than a few dozen yards ahead of him. However deep their destination lay in this accursed place, it was not readily visible.

Ferendir forced himself to stand still, performing a sort of silent appraisal of the place where he now found himself. The presence of all that scree and the absence of plant life suggested it was a young formation, but a hundred thousand geological epochs were clearly visible in the layered regolith.

Serath led the way, picking out the most direct path along the canyon floor, over mounds of fallen scree and past boulders that might have hindered the progress of lesser beings without such nimble feet. Here and there, the little stream would find deeper depressions in the rock and seem to flow for a few metres as a proper body of water before the stone beneath it once more shallowed and it turned thereafter into a vaguely running wet stain along the canyon floor.

At intervals, sharp winds cut through the narrow alley, compressed and solidified by the rock walls on either side of them. Ferendir clearly heard the voice of the mountain itself in that wind, the narrow breezeway giving the cool, driving air a voice of its own, one moment a moan, the next a plaintive sigh. It seemed a strange road they now traversed – working their way at a slow, steady pace towards the mountain’s interior via such a strangled aperture – but Ferendir knew better than to question the route.

His place was not to question. Only to follow.

‘I would be remiss,’ Serath suddenly said, marching ahead of him, ‘if I did not ask you, for a final time, if you feel equal to the trial before you, young supplicant.’

Serath was uncanny. Even wholly unemotional and speaking in even tones, he managed to impart a vague sense of dismissal and condescension. Ferendir fought the urge to be overwhelmed by shame or anger in answer. He only sought the appropriate response to the prompt within himself.

‘The mountain has called to me, master,’ Ferendir said, ‘bid me come to the place of trial and submit myself to its reckoning. Such has been my only aspiration for all my years of education and service. So called, I come.’

‘A worthy outlook,’ Desriel said from behind him. Somewhere, a small stone fell from a great height. It rattled down the throat of the cleft, clicking and clacking in noisy echoes as it did so. ‘I predict success for you, supplicant. Not only in today’s trial but in the years yet before you.’

‘Predict nothing,’ Serath said. Though cutting a path over uneven ground, ground frequently littered with obstacles and obstructions, he yet maintained a swift pace that even young Ferendir struggled to match.

‘Weigh probabilities and analyse all possible outcomes to anticipate that which is most likely,’ Serath continued. ‘Prediction is a fool’s game – the province of non-aelven scryers and fortune tellers. Analysis requires a combination of both knowledge and discernment – clear senses assessing hard facts, nothing more.’

‘Just so,’ Desriel said. ‘And yet, there is a diaphanous membrane connecting the two, would you not agree? A web, if you will–’

‘A web?’ Serath asked.

‘Between knowledge, discernment and rational analysis lies the web of intuition, Serath – the understanding that leads to true seeing, true knowing, even when what is seen and known defies what is rational.’

Serath was silent for a long time, pressing on, never looking back. He skipped up a rockfall and over a rocky incline in order to cut a track past a massive boulder blocking their primary path. Finally, just as he was about to disappear on the far side of the rockfall: ‘I would call your intuition a false and personalised mask placed upon rational analysis. It is not a web at all, but a line, moving from each object to the next in an unbroken pathway of causation and effect. Nothing more.’

‘We shall agree to disagree,’ Desriel said. ‘As we so often do.’ Ferendir thought he heard a smile in his master’s voice, though he wagered that if he dared look back at him he would see no such smile.

Serath said nothing in answer.

As Ferendir mounted the same rockfall his master had just clambered over, a cold, stiff mistral whipped suddenly, mercilessly, through the narrow rocky pass. It raised a terrible howling sound in Ferendir’s ears and assailed him for an unnerving instant with a bone-numbing cold that made him shudder reflexively and halt his forward progress. He smelled something on that wind, as well… something foul and unnatural. Though he could not immediately identify that scent, the subtle, wind-borne clue yet seemed to stir Ferendir’s whole body to nervous excitement. The beating of his heart increased unbidden, and he sensed a tautness and tremulous energy shooting through all his limbs from the centre of his being to his extremities.

Farther ahead of him, on the canyon floor, Serath stood rigid, his lithe, muscular body squared and ready for violence. His master’s head was tilted slightly to the left and his chin subtly raised, as though he were listening for something and sniffing the scents on the wind the same instant.

Ferendir heard the subtle crunch of Desriel’s soft leather boots on the loose shale of the rockfall. Heaving up beside his supplicant, Desriel drew a deep breath of his own, then slowly blew it out.

Ferendir dared a look at his master. Desriel’s eyes were slowly rolling about in their sockets, studying the narrow confines of the meandering canyon as though in search of something hiding among the ledges and precipitous overhangs.

‘Master?’ Ferendir asked.

Desriel said nothing. He only nodded forward, towards Serath.

Ferendir looked to his other master. Serath stared back at them, gaze steady but narrowed. Clearly he sensed something of import ahead… something unexpected.

‘Slowly,’ Serath said, then led the way. As he progressed, he drew his sunsteel longhammer from where it bumped and jostled, strapped across his back. The brutal spike protruding opposite its flat, terrible head caught the dim grey light in the canyon and glinted.

Desriel had drawn his hammer as well. Ferendir, wishing at that moment that his trial was already passed and that he held such a weapon in his own hands, tightened his grip on his yew staff. Part of him wanted to ask what that strange, unnatural smell portended – what now had both his masters so tense, so on edge – but he knew better.

Follow their lead, he reminded himself. Their actions tell you all you need to know at the moment. Waste no words on idle conjecture…

They pressed on.

In short order, the canyon took a sudden bend to the left. Just past that bend, they emerged from the narrow throat of the canyon into its broad, boxy terminus. The space before them, though bounded by the stony cliff walls, was wide open, large enough to accommodate a great phalanx of Auralan sentinels, forty wide and two hundred deep. At the far end of the box canyon, meltwater from the mountain peaks above trickled or fanned down along the sheer rock walls, collecting in a wide, shallow pool at the back end of the gulf and flowing forth out of the canyon as that persistent trickle that meandered along the path they’d just threaded. High above, where the cliffs receded, mists hung low and obscured their view of the reclining mountainside and snowy peaks that loomed far above them. Streamers of dripping moss and sagging saplings drooped precipitously from the canyon walls, the only signs of life in the otherwise damp and desolate slag heap.

Serath stood at the mouth of the gorge, surveying the canyon before them, still on edge about something. Ferendir sniffed, but could no longer detect that foulness that had assailed him when they’d been mounting the rockfall just moments before. Now, there was only the fresh, mineral scent of the fanning waters from the mountain heights, the vague, distant perfume of pines and loamy soil mingling with the pure, strong scent of wet stone and damp gravel.

Finally, Serath seemed satisfied. He jerked his head sideways, in the direction of the waterfall.

‘This way,’ he said, and led them up the slow, easy incline towards the great pool of dark water at the canyon’s far end.

As they went, Ferendir studied the bare grey landscape surrounding them. He could see no wildlife, but he still sensed it – small, furtive souls threading the dark shadows under the looming rock, tiny claws scrabbling eagerly along narrow cliff ledges, birds making nests in the cracks and crevices far above them, staring down with dark, implacable eyes, wondering just what these trespassing strangers might be doing in their normally quiet, out of the way canyon home. In short, everywhere, life – teeming, edgy, eager.

‘Is this everyone’s place of trial?’ Ferendir asked as they trudged on. ‘Or only mine? Do all come here to seek the mountain’s anointing, or was this place chosen for me?’

‘Immaterial, in either case,’ Serath said over his shoulder without breaking stride.

‘It’s a fair question,’ Desriel said. ‘The boy only wishes to know the how and the why of what he’s about to undergo. He may, after all, someday have to perform the same function for another young supplicant as we perform today for him.’

‘I have a question of my own, then,’ Serath countered, still not looking back. ‘Tell me, Ferendir – how does this place feel to you?’

‘How does it feel, master?’

‘Must I repeat myself?’

Ferendir frowned. ‘Honestly, it feels… anxious,’ he said after a moment, answering intuitively rather than logically. ‘Restive and on edge, as though expecting something unpleasant in the next instant. Whatever we smelled back in the cleft–’

Serath froze. Turned. He speared Ferendir with a probing gaze. ‘You noted it as well?’

‘Of course,’ Ferendir said, vaguely insulted that his master would think him so obtuse.

‘What about now?’ Serath asked.

Ferendir sniffed the air. For the most part, he could only smell the myriad scents of the canyon: cool water, washed stone, damp moss, sandy soil and the vague, musty under scent of sprouting fungi. But there was something else, wasn’t there? Something foul… bitter…

Something that did not belong.

‘We’re not alone here,’ Ferendir said suddenly.

Serath made no reply. He only looked to Desriel, just over Ferendir’s shoulder.

‘Do you concur, old friend?’ Serath asked.

Ferendir turned to Desriel. His other master nodded slowly, eyes darting about, searching the bright heights and dark shadows of the world around him.

‘I concur, Serath. I suggest we be on our way.’

‘No!’ Ferendir said emphatically, instantly ashamed of his emotional reaction to his master’s order. Desriel and Serath both stared at him, seemingly just as shocked by his outburst as he was.

‘We cannot,’ Ferendir said slowly, quietly. ‘I came here to be tested. I will be tested.’

‘Be careful what you wish for, supplicant,’ Serath said, eyes narrowing again. ‘The realms have a way of giving us the things we most desire in ways we never imagined – ways we are often wholly unprepared for.’

‘He’s right,’ Desriel said. ‘This has nothing to do with your trial, Ferendir. Something is very wrong here. Your trial will be tainted by it. Our only option is to go. Come on.’

Desriel turned to lead the way back along their track… but their retreat was already blocked.

Three strange figures stood in a broad skirmish line, obstructing the entrance to the narrow gorge that allowed them access to the canyon.

Ferendir stared, trying to make sense of what he saw, or thought he saw. Their forms were vaguely anthropoid – two arms, two legs, heads and torsos – and yet they were wrong, all wrong. He saw pale skin; black, unnatural eyes; curled flesh and pins and wires; bright, colourful silks stained by soil and sweat and the damp air; the glint of bright jewels and baubles on the clothing and the wearers themselves.

And yet, for all their apparent humanity there was something beastly about the trio. Hands that were not hands. Feet that more resembled hooves. A swishing tail. Faces, twisted and transformed by some blasphemous art that Ferendir could not identify, let alone imagine the ultimate purpose of.

Serath moved up beside Ferendir, shoulder to shoulder with Desriel.

‘Get behind us, supplicant,’ Serath whispered.

The three figures at the mouth of the canyon advanced slowly, casually. The closer they drew, the more terrible they seemed to Ferendir. The young aelf was overwhelmed by a sense of dread and terrible wonder.

‘Well, now,’ one of the creatures drawled, ‘what have we here?’

Movement. Boot heels and hooves on bare stone. Ferendir and his masters turned, surveying the great gorge behind them.

There were more than just the three blocking their egress.

They were surrounded.

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