Contents

Cover

Title Page

Warhammer Age of Sigmar

The Prisoner of the Black Sun

Sands of Blood

The Lords of Helstone

The Bridge of Seven Sorrows

The Beasts of Cartha

Fist of Mork, Fist of Gork

Great Red

Only the Faithful

About the Authors

A Black Library Publication

Warhammer Age of Sigmar

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

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

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

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

The Age of Sigmar had begun.

The Prisoner of the Black Sun

Josh Reynolds

I still endure.

I still stand.

This realm is mine.

Spiders have spun their webs across my eyes, and worms burrow in my chest. But I still live. I yet stand against my enemies. I shall always do so, for I can do naught else. My will gutters and flares, like a fire newly stoked. The Great Necromancer awakens.

I still endure.

The Three-Eyed King crushed the ranks of my servants. His daemon-blade shattered my bones, and cleaved my heart in two. My rites and magics were torn asunder, my power broken on the altar of fate. My body was left to the dust, and to the dust I returned. My soul fell shrieking into the darkness as a black comet, streaking across the underworld, and the impact of it cracked the roots of this world.

I still endure.

Nagashizzar is toppled. Its great towers and basalt pillars are dust. Where it once stood, there is now only broken earth; in the streets where a thousand warriors marched, the only sound to be heard is the wailing of jackals.

Yet I still endure.

I have pulled down the sun, cracking the seals of the underworld, and dried the seas and burned the grasses. I have humbled my enemies and cast the earth into the sky, walking to and fro in the deep places, and still I am returned.

Nagash has risen.

Something stirs in the wild places of all that which is mine. Some power, stinking of the storm, comes slinking into my demesnes. I sit upon my throne in starless Stygxx and feel it rising all about me, drawing to it that which is mine. Souls slip my grasp, spirits flee my voice. Thieves and invaders stalk my realm. They think me gone.

I still endure.

Heed me. Listen to my words, those of you who have the wit to hear. The Realm of Death is my body. Its caverns are my bones, its peaks my crown. The realm is as large as my word, as small as my wish. I bestride the seas of the east, and shatter the mountains of the west. My throne is in the north, and my shadow in the south. Wherever you so seek, I am there. Wherever you make worship, so Nagash strides.

Whosoever believes in me, whosoever follows my will, the will of Nagash, shall prosper. I have awakened, and my enemies shall know my name again. Seek out my foes, and make them yours. Seek out these thieves, and take from them as they have taken from me.

Hear me. Heed me.

Listen, and be joyful.

Nagash is all, and all are one in Nagash.

Nagash has risen.

Tarsus, Lord-Celestant of the Hallowed Knights, gave voice to a full-throated bellow. He brought his hammer down on the crimson helm of a howling bloodreaver and the warrior fell, its skull split in two. Tarsus whirled to open the belly of a second opponent, the sword he held in his other hand slashing in a deadly arc. His weapons crackled with holy lightning as he struck out left and right, dropping foemen with every blow.

‘Who will be victorious?’ he roared.

‘Only the faithful,’ came the reply, from the small host of Stormcasts that streamed in his wake. Liberators, Prosecutors, Judicators and Retributors – all were clad in star-forged sigmarite, and bearing weapons of the same material. Their panoply of war gleamed silver where it was not rich gold. Their shoulder guards bore their sigil – the curling white slashes of a bull’s horns – and, like their heavy shields, were of deepest regal blue. The weapons they carried shimmered with holy fire. Now, they swept them out to smash down any enemy who managed to avoid the attention of their Lord-Celestant.

He stepped over the body of a bloodreaver and looked ahead. Through the ranks of the enemy, the path they had been following since they had arrived some days previous was visible. Sigmar had cast his lightning down upon the shattered husk of a once-proud citadel, now overgrown with grey lichen and nodding, vast-rooted trees. A carpet of yellowing grass had clung to the cracked stones of the courtyard, obscuring the heaps of bones that clustered thickly throughout. The thunderous arrival of the Stormcasts in the Vale of Sorrows had set thousands of crows to flight, and a black cloud of the croaking birds had followed them ever since.

The path ahead had previously been a road, but was now mostly overgrown with the stiff, yellow grasses that seemed to cover this region. Ancient ruins and shattered hovels stretched out across the landscape to either side of the path. At one time there had been a city here. Now it was only a howling wilderness full of enemies and carrion birds.

‘Who shall win Sigmar’s favour?’ Tarsus cried, swinging his hammer over his head. He brought it down on a bloodreaver with bone-shattering force. With his sword, he chopped through the deplorable icon the blood-cultist had borne and trampled it beneath his feet.

‘Only the faithful,’ the Stormcasts around him shouted, as one.

‘Only the faithful,’ Tarsus echoed as he whipped his sword around in a deadly pattern, splitting the gullets of the enemy who pressed close. He smashed the dying bloodreavers aside, using his greater weight to grind them under.

Tarsus’ warriors called him the Bull-Heart, a name earned at the Battle of the Cerulean Shore, when Tarsus had crashed in amongst the enemy ranks with a ferocity few could equal. It was a fitting war-name for both he and his Warrior Chamber, and they bore it with pride. Their swords were as horns, their hammers were as hooves, and they employed both against the enemies of Sigmar in equal measure.

‘Smash them,’ he bellowed. ‘Grind them under, in the name of Sigmar and the Realm Celestial!’

Bodies littered his path as he drove forward, into the very teeth of the foe. The bloodreavers were maniacs, but mortal, and none who were such could stand before Tarsus. He was a Stormcast Eternal, and in him flowed the might of Sigmar Heldenhammer. He roared and stamped, battering opponents from his path as he led the way towards the knot of heavily armoured blood warriors that formed the raging heart of the enemy battle line. The latter charged to meet him, chanting the name of the Blood God as they smashed aside their own followers in their eagerness to come to grips with the Hallowed Knights.

‘Who will be remembered?’ Tarsus cried.

‘Only the faithful,’ thundered his Stormcasts as the leading retinues of Liberators came to grips with the blood warriors. Spread out in a line, they closely followed the vanguard of Retributors and Decimators led by their Lord-Celestant.

Tarsus caught one of the blood warriors in the belly with his shoulder, and flipped the frothing berserker over his back even as he plunged on without slowing. The hammer of a Retributor from one of the retinues marching behind him slammed down, ensuring that the blood warrior remained where he’d fallen. Tarsus caught a second across the head with his hammer, and rammed his sword into the belly of a third, plunging it all the way to the hilt. His blade became lodged in the baroque plates of the blood warrior’s armour, forcing him to spend precious moments wrenching it free. Even as he did so, a saw-toothed axe crashed down on his shoulder plate.

The force of the blow drove him to one knee. A second blow clipped his head, and he teetered off balance. Brass and crimson shapes surrounded him, and axes covered in daemonic sigils chopped down. For every one he turned aside two caught him, drawing sparks from the sigmarite plates. No blow had yet pierced his armour, but it was only a matter of time.

‘Hold fast, Bull-Heart,’ a voice thundered.

Lightning speared down, washing over Tarsus and his attackers. He grinned fiercely as the blood warriors shuddered and jerked in the clutches of the storm. Smoke boiled from their mouths and eye sockets, and what flesh was visible beneath their armour was charred black.

Tarsus surged to his feet and caught one of the smoke-wreathed blood warriors beneath the chin with his hammer. The warrior pitched backwards and then lay still. Tarsus hacked another down and turned to greet his rescuer. ‘Nicely done, Ramus,’ he said. ‘A few more moments and I might have been sorely pressed indeed.’

‘Think on that, the next time you find yourself so eager to meet the foe that you outpace the rest of us,’ the Lord-Relictor of the Bull-Hearts said. ‘There are not so many of us that we can spare you, Tarsus.’

Like all those of his rank, Ramus of the Shadowed Soul bore weapons and armour replete with icons of faith, death and the storm. It fell to him to keep the souls of the Hallowed Knights of his Warrior Chamber from the gloom of the underworld with words and fire.

Tarsus nodded. ‘I shall. But for now – show them your power, my friend.’

Ramus raised his reliquary and murmured a soft prayer, his words lost amidst the clangour of battle. The sky overhead was already dark, and roiled and jagged as spears of lightning struck the enemy, burning them to ash or reducing them to stumbling, screaming torches. Tarsus raised his hammer, bringing his Stormcasts to a halt as the lightning continued to strike again and again, until all was silent, save for the soft crackle of flames.

‘Who will be victorious?’ Tarsus murmured, as he gently tapped his Lord-Relictor on the shoulder with his hammer.

‘Only the faithful,’ Ramus intoned, glancing at Tarsus. ‘The road ahead is clear, Lord-Celestant. We are free to continue our march.’

‘Indeed, and we shouldn’t tarry,’ Tarsus said, as he signalled for his retinues to fall into a proper marching order.

The Stormcasts swung fluidly into position with an ease born of centuries of training. Liberators moved to the fore and flanks, encircling the Judicators, while the Prosecutors swooped overhead. The retinues of the winged warriors would range ahead of the host as it marched, keeping a keen eye out for any more would-be ambushers.

Not that such a tactic had succeeded yet, and nor would it if Tarsus had anything to say about it. Had he been anything other than a Stormcast Eternal, he might have taken the continued attacks for an omen, but fear had been burned out of him long ago and left only faith in its wake. He and his warriors were heroes, their valour proven in battles all but forgotten in the haze of their reforging. The Hallowed Knights had been the fourth Stormhost to be founded, the ranks of their Warrior Chambers filled with the faithful of the Mortal Realms. Their only commonality was that each had called upon Sigmar’s name in battle – and been heard – and that each had shed his mortal flesh in the name of a righteous cause.

Tarsus could but dimly recall the days of his own mortality. He remembered the weight of his sword and armour, and the rustle of a war cloak of deepest purple. He remembered screaming himself hoarse on the stone battlements of a burning citadel as red, lean-limbed daemons scrambled up the walls and across the causeways towards him and those he led. He remembered a name – Tarsem – and a word – Helstone – and the moment a monstrous shadow had fallen across him and the air had writhed beneath the beat of great wings. Then a roar, and… nothing. Nothing until he’d awoken in Sigmaron, forged anew.

That was the way of it, and Tarsus was glad. His enemies had not changed, but now he had the power to meet them, and break them. He was Stormcast, and they would learn to fear that name, before the end. His reverie was soon broken by Ramus.

‘This is a fell place,’ Ramus said, as he and Tarsus led the host.

‘Parts of it, yes,’ Tarsus said. He thought of the things they’d seen since arriving: strange hourglass-shaped mountains that rose along the far horizon, and clumps of pale flowers that softly sighed when one walked past them.

‘A land of endings and silent decay,’ the Lord-Relictor said. ‘This is a place of whispers, where forgotten ghosts wander roads and paths that lead nowhere. A place where mountains crumble only to be raised anew with the sun, and birds and beasts are born and die in the same day. All is in decline here, though I know not whether it is the doing of our foes or the dread master of this realm.’ He looked at Tarsus. ‘Do you think he will listen?’

‘I do not know,’ Tarsus said. ‘Nagash betrayed Sigmar once. Mayhap he will do so again. But that is not for us to worry over… Our concern is to gain audience with him and make common cause, so that we might begin to wrest this realm from the enemy.’

‘But first we have to find him in this wilderness,’ Ramus said.

They had been searching for a way into the underworld since their arrival – one of the legendary Nine Gates into the underworld of Stygxx. The Great Necromancer had vanished, disappeared into the depths where none could find him. But Sigmar had set his scribes the centuries-long task of scouring the ancient records, compiled long before the Allpoints War, for any hint of where the Nine Gates might be. That knowledge had been passed on to the Stormcasts charged with seeking out Nagash. The Nine Gates had been housed in nine citadels, some massive and well-defended, and others so small as to be forever hidden from the eyes of the enemy. Nine Warrior Chambers had been despatched to find these structures and the gates secreted within their walls.

So far the gates had proven elusive, but Tarsus had hope; Sigmar would not have sent them to this place were victory not achievable. A gate was within reach, somewhere. And they would find it.

The trail grew rougher and steeper as the Stormcasts marched on, leaving the detritus of battle far behind them, winding through verdant fields that withered in the moonlight only to flourish once more as the sun rose, and trees that shuddered and sighed in the slightest of breezes. The sky overhead was pale and dim, even in the middle of the day, as if the sun feared to show its face in the Realm of Death. The crows were still overhead, circling and wheeling amongst the Prosecutors as they swooped above on wings of lightning.

‘Aye,’ Tarsus said. ‘And we will do so, even if we must fight our way across this land to do it.’ They had come into conflict with the deranged servants of the Ruinous Powers more than once since their arrival. The worshippers of the Blood God were as thick as fleas in the crags around them. The Realm of Death was under siege, and every peak and valley was infested with the followers of the Dark Gods. He shook his head. ‘Though I’d not turn down aid in that regard, if it were offered.’

A cry from above caught his attention, and Tarsus looked up. One of the Prosecutors swooped low and pointed towards a rocky outcrop that rose abruptly from the surrounding landscape, towering over the bare trees.

‘Something ahead – a structure of some sort at the top,’ he cried. Tarsus waved them forward, the winged warriors hurtling into the distance, towards the dome-roofed ruin that occupied the summit of the tor.

‘Another ruin,’ Ramus said.

‘And perhaps a way into the underworld,’ Tarsus said. He raised his hammer, signalling to his retinues. ‘Liberators to the flanks, shields out,’ he said, his voice carrying over the gleaming ranks of his Warrior Chamber.

Liberator retinues moved to the flanks of the formation, shields at the ready, in case there was an ambush in the offing. If it were the place they sought, it could be defended and such a place might well provide refuge for warbands like the ones that had relentlessly attacked them since their arrival. With a single gesture from Tarsus, shields raised over the heads of the Stormcasts and to the sides, transforming the Stormhost into a veritable serpent of sigmarite. Their protection allowed them to weather arrows, rocks and even sorcery as they moved. Satisfied, Tarsus swung his hammer towards the ruin.

‘Forward,’ he bellowed.

A wide path wound around the outcrop and led to the top. Tarsus led the way, and saw that the path ahead was lined with skulls as he rounded the slope. Mounted on spikes of brass and iron, the skulls twitched and champed yellow, cracked teeth, as if in protestation of their fate. Bones were scattered below them, mixed with bits of rusty armour and broken weapons, and piled up in drifts alongside the path. Tarsus stared at the skulls, pity warring with disgust. ‘They still live,’ Tarsus murmured. ‘Even now.’

‘No, Tarsus,’ Ramus said. ‘They do not. And that is the horror of it. Nothing in this realm ever truly dies, even now,’ he said, looking at the skulls. ‘Their souls are bound here, in chains of magic of the darkest sort.’

Tarsus shook his head. ‘Keep moving,’ he called over his shoulder.

More bones awaited them at the summit of the tor. They were scattered and in piles – some whole, though most cracked and broken. Crows hopped among the heaps, cawing to one another. Everywhere dolorous icons and foul standards, marked with sigils of murder and slaughter, had been stabbed into the rocky slope. Jawbones and finger bones hung from many of these, softly clattering in the breeze.

‘We are not the first to come here,’ Ramus said.

‘No,’ Tarsus replied.

The structure crouched ahead of them, partially built into the massive fang-like crag of rock that topped the outcrop, and resembled nothing so much as a dome. Its walls curved outward in an immense semicircle from the crag, dominating the slope below despite the ragged gaps in their length. A curved roof surmounted the walls, resting in the crook of the crag, crows circling it in great numbers. Vast symbols had been carved into the outer walls – symbols representing the sun, moon, stars and other, more esoteric shapes.

‘It’s as large as any citadel I’ve seen,’ Tarsus said. ‘Though in worse condition than most.’ Despite the state of it, he could see that it had taken great skill to shape the stone. Sundials and dry fountains decorated the courtyard, and Tarsus thought that it might once have been a beautiful place before the occurrence of whatever evil had befallen it. As Tarsus studied it, he felt a pang of something – sadness, perhaps, or the twitch of some long forgotten memory, newly stirred – and his hands tightened on his weapons.

‘I have seen this place before,’ he murmured.

‘Lord-Celestant?’ Ramus asked.

Tarsus shook his head, irritated. ‘I’m fine. This place – there is something about it.’ Overhead, the Prosecutors had dropped onto the dome, scattering the crows, who croaked in agitation. The Stormcasts moved into the ruins and through the remains of what had once been an outer wall, collapsed for many years into irregular piles of stones and shattered columns.

Tarsus left several retinues of Judicators and Liberators on guard in the courtyard and led the rest of his warriors into the ruin. More bones greeted them inside the gargantuan entrance hall: crushed, splintered and scattered about at random. The entrance itself was composed of heavy stone slabs, marked by more symbols – suns and moons, comets and falling stars, all carefully carved into the rock face.

Tarsus traced one of the latter with his fingers as he passed, wondering why it all seemed so familiar.

‘What was this place?’ he asked, as he gazed up at the faded mural that had been painted on the curve of the roof above, depicting a vast field of stars and a black-cloaked scythe-wielding figure hard at work, reaping a cosmic crop.

‘An observatory, perhaps,’ Ramus said, looking around. ‘There are places in the Nihiliad Mountains that this reminds me of. They were places of contemplation, for stargazers and sky-worshippers, maybe this is one. This outcrop is the highest point in the vale – a perfect place to watch the night sky.’

‘Perhaps, but watch it for what?’ Tarsus said. ‘The stars in this realm are all askew, and the night sky is in upheaval.’

‘It was not always so,’ Ramus said. He gestured to the strange carvings that marked the walls. Tarsus thought they resembled the star-fields depicted in the mural above. ‘I suspect that these are the patterns of the stars as they were, before the coming of Chaos.’

‘As they could be again,’ Tarsus replied. He pointed down the corridor with his hammer. ‘There. The central chamber.’ He moved through the archway at the end of the hall and into the heart of the observatory. Despite its outward facade, the observatory was, in reality, merely a single, immense room.

The central chamber was massive – easily large enough to accommodate a hundred men – with high vaulted ceilings that curved upward to meet at a central open skylight of stone. Crows clustered about the circumference of the skylight, staring down at the Stormcasts below. A massive dais occupied the centre of the chamber, directly beneath the stone. Sloped, circular steps led upwards to an enormous wheel-like orrery, crafted from black iron and made in the shape of a sun. The orrery was larger than three men, and its colossal rings were spread outward, so that the dull light from above streamed down through the holes in them, casting weird shadows upon the walls and floor of the chamber.

Ramus gazed at the orrery. ‘More stars,’ he said, his voice echoing through the chamber. ‘The holes in the iron correspond to the patterns on the walls. This used to be a place of study and contemplation.’ He sounded almost wistful.

‘Now it is nothing save a curiosity,’ Tarsus said, looking around.

As with the rocky slopes outside, the floor of the chamber was obscured by broken bones and scattered pieces of armour. All the walls were covered in faded murals and tenacious lichen, except one that was occupied solely by a basket-hilted sword, wedged deep into the stone. Dead clumps of the lichen marked the floor beneath the blade, and the steel had turned cracked and powdery where it had touched the stone. Something about the blade bothered him. He felt a chill, though he could not say why.

‘We should go. I was wrong, there is nothing for us here,’ he said.

‘Tarsus, wait. Look at the orrery,’ Ramus called out. Tarsus turned towards the great dais and peered at the orrery. He blinked, startled. There was something caught in the rings. No, not caught, he realised; trapped. He hadn’t seen it before, because it had been hidden by the rings. But now, he could see it clearly.

Quickly he climbed the dais, Ramus one step behind him. ‘It’s a man,’ Tarsus said.

‘Alive?’ Ramus asked. Around the dais, the Stormcasts spread throughout the chamber. Though they were wary, they were curious about this realm and all it held. Many of them, after all, might have stood in this very chamber in centuries past. They might even have died in its defence, or in defence of any one of the great and shattered citadels thrust up from the dry sod of these lands like scattered tombstones.

‘I do not think so,’ Tarsus said, softly. The orrery moved, albeit very slowly, clicking and creaking along its runnel, and allowed the sunlight to flow through the holes in the iron. The man’s body was held aloft by brass spikes hammered through his wrists and into the curve of one of the orrery’s rings, leaving him to dangle within a makeshift cage. Dried blood coated the marble flesh of his bare arms and head, staining the ornate armour he wore on his torso and legs. Wounds marked his arms and face. His armour too was marked, and by many weapons. A tattered crimson cloak was pooled on the ground at his feet, as if it had been ripped from him and then summarily discarded. The body stank of blood and death, and the aquiline features were slack.

Something about the dead man’s face held Tarsus’ attention. It was not familiar, and yet… was. Were you there, in that final battle when I proved my worth to Sigmar? But how could that be, for that was centuries ago, the Lord-Celestant thought.

‘Help me move these rings.’ Tarsus caught hold of the outer ring and began to push it back, so that the others folded into it. The metal squealed as rusted joints and hinges were propelled into motion. ‘We must release him,’ he said, looking at Ramus. ‘Whoever he was, no man deserves such a fate.’

Ramus did not question him, and together the two Stormcast Eternals managed to move the ancient mechanism so that the body was no longer trapped out of reach.

Ramus caught hold of the dead man’s jaw and looked to Tarsus. ‘These wounds on his flesh – the followers of the Blood God are known for their brutality to those taken in battle. Perhaps he had the ill luck to be taken alive…’

‘Come… closer… and mayhap… I shall tell you.’

Tarsus drew his sword as the stink of old blood washed over them. ‘Ramus, beware,’ he said.

The body twitched in its bonds. Metal scraped metal, and the battered head rose, eyes red and alight with a terrible need. Quicker than either Stormcast could react, the thing’s feet suddenly slid up to brace against the curve of the ring, and the body lunged forward, held in check only by its pinned wrists.

Bones popped and shifted hideously as it snapped long fangs together, just shy of Ramus’ face. The Lord-Relictor stepped back, hammer ready, as the thing thrashed wildly, biting at the air in a frenzy. Around the dais Stormcasts snapped to attention, weapons raised. A retinue of Decimators began to move towards the dais, axes ready to chop the creature apart. Tarsus waved them back.

‘Hold,’ he rumbled. ‘Stand fast.’ Whatever this thing was, he was confident that he and the Lord-Relictor would be enough to handle it.

‘Enough,’ Ramus said. His hammer snapped out, catching the thing in the stomach, and knocking it from its perch. It squalled as it fell and the spikes tore its flesh. It dangled, shuddering, then coughed and looked up.

‘Haaaa…’ The vulpine jaws sagged, and a bloody stink swept over Tarsus again. The red eyes faded to orange, then yellow, and the tension drained from the dangling shape. ‘Do… do forgive me, I am… I am not at my best,’ the thing croaked.

Tarsus extended his hammer and used it to lift the creature’s head. ‘What are you?’

Even as he asked the question, he realised that he knew the answer. Vampire. The word was jostled loose from the depths of his memory. Had he encountered such creatures before, in his previous life?

Withered lips peeled back from long fangs, and the vampire gave a rattling laugh. ‘A better question might be… what are you?’ One sunken eye narrowed. ‘I smell… storms and clean water. You are not mortal men.’

‘Not for a long time,’ Tarsus said.

‘The same might be said of me, I suppose,’ the vampire rasped.

‘What is your name?’

‘What use is a name, when one is bound thus?’ The creature twitched its thin fingers, causing the brass spikes to screech against the iron rim of the orrery. It winced, in obvious pain. ‘If you release me, perhaps I shall tell you, eh? How curious are you?’

‘Not enough to release a monster,’ Tarsus said, lowering his hammer. ‘Vampires are not to be trusted. They lie as easily as other men breathe, and treachery festers in their veins.’ Even as he spoke, he wondered where the words came from. They felt familiar on his tongue, as if he’d spoken them before. Helstone – the word floated to the surface of his mind.

‘Then kill me,’ the vampire croaked. ‘I would be free of this place one way or another.’ The creature peered at Tarsus, and then gave a harsh chuckle. ‘Unless you lack the fortitude to do so, Stormcast?’

Tarsus’ eyes narrowed. The old, faded memories receded, as suspicion flared. He traded a glance with Ramus, and then replied, ‘I thought you didn’t know what we were.’

‘Did I say that?’ the vampire said. ‘I merely asked a question. The implications thereof were of your creation.’ He showed his fangs. ‘I know what you are, well enough.’

‘Why were you here?’ Tarsus demanded. ‘Speak plainly, or I will leave you here for the carrion birds,’ he said, gesturing to the crows gathered above.

‘Implying… what? That if I answer truthfully you’ll free me?’

‘Enough of this,’ Ramus said. He looked at Tarsus. ‘We have wasted enough time here, bandying words with a talkative corpse. Let us leave this place, Bull-Heart.’ He started down the steps. Tarsus turned to follow.

‘Wait.’

Tarsus turned.

‘I was looking for something.’ The vampire grimaced. ‘A gateway into Stygxx.’ He smiled, though there was little humour in the expression. ‘I was looking for a way… home.’ His hands twitched, and the smile twisted into a snarl of pain.

‘Where is it?’ Ramus demanded.

‘Why do you care?’

‘We seek an audience with the Great Necromancer,’ Tarsus said.

The vampire blinked.

‘With Nagash?’ he hissed, in evident disbelief. ‘Are you mad?’

Tarsus frowned. ‘No. But we have a duty, and we will fulfil it or die in the attempt.’

‘Yes, one or the other is quite likely. Both, even more so,’ the vampire said. He shook his head. ‘I was right. You are mad. Leave me, madmen. Let me rot in peace.’

‘Did you find the gate?’ Tarsus demanded.

The vampire snorted and closed his eyes. ‘No,’ the vampire said. ‘Before I could do so, I was set upon by a servant of the Blood God calling himself the Woebringer. He and that pack of beasts he calls a warband cast down my servants, and bound me here. They thought it amusing, given my nature, to imprison me inside a sun, black iron or otherwise.’

‘Why not simply kill you?’

The vampire’s smile widened. ‘How can you kill what is already dead?’ The smile faded. ‘In truth, I think they took my durability as a challenge…’

Tarsus’ eyes strayed to the many wounds that covered the vampire’s exposed flesh and the blood that stained the dais. ‘They tortured you,’ he said.

‘They are torturing me,’ the vampire hissed. ‘Every few days. The sunlight, weak as it is, and a lack of blood have kept me dangling here – a prisoner of mindless brutes. I have no doubt you’ve encountered the Woebringer’s foraging parties – he sends them out, looking for worthy prey, while the rest of the warband wanders about these hills, fighting anyone and anything they come across, including others of their ilk. When that gets boring, he comes here and carves his name on my flesh.’ The vampire grinned suddenly, and his eyes flashed with amusement. ‘In fact, he’s due any moment now, I’d say.’

The sound of horns suddenly echoed through the chamber.

‘Lord-Celestant, the enemy approaches,’ one of the Prosecutors called from the dome above.

‘How many?’ Tarsus asked. Inwardly, he cursed his inattention to priorities. He’d failed to send the Prosecutors to scout the area around them, and now the enemy was almost upon them.

‘Twice our number, easily,’ came the reply. ‘They’re climbing the eastern slope, and with war-beasts.’

‘Khorgoraths,’ the vampire hissed. ‘Ugly brutes, and hard to kill. The Woebringer quite likes his pets. Dotes on the beasts.’

‘Then we shall make ready for them. Ramus, fortify this chamber for war. It is no keep, but it must do,’ Tarsus said.

‘And what of you, Lord-Celestant?’ Ramus asked.

‘I wish to see the enemy’s strength and disposition for myself,’ Tarsus said, striding towards the largest of the gaps in the wall. As he did so, the Stormcasts he had left outside streamed into the observatory, as their training dictated. The enemy outnumbered them, and only proper discipline would ensure the Bull-Hearts’ victory.

‘Hold,’ Tarsus said, casting his voice to carry over the clatter of sigmarite plates. ‘Shields to the vanguard. Sigmar has provided the room, let us make use of it. Who will hold, when the daemon-winds rage?’

‘Only the faithful,’ his Stormcasts cried. Liberators turned and sank to one knee in the gaps until a low hedge of shields lined each one. Soon more retinues joined them, dropping the bottom rims of their shields atop those of their brethren, creating an improvised wall. Tarsus stepped forward into an opening the Stormcasts provided for him and surveyed the approaching enemy.

‘By the Realm Celestial,’ Tarsus muttered, as he looked out over the brawling horde. Foul standards rose over seething ranks of howling barbarians and armoured blood warriors. Their numbers dwarfed the small warbands they’d encountered earlier in their travels. This was a horde, in the truest sense of the word. Worst of all were the chained monsters – the khorgoraths – that bellowed and thrashed amidst the mortal warriors, including those who prodded and whipped their charges, driving them into a frenzy.

Despite the clamour of these monstrosities, Tarsus found his eye drawn to a lean, loping shape. The creature was made not of flesh, but of dark metal and other, less identifiable things. Its bat-like features were twisted in an expression of inhuman agony, and he could see that it was held in check by brass chains and festooned with ruinous icons. A febrile steam rose from its twitching, catlike form as it stalked forward, goaded by a number of bloodstokers who continuously slashed its flanks with barbed whips and prods.

‘What in the name of the great drake is that?’ he murmured.

‘Its name is Ashigaroth,’ the vampire called out, weakly. He had overheard him, somehow.

Tarsus glanced over his shoulder. The vampire wasn’t looking at him, but he noted something in the voice. ‘What is it?’ he asked Ramus.

‘Mine,’ the vampire hissed.

‘A dread abyssal,’ Ramus said, as he joined Tarsus at the wall. ‘They are things of darkness, bound by necromancy.’ He looked at the vampire. ‘He is no mere pilgrim.’

‘No, but I can be of service to you… Free me and I shall aid you,’ the vampire said.

‘We do not need your aid,’ Ramus began. Tarsus waved him to silence, and looked back out over the slope of the tor. The ranks of the enemy stirred, and a broad, muscular shape pushed its way through, dragging a screeching khorgorath in its wake. The warrior was no mere bloodreaver, Tarsus knew. No, he was of the elite – a champion of the Ruinous Powers. His skull was surmounted by great, curling horns and his thick chest, where the armour did not cover his flesh, was branded with the sigils of the Blood God. He carried a wide-bladed axe in his free hand, and the arm that held the monster’s chains was protected by a heavy gauntlet topped by claw-like blades.

‘I am Tarka Woebringer,’ the Chaos champion roared. ‘Exalted amongst all deathbringers, and master of a hundred beasts.’ The khorgorath whose chains he held slavered and gnashed at the air. The champion hauled back on the chains, fighting to keep the beast from breaking loose. ‘This is my place, earned with the red coin of crushed shield and splintered spear. Who are you to walk these stones without my permission?’

‘He’s a talkative one,’ Ramus said, one foot braced on the broken wall, the haft of his hammer resting across his knee.

‘The more he talks, the more time we have to make ready,’ Tarsus said.

‘I know you, for you reek of lightning, and word travels quickly on the roads of ruin,’ the Woebringer continued. ‘The Blood God will smile on me for delivering up your skulls. Aye, and the skull of my slave as well, for I’ve grown tired of cutting his ever-healing flesh.’ The khorgorath roared and shuffled forward, dragging Tarka a few steps. The champion laughed. ‘Bloodswiller is eager to sup on your entrails, silver-skins. He and his brothers did for the vampire’s bony servants, and they’ll do for you as well – go, Bloodswiller!’ Tarka released the chains and stepped back, as the monster surged forward.

It was not alone in its mad charge across the broken courtyard that separated the Stormcasts from their foes. From behind the Woebringer, several more of the beasts plunged past, freed from their chains by Tarka’s oncoming warriors. The khorgoraths bounded through the rubble, covering the distance more swiftly than any man or Stormcast. Tarsus’ Prosecutors hurtled down, hammers whirling from their hands to strike with meteoric force. One of the khorgoraths stumbled and fell, its crimson flesh puckered by smoking impact craters.

‘Shields up,’ Tarsus roared, as the first of the monsters thundered towards the gaps in the observatory wall, smashing aside a sundial in its haste.

Liberators were thrown back as the khorgorath barrelled into them. Hammers thudded into its flesh, and warblades bit at its flanks, but it refused to fall. The shield wall disintegrated into flying bodies as the rest of the monsters tore at their foes.

‘Ramus,’ Tarsus said.

‘At your command, Lord-Celestant,’ Ramus cried, as he thrust his reliquary forward. Lightning crackled about the standard, and then sprang forth in a blinding flash to strike the beast in the chest. The khorgorath stiffened and shrieked.

‘Judicators,’ Tarsus roared. Boltstorm crossbows hummed, and explosive bolts peppered the monster, dropping it to its knees. Liberators swarmed over it, hammers rising and falling in deadly rhythm. Tarsus looked around. Two more of the beasts were locked in combat with the Decimator and Retributor retinues just inside the chamber, and a third was still outside of the observatory, swiping blindly at the swooping forms of the Prosecutors who were holding its attention. But the last, the beast the Woebringer had named Bloodswiller, was charging across the observatory floor towards Ramus, whose attention was on the creatures fighting his Decimator bodyguards.

Tarsus moved to intercept the beast. Hearing the monster’s approach, Ramus turned, but not quickly enough. Bloodswiller’s talons smashed down, knocking the Stormcast Eternal from his feet, his reliquary clattering from his grip. Ramus rolled aside as the khorgorath stomped down, but even as he came to his feet, hammer raised, the monster caught him and lifted him up.

‘Unhand him, beast,’ Tarsus snarled, as he reached them.

His hammer crashed against Bloodswiller’s back, but before he could strike a second blow, the creature backhanded him hard enough to rattle his armour. He was sent flying backwards and crashed down on the dais, cracking the stone. As a Decimator tried to hack through the wrist of the claw holding Ramus, Bloodswiller screeched and tore an unlucky Stormcast apart. It slung the Lord-Relictor down, battering him against the floor and wall.

Ramus’ struggles grew weaker, and none of the nearby warriors could land a telling blow against the frenzied beast to free him. Blue bursts of lightning, spearing upwards towards the heavens, attested to the fate of those who tried. The monster was faster than it looked, and stronger than its kindred.

Tarsus pulled himself to his feet, and readied himself to lunge back into the fray.

‘I can save him,’ he heard someone say. He looked up to see the unsmiling vampire gazing down at him from where he hung.

‘I am faster than you, even now, and stronger,’ the vampire said. ‘You will not get close to it before it kills either you or your friend. More, I owe that particular beast for the blow that landed me here, in such a humiliating state. I can save him, Stormcast – free me. Or die. It matters not to me.’

Tarsus did not hesitate. He spun and brought his sword down, slicing through the rings of the orrery. It toppled forward, and as it did so Tarsus dropped his weapons and caught it with a grunt of effort. Swiftly, he wrenched the brass spikes free of the vampire’s flesh, and the creature fell to the dais in a crouch as Tarsus chucked the orrery aside. The vampire glanced up at him. Then, with an eyeblink, he was suddenly at the far wall where the sword Tarsus had seen earlier was embedded.

As swift as lightning, the vampire tore the blade free of the wall and sprang towards Bloodswiller. The great crimson brute roared and swung a thickly muscled arm, but the vampire dodged the blow, and, with two hands, drove his blade down into the flesh between the beast’s shoulder and neck. The sword’s blade flared with unholy power, and a crimson steam spurted from the wound. The khorgorath shrieked and flailed, trying to fling the vampire loose. It dropped Ramus and Tarsus charged forward, weapons at the ready.

‘Well, what are you waiting for, fools?’ the vampire snarled. ‘Help me kill this thing.’

Tarsus lunged forward. His hammer crashed against one of the Bloodswiller’s bone-studded knees, splintering it. The beast shrilled and sank down, still clawing futilely at the vampire, who held tight to his perch on its shoulder. The vampire hissed and gave the hilt of his sword a vicious twist. Then he tore it free in a welter of gore and leapt away. The khorgorath fell forward, its talons gouging the ancient marble floor of the observatory. ‘Now, Stormcast – strike now!’ the vampire said.

Tarsus drove his hammer down on the exposed crown of the Bloodswiller’s skull, cracking it. Ramus, having regained his feet and his hammer, joined him. Together, they struck it again and again, until black ichor spilled across the floor, and the beast fell still. Tarsus looked around – the other khorgoraths had met similar fates, brought down by the weapons and divine fury of the Stormcasts. Already, his warriors were reorganising their lines, and readying themselves for whatever might come next. He looked at the vampire, who said, ‘What now?’

‘Now? Now we finish this.’ Tarsus turned towards the gap and extended his sword towards the distant shape of the Woebringer. ‘Is that the best you can muster?’ he shouted, clashing his weapons. ‘We are still here. Who will stand?’ he bellowed.

‘Only the faithful,’ the Hallowed Knights roared in response. Hammers crashed against shields. ‘Only the faithful!’

Tarka threw back his head and screamed in rage. The Woebringer sliced the air with his axe and his warriors surged forward – a snarling horde, clad in the colours of blood and brass – bloodreavers, blood warriors and worse things bounding in the wake of the mortals.

Tarsus stepped back from the gap. ‘Stand fast, Bull-Hearts,’ he said. ‘We have won a short reprieve, but they come again, in strength. Judicators, thin their ranks. Fall back when they reach the gaps. It’ll be close work then. Hammer and shield work, eh, my friends?’ he said, swatting a nearby Liberator’s shield with the flat of his sword. ‘Who will be triumphant?’

‘Only the faithful,’ came the reply. Tarsus nodded.

‘Only the faithful,’ he said firmly. ‘Stand fast, and fight as if Sigmar himself were watching. Or as if Ramus were watching, for he’s closer.’

The air throbbed with the hum of boltstorm crossbows firing and men screaming. Tarsus glanced quickly towards the gaps in the wall where the Judicators had formed two firing ranks: one kneeling, one standing. Together they fired into the disorganised mass of foes climbing towards them. The Prosecutors harried the enemy as they charged, adding to the tally claimed by the Judicators. They had earned a few moments of peace before the battle would be well and truly joined. Nevertheless the enemy pressed on, and soon they would be spilling into the observatory.

Tarsus caught Ramus staring at the vampire. ‘You do not trust him.’

‘You said it yourself – he cannot be trusted.’

‘He saved you,’ Tarsus said.

‘He saved himself. My fate was incidental,’ Ramus countered.

‘Indeed it was,’ the vampire said, striding towards them. ‘But, for the moment, our paths align. They have my beast. I would have him back. He is… precious to me.’

Tarsus nodded. ‘So be it. But if you turn on us, know that it will be my hand that strikes you down.’ He raised his hammer for emphasis. The vampire smirked.

‘Duly noted,’ he said, as he laid his sword across his shoulder.

There was a clatter of sigmarite as the Judicators fell back, and the Liberator retinues moved to take their place in the vanguard. ‘Shields up,’ Tarsus said, his voice carrying throughout the chamber. Shields rose, and then slammed together, rim to rim, forming a wall of steel.

‘Hold the line,’ Tarsus continued. He tightened his grip on the hafts of his weapons. ‘Move on my order.’

‘Where do you wish me to go?’ the vampire said, bowing shallowly. ‘Shall I take my place in line and fight alongside your warriors?’

‘Fight as it pleases you,’ Tarsus said, watching the approach of the enemy. ‘You are no longer a prisoner.’ He glanced at the vampire. ‘You are free.’

The vampire blinked. Then, he inclined his head. ‘As you say.’ He turned towards the broken wall as the howls of the blood-worshippers filled the air. The first bloodreaver burst through the gap at a run – an axe in either hand – and more followed. Soon a wave of murderous fury swept towards the waiting Liberators, who continued their war-rhythm, waiting for their Lord-Celestant’s order.

Tarsus stepped off the dais, arms spread and weapons ready. ‘Hold, Bull-Hearts. Hold,’ he rumbled. ‘Ramus, call the storm.’

Ramus lifted his reliquary and slammed the haft down so that the sound quavered through the air like the peal of a bell. Outside the observatory, a heavy rain began to fall. Thunder rumbled, and the blood-worshippers still outside screamed as crackling streamers of lightning slashed through their ranks, speeding along armour and edges of weapons to lance into branded flesh. Men died in droves, cooked in their armour, or else set aflame as they ran. Confusion swept throughout the enemy.

‘Lower your horns,’ Tarsus roared, pushing through the ranks to the front. Liberators bent, their shields thrust to the fore and hammers held low. ‘And… forward.’ As one, the Liberator retinues began to march on. Tarsus led the way, picking up speed with every step. His warriors kept pace and, with a thunderous crash, the shield wall met the front rank of the bloodreavers. Shields locked as the Liberators pushed against the enemy, driving them back. Tarsus fought at the fore, making room for his warriors to move forward with every blow.

More enemy warriors continued to press through the gaps, even as the front ranks were forced back. Frenzied blood warriors tore through their own fellows as the crush of battle intensified. The Liberators fought efficiently, using their foe’s numbers against them. Hammers cracked against knees and shot forward to crush chests. In other such encounters, it had been enough. The Stormcasts were as relentless in their own way as the servants of the Blood God were in theirs, and when they marched no enemy could stand against them.

But soon, numbers began to tell against discipline. Howling blood warriors hooked shields and arms with their axes, dragging the Stormcasts into the depths of the mob and ripping them asunder in explosions of blue light. The hulking shapes of khorgoraths lurked outside the observatory and tore at the remaining walls in a frenzy, trying to widen the gaps. Debris sifted down from above as cracks raced across the roof and walls of the structure. A section collapsed with a roar, crushing Stormcasts and bloodreavers alike.

‘Fall back,’ Tarsus shouted as he blocked an axe blow. ‘Tighten the line and fall back from the walls.’

Those Liberators who could began to back away, shields still locked. Others could not break away from their opponents and were swiftly surrounded and brought low. More explosions of searing blue light streaked skyward, and Tarsus cursed. He looked around, watching Ramus organise the Retributors and Decimators for a counter-charge.

It wasn’t going to be enough. They were outnumbered ten to one and the enemy wasn’t afraid of death. They didn’t care if they were crushed, mangled or pierced. They kept coming regardless. He needed a new strategy.

‘Lock shields,’ he cried, setting his feet. Around him, Liberator retinues stopped their retreat and did as he ordered, forming up around the wide steps of the dais. ‘We hold here. Not one step farther.’

As he spoke, the Prosecutors hurtled into the chamber, striking like lightning and retreating swiftly, trying to take some of the pressure off their comrades. Celestial hammers crashed into the closely packed mobs of bloodreavers, hurling broken bodies into the air. But the remainder pressed on. Tarsus waved the Judicators forward. Several of the retinues had made the dais defensible, moving the heavy bookshelves and stone biers into place like barricades. Those who were not firing from behind their improvised ramparts moved quickly to take up position behind the Liberators.

Lightning flickered across the ranks of the enemy, blinding and burning them. A section of the shield wall opened, and Ramus led his Paladin brotherhoods forward. The great two-handed axes of the Decimators chopped through crimson armour with ease, as the lightning hammers of the Retributors smashed the strongest Chaos champions from their feet. But the enemy pressed close about them, and even the heavily armoured Paladins could not stand alone against such a tide. Still too many of them, he thought. He’d hoped the observatory would provide some defence against numbers, but it wasn’t enough.

Over the heads of his warriors and the heaving ranks of the enemy, Tarsus saw the Woebringer fighting his way through his own followers, dragging the creature the vampire had named Ashigaroth in his wake and striking down anyone too slow to get out of his way. The dread abyssal came unwillingly, continuously fighting its chains.

As Tarsus took a step towards them, he caught sight of the vampire crouched atop the shattered dome of the observatory with arms spread and body angled so that he leaned over the chamber below. A guttural chant rose from his lips as he threw back his head. The dread abyssal began to buck and scream in its bindings. The bloodstoker struck the creature with his lash again and again, but the beast only grew more agitated. A weird purple light played across the piles of bones scattered on the floor and in the corners of the great chamber. They began to shiver and rustle, and Tarsus felt his hair stand on end.

‘Stop him,’ Tarka howled, motioning towards the vampire with his axe as he stepped into the observatory, hauling Ashigaroth after him by its chains. The bloodstoker followed him and struck the dread abyssal again before smashing off the chains that bound it, gesturing at the vampire with his blade. But rather than lunging immediately towards its former master, the creature twisted about and snapped its ebony jaws shut on the bloodstoker’s head. Tarka lashed out at Ashigaroth with his axe, and the monster struck at him with its talons, scraping his armour and knocking him back a step as it bounded over him and towards a nearby Stormcast. The latter was crushed to the ground, his body evaporating into blue light. The dread abyssal screeched and flung itself into the melee, ravaging all those it could reach, without distinction. Blood warrior and Stormcasts alike fell to its frenzy.

Tarsus charged towards the Woebringer, bulling aside any bloodreaver foolish enough to get in his way. Behind him, he heard the vampire’s chant growing louder, but the Woebringer was his only concern. Even as Tarsus closed with his foe, the Chaos champion staggered to his feet and sent his axe slicing out. Hammer, sword and axe clashed in a whirring dance of death as the Bull-Heart and the Woebringer traded blows.

‘I will take your armour and mount it upon my lodge-pole, warrior. Your skull will be my drinking cup, and your weapons I will give to my slaves,’ the Woebringer growled, as the clawed gauntlet he wore tore Tarsus’ warcloak. ‘After I am finished with you, I shall peel the flesh from the bones of a dead man, and wear it as my cloak!’ He sliced at Tarsus’ gut.

‘Are you here to talk, or to fight?’ Tarsus said, as he avoided the blow. His hammer thudded down, cracking the red armour that covered Tarka’s shoulder. The Chaos champion howled and reversed his axe, digging it upwards in a mighty blow. Tarsus stepped back, but not quickly enough, as the edge of the axe drew a spray of sparks from his chest plate and sent him staggering back. The Woebringer crashed into him, driving an elbow into the side of the Lord-Celestant’s head. His opponent was strong, stronger than any Tarsus had yet faced.

Tarsus fell, and only narrowly managed to avoid his opponent’s axe as it crashed down where his head had been. Before the Woebringer could launch another blow, however, a broken sword crashed against him. Tarsus looked up and saw the fleshless limbs of several skeletons gathered about him protectively. The undead warriors attacked the Woebringer, jabbing at him with splintered spears and hacking with blunt, chipped swords. More clung to him, grabbing his arms or the great horns that topped his bestial head. He roared wordlessly, lashing out to shatter a skeleton. The dead thing fell, but crawled back towards him.

Khorgoraths screamed in agony as they were swarmed by skeletons and dragged down through sheer weight of numbers. The dead rose up amidst the press of the melee and fell upon the Woebringer’s warriors with silent savagery, cutting them down even as they fought the Stormcasts. Everywhere, the silent legions hurled themselves into the fray, compelled by the vampire’s will and sorcery.

Tarsus got to his feet as the Woebringer whirled towards him, bleeding from a dozen wounds, but showing no signs of weakness.

‘I defeated the dead before, and I will do so again. But first, I will take your skull, silver-skin,’ the Chaos leader shrieked as he charged towards Tarsus, smashing aside the skeletons in his path. Tarsus raised his hammer, ready to meet his foe’s charge, when a black shadow spread over them both.

The Woebringer looked up. Tarsus took advantage of his opponent’s distraction and caught the Woebringer with a blow that rocked him off his feet. As he fell, the dread abyssal dropped out of the air and onto the Chaos champion with a cry. The vampire sat astride the creature, and laughed as Ashigaroth’s claws tore the life from the fallen warrior. As the creature tore at the body, the vampire looked down at Tarsus.

‘I do apologise, my friend, but… debts of blood were owed to both Ashigaroth and myself,’ he said. He smiled thinly.

Tarsus shook his head and looked around. The battle was over. And now, the living and the dead stared at each other warily across the bodies of their common foe. He looked up at the vampire.

‘You have my thanks,’ Tarsus said, careful to keep his weapons lowered, reminding himself that the dead could not be trusted. The vampire chuckled, as if reading his thoughts.

‘Mannfred,’ the vampire said. ‘I am Mannfred.’

‘Mannfred, then,’ Tarsus said. He hesitated, then extended his hand. Mannfred stared at it for a moment, as if puzzled, then he clasped Tarsus’ forearm. ‘I am Tarsus, Lord-Celestant of these warriors.’

‘And I am Mannfred von Carstein, Count of the Hanging Wood,’ Mannfred said, bowing deeply. As he straightened, he said, ‘Do you still wish to find a way into the underworld, friend Tarsus?’

‘Then you did find a gate here,’ Tarsus said.

‘No,’ Mannfred said. His smile widened. ‘Not here.’ He slid from the back of his monstrous steed. ‘But I know of one, and can lead you there.’

‘Why?’

‘Call it a debt of honour,’ Mannfred said. ‘I owe you, for freeing me, Tarsus of the Stormcasts.’ He paused, as if thinking, before adding, ‘Perhaps for more than just that.’ He extended his hand. ‘And as you’ve seen, I pay my debts.’

Tarsus hesitated. He looked up, into Mannfred’s unblinking yellow eyes, judging. Somehow, he felt as if he had lived through this before, and wondered if it had turned out for the best then. Somehow, he didn’t think so.

But he had a mission to complete. And live or die, he would see it done.

Tarsus clasped Mannfred’s hand.

‘Lead on then, Mannfred von Carstein. Where you go, the Stormcasts will follow.’

Sands of Blood

Josh Reynolds

The dead are mine.

I rule the dead, and the soon-to-be-dead. I am the final moment given form, the terminus of all existence. And yet… souls slip my grasp, one by one. They leave only the stink of iron and lightning to mark their passing.

I see nothing. I hear nothing.

My realm is silent.

My spirit strides the night wind, hunting these stolen souls, accompanied only by wailing nighthaunts. I cross vast oceans in the blink of a mortal eye and stalk invisibly along the crooked rooftops of cavernous cities whose folk burrow down, ever down, seeking my favour. I see my legions clash again and again with those of the enemy, and where I pass, unseen, the servants of the Ruinous Powers shudder in unspoken horror. Even now, my enemies fear me. Even now, they know dread at my name.

Nagash has risen. And soon… soon, I will stride forth in all my terrible glory, to bathe this realm anew in the light of my black sun. I will burn it clean of impurities, of mistakes. But first, I must find the answer to the question which vexes me.

Who has taken what is mine?

I hunt these missing souls… I follow their trail from rime-encrusted Helspoint to the toppled towers of Morrsend; from the smog-choked jungles of the Skull Islands to the hourglass-lined streets of the City of Lost Moments; I seek and I hunt, but they rise up out of reach, swirling away like leaves caught in a cold wind.

So many souls… gone. I endure, but my strength… wanes. The dead fall and do not rise again. My will is thwarted.

This cannot be.

Nagash is inevitable. I will remake all reality in the image of my soul. And when at last I turn to look upon the desolation of all that was, and all that I have wrought, I shall call it good, and know contentment. I am the ur-death, the nightmare force at the core of all things. When the living cry out in their dreams, it is Nagash they see. I shall crush all under the rock of my unyielding will, and all will be one – Nagash. When Nagash stirs, mountains tremble and suns flicker. When Nagash reaches out to crush his enemies, it is with a million hands. When Nagash seeks out his prey, it is with a million eyes.

And yet, Nagash cannot find these thieves. And thus, he grows… weak.

I am blind. Souls flee my realm and my body withers on its basalt throne. My spirit gutters like a flame deprived of fuel. The shadows gather. Jackals claim the bones of my servants and night birds screech in my empty citadels.

I must find them.

I must know.

Nagash must not die. This cannot be.

This shall not be.

‘Retributors to the vanguard,’ Tarsus, Lord-Celestant of the Hallowed Knights, roared over the howl of the wind that whipped across the Blood Wastes. It whined through the crumbled remains of walls and other, less recognizable, structures which rose from the red sands below like gravestones. At the bottom of the enormous dune on which he stood, Tarsus saw the Bloodbound loping through the rising storm towards a straggling line of carts and robed figures. Howling bloodreavers sprinted ahead of more heavily armoured blood warriors, crying out the name of their foul god.

The mortals in the caravan below, blinded by the storm, had only just become aware of the doom about to fall upon them. They were dressed as pilgrims, in heavy robes, and some wore chains and funerary bells which clanged as they moved. Others wore armour over their robes, and he saw these draw weapons as the other pilgrims hurried to escape. The former were outnumbered, and the rest too slow.

‘Brave, if futile,’ Tarsus said. ‘But they will not fight alone.’

He cast a look over his shoulder at his Warrior Chamber as they took up position across the crest of the crimson dune. As he spoke, the Liberator retinues moved aside in precise formation to make way for the Retributors.

‘Who will be triumphant?’ he cried, lifting his sword and hammer high.

‘Only the faithful,’ the Retributors rumbled as one. Their heavy, ornate armour was prominently marked with the lightning bolt of Sigmar, and the massive two-handed hammers they carried shimmered with electric energy. As they strode forward at Tarsus’ command, they slammed the great weapons together, adding to the clamour of war. They were not alone in this, for the Liberators too thumped their hammers against the inside of their shields in a brutal rhythm.

‘Separate the Bloodbound from their prey, Bull-Hearts. Liberators, shield the mortals!’ Tarsus started down the dune towards the enemy, many of whom had slowed, their attention drawn by the noise rising from the Stormcasts’ ranks. He grinned fiercely beneath his war-helm. ‘Soros, you and your Retributors are with me.’

‘Aye, Lord-Celestant – where you go, we follow,’ Retributor-Prime Soros bellowed, his hammer held at the ready across his chest. His brethren roared in agreement, and their hammers clashed and sparked as they followed Tarsus down the slope of the crimson dune. Overhead, a retinue of Prosecutors hurtled through the swirling wind-borne dust clouds on crackling wings. Their hammers whirled from their hands, thrown with incredible force to smash into the space between the servants of Chaos and their quarry. Sand exploded upwards, and the foremost bloodreavers stumbled back in surprise. The Prosecutors had broken the enemy’s momentum, as he had planned. Now all that was left was to gore them.

Tarsus pounded towards the milling Chaos warriors. He heard the clanging of the bells on the carts, and the screams of men, women, and dray animals as he plunged into the enemy ranks, and despatched one of the warriors with a blow from his hammer. From behind him came the snarl of lightning as the hammers of the Retributors swept down on the foe. He and his vanguard had torn a gaping wound in the horde with their attack, and its effect was immediate. As they fought, more and more bloodreavers turned away from their original quarry and doubled back towards the Stormcasts. Soon, flashes of blue lightning were streaking upwards as Tarsus’ men fell to the axes of their foes – but not many, he was glad to see. He had few enough warriors, and could ill afford to lose them.

As he cut down another bloodreaver, he saw that the Liberators had reached the struggling line of mortals and enveloped them in a protective shield wall. He spun as a roar assaulted his ears, and quickly interposed his sword, catching an axe before it reached him. His attacker was armoured in crimson and brass, and the air seemed to shimmer around him as he stabbed a spiked gauntlet at Tarsus’ stomach. Blood warrior, he thought. One of Khorne’s chosen.

Tarsus slammed his hammer down onto the spike, parrying the blow. He rammed the weapon into the Chaos champion’s chest, denting the cuirass, but the warrior only took a single step back before lunging forward with a snarl. The champion swept his axe out in a wicked arc and Tarsus retreated, the sand shifting beneath him. His enemy followed, growling a low chant to his deity as he came. They traded blows back and forth, weapons clashing. The servants of the Blood God were renowned for their ferocity, but this one, at least, was a seasoned warrior as well, matching Tarsus blow for blow.

At the last moment, the sand shifted beneath his feet, and he momentarily lost his footing. He teetered, off-balance, but it was enough for his opponent. The blood warrior gave a roar and swung his axe, tearing a spray of sparks from Tarsus’ chest plate and nearly knocking him off his feet. Tarsus staggered and lost his grip on his hammer. He whipped his sword up as the axe fell, parrying a blow that would have otherwise split his helm and skull. The blood warrior wrenched his axe up in a two-handed grip, readying it for another strike.

Suddenly, Tarsus heard a keening shriek and glanced up as a black shadow fell over them. He swiftly stepped back as a monstrous shape pounced on the champion from above. The unsuspecting warrior disappeared in a spray of blood as the thing struck with the force of a meteor and smashed the Chaos champion into the shifting sands.

The golden and black monstrosity rose up from its victim with a shriek. The creature was made not of flesh, but of dark metal and other, less identifiable, things. Its bat-like features were twisted in an expression of vile hunger, and it snapped its heavy jaws shut on the dead warrior’s skull. With a toss of its head, it tore something wispy and squalling from the pulped remains, and Tarsus knew it was his former opponent’s soul. With a rattling sigh, the dread abyssal sucked the whimpering spirit into its gullet. It turned its smouldering gaze on Tarsus, who shook his head.

‘He was mine, Mannfred,’ he said.

‘So he was,’ Mannfred von Carstein said as he leaned forward in his saddle on the back of the dread abyssal. The vampire’s black, ridged armour was pitted and scored with the marks of battle, and the red cloak he wore was tattered, but Mannfred himself did not look in the least tired. He never did, no matter how fierce the fighting.

Tarsus raised his weapons warily as the creature growled and took a tentative step towards him. The vampire smiled thinly and patted his mount’s neck. ‘Ashigaroth eats only those souls I allow him to. And for the moment, that is not you.’

‘For the moment,’ Tarsus said, as he looked about. The battle was all but over. The enemy had been routed, bodies littered the sands and those who had survived the Stormcast attack were fleeing into the growing storm.

Mannfred chuckled. ‘A joke, Tarsus. We are allies, you and I. You saved my life, Stormcast, and now I have saved yours.’

‘I did not require it,’ Tarsus said. It had been many days since they had freed the vampire, and Tarsus had no cause to regret it, yet.

At least this time he did not have to summon the dead to aid us, Tarsus thought. There was something indefinably monstrous about the act of wrenching the slain from their slumber, and propelling them into battle once more. But despite his misgivings, the Lord-Celestant did not begrudge the vampire’s help – they were alone in hostile territory, and surrounded by hundreds of nomadic warbands in service to the Ruinous Powers.

Mannfred smiled. ‘Yet I gave it freely. Letting you die in such an ignominious manner would hardly serve my cause, now would it?’

Tarsus frowned. ‘Is that why you led us into this wasteland?’ he asked, gesturing to the rolling dunes which surrounded them and the high crags which marked the horizon. ‘It seems empty of anything save sand.’

‘Is that what you think?’ Mannfred threw back his head and laughed. ‘These are not sands, at least not entirely – they are blood. Reduced to powder, drained of all vitality, but blood all the same.’ He swept his arms out. ‘For a thousand years, the lands which once made up the Blood Wastes were fought over by the Duchies of Gheist, whose nobles rode great bats to war, rather than horses. But then came Nagash, and, well…’ Mannfred leaned back. ‘Here, Stormcast, is the will of Nagash made manifest. A desert of broken stones, covered in red sands and haunted by the ghosts of the slain and the great beasts they once rode to battle.’

‘We have seen no ghosts,’ Tarsus said.

‘We will,’ Mannfred said. He gestured lazily to a point over Tarsus’ shoulder. The Lord-Celestant turned and his eyes widened. He had thought the wind had been bad before, but what was now coming over the distant dunes towards them was of a far greater magnitude: a roiling wall of sand – no, blood, he reminded himself – sweeping across the landscape, blotting out the sky and stars overhead.

‘We must get the mortals to shelter,’ Tarsus said. He glanced at them, taking in their ragged robes and the carts with their clattering funerary bells. It seemed that even in the Realm of Death, faith of some sort flourished. Their dray oxen bellowed and pawed the sands nervously as the wind whipped up. He looked towards the distant crags which marked the desert’s edge. It would take days to reach them. The storm would catch up with them before then.

He looked at Mannfred. ‘There must be something nearby.’

Before Mannfred could reply, a voice spoke.

‘You saved us.’

Tarsus turned and found a number of pilgrims looking up at him in awe. The one who had spoken was an older man, leaning heavily on a staff topped by a smoking censer in the shape of an hourglass, and wearing the same dark, heavy robes as the others.

‘I am Gerot of Morrsend,’ the old man said. ‘We are grateful for your assistance, warrior. Without you, the skull-takers might have claimed us.’

‘Do not thank me yet,’ Tarsus rumbled. ‘We must still get your folk to shelter, before that storm catches up with us.’

‘There is a place ‒ the Temple of Final Rest, in the ruins of Sepulchre,’ one of the other pilgrims, a woman, said. Tarsus looked at Mannfred, who nodded and sat upright in his saddle.

‘I know of it. One of the few remaining structures left in the region. If we move quickly, we can reach it before the storm,’ the vampire said.

‘Lead us there,’ Tarsus replied. ‘And be quick about it.’

Mannfred laughed and kicked his beast into motion. Ashigaroth took a running leap and hurtled into the air. Tarsus shouted orders to his Warrior Chamber, readying them to march. The Stormcasts snapped to attention and fell in along either side of the column of pilgrims.

Tarsus turned his attention back to the pilgrims. The one who had spoken of the temple wore a heavy, much-dented breastplate over her dark robes, with a gorget in the shape of a jawbone. Her long, black hair was tightly braided and woven about her head, and her dark skin was marked by pale scars where it was not bound in rags or hidden beneath rusty chainmail. She carried a heavy hammer in one hand, its wide head decorated with intricately carved skulls, and he had no doubt that she knew how to wield it.

‘You were heading to this… Sepulchre, then, lady…?’

‘I am Aisha,’ she said, not quite meeting his gaze. ‘I stand watch over our flock, on our pilgrimage to the great temple.’ She trembled as she spoke, though whether in awe of him, or something else, he could not say. He recognized her as one of the pilgrims who had sought to put up a defence against their attackers earlier. He inclined his head, one warrior to another.

‘I am Tarsus, Lord-Celestant of the Hallowed Knights,’ he said, looking down at her. She was afraid, but her fear did not control her. ‘You have nothing to fear from us,’ he rumbled. ‘We will let no harm come to you.’

‘I know. That you bear that symbol says as much,’ she said, reaching out as if to touch the sigil emblazoned on his hammer. She pulled her hand back at the last moment.

Gerot cleared his throat. ‘We have heard the rumble of thunder, and seen lightning flash in the dark clouds. Travellers whispered that the storms which have wracked our lands these past months have brought with them warriors, clad in shimmering armour. We in Morrsend did not believe it.’

‘Sigmar has not deserted you,’ Tarsus said.

‘No,’ Aisha said, ‘not Sigmar.’

Before Tarsus could ask her who she meant, the old man spoke up.

‘Hush,’ Gerot said, though not sharply. ‘Forgive her, my lord. Aisha has ever spoken her mind, in all things.’

‘There is nothing to forgive. Will you allow us to accompany you to this temple?’ Tarsus asked. It was not a request, though he phrased it as such. A structure such as this temple might just be one of the nine citadels they were searching for, whether Mannfred was aware of it or not. While it was his mission to find a route into the underworld, it was his duty to see that no harm came to the downtrodden.

‘We would be glad of it,’ Gerot said, with only a moment of hesitation. He bowed his head and led his people back to their carts as Tarsus made his way to the head of the column. In moments, it began to move with a clatter of bells and the crash of sigmarite. Mannfred and his dread abyssal swooped overhead, driving against the wind, followed closely by the winged Prosecutors, who would keep watch over the flanks of the column.

The landscape was as ragged as the mortals who sought to traverse it. Immense dunes of powdered blood rose up to slouch against the cracked stones of half-buried towers. As they marched, Tarsus saw what remained of an ancient guard tower, split in two with sand pouring down from its upper levels like a waterfall, or perhaps an hourglass. The strengthening wind carved the dunes into sepulchral shapes – yawning skulls and hooded figures which seemed to pursue the column from dune to crimson dune.

More than once they found themselves walking across flat stones, or in the lee of a shattered wall or through the ribcage of some long-dead titanic beast. There were many of the latter in evidence, and Tarsus thought of the great bats Mannfred had spoken of. He glimpsed fragments of bone and broken weapons scattered across the landscape, as the wind whipped the blood-sands into a frenzy. Skulls, human and otherwise, were nestled in the cracks and crevices of the tumbledown ruins they passed. They burned with an eerie purple light which cast strange shadows across their path. Worse were the uncanny shrieks which at first seemed to be merely the wind slashing through ruin and wreck, but which soon became hideously distinct.

‘This realm has been at war for centuries,’ Lord-Relictor Ramus said as he joined his Lord-Celestant at the head of the column. ‘Here lies proof of that. How often have we seen similar devastation since coming here?’ The reliquary staff he carried pulsed with a blue nimbus, which kept the worst of the wind at bay.

‘This realm is not unique in that regard,’ Tarsus said, glancing at the other Stormcast.

‘How are the mortals?’ Tarsus asked.

‘Fearful, but grateful,’ Ramus said. ‘We are being followed. The enemy were merely routed, not destroyed. They pursue us.’

‘Are they close?’

‘We outpace them for the moment. They are wary. I suspect that they too seek shelter from the coming storm. Even daemon-kissed flesh is no proof against the fury I feel in the air,’ Ramus said. ‘I can feel the dark magic which created this place rising with it. There are spirits trapped here, bound to this place of slaughter in the moment of their death. They press close about us, Tarsus, hungry for our lives and light. Look – see.’

Tarsus peered ahead, where flickering half-shapes moved through the stirring sands and ruins. His eye could not properly fix on them. They were there, but not. Men, he thought, or so they had once been.

‘I see them,’ he said. ‘We cannot stop, Ramus. The mortals will die without proper shelter, and I shall not abandon them to either the angry dead or the Bloodbound.’

‘Indeed, stopping would be a singularly foolish decision,’ Mannfred said, as Ashigaroth dropped from the sky and landed close by.

The keening wails of unseen predators rose and fell amidst the surge of the wind and the hiss of the blood-sands, vile shrieks which chilled the blood and set the pilgrims’ animals bellowing in fear. ‘What are they?’

‘Hungry,’ Mannfred said. ‘They hunt the skies, as they did in life, when the black wind blows and old magic stirs.’

He held up a hand, and Tarsus saw that it was limned with a darkling light. ‘Behold the curse of Nagash, my friend. Where he has passed, the dead do not rest easy, and even now they hunt our foes. Luckily for us, we have found sanctuary just over the next rise. Come.’ Mannfred turned Ashigaroth about and set off without a further word.

The temple rose up from a cradle of shattered streets and half-collapsed buildings like a crown on a corpse. Its minarets were broken and its walls were sagging and derelict, but they still stood, which was more than Tarsus could say for the ruins which spread out around it.

‘A dreadful fate befell this place,’ Ramus said, as they led the column towards the scattered remnants of what had once been the city gates. ‘If Nagash could do this…’

‘Then he will be a powerful ally,’ Tarsus said. ‘I understand your worries, my friend. But we have our duty and we must see it through, to whatever end awaits us. We must trust in Sigmar. We are Stormcasts, and we can do no less. Much is demanded of those…’

‘…to whom much is given,’ Ramus replied.

Mannfred led the column swiftly through the ruins, and the Stormcasts did what they could to hurry their charges along. Eerie shadows stretched through the ruins, keeping pace with them, and the Prosecutors reported seeing enormous forms hurtling through the storm, riding the winds as they grew ever stronger.

More than once, strange, ghostly shapes coalesced from the whirling blood-sands and lunged towards the pilgrims and their protectors. The Stormcasts met these spectral assaults staunchly, and the phantoms burst into clouds of red as they were struck by sigmarite weapons or by Ramus’ lightning. Mannfred alone bore the winds without concern. His dead flesh remained untouched by either the stinging sands or the phantoms, which shied away from him like jackals avoiding the attention of a lion.

The sounds of battle echoed from the dunes beyond the ruins, and immense, soul-cutting screams echoed out over the crumbled walls and tumbled towers. The undead horrors which hunted this wasteland had found other prey.

By the time they reached what had once been the gates of the temple, the storm had grown so strong that Tarsus could barely see past his hand. The Stormcasts had been forced to surround the pilgrims and their carts. The Liberators raised their shields and faced them outwards, creating a moving enclosure of sigmarite that protected mortal flesh from the flaying winds and hungry ghosts darting out of the storm. Mannfred led them through the ruined gatehouse and towards what had once been the inner wall of the temple. There, an open archway invited entrance. As the Stormcasts and their charges approached it, the ghosts faded away, retreating back into the storm.

‘They flee,’ Ramus said.

‘No,’ Mannfred said, as he led them through the archway. ‘But they are wary of this place.’

Tarsus scanned the broken walls which protected the inner structure of the temple, but saw neither guards nor even lookouts. Where they were in one piece, the walls provided some protection from the wind, and the main bastion of the temple looked to be in relatively good shape. The Stormcasts followed the vampire into the temple courtyard, where a line of robed and cowled shapes awaited them, hands folded into their sleeves. There were at least seventy, the Lord-Celestant thought.

‘Priests,’ Tarsus murmured.

‘But why are they out here?’ Ramus said, as he and Tarsus stepped forward through the shields of their warriors. They were accompanied by Mannfred, who had dismounted. The vampire had one hand on his sword, and he cast a warning glance at Tarsus as one of the robed figures came to meet them.

‘Welcome, wayfarers, to the bastion of Final Rest,’ the priest said solemnly, his voice carrying easily despite the roar of the storm. He spread his hands as if to indicate the pilgrims, who now clustered within the walls, their voices raised in celebration. ‘We feared that the storm would arrive before you. I am Brother Markus. I bid you welcome and ask only that you leave behind some of the happiness you bring.’

He turned towards Tarsus. The Lord-Celestant caught the flash of a yellow gaze within the shadowed folds of the hood.

‘They are vampires,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Mannfred said. He watched the priests warily. ‘But not like me. I have heard rumours, but gave them little credence.’ He shook his head. ‘Fools and mad things, hiding away in this waste since the coming of Chaos. Much hardship has befallen the Realm of Death since the day Nagash fell, and only the strong persevere.’ As he spoke, Gerot and Aisha moved slowly towards Brother Markus.

‘We bid you greetings, restful brother,’ the old man wheezed as he approached the priests. ‘We come from Morrsend to honour the old debt and deliver to you your tithe, as we swore in bygone days.’ He glanced at the Stormcasts. ‘We would not have survived the journey, were it not for these warriors.’

Brother Markus looked at Tarsus and bowed his head. ‘Then they too are welcome. Stay, and be safe from storm and phantom.’ The vampire looked up, eyes flashing. He pulled his hood back, revealing a cadaverous countenance. He had a face like a skull, his skin stretched tight, and his eyes were cavernous pits. ‘We ask only that the debt be honoured and the tithe be shared, so that we might return to our contemplation of the Corpse Geometries.’

‘As was sworn, so shall it be,’ Gerot said, his voice trembling slightly as he extended an arm. ‘Take your tithe, brother, and with thanks.’

More pilgrims stepped forward, rolling back their sleeves to extend their arms. Markus took Gerot’s arm and his thin lips peeled back from his fangs. Tarsus, suddenly aware of what was coming, made to step forward, but Mannfred stopped him with a look.

A moment later, Markus sank his fangs into Gerot’s arm, and the old man winced, but did not cry out. The other priests did the same with the pilgrims who had stepped forward, until all seventy-seven of the vampires had fed. It was over in moments.

Markus sighed and scraped a loose droplet of crimson from his mouth as Aisha and others saw to their wounded companions.

‘The tithe is… acceptable, my friends,’ he said slowly. ‘And we thank you for the gift we have received. Wait out the storm’s fury, or stay as long as you wish. There is water in the temple storerooms, and what we have is yours.’

The pilgrims began to unhook their oxen and unload their carts, some carrying heavy baskets of food and other supplies up the wide steps into the temple.

‘Why give them blood?’ Tarsus asked Aisha, as she helped Gerot bandage his arm.

‘Would you prefer that they take it?’ Mannfred said, smiling unpleasantly.

Tarsus ignored him. ‘What is this tithe?’

‘Morrsend owes a debt of blood to the seventy-seven Restful Brothers, my lord,’ Gerot said. ‘In the time after the coming of Chaos, when the ground and sky were in upheaval, they defended our people from the enemies of man. They fought and bled in our name. Now, they fight no more. And so we watch over them, as they once watched over us. The dead hold their honour sacred. Can the living do any less?’

He glanced at Mannfred as he spoke. The vampire frowned and pulled his cloak tight about him before walking away to confer with Brother Markus. Gerot watched them for a moment and then said, ‘That one, however…’

‘He has fought beside us, and bravely,’ Tarsus said.

‘The dead, like the living, come in many shades,’ Gerot said. He peered at Tarsus. ‘That one bears watching, my lord.’

Tarsus began to ask what the old man meant when he heard a shout from above. ‘Bull-Heart, the enemy is at hand,’ a Prosecutor called down, as he swooped overhead. ‘I see the gleam of their blades and hear their howls, even with the storm.’

‘It appears our respite is over,’ Tarsus said. He joined Mannfred and Brother Markus.

‘Will you fight with us?’ he asked the priest.

‘We do not fight. We make war no longer,’ Brother Markus said softly.

‘Regardless, brother, war is here, and you cannot avoid it,’ Tarsus said. ‘The foe is at your gate and you must stand or be trampled beneath him.’

‘We will not fight,’ Markus said, more sternly. ‘Let him come. Our choice is made.’ His eyes flashed as he spoke, from yellow to red. Tarsus tensed, wondering if, despite his words, Markus were readying himself to attack.

Mannfred quickly stepped between them. ‘So it is, brother – but our choice is to fight. Will you deny us that?’ he said smoothly.

The other vampire hesitated. He gazed at Mannfred searchingly and Tarsus wondered what they had been speaking of, before he had interrupted them. Then, head bowed, the priest stepped back. ‘As you will.’ He turned and led the other priests away, into the temple.

‘Why will they not fight?’ Tarsus demanded. ‘Are they cowards?’

‘Of a sort,’ Mannfred said. ‘Leave them be, for now. We…’ He trailed off as Aisha approached them. ‘Well, what have we here?’

Tarsus held up a hand, silencing Mannfred. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

Aisha lifted her chin. ‘We wish to stand with you, to protect the brothers and our own.’

Tarsus shook his head, wondering at such loyalty. ‘You can, but inside the temple. We will hold the outside,’ he said.

‘We do not fear them,’ she said quickly, lifting her own hammer. ‘In Morrsend, we are taught that to send the enemy down into death is the greatest offering we can make.’

Tarsus inclined his head. ‘And so you shall, if we fail. For then it will fall to you to defend yourselves and this place. Fight well, Aisha of Morrsend.’ She opened her mouth as if to speak, but then closed it, nodded and turned away, calling out to her people. The pilgrims began to file quickly into the temple and Tarsus left them to it.

‘And what of me? Shall I draw the fallen from their slumber?’ Mannfred said, smiling slightly. He stretched out a hand, as if to clutch at the sand that hissed through the air about them. ‘The air here is thick with the stuff of death, my friend. It shall be but the work of moments to bind them to my will and set them loose…’

‘No,’ Tarsus said. ‘The dead have done enough. Leave the rest to the living.’ He did not want to owe the vampire any more than he already did. The Stormcasts could win their own battles.

And you would do well to remember that, he thought, looking at Mannfred.

The vampire shrugged. ‘Very well. I will not insist.’ He bowed low. ‘Direct me, my lord. Where would you have me? On the walls? At the gate? Shall I take up shield and hammer and stand in the vanguard?’

‘You mock me,’ Tarsus said.

‘Possibly,’ Mannfred said, straightening. He set his hand on the pommel of his sword. ‘Ashigaroth and I shall take to the sky to do what we can, if you have no objections.’

‘Fight well, Mannfred,’ Tarsus said. He held out his hand. Though he could not bring himself to entirely trust the vampire, he could find no fault in his courage. Mannfred looked at him for a moment, and then took the proffered hand.

‘May the day bring you glory, Tarsus,’ Mannfred said. He turned and leapt into Ashigaroth’s saddle. The dread abyssal reared up, shrieking, and leapt towards the wall. It struck the stones and bounced off, climbing the wind until it was lost to sight in the howling sands. Tarsus turned his attention to the preparation of the defences.

‘Move those stones into the opening. Get the wagons turned,’ he said, directing his warriors. The pilgrims’ oxen had been herded into one of the few outbuildings that clung to the outside of the temple, out of the way, and the carts were being manhandled by Stormcasts into the many gaps in the stone walls which surrounded the temple courtyard. Other Stormcasts were completing the destruction of the fallen pillars and dragging the oblong chunks into place inside the archway. They moved quickly, and within minutes the courtyard was as defensible as they could make it.

Liberators took up positions behind the carts and along the bottom of the walls as Judicators climbed to the rickety ramparts which lined sections of the wall above. He’d ordered the Prosecutors to the minarets and dome of the temple roof, to keep an eye on the enemy’s approach. As he helped one of his warriors wedge a cart into place, a Prosecutor dropped into the courtyard and shouted, ‘Bull-Heart, they come!’

Tarsus peered out through the gap. Outside, amidst the howling winds, a tall shape had clambered to the top of the shattered gatehouse and now stood watching them. He recognized what the warrior was easily enough – a doom-handed champion of Chaos, clad in hell-forged armour, and carrying a heavy, long-hafted mace in his hands. A cloak of scabrous fur flapped about the warrior’s shoulders, and his helm was moulded in the shape of a snarling wolf’s head. He appeared unconcerned by the stinging red sands which rose and fell around him.

‘There you are,’ Tarsus said to himself. It was ever the same – the champions of the Bloodbound could not resist announcing themselves.

‘Let us in, little men,’ the Chaos champion rumbled, his impossibly deep voice echoing from within his wolf-helm and carrying easily to the ears of the defenders, despite the storm. He spread his arms, and howling bloodreavers and savage blood warriors rose from the ever-shifting blood-sands where they had crouched, waiting. ‘We but seek shelter from the storm and the night-things which harry us.’

Tarsus looked out at the foe, trying to gauge their numbers, but the growing turbulence made it difficult. He guessed that his small Stormhost was outnumbered almost three to one.

‘I am Gorewolf. I take what I wish, and none may resist me,’ the champion continued, his voice growing louder. ‘Now, I take this place in the name of Khorne!’

He lifted his great daemon-headed mace over his head. At this signal, his followers started forward with a roar, charging pell-mell towards the crumbled walls of the monastery through the undulating curtain of red sands.

Tarsus shook his head and clapped a hand on the shoulder of the Liberator standing beside him. ‘So many soon to be dead,’ he said.

‘We shall put them to rout as before, Lord-Celestant,’ the Liberator said.

‘Aye, that we shall,’ Tarsus said. He raised his hammer. ‘Who will be triumphant?’

‘Only the faithful,’ his Warrior Chamber roared in reply, as they began to beat upon their shields and stamp upon the ground.

‘Who will hold, when all others fail?’ he cried.

‘Only the faithful!’

‘Judicators – make your judgement,’ Tarsus bellowed to the retinues crouched behind the ramparts above him. Boltstorm crossbows cracked and death rippled out along the front ranks of the enemy. The fallen were trampled by those behind them, who plunged on, heedless of the casualties. ‘Liberators, hold the wall. Do not let them in. Fall back only when you must. Zarus,’ he called, as the Liberators readied themselves. Zarus, Prosecutor-Prime of the Bull-Hearts, dropped down into the courtyard from his perch on the wall.

‘Speak and I shall make it so,’ Zarus said, as he folded his crackling wings behind him and smashed a fist into his chest in salute.

‘Do you remember when we took the walls of Starhold, and what we did there?’ Tarsus said, clasping the other Stormcast by the shoulder guards. ‘When the enemy threatened to overwhelm the other Warrior Chambers, before we could come to their aid?’

Zarus laughed sharply. ‘I do!’

‘It may come to that again. It shall fall to you, as it did then, Wallbreaker,’ Tarsus said, using the other Stormcast’s war-name. He motioned to the wall. ‘Bring those ancient stones down and bury the enemy.’ He turned and gestured to Ramus.

‘Here, my Lord-Celestant,’ Ramus said. He stalked across the courtyard, surrounded by his Paladins. ‘We await your orders.’

‘You and your Paladins will hold the outer chambers. Protect the pilgrims. See that no harm comes to them.’ Tarsus glanced back towards the walls. ‘We shall hold here, until it is no longer tenable, then we will retreat and join you.’

‘You believe they will get in,’ Ramus said.

‘These walls are old and weak. They were not meant for war even when they were strong. Now, they are little better than cloth. Our foe fights not for victory, but for survival, and it is for survival’s sake that we must hold him at bay. When the time comes, we will retreat to the outer chambers of the temple, and you must be there to meet us. Inside the temple they will scatter into groups, looking for loot, food and slaughter, and then we shall smash them piecemeal.’

Ramus nodded and thumped the ground with the end of his reliquary staff. ‘It shall be done, Bull-Heart. This Gorewolf shall regret showing us his fangs. We shall trample this yelping pack into the dust, as they deserve.’

‘Who will be left standing?’ Tarsus said.

‘Only the faithful,’ Ramus replied, bowing his head.

‘Only the faithful, my friend. Go,’ Tarsus said, hefting his hammer. He drew his sword and went to join his men at the walls, just as the first of the enemy reached them. Axes hacked and chopped at the improvised barricades as the Liberators struck at their wielders. When a barricade fell, the Liberators were there, shields locked, to frustrate the efforts of their foes. But there were too many Bloodbound. Tarsus knew it was only a matter of time until a gap was opened in his lines.

The next moments passed in a whirlwind of clashing steel and dying screams. He saw a trio of Liberators bowled over by a wild-eyed blood warrior that charged its way through an overturned cart and fought on, despite the skybolts lodged in his torso and skull. Gripped by a murderous frenzy, he hacked and slashed at the Stormcasts until Soros brought his lightning hammer down on the Bloodbound’s head.

Tarsus killed a heavily scarred bloodreaver with a blow from his hammer, and saw more barricades shattered and broken by the berserk warriors of the Bloodbound. They were determined to gain the temple, and took no heed of their own casualties. He blocked a looping slash from a jagged blade and drove his shoulder into the chest of his attacker, crushing bone and tearing flesh. As the body fell he spun, bringing his weapons together to catch the edge of an axe as it dropped towards his head.

The blood warrior roared wordlessly as Tarsus forced him back. All around them, Stormcasts retreated, allowing the Bloodbound to enter so that the Judicators on the wall could fire on them. When he judged that the bulk of the enemy were either just inside the gaps or trying to push past those who were, Tarsus tore his hammer free of his opponent’s axe and waved it, signalling the Judicators to pull back from their positions. The blood warrior staggered forward, off balance.

‘Wallbreaker – bring it down,’ Tarsus roared as he slammed his helm against the blood warrior’s head. His adversary reeled back, dazed, and Tarsus severed his axe-hand at the wrist. He smashed the dying warrior off his feet and sheathed his sword so that he could pull a wounded Liberator up.

‘Fall back, Bull-Hearts,’ he cried, swinging his hammer out to drive back any Bloodbound who drew too close. He saw Zarus lead his Prosecutors overhead and watched in satisfaction as they hurled their hammers at the sagging wall.

The walls came down with a roar, filling the courtyard with sand and dust. Red-armoured bodies were buried beneath the rubble, but not all of them. They charged out of the rising haze, howling like hungry beasts, with Gorewolf at their head. His great mace swung out and sent a Liberator flying backwards to land in a broken heap.

‘Back,’ Tarsus roared. ‘Back to the temple and lock shields as you go. Let no enemy pass you.’

Judicators continued to fire as they retreated along the remaining ramparts, pulling back towards the outer chamber of the temple. The Liberators gave ground grudgingly, making the enemy pay in blood for every step they took. Hammers rose and fell, and bodies littered the courtyard. Flashes of brilliant blue marked where a grievously injured Stormcast was wrenched back to Azyr, destined for Reforging.

The Stormcasts retreated up the steps of the temple, fighting the entire way. Broken bodies marked their ascent as Gorewolf’s warriors attacked again and again. Finally, they reached the great doors and were able to slam them shut, buying themselves a momentary respite.

‘Soros, lead our brothers to the rallying point,’ Tarsus said, as he retreated into the temple. The corridors were lit by weakly flickering stanchions, which glowed with an amethyst light. ‘I go to find the priests. The enemy will flood these corridors soon enough, and they need to be warned.’

‘It shall be done, Lord-Celestant,’ Soros said. Tarsus nodded in satisfaction and peeled off from the group, heading down a side corridor. The temple was large, but it was mostly a series of chambers that surrounded an inner nave.

Where are you? Tarsus thought, as he hurried along the corridor. They were allies, but there was no telling how long it would last. The dead cannot be trusted. The thought was never far from his mind. Some buried lesson from his old life, come to light again. No, Mannfred could not be trusted, but they needed him. The vampire swore that he could help them find a way into the underworld. And since this did not seem to be such a gate, they still required his aid.

But while he was an untrustworthy creature, he was also as brave as any Stormcast. There was a cruel sort of courage in Mannfred von Carstein, that in more savage times might even have been called heroism. Tarsus found the enormous iron-banded double doors which led to the nave and forced them open. Beyond them was a wide chamber. The vaulted ceiling was held up by rows of stone pillars which ran the length of the massive chamber. Flickering torches lined the walls, casting long shadows across the marble floor. At the centre of the chamber, on an enormous dais covered in sigils which represented the phases of the moon and the shapes of the stars, the seventy-seven Restful Brothers knelt in neat, orderly rows, heads bowed, faces turned away from the door.

Tarsus closed the doors behind him, but the priests did not stir. Swiftly, he strode towards them, noticing as he did so the great skulls, each as wide across as a Stormcast, which hung from the ceiling.

‘Terrorgheists,’ Mannfred said, from behind him. ‘Titanic bats. Their spirits hunt with the storm.’

Tarsus turned. ‘Why are you here?’

Mannfred didn’t answer. He patted Ashigaroth’s neck as the beast trotted out from behind a pillar. Tarsus was surprised at how silently such a large creature could move. He shook his head, annoyed by the vampire’s lack of response, but there was no time to press the issue.

‘The enemy will soon breach the inner chambers of the temple. We must get the brothers to safety,’ Tarsus said, starting towards the steps. Mannfred slid in front of him.

‘They are safe enough. And they will not go with you, in any event.’

‘They must, or they will die,’ Tarsus said as he pushed Mannfred aside.

‘Then they will die, Tarsus,’ he said. ‘Maybe that is what they want…’

‘Do you not recall the torments the Bloodbound inflicted upon you? Would you wish the same on them?’ Tarsus asked. ‘I know vampires are not as men, but even you cannot be so callous as to condemn your own kind to–’

Mannfred gave a bark of laughter. ‘My own kind? Do not insult me, Stormcast,’ he hissed. ‘I am better than these wretches. In my veins flows the blood of kings. I do not crouch in the dark, forgotten and forgetting.’

‘Then show me,’ Tarsus said. ‘Show me how I might convince them to save themselves, O son of kings. Show them how to fight as you do.’

Mannfred’s face twisted and his mouth moved silently. Then, with a growl, he stepped back. ‘It is too late. Our enemy is here. I hear his bestial tread, coming closer. Gird yourself, Tarsus. You wish to save them? Then we must fight. And let not one enemy past you.’

Mannfred raised his sword and turned towards the great doors to the chamber as they were smashed off their hinges. A horde of Bloodbound poured in, Gorewolf at their head.

‘Death! Death and ruin, for the Lord of Skulls,’ Gorewolf howled. His warriors plunged past him, chanting the Blood God’s name. The chamber echoed with their cries and the sounds of the battle outside as the Stormcasts clashed with the enemy in the corridors of the temple.

Tarsus brought his weapons together and stepped forward, Mannfred by his side.

‘What is it you Stormcasts say at moments such as this? Some pithy mantra, regarding faith,’ the vampire asked, as he gestured to Ashigaroth, pacing nearby.

‘Only the faithful,’ Tarsus said.

‘That’s the one,’ Mannfred murmured. ‘How droll.’ He extended his sword towards the enemy. ‘Only the faithful, then.’

With a duellist’s grace, he sprang and cut down the first of the bloodreavers to reach them. Then, with a powerful leap, he was once more on Ashigaroth’s back and swooping towards the Bloodbound. Tarsus was only a half-step behind them, sword and hammer sweeping out in crackling arcs to knock his foes from their feet.

As he fought, Tarsus saw Gorewolf barrel towards the kneeling priests, cracking the marble floor with every step. He raised his mace high and roared. Tarsus lunged forward to intercept the Chaos champion. He heard Mannfred call out behind him but he did not slow. His sword slashed out and a blood warrior fell, headless. His hammer cracked the skull of a second, and then he collided with Gorewolf, driving the surprised champion back into one of the pillars.

The haft of Gorewolf’s mace crashed down, and Tarsus staggered back. The mace swept out, nearly taking his head off. As he stepped back, he saw a group of Stormcasts, led by Soros, rushing through the doors to fall upon the Bloodbound. The Retributor-Prime roared and flattened a bloodreaver with a single blow from his hammer.

‘Soros,’ he cried, ‘protect the priests!’

Gorewolf howled and surged towards him. They traded blows back and forth between the pillars. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Mannfred fighting alongside Soros. Dark energies ripped from the vampire’s hands as he unleashed killing spells, and Ashigaroth tore the life from those opponents who got too close. Mannfred fought ferociously, but even so, a trio of warriors slid past him and charged towards Tarsus and Gorewolf. Tarsus lunged forward and shoved his enemy off balance into a pillar, and whirled to face this new threat.

The first bloodreaver went down beneath his hammer then the second fell to his sword. The last came at him in a rush, howling out his dark god’s name. His blade skittered across Tarsus’ chest plate. The Lord-Celestant parried a second blow, smashing the warrior’s arm with his hammer in the process. He stepped forward and drove his sword up into the bloodreaver’s stomach, picking the barbarian up off of his feet. Tarsus pivoted and hurled the body off his blade even as Gorewolf surged towards him, mace raised. They crashed together, weapons locked.

As he strained against Gorewolf, Tarsus caught a glimpse of the priests. They were no longer kneeling in a line. Instead, a number of them were clustered about the twitching body of the man he had just killed, their heads lowered like hogs at the trough. The others pushed and shoved at one another as if trying to get close, hissing and snarling. Suddenly, one reared up, head thrown back to reveal the blood which coated its face and robes. The vampire screamed as if in pain, and his cry was taken up by the others as all seventy-seven of them began to writhe and twitch abominably.

Limbs swelled and twisted with a sound like snapping branches, and human flesh grew thin and tore away to reveal bulky, bestial bodies. Twisted, bat-like faces, smeared with blood, swung towards Tarsus and his foe. Mad, bulging eyes fixed on them, and dark muzzles peeled back from yellow fangs. Varghulf, Tarsus thought suddenly, the word rising to the surface of his memory as the heaving, hairy shapes sprang forward on bent wing-stumps and jointed legs.

Tarsus reacted quickly. He shoved Gorewolf back, towards the approaching monsters. Two of the beasts leapt onto the champion, bearing him to the ground. The Chaos champion managed to knock one sprawling with his mace, even as the other buried its great fangs in his throat, savaging him. Gorewolf’s cries were cut short as one of the seventy-seven brothers tore out his jugular, painting a nearby pillar with his blood. His struggles faded and his mace clattered to the floor.

Several varghulfs pursued Tarsus as the rest stampeded towards the doors and the warriors still locked in combat there. He darted behind a pillar as they came at him in a rush. One struck the pillar and swung around it, its claws tearing chunks out of the stone as it scrambled down towards him, jaws snapping. A second leapt to the pillar opposite, cutting off his escape route. Tarsus whirled as a third smashed into him, knocking him off his feet. It tore his sword from his hand as they slid backwards in a tangle. It ducked forward, jaws wide, and he forced the haft of his hammer between its teeth. He could hear the screams of the Bloodbound and the cries of his Stormcasts as the other varghulfs fell upon the combatants, roaring and shrieking.

The varghulf on top of him jerked back and forth, trying to wrench his weapon from his grip. Its wing-stumps battered at him, but he refused to let go, knowing that to do so was to die. Then, suddenly, its snout was pried back, away from him. Mannfred crouched atop its back, one hand clutching its upper jaw and his other wrapped in its shaggy mane. The varghulf reared up, screeching, as Mannfred lost his footing and tumbled to the floor. Tarsus drove his hammer into the creature’s throat, knocking it back. Mannfred scrambled to his feet, hands crackling with cold fire. He spat a guttural invocation and the varghulf shrilled as black flames suddenly sprouted from its hairy form. It staggered away from them, howling in pain.

Another lunged for him from between two pillars, but was knocked sprawling by Ashigaroth. The dread abyssal hissed in warning, as it crouched protectively near its master.

‘Back,’ Mannfred snarled, hands raised towards the varghulfs. ‘Back, you wretches, or else I shall teach you the true meaning of torment.’ He glared at the other varghulfs, who stared back at them with glittering eyes. ‘I am Mannfred von Carstein, and I will not be prey for blood-mad beasts.’

Slowly, reluctantly, the beasts slunk away. Tarsus turned, watching them as they moved for the shattered doors, wailing like lost souls. The others joined them, leaving the savaged bodies of the Bloodbound where they lay and the remaining Stormcasts where they stood. In a frenzied mass, the varghulfs exploded out into the temple, the echoes of their cries trailing after them. Soros stepped forward and raised his hammer in salute. Tarsus returned the gesture and turned back to Mannfred.

‘I tried to warn you,’ Mannfred said harshly. ‘It’s the blood – they cannot risk the taste of blood. It drives them into a frenzy. That is why they came here. To hide away from battle, and the slaughter that comes with it.’

‘They are cursed,’ Tarsus said.

‘They are weak,’ Mannfred spat. ‘Unable to control themselves and thus of no use to anyone. They are beasts.’

‘Even so, we should go and make sure that they are no threat to the rest of my warriors or our charges,’ Tarsus said. He retrieved his sword and they made their way back out into the temple corridors, followed by Soros and the others.

Bloodbound bodies marked the path taken by the varghulfs. When they came to the entryway, they were met by Ramus and his vanguard.

The Lord-Relictor gestured with his staff towards the storm-wracked courtyard. ‘I saw.’ Before Tarsus could speak, he went on. ‘They pursued a number of our foes out into the storm. They did not seem eager to match claws with our shield wall,’ he said, with some satisfaction.

‘Not when there’s easier prey about,’ Mannfred said. He peered out into the storm. ‘They will glut themselves on the enemy and perish in the storm, or the sun that comes after. And even if they do not, we will be gone by the time they return. We must go. Now.’

Tarsus shook his head. ‘We will stay until the storm has passed. The people here are under our protection and they will not survive either the storm or those beasts should they return looking for easier prey.’

Mannfred looked as if he wanted to argue, but said nothing. He swept his cloak about him and stalked back down the corridor, leaving Tarsus and the other Stormcasts in silence.

It took a night and a day for the storm to die down. All signs of battle in the courtyard had been buried beneath the sand and dust. The seventy-seven Restful Brothers had not come back, either in one form or another, for which Tarsus was grateful. As the weak sun faded to dusk, the Stormcasts readied themselves to depart.

‘What will you do now?’ Tarsus asked, as he stood on the steps of the temple. His Stormhost was already on the march, heading west towards the mountains.

Aisha shrugged. ‘We came to serve the brethren for as long as they require, until they go back to their contemplations. And so we shall, when they return.’

‘If they return,’ Tarsus said.

‘They always do,’ Aisha replied, with a sad smile. ‘It is our duty to care for them, as best we can, so long as they allow. The dead hold their honour sacred.’

‘Can the living do any less?’ Tarsus asked. He extended his hand. Hesitantly, Aisha took it, clasping his forearm. ‘Much is demanded, of those to whom much is given,’ he said. ‘That is our saying, but I think it holds true for you as well, Aisha of Morrsend. Hold fast to your duty, and may Sigmar hear your prayers when the song of swords is begun.’

‘May a good death be yours, Tarsus of the Hallowed Knights,’ Aisha said. She released her hand and turned to rejoin her people, hammer across her shoulder.

‘So worthy,’ Mannfred said. ‘Such devotion, such dedication, to creatures who deserve neither.’ He spoke absently, as if thinking of something else entirely.

Tarsus examined the vampire where he sat atop his monstrous steed, casually stripping the flesh from a bloodreaver’s severed head. Mannfred had one leg thrown over Ashigaroth’s neck and was leaning back in his saddle, the very image of insouciance. It was a good performance, but the Stormcast could see the tension beneath the mask. Mannfred was eager to be away. Tarsus decided to take that as a good sign. He strode towards the vampire.

‘I did not thank you earlier.’

Mannfred did not look up from the bloody skull he’d been idly carving crooked sigils into, but he said, ‘Nor did you have to. I owe you a debt, Stormcast. We travel the same road and for the moment, our causes align.’

‘And what is your cause, Mannfred?’ Tarsus said. ‘You never said why you were in the temple. What were you looking for?’

Mannfred looked at him. ‘A sign, my friend. A sign that I am on the right path.’

‘And did you find it?’ Tarsus asked.

‘Yes,’ Mannfred said. He kicked Ashigaroth’s flanks, and the beast rose to its feet. ‘Yes, I believe I did,’ he called down, as the dread abyssal flung itself into the sky.

Tarsus watched the vampire swoop over the heads of his Stormcast, Gerot’s words echoing in his head. The dead, like the living, come in many shades, he thought. And that one bears watching…

The Lords of Helstone

Josh Reynolds

Nagash has risen.

The ur-death stirs and the worlds tremble. That is as it should be, and yet… there are things I cannot see. All souls belong to me. All the dead of all the worlds above and below are mine. Nagash has risen and all must pay fealty.

But some do not. Some flee to realms I can but dimly perceive, the how or why of their leaving a mystery even to me. They are snatched from me, as a thief might pilfer coins. Who has taken them? Who denies me my rightful bounty?

WHO?

Whoever they are, they are my enemy and they shall know my wrath.

Though I have grown weak and weary, though my body slumps on its basalt throne, its hollows and crevices filled not with strength but with worms and spiders, they shall know my wrath. The enemy draws near. The Starless Gates are blistered by the heat of war, as the servants of the mad gods hurl themselves against my defences in an unceasing assault.

Their champions call for me to show myself. They mock me. They think me nothing but a memory, an old ghost, forgotten and fallen. Nagash is dead, they say. The Great Necromancer is bones and dust and nothing more.

But Nagash endures.

A grave wind gathers in the dark as my loyal Mortarchs gather and my servants heed my call. Soon, I must stride forth and break the bones of those who would stand against me. I shall crack their limbs and sew up their skins, filling them with mouldering air so that their wails echo forevermore.

Nagash has risen.

I shall not be denied. Not by those who face me openly, or by thieves who come in the night. Nagash shall cast down the citadels of his enemies and make of them habitation for night-birds and hoofed things.

But first, I must seek out my secret foes, those who sicken me and steal the strength from my limbs. For I have seen them, at a distance, their souls glowing with lightning and power. My power, stolen from me by an old enemy. I am betrayed by the storm, and his laughter is in every peal of thunder and flash of lightning.

The dead are mine and they must learn their place.

I shall hunt them in the Vale of Sorrows and across the Blood Plain. I shall peer through the eyes of carrion birds, and through the hollow sockets of fleshless horrors. I shall hunt them, these thieves, for they hold the key to my weakness.

They know what I must know.

And so I shall run them to ground. I shall tear their secrets from them.

Nagash will not be denied.

Nagash must not be denied.

NAGASH SHALL NOT BE DENIED.

Tarsus slammed his shoulder into the beastman’s stomach and flipped the goat-headed creature over his back. As it tried to scramble to its feet, he twisted about and crushed its skull with a blow from his hammer before whirling back around and opening the throat of a second gor with the tip of his sword.

‘Come then,’ he shouted, clashing his weapons together. ‘Come and meet the storm.’

Beastmen spilled out of the overgrown ruins all about him, scrambling through once-majestic archways and the fire-gutted structures that made up the gateway to the mountain city of Helstone. They had sprung their ambush with characteristic ferocity, but the brighter creatures were beginning to realise that they had caught more than they had bargained for. A foamy-jawed bestigor, clad in rusty armour, hacked at him with a two-handed axe. Tarsus avoided the blow and thrust his sword through the beastman’s chest, killing it instantly. He wrenched his blade free.

‘Smash them, sons of Sigmar,’ he roared. ‘Drive them back – let no Chaos-touched beast bar your path!’ All around him, the retinues of his silver-clad Stormhost surged forward, slamming into the enemy with a sound like thunder. Their heavy shields, upon which the sigil of Sigmar was emblazoned, were thrust out to absorb the blows of axes and clubs. Hammers wreathed in crackling lightning rose and fell, pummelling the foe to the ground.

Tarsus kicked a beastman back against a broken pillar and pulped its skull as it staggered. Though the Lord-Celestant had been forged anew in Sigmar’s realm, the man he had been was born here, in the Realm of Death. And now, here I am, fighting the enemies of Sigmar in these lands once more, he thought, as he drove his war-helm into the face of a beastman and knocked it sprawling. Before it could stand, he drove his sword through its chest, killing it. Lands that might once have been mine, he thought, as he jerked his sword free.

He spun as he heard the scrape of steel on stone behind him, and swept his sword out. He pulled his blow up short as he saw the black and golden creature crouched atop the crumbled wall behind him. It screeched and he stepped back warily as it snapped its heavy jaws shut on a dead beastman’s head. Bone crunched and popped as the bat-like jaws drew forth a squealing wisp. As Ashigaroth swallowed the wretched scrap which passed for the beastman’s soul, its master laughed.

Mannfred von Carstein leaned forward in his saddle. ‘I did warn you not to make so much noise, my friend,’ he said. ‘One would think you Stormcasts wanted to call the enemy down upon you.’

‘It’s easier to kill them if we don’t have to look for them,’ Tarsus said as he parried a blow from an axe and gutted its wielder. ‘In any event, they were in our way.’

Momentarily free of the press of combat, he scanned the battlefield. Vaulted archways, broken by calamity and age, rose above the overgrown paving stones of the enormous courtyard. Tumbledown walls marked where guardhouses and the inner keep of the great gatehouse had once stood, before it had fallen to ruin. Yellowing vines and a brittle brown moss clung to almost every flat surface.

‘Is this all that is left?’ he muttered. ‘Are these shattered ruins all that remains of Helstone?’

‘Of the city that was? Yes,’ Mannfred said. He gestured, and cold black flames wreathed his fingers. All around Tarsus, the newly dead began to twitch, like sleepers waking from a nightmare.

‘Stop,’ Tarsus said. ‘There is no need for that.’

Mannfred looked at him and sneered, but he lowered his hand, snuffing the flames as he did so.

‘What did you mean, “the city that was”? Is there another?’ the Lord-Celestant asked.

‘Of sorts,’ Mannfred said. ‘The city once sprawled wild across this very slope which overlooks the acrid waters of the Bitter Sea. Its towers once stretched into the very clouds themselves.’ He smiled unpleasantly. ‘Now, they stretch to the very depths…’

Before Tarsus could press him further, he heard the winding of hunting horns. The Chaos pack was in retreat. The beastmen had chosen the site for their ambush well, but they had not been prepared for the speed with which the Stormcasts had reacted. Now, all save a determined handful were vanishing into the ruins, leaving the dead and wounded behind. The handful in question, a pack of armoured bestigors, continued to hack and smash at the shields of the Liberators.

‘Allow me,’ Mannfred began, raising his hand.

‘No need,’ Tarsus said, and barked an order. The Liberators began to fall back, drawing the bestigors after them. ‘Ramus, finish this,’ he said, glancing at his Lord-Relictor, who was standing on a broken plinth, surrounded by his Paladins and the shattered bodies of beastmen. As Tarsus spoke, Ramus raised his staff and murmured a sonorous prayer. He thrust the staff forward as the blue light about it grew almost unbearably bright. In a voice like thunder, Ramus uttered one word.

‘Burn.’

Lightning zigzagged down through the shattered roof above, arcing along the crude iron weapons and armour of the bestigors and burning them to ash and bone. Ramus wrenched his staff aside like a man pulling a rope taut and the burning beastmen came apart in clouds of charred flesh and scorched metal, which spattered the shields of the Stormcasts. He turned back to face Tarsus and inclined his head.

‘The rest flee, Lord-Celestant,’ he said, stepping off the plinth and striding towards his commander. ‘The beastkin have little stomach for real battle.’

‘They will return,’ Mannfred said, cleaning his sword with a scrap of cloth. The vampire sheathed his blade with a flourish. ‘There are thousands of them and worse things besides, roaming the ruins, warring on each other. We must hurry and descend into the depths before their courage returns.’

‘The depths? Have you led us to one of the Nine Gates at last then, vampire?’ Ramus growled. ‘Have you finally made good on your debt to us?’

‘If I recall rightly, I owe you nothing, Stormcast,’ Mannfred said looking down at the Lord-Relictor. ‘Tarsus freed me, and I repaid him by saving your life.’

‘No, Ramus – this is not the way to Stygxx,’ Tarsus said. Ramus looked at him, as did Mannfred. Tarsus shook his head. ‘I am not so much a fool as that, Mannfred. You were far too evasive when you guided us here. What was it you said, in Sepulchre? Our paths run together, but they are not the same. There is no way into the underworld here, is there?’

Mannfred was silent for a moment. Then he looked away.

‘No,’ he said, patting Ashigaroth’s neck. ‘No, there is no gate to Stygxx here that I know of.’

‘I thought not,’ Tarsus said. ‘Yet you brought us here for a reason – what is it?’

Mannfred did not turn as he spoke, instead keeping his gaze on the city, which spread out below them. ‘Coming here was a necessity, I assure you. There is something here which we must acquire, before we can continue on our journey.’

‘What is it?’ Tarsus asked. He stepped in front of Mannfred’s steed and looked up at the vampire. Ashigaroth stirred, but Mannfred calmed the beast.

‘Speak, vampire,’ Tarsus said calmly, giving no sign that he had noticed the dread abyssal’s restlessness. ‘You owe me that much at least, by your own admission.’

‘The Fang of Kadon,’ Mannfred said, after a moment. ‘An artefact which can point the way to the Nine Gates. The gates are born anew every nine months, and they grow and age and die in the same span, crumbling to dust before appearing elsewhere. An endless cycle of death and rebirth. That is why the Dark Gods have yet to find Nagash, for none can predict where and when the Nine Gates will open. But with the Fang…’

‘How did such a potent item come to be lost?’

Mannfred laughed. ‘It was forgotten by the Mortarchs as they carried the broken remains of Nagash into the underworld. Left behind in the care of Uzun, sage of the Sorrowful Order, who made his way from the Vale of Sorrows to Sepulchre, and thence to Helstone…’

‘Why this place?’ Tarsus asked. Uzun, he thought, the name plucking some chord deep within him. He pushed the thought aside, trying to focus on what Mannfred had said. The Vale of Sorrows was where they had discovered the vampire, and Sepulchre… They had just left the ruins of Sepulchre, only a few days before.

‘Helstone was a place of resistance, in those fear-fraught final days,’ Mannfred said softly. He turned away, gazing out over the ruins, his narrow features taut. ‘Where those who could stood for those who could not. As the legions of the dead crumbled beneath the storm, the living held firm. The fortress-state of Helstone was a bastion against the assaults of Chaos, and it was here, in the days after Nagash was cast down, that the full might of the Dark Gods fell.’

He looked down at Tarsus. ‘Uzun brought the Fang here, it is said, so that the people of Helstone might flee to the underworld and seek sanctuary in the halls of the Amethyst Princes.’ He grinned mirthlessly. ‘Alas, it was not to be. Nagash alone knew the secret of its use. Nagash… and one other.’

‘You,’ Tarsus said. Mannfred inclined his head.

‘We cannot trust him,’ Ramus said. ‘He has deceived us, Tarsus. We should have left him where we found him.’

Mannfred laughed. ‘And if you had, you would still be wandering aimlessly, looking for something you had no hope of finding.’ He looked at Tarsus. ‘Tarsus, my friend… I swear, on my very blood and bone, that I am not lying. We need the Fang, else we could search for an eternity without finding that which we seek.’

Tarsus paused, examining the vampire’s face for any sign of deception. ‘Why not simply tell us what you intended?’

‘Would you have trusted me?’ Mannfred looked at Ramus as he spoke, and Tarsus could feel the anger radiating off the Lord-Relictor. A seaborne wind hissed through the ruins, bringing with it the far-off wail of war-horns. Mannfred was correct – the beastmen were returning, and in strength.

‘Enough,’ Tarsus said, before Ramus could speak. ‘This place is vast, and, by your own admission, full of enemies. How will we find this artefact of yours?’

‘Simple. We shall ask the lords of Helstone.’

‘They yet live?’ Tarsus asked. At the thought, something awoke within him. A flare of heat, as if he had been in darkness and was suddenly standing in the sunlight. Mannfred looked down at him, his expression puzzled, but he nodded.

‘Yes. They live. In the depths below.’

‘Take us to them,’ Tarsus said.

Mannfred wordlessly kicked Ashigaroth into motion. Tarsus raised his hammer. His Stormcasts fell into formation smoothly with an instinctive discipline. They marched as one, Tarsus and Ramus taking the lead. Prosecutors, led by Zarus, swooped out over the ruins ahead of the column, assessing the lay of the city.

More than once, Zarus or one of his retinue brought word of beastmen lurking nearby in the ruins. But no further attacks came. The beastkin were not ones for strategy. They knew only one way, and that way served them badly when they faced a foe that was prepared for them. Badly enough, perhaps, that they were reluctant to try again. Even so, Tarsus remained alert, for the sound of horns never faded entirely.

He was not alone in being tense.

‘I do not trust him, Tarsus,’ Ramus said, as they followed Mannfred. ‘He leads us to one ruin after the next, as if we were the servants, and he the master. I would teach him the error of his ways…’

‘I have no doubt that you would, my friend,’ Tarsus said. ‘And in truth, my faith in his intentions wanes by the day. But… we are close, Ramus. I can feel it. We are on the cusp of… something. The end of our mission. Mannfred, despite his deceptions, can lead us to Nagash. And if he says we must find some artefact to win an audience with the Great Necromancer, then we will do so. I will not fail. We will not fail. We will do what we must, even if it costs all of us our lives. We can do no less, and still call ourselves Stormcasts.’

‘As you say, Lord-Celestant,’ Ramus said. He laid his hammer across his shoulder. ‘Though if he does betray us, I will remind you that I said as much.’

‘I expect nothing less, my friend,’ Tarsus said, and tapped Ramus’ shoulder plate with his hammer.

When the Stormcasts caught up with Mannfred, he was waiting for them at the edge of what appeared to be a massive crater that stretched like a gaping wound in the belly of the cliff.

‘Behold, the hole where Helstone’s heart used to be,’ Mannfred said, standing in his saddle, arms spread. ‘Here stood the Deep Gate, the largest of the Hollow Towers, by which the folk of Helstone moved between sky and salt.’

The crater rim was marked by great shards of amethyst, the gemstones rising from the charred rock in eerily shimmering patches which cast strange, crawling shadows across the barren ground. No buildings stood within a hundred yards of those glittering markers. Even so, the area was not unoccupied – hundreds of roughly human-sized crystalline growths crowded around the crater like a forest.

As the Stormcasts threaded through the silent, stunted forest, Tarsus peered closely at one of the formations. Through a murky purple facet, a charred skull stared back at him, jaws wide in a silent scream.

‘In the Realm of Death, victory always has its price,’ Mannfred called out. ‘The servants of Chaos tore Helstone apart, stone by stone, but the city claimed its due before it perished.’

‘A spell gone awry perhaps,’ Ramus said. ‘Wild magic…’ He tapped his staff against one of the crystallized bodies and the amethyst began to glow softly. Soon, each of the shards was shining with an ever-shifting light. As the light grew in intensity, a low, soft moan, as of many voices all in pain, rose from everywhere and nowhere. The sound spiralled up and up, until it filled the air. The crystal shapes began to quiver, as if in sympathy to the moan. Purple shadows twitched and danced in the light and, as it began to fade, Tarsus thought he could see faces among them, human and otherwise.

‘If you are finished,’ Mannfred said, ‘we should descend, before the beastherds regain their courage.’ He turned Ashigaroth about and the dread abyssal gave a shriek as it leapt into the crater. Tarsus led his warriors to the rim and saw a curving expanse of wide, shimmering amethyst steps leading down to a circular landing some distance below, where Mannfred sat and waved them on.

‘Hurry, my friend,’ he called up.

‘More wild magic?’ Tarsus asked, as Ramus joined him at the edge.

‘Perhaps,’ the Lord-Relictor said. ‘It shows the marks of tools, however. Someone carved these steps, and that landing as well.’

Tarsus started down, Ramus’ words weighing on him. Carved by the folk of Helstone, perhaps? Then Mannfred wasn’t lying after all. The thought lent him speed as he descended. The amethyst landing gave way to more steps, but these were stone. Clumps of shimmering amethyst illuminated their way, but only barely, and they grew fewer and fewer the further down the Stormcasts went.

As they marched past the crudely carved support struts, which proved to be holding up the serpentine length of the steps above, Tarsus caught glimpses of the hollowed-out core of the seaside cliff upon which Helstone had been built. It was a sprawling network of broken aqueducts and tall, balcony-studded pillars – the Hollow Towers that Mannfred had spoken of – each one connected to its neighbours by a confusing web of stone walkways and bridges, most of them broken. The Hollow Towers stretched between the levels of the city, connecting one vast urban plateau to the next.

‘How far down does this blasted ruin stretch?’ Ramus said, as they continued their descent.

‘The city was – is – vast,’ Mannfred said. ‘Larger even than the grand port of Ossuary. When its turrets and towers scraped the sky it housed millions.’

‘And now?’ Tarsus said, as he looked past the support struts up at the vaulted archways which crisscrossed above them for what seemed to be miles. The uppermost reaches were almost completely hidden by stone paths, balconies and buttresses which extended from one great plaza to the next. Helstone had clearly been built over centuries, each generation building over the last. He sensed that not all of the building had been done by human hands.

What strange depths might these Hollow Towers be rooted in? he wondered. He thought that, once, he might have known.

Mannfred ducked his head as Ashigaroth padded beneath a shattered archway. ‘Helstone was a mighty city, in its time. It sat astride the ancient trade routes, which stretch from the Skull Isles to the great manses of the Amethyst Underworld. Even Nagash knew better than to obliterate it.’ Mannfred laughed. ‘Though it helped that the Princes of the Ninety-Nine Circles sued for peace as soon as the Great Necromancer appeared outside their gates.’

Something about that term piqued Tarsus’ curiosity, though he could not say why. ‘The Ninety-Nine Circles,’ he said, as he followed Mannfred through the archway and out onto an enormous landing. Three sets of steps descended from it, two going deeper into the depths of the city, and one leading to a wide avenue which curved through the crumbled towers and buildings beyond. ‘This city was built on them – ninety-nine levels, stretching from the deepest sea caves to the clouds above.’ He spoke without thinking, and could not say where his knowledge had come from.

For a moment, Tarsus thought he could smell the scent of foreign spices, and the cured meats which had once hung in market stalls. He could hear the clamour of life, as if from far away. He could feel…

Fire, rising from the depths of the city…

The screams of his people as they fled…

The sword in his hand vibrating painfully as he parried an enemy blade…

He blinked, and found Mannfred watching him, an inscrutable expression on his face. The vampire nodded. ‘Aye, and each level a kingdom in its own right, one stacked above the next. When the upper city fell, many of its people retreated to the lower levels, through the gates above, and these towers.’ He smiled. ‘They were a proud folk once, the lords of Helstone. Mighty in war, cunning in trade…’

‘Not mighty enough,’ Ramus said.

‘Mighty or no, if some of them survived then we must find them,’ Tarsus said.

‘And so we shall,’ Mannfred said. With that, he threw back his head to emit a monstrous shriek. It bounced from buttress to pillar, from arch to keystone, travelling far. As the echoes of it faded, something in the darkness answered in kind. Mannfred gestured airily, a cruel smile on his face. ‘Ah. As I suspected.’

Tarsus tensed as the sound of panting beasts and of claws scratching across stone rose out of the darkness. What horrors had Mannfred summoned?

‘You said you were taking us to meet the folk of Helstone, vampire,’ he said.

‘And so I have! Behold, the once-proud folk of Helstone,’ Mannfred said, as a number of gaunt grey shapes spilled into the open from out of the ruins below them. They were lean-limbed and starved-looking, their bare flesh pockmarked with scars where it was not covered by bits of animal hide or scavenged armour. Some carried weapons, crudely fashioned from bone or wood, but most bore nothing save their claws and fangs.

The sight of them tore at Tarsus more painfully than the talons of any mutant beast. He had expected men and had been given monsters instead. He watched them approach, torn between repulsion and sadness as, red-eyed and wary, they clustered at the edge of the light, mewling and snarling like wild beasts.

‘What have they become?’ he said softly.

‘Ghouls,’ Ramus said. ‘Carrion-eaters and marrow-drinkers. Foul things, more beast than man, more grave-worm than beast.’ Behind him, Tarsus heard the Stormcasts prepare themselves in case the newcomers proved themselves a threat. Shields were raised and hammers readied. He held up a hand, forestalling any premature action on the part of his warriors. The creatures clearly meant no harm, and despite his repugnance an ember of pity flickered within him.

‘Perhaps,’ Mannfred said. ‘But they are our allies, nonetheless. They have come at my call, and they will serve at my command. They will scatter throughout this city, and locate that which I – which we – seek.’

‘Can they be trusted?’ Tarsus asked.

‘As well as I,’ Mannfred replied.

Ramus gave a bark of laughter, but subsided at Tarsus’ gesture.

‘Then send them out,’ said the Lord-Celestant. ‘I would not tarry here any longer than is necessary.’

‘As you wish,’ Mannfred said. He moved down the steps, hands spread. The largest of the gathered ghouls clambered to meet him, moving with a curious simian gait. As Mannfred drew close, he held up his hands and dug his fingers into his palms, tearing his own flesh. The whines of the ghouls grew in intensity. Mannfred held out his bloody palms as if in benediction. The largest ghouls clustered about him, clutching at his arms as they drank his blood, or else licking up the droplets that spattered the stones. Ramus grunted in disgust, and Tarsus couldn’t help but sympathise with his Lord-Relictor’s feelings.

It was a vile ritual but, he suspected, an old one. As the ghouls nuzzled his hands, Mannfred spoke in a guttural language. Every so often, a ghoul would rear back, blood decorating its muzzle, and shriek out something that might have been a question. At last Mannfred wrenched his hands away from his grisly supplicants and snarled out a command. The ghouls turned as one and scrambled away, back into the shadows from which they had emerged. The vampire turned and climbed the steps.

‘It will be some time. There are miles to cover and these creatures must carry my word to the other packs. We should make camp.’

The dais and the avenue before the steps served them well enough in that regard, and the Stormcasts set up a field camp quickly. Liberator retinues took up a defensive perimeter around the bottom of the steps. Smaller chunks of rubble or fallen stones nearby were dragged into position to serve as improvised barricades, behind which Judicators took up position in order to watch the approaches to the dark avenue before them. Tarsus and Ramus stood at the top of the steps alongside Mannfred, surrounded by their retinues.

Stormcasts rarely needed rest, and the azure glow radiating from Ramus’ reliquary staff served to bolster the strength of all who were within reach, save Mannfred. The vampire shied away from the light and instead sat astride his monstrous steed, seemingly deep in thought.

Tarsus let his gaze roam across the plaza, taking in the grisly piles of gnawed bones and barbaric totems which seemed to occupy every nook and cranny in sight. Was this then all that was left of the city’s former inhabitants? A broken necropolis, full of beasts and shadows?

Shadows, wreathed about a column of flame, coming closer…

Men screaming, as red, lean-limbed daemons scrambled over the parapets…

The daemons scattering, fleeing before the approach of something worse…

A roar, like thunder…

He shook his head, trying to dislodge the errant mote of memory, as scenes of fire and death rose out of some deep place in his mind. Was this sunken place the citadel of his memories? Had he trod these stones before, in another life, in another time?

He watched the shadows dance in the light of Ramus’ staff, and tried to capture the flickering, fleeting memories as they slid across his mind, but it was like grasping smoke.

Some Stormcasts could recall their previous lives with almost painful clarity. Others could remember little, if anything. Tarsus was trapped between one life and the next, as were many of the Hallowed Knights. Their faith in Sigmar was like a chain, binding the facets of their two lives inextricably together.

He ran his fingers across the sign of Sigmar emblazoned on the head of his warhammer. Whoever he had been, he was Tarsus Bull-Heart now. That would have to be enough.

He looked up to find Mannfred gone. Tarsus rose to his feet and looked around. There was no sign of the vampire. He and his monstrous steed had vanished so silently that Tarsus hadn’t even noticed their departure.

He signalled Ramus.

‘I knew he would desert us at the first opportunity,’ the Lord-Relictor said, striding towards him.

‘This is not the first time he has disappeared,’ Tarsus said. ‘But the timing leaves much to be desired. We must–’

The air suddenly quivered with the tramp of hooves and the bray of bestial voices. Tarsus turned, drawing his sword.

‘Eyes front, Stormcasts,’ he said, his voice ringing out.

‘Is that what you call yourselves, then?’ a voice said, loudly. Tarsus saw a robed and hooded shape step out onto one of the balconies above them, a heavy scythe in one hand. The iron-shod haft of the scythe rang as the figure walked to the edge of the balcony and looked down at them. ‘Fitting, for creatures that come on wings of lightning.’

The newcomer threw back his hood, revealing a face that bore more relation to that of a reptile than a man. The scales that covered the creature’s scalp and cheeks were dark and infected-looking.

‘Stormcasts, then,’ he said, his voice slithering down through the dusty air. As Tarsus watched, he reached up and pried a warty scale loose from his face and tossed it aside. ‘You are trespassing. This city – and everything in it – belongs to the gods. The true gods.’ The creature thumped the balcony with his scythe. ‘It belongs to Sloughscale and his chosen followers. It is ours to do with as we wish, and none may gainsay us.’

Beastmen began to fill the streets and doorways ahead. They slunk out in knots and packs, slavering and howling in eagerness. The buzzing of millions of flies grew loud, nearly drowning out the stamp of hooves and the clatter of weapons. The heavy silhouettes of blightkings loomed behind the beastherds. Everywhere Tarsus looked, an enemy looked back.

‘He knew,’ he muttered. Somehow, Mannfred had known this was coming. Why else would he have slipped away? The ghouls, he thought. There was no telling what had truly passed between the debased creatures and the vampire. Had the vampire betrayed them?

Ramus nodded. ‘Of course he knew. We are a distraction, Tarsus. He knew these beasts were here, and he knew our coming would stir them to battle. We are the meat, to bait the trap.’

‘Then we shall have to disabuse him of that notion,’ Tarsus said. ‘But first, we must clear ourselves a path.’ He signalled for his men to ready themselves for battle. At his gesture, shields were locked together, forming a rough bulwark. Soros and his Retributors stood behind the shield wall, ready to charge once the enemy were within reach. He glanced at Ramus. ‘You know what to do.’

‘I do,’ the Lord-Relictor said.

Above them, Sloughscale brought his scythe down upon the stones of the balcony with a crash, and the servants of Nurgle started forward. Ungors and gors led the charge, bellowing guttural chants as they rang funerary bells and beat skin-drums. Tarsus raised his hammer. ‘Shields up,’ he said. ‘Stand fast.’

As the front ranks of the enemy drew close, the more nimble beastmen outpacing the slower blightkings, Tarsus clashed his weapons together. ‘Stamp your hooves, Bull-Hearts,’ he bellowed. All around him, Liberators thumped their hammers against the inside of their shields in a brutal rhythm, akin to the sound made by the hooves of the great shaggy aurochs which roamed the vast plains of Azyr. ‘If we must return to Sigmaron, let it not be in shame. When next we meet death, let it be with open eyes. Who shall stand, though the realms crumble?’

‘Only the faithful,’ the Stormcast answered, as one.

‘Who will rise, when all others fall?’

‘Only the faithful!’

‘Who will be victorious?’

‘ONLY THE FAITHFUL!’ The echoes of hammers striking sigmarite filled the avenue, drowning out even the bestial cries of the approaching bullgors.

‘Only the faithful!’ Tarsus roared. ‘Liberators – at my command, break the wall. Soros! There is red work to be done, Retributor. Ready yourself.’

Soros’ reply was to strike the haft of his lightning hammer against the ground. His Retributors followed suit, adding a ringing note to the thunder of the Liberators’ war-song. Tarsus felt his heart beat faster, aligning with the battle-rhythm.

When he judged the enemy to be within reach, Tarsus snarled, ‘Now!’

The shield wall split before him, and he led Soros and the Retributors forward at a dead run. They crashed into the enemy a moment later. The great two-handed hammers wielded by Soros and his warriors lashed out right and left, smashing beastmen from their feet or pulverising them in mid-stride. Tarsus clubbed and chopped at the enemy as he waded into their midst. The foe reeled, their momentum blunted by the sudden counter-charge.

A barrel-chested gor chieftain, scabrous skin covered in boils and sores, lurched forward out of the press and attacked him. The creature carried an axe in either hand and lashed out at him with both. It hacked at him, bellowing in a berserk fury. Tarsus swept the weapons aside with a blow from his hammer and chopped the beast’s legs out from under it. As it fell, he drove his heel down on its throat, silencing its screams.

The air rippled and Tarsus looked up, just as Sloughscale spat an incantation. Sorcerer, he thought, even as sickly green light speared from the creature’s hand, and several Stormcasts were reduced to bubbling black masses of corroded armour and rotting flesh, before they vanished in flashes of blue light.

‘Take him,’ Tarsus cried, signalling for Zarus and his Prosecutors to occupy the sorcerer’s attention.

Even as the winged warriors swooped towards Sloughscale, Tarsus was forced to divert his attention to a trio of spear-wielding gors. The beastmen lashed out at him from all sides and he twisted, letting a spear scrape across his chest and a second beneath his arm. He managed to hook the third with his hammer and tear it from its owner’s grip. He killed the weaponless creature, but a moment later he was driven to one knee by a powerful blow. He peered up, dazed, and saw a massive bullgor looming over him, a stone-headed maul clutched in its wide fists.

The bullgor lifted its weapon for another blow, when the snarl of lightning filled the air. A crackling azure bolt struck the bullgor full in the chest, hurling it backwards. Ramus strode towards him, lightning crawling across his silver armour.

Liberators forged forward in his wake, joining their shield-brothers in the line as Judicators moved up behind them, firing their crossbows into the milling ranks of the foe. Ramus led a retinue of Decimators forward, their axes swinging out in deadly rhythm, to capitalise on the damage done by the charge of the Retributors.

Tarsus brought his hammer up and around, against the head of his remaining opponent. The beastman fell twitching, even as Ramus joined him, and they fought back to back.

‘The sorcerer,’ he said, as he planted a boot on a beastman’s chest and ripped his weapon free of the flabby flesh. ‘Can you do something about him?’

‘Of course,’ Ramus said, as he drove the haft of his staff into the stomach of a blightking. It doubled over and Ramus crushed its skull with a powerful blow from his hammer. ‘Much is demanded–’

‘–of those to whom much is given,’ Tarsus said, completing the oath. He traded blows for a moment with a shrieking beastman, before its head was briefly limned by lightning and it dropped where it stood, smoke rising from its shattered skull. A nearby Judicator saluted him and Tarsus returned the gesture as he took in the battlefield at a glance. The shield wall was holding. Ramus’ charge had bought them respite, but the enemy still pressed close. It was as if every herd of beastmen in Helstone had answered Sloughscale’s call to war, and for every gor that fell, three more took its place. ‘Where are you, vampire?’ he muttered, as he parried a saw-toothed sword blade and rammed his hammer into its wielder’s goatish snout.

Perhaps Ramus had been right. Mannfred had taken advantage of them, used them to distract these foes, so that he could retrieve his prize. When I find you, vampire, I will extract payment from your cold carcass for every fallen warrior, he thought, as a bolt of blue shot upwards, signalling the death of a Stormcast.

He heard Ramus’ voice rise in prayer, and then a searing bolt of lightning split the air. The balcony Sloughscale had been occupying ceased to exist, reduced to tumbling fragments by the wrath of Sigmar. As the echo of the lightning strike faded, Tarsus heard the wail of horns and saw that the pox-worshippers were falling back, retreating into the ruins.

‘The sorcerer escaped,’ Ramus said. ‘I saw him dart into the tower as my lightning struck.’ He hammered the ferrule of his staff against the ground. ‘We must hunt him down.’

‘Yes,’ Tarsus said. ‘Mannfred can wait. We will find him and this artefact of his after we have purged this place of the plague which afflicts it.’ He raised his sword. ‘Form up! In Sigmar’s name, we march,’ he roared.

The city unfolded around them as they pursued Sloughscale and his followers, revealing horrors and wonders in equal measure. Great holes, wide enough to swallow an army, had been dug in the earth, and strange lights glimmered in the darkest reaches. Slumped towers disgorged swarms of fireflies as the Stormcast marched past, and, once, something large scrambled away from them, deeper into the ruins.

The beastherds and pox-warriors ran far and fast, but the Bull-Hearts were as inexorable as the oncoming storm. As they marched, the Liberators pounded their shields, filling the dark with noise and sparks of light as sigmarite struck sigmarite. The sound reverberated upwards, and as if in response, an amethyst rain began to fall. Each drop glowed briefly as it struck, leaving purple streaks across the silver of their armour.

The way ahead was often blocked by fallen bridges or toppled pillars, forcing them to seek alternate routes – routes which Tarsus found as often as the Prosecutors who swooped beneath broken aqueducts and through the slumping frames of shattered towers. For Tarsus, it was as if he had walked these streets before, and the further they penetrated the ruins, the more the memories came flooding back. He said nothing of it to Ramus. The Lord-Relictor had enough misgivings as it was.

The distant rumble of falling stones accompanied the steady rhythm of their march, as some part of the city gave in to time and collapsed in on itself. Soon, Tarsus thought, in a century, maybe two, little would be left of Helstone save rubble. But perhaps one day, people might return and reclaim what had been stolen from them. Perhaps one day, the Stormcasts would again march through these streets, and be greeted not by silence or the brays of savage beastmen, but by the cheers of its citizens. That would be a good day, when it came.

A good day, Tarsus thought, but not this day. This day was not about cheers or reclamation of lost glory, but instead about grim necessity. He wondered how they would find Mannfred, once the enemy had been dealt with. Like as not, the vampire would come for them. It was a cunning stratagem – pit one foe against another, and claim victory over both. Perhaps the vampire simply had no more need of them, now that he had regained his strength. Or perhaps he served a darker master than mere ambition.

Nagash was no friend to Sigmar. The enmity between God-King and god of death was old and savage. Is it Mannfred who stands against us… or Nagash himself?

‘This place is dead,’ Ramus intoned, pulling Tarsus from his reverie. ‘It is a rotting husk.’ He thrust his staff out, indicating a crude effigy of stretched skin and bone, bound together by strands of greying hair, which hung from a nearby pillar. Its features were hidden beneath the remains of an ancient helm. Skulls and lumps of rotting meat had been scattered about the base of the pillar.

‘Offerings,’ Ramus said.

‘To Nagash,’ Tarsus said. ‘The folk of Helstone worship him now, rather than Sigmar. Those who are not slaves to a more pernicious darkness.’ As well as the grisly votives of the ghouls there were more abominable signs – crumbling walls marked with the triple circle of Nurgle or the sign of the fly, as well as the foul herdstones of the beastmen, erected in the plazas and squares where merchants had once hawked their wares. When they came upon these, Tarsus ordered them destroyed, and his warriors complied joyfully.

‘All the more reason to collapse this verminous warren in on itself,’ Ramus said. ‘Look around you, Tarsus. There is no light here… only darkness. This, I fear, is what comes of fell deities like Nagash.’ He gestured broadly to the boles of turned earth and cleft rock which surrounded them, marking new tunnels dug into the streets and walls of Helstone by inhuman hands, and to the scattered bones and grisly totems. ‘Can you smell it, Tarsus? It is the stink of evil.’

‘Evil comes in many forms, Ramus. And some are more tolerable than others, for the greater good,’ Tarsus said, as they passed the effigy. As it receded behind them, a purple light seemed to grow behind the visor of the helm, and he wondered for a moment if something was listening. The dead did not rest in this realm. He raised his hammer, and considered going back to smash the foul idol. Then, with a sigh, he pressed on.

‘Nagash was of Sigmar’s pantheon, my friend. He ruled the dead, even as Sigmar ruled the heavens. He is an evil thing, but a necessary one,’ he said. ‘Chaos is our enemy this day.’

‘And Mannfred,’ Ramus said.

Tarsus nodded slowly. ‘And Mannfred.’

Soon, the avenue before them widened into an immense plaza. Tarsus raised his hammer, and the host slowed its advance. Two enormous towers, covered in moss, rose above either side of the avenue, casting long shadows across the way ahead. There was no sign of their foe, and he wondered how much farther the beasts would run before they were finally brought to bay. No horns or drums… no noise of any sort. Where are you? he thought, looking around.

Behind them, rising steadily upwards, row upon row of mausoleums and tomb-faces gazed down. There were thousands of them, stretching upwards at an angle, away from the walkways and paths which connected them to the avenue and into the darkness. As he examined them, Tarsus wondered whether there was anything left in them, after all these years.

He heard a cry and looked up. A Prosecutor fell, spiralling down towards the street ahead, arrows jutting from the weak points of his armour. The rest of the winged warriors were swooping and diving, trying to avoid the storm of arrows which arced through the air around them.

‘To arms,’ Zarus called, moments before an arrow thudded home in the eye-slit of his war-helm. He fell like a stone, striking a roof and rolling off into the abyss below, his body reduced to a crackle of blue light as he vanished.

Before Tarsus could act on Zarus’ final warning, a foul haze of green light enveloped the avenue and the sound of rupturing stone rolled through the air.

‘Tarsus – the towers!’ Ramus roared, from behind him. Tarsus looked around and saw the two enormous towers begin to twist and pivot like drunkards as their bases decayed before his very eyes.

‘Move,’ Tarsus shouted, flinging out his hand even as the warriors around him caught hold of him. They dragged him forward just as the towers toppled with thunderous groans, spewing dust and debris across the avenue. The towers struck the street one after the other like hammer blows, cracking the pavement open. The avenue shuddered and shifted as the great support columns beneath it quaked down to their roots.

Stormcasts were hurled from their feet or else buried beneath the collapsing structures. Some fell as sections of the avenue collapsed, flinging them down into the lower levels of the city where they were swiftly lost to view. A cloud of dust rolled across those who remained, filling the avenue and choking the air.

‘My lord, are you unhurt?’ Soros asked as he helped Tarsus to his feet.

‘So it seems. The others?’ Even as he asked the question, he looked at the wall of rubble which now covered the avenue. Parts of the road were simply gone, and what was left was now blocked almost to the ceiling. The fall of the towers had even torn down the roof in some sections. Dust obscured everything. Ambush… should have expected it, he thought, cursing himself and the piecemeal memories which had dulled his instincts.

‘I hear something,’ Soros said.

Tarsus did too – a wild grunting overlaid by a piercing creaking and a rumble, as of iron-shod wheels crossing stone. Before he could issue the order to form up, an appalling stink washed over them, as, with a roar, beastmen burst through the roiling cloud and fell on those Stormcasts furthest from the rubble.

Blue lightning slashed upwards as warriors fell to the Chaos pack.

‘Fall back,’ Tarsus cried. ‘Fall back and form up.’

The Stormcasts did as he ordered, backing away as more and more beastmen boiled out into the open. They came all in a rush, howling and waving flyblown standards. Monstrous, lumbering chariots drawn by snorting pig-like beasts rumbled out of the obscuring dust, each one filled with shrieking beastkin. Enormous monstrosities – multi-armed ghorgons and slavering bullgors – thundered in the wake of the chariots.

Around him, Stormcasts took up defensive positions, shields locked, but the enemy were already among them. A chariot careened towards Tarsus, hook-tipped chains rattling in its wake. A Liberator was torn from his feet by the chains and dragged behind the rumbling contraption until he dissolved into crackling azure motes.

Tarsus brought his hammer down on the head of one of the chariot-beasts, killing it as it charged past him. It stumbled and slewed, causing its burden to wobble on its ill-made wheels. He twisted away as the chariot-riders thrust at him with spears and crude blades, and swept his cloak out. Mystical hammers erupted from its folds and obliterated both the teetering chariot and its occupants.

He saw Soros lunge forward and slam his shoulder into a second chariot. The Retributor-Prime gave a cry and overturned the chariot, spilling its riders to the ground. As the beast drawing it turned on him, he brought his hammer down on its hairy back, shattering its spine in a crackle of lightning. More chariots were reduced to fragments, their bestial crew slain, but the damage had been done. The Stormcast lines were in disarray.

The remaining chariots rattled away as the rest of the beastherd closed in. Bloated blightkings, clad in hell-forged armour, pushed through the savage ranks and lumbered to join the bestigors and bullgors at the front. The putrescent warriors surrounded the thin form of Sloughscale, who strode swiftly forward, scythe in hand, a sickly green halo radiating about him. The sorcerer swung his weapon and a ripple of nauseating light erupted from the edge of the blade to strike a Retributor. The Stormcast had no time to scream as his flesh rotted from his bones. Sloughscale laughed wildly, the sound carrying above the clangour of battle.

‘You’re mine,’ Tarsus said, as he raised his sword. At his signal, Soros and the Retributors fought their way towards him. The rest of the Bull-Hearts had formed defensive phalanxes. They were isolated by the press of battle, but Tarsus knew that they would hold fast, especially if he could kill Sloughscale and break the enemy’s will to fight.

With the Retributors spread out around him, Tarsus smashed his way through the Chaos ranks, crushing bones and removing limbs with every strike. He and his warriors were like a blazing spear thrust into the belly of the foe, and Sloughscale took note. The sorcerer’s eyes widened as he saw the silver-armoured warriors battling their way towards him. Hastily, he shrieked out a command to his massive bodyguards.

A blightking lunged to intercept Tarsus as he drew close to Sloughscale, and hammer met axe in a spray of sparks. Tarsus traded blows with the blightking for a moment, when suddenly, a shaft of blue light shot between them. More shafts of light speared out, emerging from the rubble of the fallen towers. Then, with a bone-rattling roar, the wall of rubble exploded outwards and the air was filled with the howl of tearing rock and the snarl of lightning.

As the battlefield was struck by a rain of smoking debris, Tarsus saw Ramus stride through the smoke, staff and hammer raised. Stormcasts charged past him, moving to reinforce their brethren.

‘I seem to recall warning you once about getting ahead of your warriors, Lord-Celestant,’ the Lord-Relictor said as he struck the ground with the haft of his staff. Lightning flashed, striking a lumbering blightking. More of the pox-warriors closed in.

‘Such was not my intention, I assure you,’ Tarsus said as he locked blades with a second blightking. Flies buzzed in and out of the holes in the foul warrior’s helm, and his armour was covered in horny growths. Tarsus slammed his hammer into the creature’s knee, and the blightking sank down with a groan. He shoved it back and speared its throat with his blade. As it fell, he looked for Sloughscale.

‘The sorcerer – where is he?’ he barked.

‘I do not see him,’ Ramus said, as he crushed another blightking’s skull.

Beastmen flooded forward, bounding through the smoking rubble to fall upon the newly arrived reinforcements. The shriek of war-horns rose over the din, and Tarsus cursed. The sorcerer had drawn them into the heart of enemy territory. They were cut off from any avenue of retreat, and surrounded by hordes baying for their blood.

‘Only the faithful!’ he said, drawing strength from the words. Around him, Ramus and the others took up the cry. It leapt from retinue to retinue, until the roar crashed against the maddened bellows of the Chaos war-horde.

As the din reached a crescendo, a wild howl suddenly split the clamour. It shivered down from somewhere far above. Beastmen and Stormcasts alike paused momentarily and looked up, as the vast slope of ancient mausoleums above them was suddenly swarming with bodies. Ghouls climbed and leapt down from the high places, spilling across the slope from the darkness. Among their number were larger creatures, like ghouls but massive and heavy with muscle. The bellows of these creatures echoed down, and the bullgors roared back in challenge.

The ghouls howled as one, and beat on the doors of the tombs with bones and clubs, filling the air with an abominable din. Above them, Ashigaroth loped down the slope, tearing apart mausoleum faces and tomb arches in its haste. Mannfred was hunched forward in his saddle, cloak streaming out raggedly behind him. Ashigaroth bounded from the slope and crashed down atop the jutting archway of a tomb. As it landed, the ghouls ceased their caterwauling.

For a moment, silence reigned. Mannfred surveyed those below, his expression unreadable. Tarsus met his gaze, and the vampire cocked his head. Had he come to aid them, or to finish them all off? Tarsus tightened his grip on his hammer. We will have our reckoning, vampire, he thought. Mannfred would pay for his betrayal.

As if reading his thoughts, Mannfred smiled.

The dread abyssal reared with a shriek, and Mannfred drew his sword with a flourish.

‘Feast!’ Mannfred howled and the ghouls echoed him as Ashigaroth leapt from its perch and swooped out above the fray.

The ghouls scuttled down the slope of mausoleums in a deluge of claws and fangs. They swarmed across the sagging rooftops and bridges until, with wild screams, the creatures at the forefront hurled themselves bodily upon those who had dared invade their territory. The Stormcasts tensed, readying themselves for this new assault, but the grey-fleshed creatures streamed past them to swarm over the followers of Chaos.

Blightkings and beastmen alike were overwhelmed by the fury of the newcomers. More ghouls spilled forth from ruptured tomb-faces and scrambled from the shadows, more than Tarsus had ever dreamed might lurk within these ruins. More beastmen spilled out, and barbaric horns brayed in the distance. He smashed a bestigor from its hooves, and whipped his sword out to cleave the head from an ungor’s hunched shoulders.

‘Did you doubt me?’ Mannfred called out, as Ashigaroth flew past. ‘The word of a von Carstein is sacred.’ He laughed and beheaded a rearing bullgor as Ashigaroth pounced on another of the bull-headed monsters, bearing it to the ground. Mannfred stood up in his saddle as the dread abyssal tore the struggling bullgor apart. The vampire spread his arms and began to chant.

The air grew cold, such that even Tarsus felt it. Mannfred’s incantation beat upon the air, each syllable searing itself into the fabric of the world. And as the last one faded, the clamour of battle seemed to grow dim. A new sound invaded, insistent and omnipresent. The scratch of bones on biers, of fleshless fingers clawing at stones, the rattle of long-forgotten weapons, drawn for the first time in centuries.

And with a vast sigh, the tombs gave up their dead. They emerged like wisps of smoke, coiling and thickening, becoming solid as they sped down the slope – skeletal steeds, clad in archaic barding, their riders wearing the armour of a bygone age.

The dead swept forward in a silent charge. This is our city, they seemed to say, try and take it from us, and only death will follow. They slaughtered beasts and pox-warriors without hesitation, remorseless and unstoppable. The true lords of Helstone had come, and none amongst the Chaos horde could stand against them. Tarsus wondered whether even his own warriors could have done so, and was glad that he would not have to find out today.

As he fought, Tarsus drew close to one of the undead riders. Its armour was of a make that seemed half familiar to him, as if he’d seen it somewhere before. An axe struck his shoulder plate, shivering to fragments as it did so. He spun and struck down a stupefied beastman. When he turned back, the dead man was close enough to touch.

The wight gazed at him with empty eye sockets, an eerie light illuminating its brown bones from within. It wore a tarnished circlet and age-blackened armour. In its hand was a long blade, which gleamed with cold fire. Slowly, it raised the blade, and Tarsus tensed. But instead of striking at him, it brought the sword up in a salute.

Tarsem… something whispered, in his head, and he felt a twinge of disquiet. Then, with a rattle of old bones, the wight turned its undead mount away and galloped back into the fight, its sword tearing the life from beastmen as it went. Tarsus looked around, searching for Sloughscale. He peered up at the ruins of one of the Hollow Towers rising above the battlefield and saw a flash of movement. He cursed. The sorcerer could not be allowed to escape. He would only rally more beastherds to attack them.

‘Ramus,’ he called. ‘The sorcerer – cut off his escape!’

Ramus nodded and began to chant. Motes of sizzling energy blistered the air around him as he called upon Sigmar, and drew the lightning to his staff. As the air grew heavy with the growing pressure of Ramus’ prayer, Tarsus charged towards the tower, bulling aside any foe foolish enough to get in his way. As he ran, he signalled to Soros.

‘Gather your warriors and follow me,’ he shouted. The sorcerer would not escape again.

As Tarsus sprang through the archway which led into the tower, the whole edifice shook suddenly. Dust and fragments of stone pattered across his armour. Smoke filled the stairwell as he climbed. There was no time to wait for Soros. He and his warriors would have to catch up. He heard a loud voice raised in a chant, and then a second sorcerous explosion rocked the tower. The stairwell above him was suddenly filled with falling stones and heat, and he was forced to hurl himself out onto a balcony, away from the worst of it. As he clambered to his feet, he looked up and saw the balcony above begin to tear away from the side of the tower with a thunderous, cracking roar.

It plummeted down, nearly obliterating the space he occupied. As the bulk of it careened past, he saw something drop from it. The figure hit the balcony, rolled to its feet in a swirl of stinking robes and rushed towards him, dragging the blade of its scythe along the stones as it came. Tarsus realised, as the scythe arced towards him, that Sloughscale had ridden the falling masonry down, out of reach of Ramus’ lightning.

Sloughscale struck at the Lord-Celestant in a spray of sparks, driving him back through sheer momentum. The sorcerer fought as fiercely as any beastman. As Tarsus parried his foe’s attacks, he could see scorch marks on Sloughscale’s breastplate and robes. The sorcerer had not emerged unscathed from Ramus’ storm.

As Tarsus drove his opponent back, he saw bloated shapes fighting through the rubble which blocked the steps. A blightking lurched towards him, rotting fingers clawing. He beheaded the pox-warrior even as a second and a third erupted from the archway and hurled themselves into battle.

‘Takes more than a bit of lightning to kill Nurgle’s own, Stormcast,’ Sloughscale hissed as he backed away. Rust-riddled blades hacked at Tarsus from every side, and he was soon on the defensive. But not for long. With a roar, Soros and his remaining Retributors burst out onto the balcony, hammers raised. As the battle was joined, Tarsus was free to concentrate on the true threat. He fought his way free of the blightkings and launched himself at Sloughscale.

The sorcerer flung out a hand and began to chant, baleful energies coruscating around his fingers. Tarsus charged at him, head lowered. Green fire washed over him, tarnishing his armour where it touched, and causing the stone beneath his feet to crumble. He lurched forward regardless, forcing himself through the unnatural heat.

A wash of heat, blistering his flesh beneath his armour…

The roar of the greater daemon, as its axe cleaved the air…

The light… the pain… Tarsem…

Tarsus staggered as Sloughscale’s scythe drew sparks from his chest plate and tore through his cloak. Smoke rose from his armour as he tried to focus on his enemy. The scythe sliced towards him again. The force of the blow drove him back a step and ripped the air from his lungs. Pain blazed in his side. Sloughscale whipped the scythe around, driving Tarsus back. He hit the rampart and the scythe hissed down, but he rolled aside at the last moment and the cruel blade became lodged in the broken stones. Tarsus twisted around and drove his hammer down, shattering the wood and causing Sloughscale to stagger back, eyes wide.

The sorcerer tossed aside the broken weapon and began to chant, but Tarsus was on him a moment later. His sword chopped into Sloughscale’s skull, silencing him. As he wrenched the blade free in a welter of brackish blood, the sorcerer staggered past him, towards the edge of the balcony. Tarsus swept his hammer out, smashing the sorcerer from his feet and sending him hurtling over the edge.

Sloughscale’s squirming body struck ramparts and towers, broken skyways and moss-encrusted gargoyles as it tumbled down into the dark. As Tarsus turned away, he heard the ululating howls of ghouls rising from the depths, as if in thanks for the gift they had received.

He clutched his side. Breathing was painful. Something in him had been broken, but it would heal despite his exertions.

‘Oh, well done, my friend,’ Mannfred said, as Ashigaroth alighted on the balcony. He looked down at Tarsus. ‘Are you injured?’

‘I will recover.’

‘Yes, I expect you will,’ Mannfred said. He sat back in his saddle.

‘You found the Fang, then?’ Tarsus pointed to the artefact shoved through Mannfred’s sword-belt. It gleamed black with an oily radiance and was chased with gold. It was an old thing, Tarsus thought, and it felt somehow wrong.

‘Oh, yes,’ Mannfred said. He patted the artefact. ‘Right where the ghouls said it was. Your approach drew Sloughscale’s attention at just the right moment.’

‘I am glad we could be of service,’ Tarsus said harshly. He fought down his anger. ‘You used us, vampire.’

Mannfred cocked his head. ‘It was – is – necessary, Tarsus,’ he said. ‘This rabble were between us and the artefact. There was no way to get it, so I… improvised.’

‘And nearly cost us our lives.’

‘As I said, it was necessary.’ Mannfred frowned. ‘The Fang is ours, and with it, the route to Stygxx. Is that not worth it, in the end? Have I not proved to you that I can be trusted?’

Tarsus shook his head. ‘A part of me wishes that were so. But another part believes you are playing a deeper game. Every day sees a new layer to your tale, a new obstacle to be overcome.’ Mannfred looked at him, even as he had earlier, as if there was something he wished to say, some story he wished to impart. Tarsus pushed the thought aside.

‘That is not the first time I have been accused of such,’ Mannfred said. He met Tarsus’ gaze and frowned. ‘You have seemed out of sorts, since we arrived. As if you were not yourself, at times.’

‘I wasn’t,’ Tarsus said. ‘I feel as if I have seen this place before…’

‘Maybe you have.’ Mannfred laughed softly. ‘Many heroes made their stand here in those final hours besides unlucky Uzun – Count Vitalian of Morrsend, Prince Tarsem of Helstone, Megara of Doomcrag…’

‘Tarsem,’ Tarsus repeated. Tarsem. Tarsem. He saw a face in his mind’s eye, a dark face of noble bearing, spattered with blood and ash as he shouted a challenge to a nightmare made flesh. A shadow of fire and smoke, a beast of blood and carnage.

‘Aye,’ Mannfred said, eyeing him. ‘Tarsem the Ox, Tarsem of the Fourth Circle, who was slain by the bloodthirster, Khar’zak’ghul, one of Khorne’s huntsmen.’

‘You know much about it,’ Tarsus said, looking out over the city.

‘Indeed. I was there, in those last days, when the sky wept fire and the plazas of Helstone were drowned in blood,’ Mannfred said. He peered at Tarsus. ‘What about you?’ He frowned. ‘What are you, Stormcast? You are not dead, for I know the dead. You are something else entirely…’

Tarsus hesitated, momentarily uncertain. Then, he touched the sigil of Sigmar on his chest and shook his head. ‘Whatever I am, whoever I might have been, I am Tarsus, of the fourth Stormhost, Lord-Celestant of the Hallowed Knights. And this city, whatever it once was, is now but a tomb.’ He looked up at Mannfred. ‘Let us go. Stygxx awaits.’

Mannfred was silent for a moment. Then he inclined his head. ‘As you say, my friend. I shall meet you below.’ He swept his cloak about him and Ashigaroth leapt off the parapet to plunge into the darkness. Tarsus watched him for a moment before looking back out over the vast sweep of the city. For a moment, he saw it again as it once must have been.

He heard the rustle of pennants in the wind, and the call of vendors in the market plazas. He heard the voices of the dead, calling out to him from the dim reaches of his past, calling to the man he had been. Calling out for Tarsem. He saw faces, men and women, fellow warriors, champions of the final days, fighting alongside him… and one other, whose face he recognized – Mannfred von Carstein. Unsettled, Tarsus turned away and made for the stairs.

The past was done. Whatever had been was gone and forgotten.

All that remained was duty and honour.

The Bridge of Seven Sorrows

Josh Reynolds

The dead belong to Nagash.

Even those who flee my grasp are yet my chattel. I can feel them still.

I can feel them as they draw near.

For all that I have been searching for them, they have come to me. The dead know their master, and they come at his call. They do not belong to Sigmar. Sigmar the deceiver. Sigmar the barbarian. Sigmar the traitor, who almost cost the Undying King his kingdom.

None may challenge Nagash. Nagash is all. Nagash is the sun and the void. Nagash is the core of all things, and it is by his will alone that this realm is suspended. His shoulders bear the weight of the Realm of Death, and his will alone holds back the assaults of Chaos.

Nagash endures.

Nagash is inevitable.

Out of his desolation will come perfect order. By his hands shall the Corpse Geometries be aligned once more, and reality set to rights. Where Nagash stirs, Chaos recedes. I shall wreak terrible agonies upon my enemies. I shall not stay my wrath, wherever it leads, even unto the golden pillars of Azyrheim. He who takes that which is mine shall be broken on the altar of his own hubris.

I shall not be denied.

Nagash cannot be denied. He has come among you and there is no escape. When Nagash commands your surrender, his voice is legion. Where he strides, stars gutter out. Where he stands, the earth groans. With a gesture, he can dry the seas or melt the ice.

All other gods are but shadows of Nagash. Sigmar or Khorne, dark god or light, they will fall before Nagash. There will be no god but Nagash.

The sun has set forever. Nagash stands in its place. His Mortarchs return to him from their sojourns in the dark, to serve and obey as is their purpose. They are Nagash’s will made manifest, his cunning given form, his fury unleashed. All are one in Nagash.

See what I have wrought. Imagine what is yet to come. Where I pass, confusion and fear are snuffed like candle flames, for Nagash is the ur-fear. Nagash is the end of all things, and he will liberate you from your servitude.

I cannot be destroyed. The dark lord tried. He broke my bones asunder and cast my spirit into the void, but I cannot be destroyed. I cannot be stopped. I shall have vengeance on those who stood against me. Against all the thieves and the betrayers.

What has been taken shall be reclaimed. The souls of the stolen draw near, and what I cannot have, I will destroy.

In the ruins of all that is, I shall make a new order.

Such is my will.

Such is the will of Nagash.

‘Drive them back, Stormcasts,’ Tarsus said, as he swept his hammer out and smashed a bloodreaver to the ground. He parried a blow from a saw-toothed axe and drove his elbow into its wielder’s crude crimson helm, crushing it. His weapons crackled with holy lightning as he struck out left and right, dropping the enemy with every blow.

The bloodreavers were maniacs but mortal, and none of them could stand before the Lord-Celestant of the Bull-Hearts. They began to break away, falling back in confusion.

‘Who will be victorious?’ he roared, as the enemy began to retreat through the stinking fog that clung to the immense skull-cairns which dominated the plains. More than once, the clamour of battle caused one of these cairns to shed an avalanche of skulls or else collapse entirely, sending a flood of bone rattling across the ground.

‘Only the faithful,’ came the reply from the small host of Hallowed Knights who fought alongside him, arrayed in a battle line. Hammers rose and fell, and broken bodies were left in their wake, to lie forgotten amidst the tumult of white flowers which shrouded the ground as far as the eye could see.

‘Who shall walk at Sigmar’s right hand?’ Tarsus said, bringing his weapons together above his head. Lightning sparked between them. Many of the bloodreavers were running now, their fury fading in the face of an all-too relentless enemy.

‘Only the faithful,’ the Bull-Hearts bellowed in reply, thumping their hammers against the inside of their shields in a tribal rhythm, one that rarely failed to set the enemy ill at ease.

‘Who will stand, though the world burns?’ Tarsus cried, cutting down another bloodreaver. ‘Who will face death, with shield and hammer? Who broke the back of the foe at the Cerulean Shore?’

‘Only the faithful! Only the faithful!’ the Stormcasts shouted as they struck down their enemies. Tarsus nodded in grim satisfaction. The Bull-Hearts had fought their way over mountains and across trackless wastes, through shattered ruins and the bowels of the earth, all to reach this point. They had clashed with the servants of the Ruinous Powers again and again, but had always been triumphant in the end. As they would be now.

Not all of the bloodreavers had fled. Some flung themselves at the shield wall, as if to halt its momentum through sheer audacity. They were trampled underfoot, and the Stormcasts marched on after the others, pursuing them through the skull-cairns.

As the Stormhost passed between two great piles of bones, built amid the ruins of a pair of shattered pyramids, the slopes erupted in armoured warriors – skullreapers clad in crimson and brass. Dozens of the maddened devotees of the Blood God hurled themselves amongst the Stormcasts, leaping from the cairns to crash down through the fog and land amidst the shield wall. Those who survived the fall immediately rose and launched themselves at the closest enemy they could see. Bolts of blue light shot upwards as Stormcasts perished beneath the berserk assault. As the Stormcasts focused on this new threat, the skullreapers were joined by others of their vile kind, pouring out from between the cairns and howling out abominable hymns.

Tarsus swatted a leaping bloodreaver out of the air and chopped down a second. A moment later he staggered as a blow crashed against his back. He wheeled about to see a blood warrior lunging for him through the fog. The air seemed to shimmer around the berserker as he stabbed a spiked gauntlet at Tarsus’ face. The Lord-Celestant parried the blow at the last second, and a crackling burst of lightning swept his opponent up and sent him tumbling through the air, wreathed in smoke.

‘My thanks, Ramus,’ said Tarsus, glancing aside at the Lord-Relictor, who swung his staff out to knock a skullreaper flat.

‘Their rout was a trap,’ the Lord-Relictor said.

‘As he said it would be,’ Tarsus said. He caught a blow on his hammer and turned it aside. Before his attacker could recover, the Lord-Celestant removed the skullreaper’s head from his shoulders.

‘A child could have seen it,’ Ramus growled. ‘Where is he?’ His hammer thudded down, cracking the skull of a bloodreaver. Before Tarsus could reply, the cairns which rose above them began to tremble and clatter. The sound drowned out the clamour of battle, and was so pervasive that it even penetrated the mindless fury of the Bloodbound. Tarsus looked around and saw a faint purple haze rising from the piled skulls. With a rush of cold air, a pale mist began to spill down the slopes of the cairns to mingle with the fog below. It spread swiftly, threading between the legs of the combatants, obscuring everything.

‘There,’ Tarsus said, as a strange murmur, as if of a hundred voices all whispering at once, rose about the combatants. Ghostly hands rose from the fog to clutch at the Bloodbound. Weapons slashed uselessly at the grasping limbs, and cries of rage soon became screams of fear. One by one, the servants of Khorne were dragged down into the haze, which soon flushed red. Only a few avoided this fate, stumbling free of their ethereal attackers, but the Stormcasts did not let them get far.

One of the blood warriors tore his way clear of the mist and wheeled about with a wild oath, eyes blazing. Before Tarsus could move to go after him, something crashed into the side of the cairn above and then vaulted off to crush the warrior beneath it. Ashigaroth straddled its victim with a shriek, dipping its bat-like skull and snapping its heavy jaws shut on the warrior’s head, silencing his cries.

‘Well done, Mannfred. Even as we planned,’ Tarsus said to the beast’s rider.

Mannfred von Carstein leaned forward in his saddle and nodded absently. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘We should not tarry here.’

‘No,’ Tarsus agreed. The vampire’s manner made him wary. Normally, Mannfred was flippant, seemingly unconcerned about the world around him. But he had grown increasingly more withdrawn the closer they had come to the cairnlands. Something worried the vampire, and that, in turn, worried Tarsus.

‘We weren’t going to,’ Ramus said. ‘It was your idea to walk into this trap in the first place, instead of simply pushing through to our goal. We lost good warriors.’

‘You would have lost more, if we hadn’t flushed all of them out,’ Mannfred said. ‘You still might, if you don’t heed my advice – look.’ The vampire gestured towards the distant cairns, where the flower-strewn ground began a steep descent towards a flat, barren plain. The fog which clung to the cairns was thinner there, allowing them to see what lay beyond. They could hear the clash of weapons and the screams of the dying.

‘Sigmar’s oath,’ Tarsus said, as he stared at the slaughter which stretched out before him across the plain below. A massive edifice of stone and bone, wrought into a gigantic fortified gateway, dominated the face of an enormous free-standing rock outcropping, and in its shadow, battle raged. Bloodbound clashed with the followers of Nurgle, and, in the distance, standards bearing the iconography of Tzeentch rose above the fray as great hordes of warriors fought across the barren waste of the cairnlands.

‘There must be thousands of them,’ Ramus said. ‘Even we might have some difficulty fighting our way through that.’

‘It is ever the same,’ Mannfred mused. ‘Lacking other foes, the servants of the Ruinous Powers turn upon one another. They fight because they know nothing else. There are hundreds of warbands in this region. The full strength of the enemy fell here, in the final days of Nagash’s reign,’ he said. ‘They still swarm these regions, battling over the shattered husks of the black pyramids and the barrow-walls which once protected the Starless Gates.’ He pointed towards the distant edifice.

‘The Starless Gates,’ Tarsus said. ‘Then the gate to Stygxx is near.’

‘Aye,’ Mannfred said. His hand dropped to the black shard shoved through his sword-belt. The Fang of Kadon gleamed with an oily radiance that set Tarsus’ teeth on edge.

Mannfred leaned forward. ‘Luckily, we will not have to attempt to fight our way through that.’ He gestured to the carnage below.

‘We do not fear battle, vampire,’ Ramus said, harshly.

‘Nor do I, Stormcast,’ Mannfred said, his annoyance plain. ‘But sometimes I question its efficacy. No, better to avoid it – you lack the numbers to punch through, in any event. Your ranks have thinned greatly since I joined you.’

‘You mean, since we rescued you?’ Ramus said. Mannfred shot the Lord-Relictor a venomous glance.

‘Enough. We have trusted his guidance this far,’ Tarsus said. He looked at Mannfred. ‘Lead on.’

Mannfred smiled and patted Ashigaroth’s neck. ‘It would be my pleasure, my friend.’ The dread abyssal leapt into the air and swooped away, followed closely by Tarsus’ Prosecutor retinues. The Stormhost was in motion a few moments later, marching across the cairnlands. Stormcasts could move quickly despite the weight of their armour, and they ate up the distance at a steady pace as they moved through the silent pyramids of piled skulls. Tarsus set his scouts on the flank facing the Starless Gates, to keep watch on the warbands fighting there. Despite his concern, their journey along the eastern rim of the hills and slopes which marked the barren stretch was uncontested. The Chaos forces in the region were seemingly more intent on joining the battle going on before the Starless Gates.

‘Even as he said,’ Tarsus said, to Ramus, as they marched at the head of the column. ‘They’re too busy fighting one another to notice us slipping around them.’

‘Or perhaps they simply don’t care,’ Ramus said. He looked up, tracking the dread abyssal as it flew ahead of them. ‘I do not trust him, Tarsus. Despite everything, he has ever pursued his own path. He is not guiding us – he is leading us, pointing us to where he wants us to go. But why?’

‘Because he wants what we want, though I’d wager for different reasons,’ Tarsus said.

Tarsus did not doubt Mannfred’s claims that they needed the Fang, though he did doubt the vampire’s true intentions with it. It was not, he was certain, for their benefit alone. No, Mannfred was playing a deeper game. The dead could not be trusted. An oath was an oath, a promise was a promise, and the vampire had sworn to lead them to Stygxx, but it wouldn’t be the first time Mannfred von Carstein had broken his word.

Ever since their venture into the ruins of Helstone, Tarsus had been haunted by memories from his past life, the faces of men and women, fellow warriors, champions of those final days, fighting alongside him. And among their number had been the face of Mannfred von Carstein. Mannfred, who had fought alongside the heroes of Helstone until that final hour when he had fled, leaving his allies to die in hopeless battle.

Tarsus looked up, watching the dread abyssal swoop through the slate-grey sky. The sun was a distant sphere of pale light, its strength held at bay by the will of Nagash, or so Mannfred claimed. Even so, the vampire had his hood up and his cloak wrapped tight about him to protect him from the watery light.

‘Were we allies once?’ Tarsus murmured. ‘Did you truly fight alongside me then, before I was chosen by Sigmar?’

Perhaps that was why he wanted to trust the vampire. But Mannfred had betrayed him, then. If he did so again… At the thought, Tarsus’ grip on the haft of his hammer tightened. He had told Mannfred nothing of his memories. Tarsem had died on the ramparts of Helstone and Tarsus Bull-Heart had a mission to accomplish, whatever the cost.

A cry from one of the Prosecutors above caught his attention and he motioned for the column to come to a halt. They had reached the mouth of a low, winding canyon that ran like a wound through the rocky ground. Enormous, rough-hewn cliffs stained purple rose up before them, and tapered back and down.

‘There,’ Mannfred said, as Ashigaroth landed nearby. ‘Is it not a thing of beauty?’

‘It’s a canyon,’ Tarsus said.

‘It is more than that,’ Ramus said. He raised his staff and a soft blue light washed over the ground before them, revealing where the hard ground of the cairnlands suddenly gave way to coarse amethyst sands such as Tarsus had never seen before. ‘The soil is different here. The air as well. It is as if some force dropped this canyon here.’

‘It did,’ Mannfred said. He touched the Fang as if to reassure himself that he still had it. ‘Such is the will of Nagash, that reality itself gives way to him.’

A field of shattered Chaos icons and blasted standards marked the entrance to the canyon. They stretched as far as the eye could see, as if planted by an army which had then advanced, leaving them behind upright in the purple sands. The wind rose, and the rags of tanned flesh and hanks of greying hair which hung from the standards flapped and twisted in unpleasant ways.

‘Beauty is not the word I’d use,’ Ramus said.

‘Beautiful or not, we’re going in,’ Tarsus said, motioning his warriors forward.

As the Stormcasts advanced into the canyon, Tarsus caught sight of pale things wafting amongst the icons and heard the murmur of distant voices. He caught Mannfred’s eye.

‘Not all souls are fit to be forged anew and sent fresh into the fire of war. Some… are merely grist for the mill,’ the vampire said.

‘How long have they been here?’

‘How long have the stars hung suspended in the firmament?’ Mannfred said. He drew his cloak more tightly about himself. ‘Some of us must draw forth the dead with incantations, but Nagash draws them forth merely by striding across their graves. Where he walks, the dead stir and do not slumber again.’

‘You speak as if he were a god,’ Ramus said.

‘You speak as if he were not,’ Mannfred said.

‘A god would not have been driven into the dark, to cower among tattered wraiths and fleshless courtiers,’ Ramus said.

‘No, he would merely have shuttered the gates of his realm and left his people to die at the talons and blades of his enemies,’ Mannfred said. The Lord-Relictor turned towards him, but before he could speak, Tarsus interposed himself.

‘Peace, brother. We come in the spirit of peace. Let old grudges be forgotten and new alliances forged.’ He looked at Mannfred. ‘Even as we have done.’

‘Yes, and much has it profited us both,’ Mannfred said. He turned, to look back the way they had come. ‘The sun is stronger here than elsewhere, thanks to the attention of the Dark Gods, and I would rather not brave its glare any longer than I must. Shall we go?’

They had not gone much farther into the narrow, crooked confines of the canyon, however, when they were forced to halt once more. It had narrowed to a shallow point and in front of them rank upon rank of kneeling figures waited. Dust and white blossoms blew amongst them, but the figures did not stir. They were clad in baroque armour and clutched weapons of malign manufacture in skeletal hands. Where flesh might once have been visible, there was now only scoured bone. They filled the canyon, from one wall to the other, and their number stretched back to the great, bone-coloured archway set into its back wall.

The archway itself was more disturbing than the dead who knelt before it. It was a crooked thing of wrong angles and disorientating encrustations, shaped vaguely like a hooded figure bent forward with arms outstretched. It was made from stone and bone and other macabre materials. Strange sigils gleamed from its surface, glowing with a sickly light, and their radiance made the archway appear to undulate.

‘The underworld lies through that archway,’ Mannfred said.

‘What are they?’ Tarsus asked, his voice echoing eerily in the silence.

‘The Desolated Legion,’ Mannfred said. ‘They were Bloodbound, once… champions all, and high in the Blood God’s esteem. They were the first to invade these lands, once the barrow-walls were breached, and the first to feel the unfettered fury of Nagash. Now, they are wights – a reminder of Nagash’s power, and a warning to those who would test it.’

Old bloodstains marked the purple stones of the canyon, as well as the weapons of the dead men. Tarsus knew that an ocean of blood had been spilled here, and would be again, before the war against Chaos was done.

‘How many have tried?’ he asked.

Mannfred smiled. ‘Enough to glut even the Lord of Skulls, for a time. Wherever the gate appears they seek it out and if they are unlucky enough to find it, they die in their thousands.’

‘Will we suffer the same fate, I wonder,’ Ramus said. He stepped forward. As he did so, however, a ripple of motion shivered through the ranks of the kneeling dead. Ancient armour rattled as old bones twitched and bent heads slowly rose. Weirdling lights glimmered within every helm as the cold, mindless gazes of the dead became fixed on the intruders.

‘You will let us pass,’ Mannfred intoned. He raised his hand. Cold fire flickered around his fingers as he urged Ashigaroth forward. ‘Stand aside, warriors of the Desolated Legion. Stand aside, I say!’ The armoured ranks did not move. The silence stretched for one moment, then two, and then, with a creak of rusted joints, the Desolated Legion rose as one.

‘They are not listening,’ Mannfred hissed, in disbelief.

‘Ready your shields,’ Tarsus said. ‘Hold fast, Bull-Hearts.’ With a rattle of sigmarite, the Liberator retinues locked their shields, forming a wall of gleaming azure and silver. Mannfred snarled wordlessly and thumped Ashigaroth’s flanks with his heels. As the dread abyssal leapt into the air, the first of the wights moved. Tarsus stepped forward to intercept it and the rest of the Desolated Legion shuddered into motion.

The dead thing lurched forward, its axe hissing down. Tarsus smashed the weapon aside with his hammer and rammed his sword through a gap in his opponent’s armour. The wight staggered but didn’t fall. It raised its axe again and Tarsus stepped back, jerking his sword free with a screech of abused metal as he did so.

The axe slashed out and he was forced to twist aside. It chopped down, tearing his cloak, and he snapped around, catching the wight in the back of the skull with his hammer and causing it to stumble. He hacked at its neck and his sword bit through rusty metal and into bone. The wight’s head rolled free and he drove his shoulder into its chest, knocking it off its feet.

Tarsus took in the battlefield at a glance. Mannfred was still attempting to bend the dead to his will, as Ashigaroth kept its master out of their reach. The Stormcasts were holding the enemy back, but only just. The dead knew no fear and did not hesitate. They kept coming with relentless ferocity. Worse, not all of those that fell stayed down. As he watched, a trio of blue bolts streaked skyward. Then another two. His chest tightened as he thought of the brothers he had lost since the Bull-Hearts’ arrival in the Realm of Death. There were scarcely sixty of his warriors left now. How many would survive to see the completion of their mission? He shook his head, banishing the thought. They would see Sigmar’s will done, even if only one of them survived. They were the faithful, and they would be triumphant.

A second wight charged towards him, hefting a broken sword as it came. He blocked its blow and smashed its legs out from under it, dropping it into the dust. It slithered towards him, quick as a serpent, and he stamped on its head. Even as he stepped back, it began to push itself erect. With a roar, he brought both hammer and sword down on it, splitting it in two.

Even then, it struggled to rise. Ramus drove the haft of his staff into its chest and muttered a prayer. Lightning snarled down the length of the staff and into the dead thing, reducing it to a blackened husk.

‘They are proving more resilient than we were led to believe,’ the Lord-Relictor said, casting a glance up towards Mannfred.

‘Then we shall have to do this the hard way,’ Tarsus said. ‘We need to smash ourselves a path to the Corpse Road, and we need to do it now.’ More and more of the dead marched forward, breaking into awkward runs as they drew near the Stormcasts. They fought in silence save for the rattle of armour and the rasp of weapons. Tarsus signalled the Prosecutors wheeling overhead. ‘We need breathing room – make a gap,’ he shouted, and motioned to the ground between the living and the dead.

The winged warriors swooped low over the ranks of the dead and sent their hammers whirling down. The front ranks of the Desolated Legion were hurled back, broken and smoking, as the ground was churned up and a cloud of dust thrown into the air.

‘Judicators, Liberators – fall back,’ Tarsus said, his voice ringing out through the canyon. He looked at Ramus. ‘They’re yours, Ramus. Guard our flanks. Retributors and Decimators, to the fore,’ he bellowed.

‘At your command, Bull-Heart,’ Retributor-Prime Soros said as he joined Tarsus. Both he and Gyrus, the Decimator-Prime, were covered in dust and their armour bore the signs of heavy fighting. Their retinues were holding the centre of the shield wall just behind Tarsus, holding back those wights which had managed to get past the Prosecutors.

‘The horns and the hooves, brothers,’ Tarsus said, peering towards the dust cloud thrown up by the Prosecutors’ hammers. They would need to be quick, but if they could reach the entrance to the underworld, they could reform their lines and make a fighting withdrawal.

Soros gave a harsh laugh and he and Gyrus slammed their weapons together. ‘Horns and hooves,’ Soros growled. ‘It shall be done, Lord-Celestant.’ They hurried to rejoin their retinues, barking orders as they went.

‘Who will be triumphant?’ Tarsus cried, lifting his sword and hammer high.

‘Only the faithful,’ the Paladins rumbled, as one. Their heavy, ornate armour was prominently marked with the lightning bolt of Sigmar, and the massive two-handed weapons they carried shimmered with holy fire. As they strode forward at Tarsus’ command, they slammed the great weapons together, adding to the clamour of war. Swiftly, the Decimators took the lead, with the Retributors spreading out as they followed behind.

Ramus led the remainder of the Stormhost behind the vanguard, the Liberators moving to the flanks and the rear, where their shields could do the most good, and the Judicator retinues moving up the centre. The latter continued to fire as they moved, peppering the wights with their boltstorm crossbows. Ramus chanted as he strode forward, calling the lightning from the sky and sending it lashing among the ranks of the dead as they drew close.

Tarsus led the Paladin brotherhoods forward, and as he picked up speed, he broke into a lumbering run. The Decimators spread out around him, making a semicircle with their Lord-Celestant at the centre. They struck the dead with a crash, great axes smashing out to chop through legs or arms even as they used their momentum to bull the wights aside or bear them under. Tarsus led by example, knocking his opponents sprawling but not slowing down to finish them off. That was for the Retributors.

From behind him came the crackle of lightning hammers as they slammed down on the fallen wights, creating a path of bones for the Stormcasts following behind. Tarsus ducked a sweeping axe blow and kicked its wielder in the chest, staggering it. He lunged forward, breaking the wight’s arm with his hammer and decapitating it with his sword. He brushed its stumbling, headless body aside as he continued to move forward.

He caught sight of Ashigaroth flying overhead. The dread abyssal swooped low and ploughed through the dead, scattering broken bones and bits of armour as it cleared a path for him. Mannfred had seemingly given up on trying to control the wights and had settled for destroying them with sword and magic.

Slowly but surely they reached the back of the canyon, where the archway rose.

‘Shields to the rear,’ Tarsus called out. Liberator retinues fell back, forming up into a semicircle about the space before the archway. Hammers slammed down from above with meteoric force as the Prosecutors swooped overhead, holding the dead back while their brothers fell into formation.

Ramus stood just behind the Liberators, his hammer across his shoulder.

‘Hold fast, sons of Sigmar,’ the Lord-Relictor said. ‘The dead are strong, but sigmarite is stronger.’ His voice echoed from the canyon walls.

Tarsus drove his head into a wight’s grinning skull, dropping it to its knees. He finished the job as it tried to stand.

‘Gyrus, Soros, lead your warriors through the archway. Mannfred – go with them,’ he said, over his shoulder. As the vampire led the Paladin brotherhoods into the underworld, Tarsus signalled to the Judicator retinues.

‘Fall back through the archway. Cover our retreat, brothers,’ he shouted. The Judicators reacted instantly, following the others, loosing their crackling bolts as they went. The Prosecutors were next, hurtling through the archway. The shield wall steadily contracted as Liberators fell to the enemy, or were pulled from the line by Ramus and sent towards safety. Soon, only half a dozen Stormcasts were left before the twisted shape of the massive bone-coloured archway, including Tarsus and the Lord-Relictor.

‘Back, Ramus,’ Tarsus said, as they drew close to the canyon wall. ‘I will hold the line until you and the others are through.’ He brought his weapons together, crushing the skull of another wight. He hurled the twitching cadaver aside and parried an axe blow that might have split his helm. He steadily backed towards the archway as he fought, leaving a trail of broken bones and crawling corpses in his wake. Only when the last Stormcast was past the arch did he turn and hurl himself through.

Tarsus crashed to the stone and staggered up, into the steadying hands of his warriors. He turned, ready to continue the fight. The Desolated Legion did not seem inclined to follow. The wights stared through the archway at the Stormcasts, eyes flickering with witch-light. Then, as one, they turned and began to trudge away.

‘The archway is the limit of their malice,’ Mannfred said. ‘They could not pass it in life, and they are barred in death. Such are the caprices of Nagash.’

Tarsus looked around. Barely half of his force had made it to safety. Thanks to the glow from Ramus’ staff, he could see that they stood in a pillared vestibule of stone. Strange carvings adorned the walls and the flagstones beneath his feet were worn smooth as if by the tread of many feet.

‘How many more traps await us?’ he asked, looking at Mannfred. His voice echoed strangely in the vaulted space. He thought it changed subtly as it bounced from stone to stone, leaving him with the eerie feeling that he was somehow being mocked.

Mannfred shook his head. ‘Who can say? Nagash is mad, and fearful in his madness. He stations guards to watch other guards, and then forgets them for centuries at a time. There may be an army in these catacombs, or nothing at all, save the bats.’ He stroked his chin in thought. ‘The true danger is in the catacombs themselves. There are many routes to the heart of Stygxx, all with their own perils.’

‘We take the most direct route,’ Tarsus said. ‘We are few enough in number as it is and I would lose no more warriors stumbling about in the dark.’

‘The direct route is the most dangerous. There more than anywhere else there will be eyes upon us,’ Mannfred said.

‘Good. The sooner we are confronted by the Undying King or one of his servants, the more likely we are to accomplish our mission.’ Tarsus pointed forwards. ‘Lead on.’

‘As you will,’ Mannfred said, after a moment of hesitation. He turned Ashigaroth about and the dread abyssal loped away, the Stormcasts following behind.

The path by which Mannfred led them was one of twists and turns. More than once he stopped and they were forced to crouch in silence, waiting for the vampire to prod Ashigaroth into motion again.

Tarsus heard faint whispers of sound, like leaves caught in a wind, as they trudged through the dark. What might have been a bat’s wings brushed against his helm. At one point, they were forced to stop as a herd of skeletal horses, their bones gleaming with cold fire, galloped silently through the tunnel ahead, vanishing into the stone. Another time, Mannfred rode ahead to parley with a silent, hooded figure, who dissolved into mist and shadows as the Stormcasts approached.

Other, larger things moved in the dark around them, slithering through side tunnels and causing the ground to tremble beneath their feet. Nagash might have laid claim to the underworld, but there were more things crawling in its depths than the dead. Everywhere Tarsus looked he saw strange sigils carved on the walls and floor and wondered what horrors they had been placed there to ward against.

At last they emerged from the cramped tunnels and out into a huge cavern, which was bisected by a wide gorge. Ancient columns lined the walls of the cavern. Most of these were broken, as were the statues which stood atop them. A wide stone bridge stretched across the gorge. Mannfred gestured towards it.

‘Behold… the Bridge of Seven Sorrows,’ he said. ‘Once, the legions of the underworld marched across it, to do battle with their enemies, in the days before the coming of Nagash. Now, the great manses of the Amethyst Princes lie in ruins, and their armies belong to Nagash, body and soul.’

The vast span of stone was crudely carved, as if by unskilled hands. But it looked sturdy nonetheless, and it was wide enough for the Stormhost to march across ten abreast. Great railings marked at intervals by high plinths lined its edges. Large stone bowls topped most of them, containing purple crystals which flickered softly with a hazy radiance, casting a pale light over the bridge and the gorge beneath.

Seven of the plinths, however, were occupied by tall statues – women, clad in robes and ceremonial armour with weapons in hand, their bodies contorted in agonised poses as if each had been captured in the moment before death. They were at once regal and nightmarish, their tormented expressions seeming to shift and change in the flickering light of the crystals.

‘Those statues…’ Tarsus began.

Mannfred interrupted him with a shake of his head. ‘Not statues. No, my friend, those are nothing less than the remains of seven queens of the Skull Isles, who were betrothed to Nagash in times long past. They traded their freedom for the lives of their people.’ Mannfred chuckled. ‘A bad bargain, in the end. They were left here in the dark and the Skull Isles burned regardless, at Nagash’s command.’

‘More and more, I come to doubt the wisdom of our task,’ Ramus said. ‘What sort of being is this, to whom we intend to offer alliance?’

‘I warned you,’ Mannfred said. Ramus looked at him, but said nothing.

‘It is not for us to say what is wise and what is not, my friend,’ Tarsus said, looking at the bridge. ‘It is Sigmar’s will that we are here, and Sigmar’s will that we seek audience with Nagash. Much is demanded of those to whom much is given, and we shall not be found wanting.’ He extended his hammer. ‘Lead on, Mannfred.’

‘As you wish,’ Mannfred said. Ashigaroth leapt into the air with a great cry and the vanguard of the Stormhost followed in the dread abyssal’s wake.

Tarsus and Ramus marched at the front, and the cavern echoed with the crash of boots on stone.

‘What lies below us?’ the Lord-Celestant asked.

‘The deep caverns, through which runs the black blood of the underworld,’ Mannfred said, glancing down at him. He trailed off and shook himself. ‘Or so it is said,’ he added. ‘In any event, our destination lies not down, but across.’ He pointed to the other side of the gorge, where an enormous stone archway rose. The archway was covered in carved sigils, and heaps of dust and bone lay before it. ‘That is where we must go to see through our cause… past the Lichegate, and along the dirge-road, into the heart of Stygxx.’

Tarsus glanced at Ramus, who nodded slightly. The Lord-Relictor was ready, whatever came next.

‘Your cause, you mean,’ he said, pointing towards Mannfred. ‘Expedience made me hold my tongue before, but now, before we go any further, I would have the truth… Why help us? Not merely for gratitude’s sake, I think.’

‘Mannfred von Carstein does not know the meaning of that word, I fear,’ a harsh, sepulchral voice said. ‘Or if he does, he has never shown it.’

Mannfred whirled, his lips peeling back from his fangs in a feral snarl.

‘Arkhan,’ he hissed. He drew his sword. ‘Where are you, liche?’

‘Where I have always been. By Nagash’s side. As you should have been.’ The sound of iron striking stone carried across the gorge as a thin, robed shape stepped into the amethyst light of the crystals. ‘Have you come to throw yourself on his mercy, vampire?’

‘Nagash has no mercy,’ Mannfred spat.

‘No. He does not,’ Arkhan the Black said. The liche was tall and his bones were encased in ridged armour of archaic design and ragged robes, which rustled softly. He wore an ornate headdress and carried a long staff, around the tip of which strange black flames pulsed. Behind him stalked a dread abyssal, its horned skull lit by an internal fire. It screeched out a challenge and Ashigaroth replied in kind. Arkhan set his staff and rested one palm on the hilt of the tomb-blade sheathed at his side.

He gazed at the ranks of Stormcasts and inclined his head. ‘You have brought allies, I see. How… unexpected.’

‘Save your mockery,’ Mannfred said. ‘Stand aside. I would see Nagash.’

‘No. No, I do not think I will do that. Nagash himself sent me here to turn back those who dare invade his realm. That includes you, schemer.’

Tarsus stepped forward. ‘We do not come seeking battle. We wish merely to request an audience with the Undying King. We bring word from–’

‘Sigmar,’ Arkhan said.

Tarsus hesitated, surprised. ‘Yes.’

‘Nagash has no wish to hear the lies of Sigmar. Sigmar the deceiver. Sigmar the barbarian. Sigmar the traitor…’ Arkhan said, without apparent rancour.

‘Be silent and step aside, you withered husk,’ Mannfred spat. ‘This is not Nagash’s will – it is nothing but spite! You have always feared me, feared that the Undying King might favour my counsel over yours…’

‘No,’ Arkhan said. ‘I do not fear, for it has long since been burned out of me. I know only duty. The Undying King raised me up, and I shall serve him all my days. But you…’ He pointed at Mannfred. ‘Fear has always been your weakness, Mannfred. It has killed all that you might have been, and all that you were destined to be. You were one of his Mortarchs, highest of the high. Now you are nothing more than a cur, snarling for scraps.’ He lifted his staff. ‘Away with you, cur. Go, and never return.’

‘It seems we have chosen a poor guide if he cannot even get us past the door,’ Ramus said. Mannfred whirled, a snarl on his face and his fist raised. Ramus raised his staff warily, and the vampire growled and turned back.

‘No, Arkhan!’ Mannfred shouted. ‘No, you will give way or I shall peel whatever passes for your soul from your fleshless frame and feed it to Ashigaroth.’

Arkhan looked at Mannfred for a moment, and then at Tarsus. ‘Go back, sons of Sigmar. Go back, and I will not be forced to kill you.’

‘We cannot,’ Tarsus said. ‘We have our duty and we will fulfil it or die in the attempt.’

Arkhan was silent for long moments, his eerie gaze fixed on Tarsus. Then he nodded. ‘So be it. Hold fast to your duty, as I shall to mine.’ He raised his staff. ‘Awaken, O sorrowful ones – awaken, you brides of death. Awaken.’

A sound like cracking ice filled the cavern. Tarsus looked up and saw that one of the seven queens was looking down at him, chunks of stone falling from her face and form. Her ravaged features suddenly twisted into an expression of utter loathing and her mouth opened. A wild, keening wail emerged. The sound struck Tarsus like a hammer blow and he staggered back.

‘Banshees,’ he cried, but too late, as the seven ghostly women leapt from their perches, weapons in hand. They streaked through the air over the Stormcasts, shrieking and wailing.

Tarsus’ sword chopped through one of the banshees as it flew past, meeting no resistance. The dead woman bent forward with serpentine grace, her screams tearing at his mind and soul. Everywhere he looked, Stormcasts fell to their knees, clutching at their heads or clawing at the ground as the banshees tore the life from them with unceasing wails. A sword, rust-edged and age-pitted, chopped down at his head. He jerked aside and the banshee hurtled away, still screaming.

A second sped towards him, her ancient spear drawing sparks from his shoulder plate even as the force of the blow spun him around. A third stalked along the centre of the bridge, head thrown back, mouth wide in a cry that sent another six Stormcasts into death.

‘Mannfred,’ Tarsus snarled. ‘Do something!’

‘I am,’ Mannfred growled in response. ‘I intend to kill Arkhan. He’s more dangerous than any wailing ghost.’ Ashigaroth galloped forward, surging through one of the banshees as it attempted to interpose itself.

‘I welcome your attempt, vampire,’ Arkhan said. He climbed atop his own steed, drawing his sword as he did so. ‘Another chance to feel alive.’ He extended his blade. ‘Step forward, and you will find that your greatest folly is thinking that you could ever beat me.’

The two dead men and their monstrous steeds came together with a crash. Mannfred fought savagely, with less grace than ferocity. Arkhan, in contrast, fought with a precision that was almost impossible to credit. He parried every blow, and his own slid past Mannfred’s defences with ease, eliciting increasingly frustrated snarls from the vampire. The dread abyssals tore at one another, rolling through the air over the bridge even as their riders traded blows.

Tarsus cursed and slashed at a banshee as it flew past, wailing. His warriors were dying and there was little he could do.

‘Ramus – call down the lightning,’ he roared. The Lord-Relictor thrust his staff forward, driving one of the creatures back, and glanced at him.

‘As you command,’ Ramus said. He caught his staff in both hands and drove the haft down. As it connected with the stones, the reliquary mounted on it burst into blazing blue light. Energy snarled about it and seared the nearest of the howling banshees as if she were a being of flesh, rather than spirit. But the lightning did not stop there. Instead, it leapt from warhammer and axe-blade, dancing across the weapons and armour of the remaining Stormcasts, including Tarsus’ own. He clashed hammer and sword together, and as he pulled them apart, a crackling web of lightning stretched between them.

‘Strike now, Stormcasts, and strike true. Strike!’ Ramus thundered.

Tarsus did so. His hammer crunched down on a banshee’s arm and her shriek changed, becoming a cry of pain. Head throbbing with the reverberations of that cry, he swept his sword through her neck, silencing her screams. Across the bridge, his surviving warriors followed suit, lashing out with lightning-infused weapons to bring down their ethereal attackers. As the last of the banshees came apart in tatters of fog and rotting silk, Tarsus hurried towards the centre of the bridge where Mannfred still clashed with Arkhan.

The dread abyssals still fought in the air, but their riders had fallen from their saddles. Now liche and vampire continued their duel on foot. Mannfred’s flesh was aflame with sorcerous fire, as were Arkhan’s robes. They had locked blades and now strained against one another, neither willing to retreat. Arkhan spoke an incantation and the air shuddered. Mannfred was knocked back, his armour crumpling from an unseen impact.

Tarsus sprang to the bridge’s railing as Mannfred staggered back, and leapt down, his sword streaking towards Arkhan’s skull. The liche whirled about, parrying the blow. He thrust a skeletal claw forward, but Tarsus was quicker. His hammer slammed down on Arkhan’s hand, and as the liche reeled, Tarsus bulled into him, carrying him backwards into a pillar. Arkhan drove him back with a wild slash, but before he could recover, Mannfred’s blade chopped down, severing Arkhan’s sword hand at the wrist. Even as his hand fell, however, Arkhan gestured, and his sword leapt into his remaining claw.

The liche lurched around, ready to continue the fight, and Mannfred hacked through his shoulder and into his sternum. He hefted his rival and slung him away. Arkhan crashed down on the other side of the bridge, where he lay unmoving.

‘Stay down, liche,’ Mannfred spat, as he swatted at the flames which still clung to his flesh and armour. ‘Once more, I have proven myself your superior. Why Nagash chose you as his right hand is a mystery.’

‘Mayhap he prizes loyalty over power,’ Arkhan said. He lifted his sword and set it point first into the ground. His dread abyssal crouched nearby, as if awaiting orders. ‘Maybe you have grown stronger in your exile. Or maybe this was never about winning…’

Mannfred’s eyes widened.

‘What are you…?’ he trailed off, and cocked his head.

‘What is it?’ Tarsus asked.

‘I– something. What is that? Some new ploy, Arkhan?’

Arkhan the Black gave a raspy chuckle. ‘No ploy, Mannfred. He merely wished to see if you had learned any new tricks in the wild.’

Mannfred looked at Tarsus. ‘We must retreat… Fall back to some more defensible position.’ He clutched at his head suddenly and gave a hiss of pain. Tarsus made to help him, but Mannfred slapped his hand aside. ‘We must go!’

‘Too late, vampire,’ Arkhan said as he dragged himself to his feet. ‘Too late to run, too late to do anything but regret all that might have been. Death is not a thing to be played with. And now he comes for you.’

‘No,’ Mannfred said. He took a step back, still clutching at his head.

‘Yes.’

The word reverberated through the cavern, shaking the bats above and the monsters below from their slumber. The sound of it was a wound on the skin of reality, throbbing painfully. The crystals which lit the gorge dimmed, and Tarsus felt an ache build in his head. ‘What is that?’ he demanded.

‘Nagash,’ Mannfred said, backing away. ‘Nagash is coming.’

‘No, little prince. Nagash is here!’ A pale mist, struck through with glimmering veins of amethyst light, flooded across the ground, roiling and expanding as it approached the bridge. ‘Nagash is always here. Nagash is everywhere. This realm is his and he is the realm. He is in the air and the water, in the blood and marrow. Nagash is all, and all are Nagash.’

The mist swelled, enveloping the broken form of Arkhan before washing past him and coalescing into a towering, nightmare figure. A skeletal giant, clad in dark armour, surrounded by a flickering corona which changed hues, ever-shifting from green to black to purple and back again with painful rapidity. Nine heavy tomes floated around him, tethered by thick chains, their pages flapping with a sound like the snapping of jaws. Moaning spirits swirled about him, blending together and breaking apart in a woeful dance of agony.

The wide skull, lit by its own internal flame, gazed down at Tarsus and his warriors, and the blazing orbs that danced in its cavernous sockets brightened briefly as they lit on Tarsus. Then the rictus grin turned to Mannfred. ‘You have called, my child, and I have come. Speak, exile. Speak, traitor.’

Mannfred looked at Tarsus, and then took a hesitant step forward. ‘O Undying King, I have come to throw myself at your feet. I have learned humility in my time in the wilderness, and would beg thy forgiveness for past trespasses.’

Nagash said nothing. Mannfred licked his lips and drew the Fang of Kadon from within his cloak.

‘A gift, great Nagash,’ he cried, proffering the artefact. ‘A gift for you, a symbol of my fealty, of my loyalty…’ He trailed off as a crackling rasp, like the shattering of ice floes or the crunching of bones, filled the air.

‘A bauble. One that I could have reclaimed at any time. You think to buy my forgiveness, Mortarch. But Nagash does not forgive. Nagash is death, and death is without mercy, honour or pity.’ One great claw reached out and Mannfred gazed at it like a bird might stare at an approaching serpent. Tarsus stepped forward, caught the back of his cloak and jerked the vampire back, out of reach. Nagash paused, looking at the Lord-Celestant.

‘You stink of the raging storm.’

‘I am Tarsus, Lord-Celestant of the Hallowed Knights,’ he said. ‘I have come to–’

‘Sigmar sent him,’ Mannfred said, suddenly. He shoved away from Tarsus. ‘The lord of lightning mocks you, O mighty Nagash! He plucks souls from your realm, and sends them back to you as emissaries.’ He sank to one knee. ‘And I have led them to you, that you might do with them as pleases you, as a sign of my adoration.’

Tarsus stared at the vampire in consternation. The dead cannot be trusted, he thought. He turned back, to see Nagash staring down at him.

The Undying King was silent for long moments. Then, with a sigh like the creaking of a coffin lid, he said, ‘At last.’

‘Great Nagash, I have come…’ he began.

‘You have come as a thief. You have come in the company of a traitor. You have come to die.’

Tarsus felt a chill and lifted his weapons. Nagash flicked a finger and a coruscating bolt of black force slammed into his chest, pitching him into the air and over the heads of his remaining Stormcasts. He struck the bridge with a loud clang and skidded backwards in a spray of sparks until he struck a plinth. Pain enveloped him for long moments. He couldn’t move or speak. He could barely breathe. All he could do was watch as Ramus led the last of their Warrior Chamber in battle against the Undying King.

Warriors fell at Nagash’s merest gesture, their bodies wreathed in black flames or amethyst light. The souls which swirled about the Great Necromancer launched themselves at the Stormcasts, tearing spirit from flesh wherever they passed. But no blue light shone and no bolts of crackling lightning streaked upwards from the fallen. Something was preventing their escape. Tarsus shuddered and tried to pull himself up. Nagash was not simply killing them, he was capturing their spirits somehow, preventing them from returning to the soul-forges.

Soon, only a scattered few remained, and Ramus himself. Lightning splashed across Nagash as harmlessly as water. The Undying King motioned and a Liberator fell, enveloped in flames. Ramus dropped his staff and lunged forward, hammer clutched in both hands. His first blow made Nagash take a step back. His second thudded into a waiting palm, and Nagash’s hand closed about the hammer’s head. The blessed sigmarite flared once and then came apart as if it were nothing more than sand. Ramus staggered back and Nagash caught him up, enveloping his head in one metal talon.

He jerked the Lord-Relictor into the air. He turned to swat a Liberator into the side of the bridge hard enough to shatter the stone railing, and sent the Stormcast into the abyss below. The remainder fought on, but to no avail. Nagash was no mortal enemy or daemonic servant. He was death itself, and wherever his gaze fell, Stormcasts died.

‘You still live.’

Blearily, Tarsus looked up, as Mannfred dropped from Ashigaroth’s back to crouch beside him.

‘Can you stand?’ the vampire asked.

‘Why help me?’ Tarsus groaned. Past Mannfred, he saw a retinue of Judicators torn apart by Nagash’s dark magic. The last of the Prosecutors fell, lightning wings dimming. A Retributor staggered back, clawing at his helm as a dark mist engulfed him. His warriors were dying, and he was helpless to aid them.

‘Why, he asks,’ Mannfred said, helping him to sit up. ‘You freed me, Tarsus. You trusted me, though every instinct must have told you that I was not to be trusted.’ Mannfred hesitated. ‘You… remind me of someone. From another time. Another man who fought beside me and trusted me, though he knew better. For his sake, I will see you to safety. And then my debt to you – to him – is paid.’

‘Go,’ Tarsus said, as he pushed himself to his feet.

‘What?’

‘Go, Mannfred. No more is required of you. Your debt is paid,’ Tarsus said as he retrieved his hammer. His sword was gone, likely lost to the gorge. He heard Ramus cry out, and the roar of lightning. Mannfred stepped in front of him.

‘This is madness!’ he said, speaking quickly. ‘Nagash has what he wants. You’ve tried to deliver your message. I still have the Fang – we can escape. I will take you anywhere you wish to go, back to Azyr, even, but let us go now.’

Tarsus pushed Mannfred aside with his hammer. ‘There is nowhere to go. I am Stormcast and my duty is clear. Nagash must be made to see reason. He traps the souls of my brothers, and I cannot allow that.’

‘You cannot stop him. Nagash cannot be defeated, not here in this place of power,’ Mannfred snarled. He grabbed Tarsus’ arm. Tarsus shrugged him off and turned.

‘You did not always believe that to be so, Mannfred. Else why would you be here now? Why would you have stood with me in Helstone’s final hours?’

Mannfred stepped back, eyes widening. ‘What?’

‘Run, Mannfred. Run as you did then, when fire rained down and the earth trembled in sorrow. Take your freedom and run. I will hold Nagash’s attention for as long as I can.’ Tarsus gestured back the way they had come. ‘But go now.’ Tarsus laughed softly. ‘Unless you intend to stand with Tarsem of Helstone once more.’

‘Tarsem…?’ Mannfred said, peering at him. ‘What are you?’

‘I am Stormcast,’ Tarsus said. He raised his hammer in salute and turned. Mannfred did not follow him, as the Lord-Celestant began to run. He heard Ashigaroth shriek, as Mannfred coaxed the beast into the air, but he did not look back.

Memories of his past, of his final mortal moments, rose wild within him. Fire and shadow, the clash of steel and the pain of a mortal blow. Mannfred had fought beside him then, his reasons his own, but then, as now, he had fled when hope was lost. Such was his nature, and Tarsus did not fault him for it. The dead could not be trusted, after all.

It didn’t matter. Even then, he’d known that Mannfred had his own destiny. Helstone had been Tarsem’s. And the Bridge of Seven Sorrows was Tarsus’. However fast he fled, however far he ran, fate would catch up with Mannfred von Carstein in the end.

Nagash still held Ramus. The Lord-Relictor struggled against the titanic liche’s grip, but could not break free. As Tarsus drew close, Nagash seared the life from the last of the Retributors with a bolt of sorcerous fire. He closed his eyes.

‘Only the faithful,’ he said, to himself. Then, more loudly, ‘Nagash – release him.’ Tarsus stalked towards the towering figure as he spoke, weapon in hand.

Nagash looked at Tarsus, and then down at Ramus. The Lord-Relictor clawed at Nagash’s hand, beating on it with useless fists.

‘Yes, I will release him,’ Nagash intoned. Purple light flared and the Lord-Relictor went limp, smoke rising from the joints of his armour. Nagash examined him for a moment, and then tossed him aside. He looked at Tarsus.

‘You do not flee.’

‘I – we – came to bring you a message. And I will deliver it, whatever the consequences,’ Tarsus said. ‘Sigmar would have words with you. He wishes to speak of the past and the future. Of what has been done, and the work yet to do.’ He strode forward as he spoke. He heard the voices of the dead, calling to him out of the dim reaches of his past, calling to the man he had been. Calling out for Tarsem. He saw faces, the champions of the final days, walking alongside him as he stepped over the bodies of his fellow Stormcasts. He could see blue strands of lightning struggling within the fallen Bull-Hearts. The souls of his warriors yearned to return to Azyr, but Nagash had ensnared them.

As he watched, he saw a spark of blue bulge upwards from Ramus’ smoking form, fighting to be free. Nagash gestured sharply and the Lord-Relictor’s spirit thrashed, as if in agony. Another body began to dissolve into motes of azure lightning, and Nagash swept a talon out, forcing the body to cohere once more.

‘You will not escape me, little souls. I am the master here, not Sigmar.’

No, you are not. Not as much as you pretend, Tarsus thought. If he could distract Nagash, the spirits of his fallen brethren might yet be able to escape the Realm of Death. If nothing else, some of them might be returned to Sigmaron, where they could tell Sigmar of all that they had learned. But first, he had to distract a creature whose power rivalled that of the God-King himself. It was a slim hope, but he held firm to it.

‘Much is demanded of those to whom much is given,’ he murmured as he began to run.

Nagash leaned towards Tarsus as he drew close, terrible energies coalescing about his claw. ‘I care not what Sigmar wants. I will hurl him from his throne, as surely as I will cast down the Dark Gods. I am Nagash! None may make demands of me.’

Tarsus caught hold of the hem of his cloak and twisted about, letting it flare out around him. The enchantment within its weave was unleashed, and phantasmal hammers hurtled forward to strike the looming shape of Nagash in a flash of lightning.

A bellow of surprise shook the cavern and nearly knocked Tarsus from his feet. Stalactites fell from the ceiling to crash into the bridge, filling the air with splinters of rock. Shattered columns tumbled from their pedestals to break apart and shake the floor, throwing clouds of dust into the air.

For a moment, he thought it hadn’t been enough. Then, the first explosion of blue light streaked upwards, to vanish into the darkness above. More followed, one after the other, until the whole cavern burned with the light of the Hallowed Knights’ passing.

‘No!’

A massive claw, sealed in black iron, erupted from the dust and slammed Tarsus from his feet. He hit the ground hard enough to crack the stone. He shoved himself to his hands and feet, trying to suck air into his bruised lungs. Nagash strode out of the dust, even as the blue glow faded. ‘They were mine!’

‘They are Sigmar’s,’ Tarsus said hoarsely, as he pushed himself to his feet. He swayed slightly. Something was broken within him, and every intake of breath sent a pulse of agony through him. ‘And they will be forged anew, by his hand.’

‘Then I will kill them again.’

‘Perhaps, but not today,’ Tarsus said, as he lifted his hammer. ‘Who will be victorious?’

Nagash cocked his head.

‘Only the faithful,’ Tarsus said, as he stepped up onto one of the fallen columns and leapt, hammer raised. Nagash swept out a hand, filling the air with amethyst light.

And Tarsus Bull-Heart was no more.

You are mine.

Take consolation in the fact of your insignificance. Your soul struggles yet, like a fly caught in a spider’s web. But Nagash is no spider.

He is your master, Tarsem of Helstone. He is your master, Tarsus Bull-Heart. Whatever name the thief Sigmar has cloaked you with, you are still mine.

I will pluck you apart, strand by strand, and dig from you the secrets you keep. You will scream, but you shall not find respite in oblivion.

Not until Nagash knows all.

I will know how Sigmar has done this, how he has stolen what is mine.

And when my curiosity is satisfied, I shall rise from my throne and shake off the dust of ages. I shall stride forth like a conqueror of old and shatter the shields of my enemies. I shall pull down their towers and tear their beating hearts from their chests. I shall find the treacherous princeling wherever he has fled and chain him to my throne. None may defy Nagash and escape retribution.

My loyal Mortarchs gather in the dark places, readying my nine hundred and ninety-nine legions for the war to come. Soon, they shall march at my command, to once more impose my will upon all that is, and all that shall be. I shall not be denied. I shall not be thwarted. All shall kneel before Nagash. All shall bow. Even those who cast off my protection and flee into the wilderness. Even the God-King, on his throne.

The only reason you exist is to serve my will.

Nagash is all things. All are one in Nagash.

I am the dark at the end of everything.

The end of all things, made real.

I am Nagash.

I HAVE RISEN.

The Beasts of Cartha

David Guymer

The sky crackled and burst, stars wheeled, and by hammer and lightning upon the Anvil of the Apotheosis, Ramus of the Shadowed Soul was reborn.

No, not reborn. Reforged.

Lightning was beaten into him with hard, incessant blows, strengthening him, shaping him, the impurities of mortality driven from him like sparks hammered from a blade against an anvil.

Withered lips peeled back from long fangs, and the vampire gave a rattling laugh. ‘A better question might be… what are you?’ One sunken eye narrowed. ‘I smell… storms and clean water. You are not mortal men.’

‘Not for a long time,’ Tarsus said.

‘The same might be said of me, I suppose,’ the vampire rasped.

‘What is your name?’

‘What use is a name, when one is bound thus.’ The creature twitched its thin fingers, causing the brass spikes to screech against the iron rim of the orrery. It winced, in obvious pain. ‘If you release me, perhaps I shall tell you, eh? How curious are you?’

No!

He focused on that shard of himself and held it close, even as it burned. Alloyed to that memory was an emotion: fury, rampant, barely human wrath, and sputtering from it with white heat, the raw need for vengeance. It was strength, not weakness.

With each stroke of the hammer he felt the lightning enflame him for a little longer before dissipating. The divine had no form, but he did, or at least his soul remembered, and with each blow the smith drew that recollection from him until the lightning burned, caged, within a nascent human form.

His form.

‘Sigmar sent him,’ Mannfred said, suddenly. ‘And I have led them to you, that you might do with them as pleases you, as a sign of my adoration.’

Wrath clad his heart even as the god of the anvil encased his recast flesh in holy sigmarite. He remembered.

Warriors fell at Nagash’s merest gesture, their bodies wreathed in black flames or amethyst light. Soon, only a scattered few remained, and Ramus himself. Lightning splashed across Nagash as harmlessly as water. The Undying King motioned and a Liberator fell, enveloped in flames. Ramus dropped his staff and lunged forward, hammer clutched in both hands. His first blow made Nagash take a step back. His second thudded into a waiting palm, and Nagash’s hand closed about the hammer’s head. The blessed sigmarite flared once and then came apart as if it were nothing more than sand. Ramus staggered back and Nagash caught him up, enveloping his head in one metal talon.

He jerked the Lord-Relictor into the air. He turned to swat a Liberator into the side of the bridge hard enough to shatter the stone railing, and sent the Stormcast into the abyss below.

New-forged muscles swelled as he experienced the slaughter anew. He and his entire Warrior Chamber dismantled by the dark god, Nagash, and the soul of the Lord-Celestant imprisoned in his underworld.

Because of a betrayal.

The name lit up his mind with an electric fit of hate. Von Carstein.

A voice came, a voice that spoke into Ramus’ soul and gave him new life and greater-than-human strength.

‘Bring me the prodigal vampire.’

Sigmar…

Lightning played around the edges of Ramus’ armour, ready at a word to cast him into the Mortal Realms once more. His wrathful heart sang with praise.

‘I will present him to my old foe in silver chains.’

The lightning struck. It hit not with the impulsive stab-and-return that a bolt from the heavens should, but with a raking stroke. It timed its moment, brightening until the air it touched hummed with the pent-up might of Azyr. Release came in a thunderclap of such staggering force that the resultant blast wave ripped into the leaves of the surrounding trees.

The light faded, and Lord-Relictor Ramus opened his eyes. Smoke rose from his armour, residual energies arcing from gauntlet to gauntlet, snapping between his fingertips and his bowed head. He was alive, whole, and his war-plate was once again unmarred. His reliquary blazed like a lightning rod in his hand, a halo flickering about its crown and bestowing fateful animation on the imagery of faith, death and the storm.

From his shoulder, a shield of mirrored silver carrying a relief of a twin-tailed comet hung on a strap. A gift from Sigmar. He was on bent knee, the closing utterance of a prayer on his lips as the last of the storm faded.

‘Only the faithful...’

‘Only the faithful!’ came the reply.

Sixty warriors stood at order behind him, their armour a perfect silver-gold. They were the Hallowed Knights, warriors who had spent their last breath before death to call out to Sigmar and who had been answered.

Retributors with spitting lightning hammers; Decimators, gauntleted fists grimly locked about their thunderaxes; Protectors, their proud bulk distorted by the mystic shimmer of their stormstrike glaives; and finally the Prosecutors, their celestial weapons alight with the glory of Azyr.

Ten of each stood in ranks. An Exemplar Chamber. The God-King’s elite. Surrounding them, twenty Judicators summoned bolts to their crossbows, locked the weapons’ stocks to their breastplates and made ready. Ramus could see no Lord-Celestant or ranking champion amongst their number. It appeared that Sigmar had tasked Ramus with the role of leadership.

His view was limited to two discontinuous portals by the bony sockets of the helm that encased his head like a second skull, and he darted his gaze from point to point until he had a sense of their new battlefield.

The Hallowed Knights had been delivered into a V-shaped plaza, not made of stone but wood, and staked out with fire-poles and animal skins that moved under the most stilted of breezes. The air was clammy with the respiration of slow, giant things, and bitty with wood smoke. It tasted third-hand and passed torpidly through Ramus’ lungs.

The scuffed wooden ground was carpeted with dried leaves bigger than both of his hands. Noticing them, and noticing the incongruity between what he could see and feel and the oceanic roar of wind through trees, he looked up. His head spun with unexpected vertigo. It was not the height, but rather a sudden reinterpretation of scale.

Contrary to his initial flash impression, he was not amongst trees but high, high up in the canopy of a tree. The sky wore a cloak of purple-red scales and rustled as if to conceal something dark. The hoots and cries of beasts and birds, and things that were neither, called out from myriad hiding places in the wooded fastness.

‘Who brings fire to the lightless places?’

‘Only the faithful!’

Tilting his head back, Ramus scanned the plaza’s high, sheer walls. They had been cut from a pair of gnarled, monstrous branches, and were banded with lines that more closely resembled a cliff face than the growth lines of a living tree. Twinkling eyes watched intently from above. Leaves stirred.

At every level of the exposed wood, rude huts had been cut. The frontages were hung with shaggy furs that swallowed them entirely, rippling sedately in the breeze. In death they were monstrous, and Ramus felt that even he might hesitate before confronting beasts so large in the flesh.

Under such a commotion of noises it was impossible to pick out what was happening beyond the first row of huts. He could see no one but his own warriors, but death had a way of breeding caution, and he could feel the threat closing in.

‘Anything?’

‘No, Lord-Relictor.’

‘No.’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing also.’

The leaders of the Retributors, Decimators, Protectors and Judicators sounded off.

Ramus raised his crackling reliquary aloft to stir texture into the murk.

‘Draw back,’ he ordered. ‘Form lines.’

Through the plaza’s wider, open end, the slow fall of reds, browns and golds permitted a partial and changing view of a city on a grand scale. A tangle of wooden girders and gantries, wire-trained branches and great winding staircases supported vast platforms that were smoky with fortified wooden townships. Both high up and way, way down, little squares of light flickered.

At the other end, it narrowed. An ever-constricting row of steps climbed towards the wooden plinth of a two-faced gargoyle – one man, one beast, both appearing to strain apart from the other – from which water trickled into a basin.

Judicators took position on the steps and swung up their crossbows with a rattle of sigmarite. They aimed.

The boards trembled underfoot. Ramus had not noticed that before, but now he was still it was as clear as the might of Sigmar. As though something massive was pounding on the same piece of wood. Retributors and Decimators formed staggered lines along the lower steps, reinforced every second or third warrior by the blurred mass of a Protector.

Ramus moved to join the crossbows where his view would be better.

‘Be alert,’ he said. ‘Whatever comes for us – and have faith that it comes for us – remember that Mannfred von Carstein is mine. Should I prove unworthy in that task and fall, then the vampire is a prize for whoever may claim him.’

‘Lord-Relictor!’ called the Judicator. ‘The skies.’

With a beat of broad, luminous wings, a being foreshadowed by its own otherworldly halo descended into the plaza’s hollow. Ramus’ first thought was of Mannfred’s abyssal mount, Ashigaroth, but one look was enough to see that it was something else.

The armoured angel flew in the characteristic mode of the God-King’s winged heralds, big powerful strokes generating uplift, then an earthbound plummet as mass told. It was peculiarly ungainly, a swan coming into land, but then nothing so graceful should ever have been compelled to fly.

‘We are here for the vampire,’ Ramus shouted up.

The beams of light that feathered the warrior’s wings slid down his helm’s sockets like knives from heaven. That which bled around the gilded shutter of the flyer’s lantern simultaneously soothed and strengthened.

‘Where is he?’

Confusion showed within the eyeholes of the warrior’s helm as he regarded Ramus and his weapons. Then he shook his head, wings working hard to lift him from his hover and into a climb. More lambent wing-shadows arrowed through the dark above him, lightning crackling from javelins and hammers unseen.

‘No time! I am Vandalus, Knight-Azyros of the Astral Templars. Fight first, and then we can all be brothers.’

The knight unshuttered his lantern, the full force of its illumination searing the gloom away. To Ramus, it was as though the light of all the stars that ever were had been lensed through that lantern, the disparate colours of the divine merging to white gold. It should have burned, but it was like cool water in tired eyes. It should have been blinding, but the coruscating glory highlighted every detail with a brilliance that could not be ignored.

And with the despatch of the leafy dark, Ramus saw.

They were huge, lumbering creatures, fully half again the size of a Stormcast with that excess made up in equal parts by muscle and by fat. Guts girdled with heavy armour plates swayed side to side as they charged the steps that came up from the tree-city into the plaza. Mail flapped from their arms. Wheezes and grunts turned to howls of agony as eyes were sizzled dry and melted to the backs of eyelids. What had been a headlong charge under cover of darkness became a fumbling advance on hands and knees, blood streaming down jowly cheeks.

Vandalus slammed his lantern shut. The light snapped out, but by glowing, multicoloured outlines, Ramus could still see.

‘On them!’

The Prosecutors, visible now as a retinue about two dozen strong, strafed the ogors from above. Ramus’ own winged warriors moved to join them. Despite their speed, each was able to loose two or three missiles before reaching the mouth of the plaza, where they banked up and corkscrewed towards the canopy.

Javelins fell amongst the ogors, less like rain than bolts of lightning. Half-blind brutes skewered with several of the long shafts frothed and seized, Azyrite energy fizzing through their muscles. Thrown hammers smacked through the thunderstorm with stone-cratering force, punching down those creatures tough enough to still be standing.

The last of the Prosecutors turned their wings of light to the breeze and speared upwards, leaving a field of dead and moaning in their wake. Ramus smiled. This was not the foe he had been sent for, but their obliteration was beautiful, he could not deny.

‘Judicators, loose,’ Ramus instructed.

More ogors, these armoured even more heavily than the initial rush and supported by mounted warriors on huge shaggy war-beasts, shouldered through the remnants of the first wave. The first rank, a sweating line of about thirty with cavalry keeping pace on the flanks, cleared the final step and entered the plaza.

A vast brute waved a black standard carrying a bat-wing motif. The horde gave a roar and surged past into a rattling volley of fire delivered by the Judicators’ boltstorm crossbows. A handful went down, but the majority pushed through, armour and thick hide both bristling with sigmarite-tipped bolts.

‘You will need to do better than that!’ Vandalus roared.

With a scowl, Ramus raised his reliquary. He murmured a grim prayer, his words lost amidst the grunts as the first of the ogors’ heavy hitters smashed belly first into the thin rank of Protectors and sent them flying. Further back, the mounted ogors goaded their war-beasts into a ponderous trot, staying close in to the row of huts as they urged their steeds towards the Hallowed Knights’ flanks.

The purple sky darkened and roiled, flashes of sheet lightning visible beyond the bowing leaves. A bolt jagged down from the heavens and struck the upraised reliquary. Energy crashed outward, knocking an ogor flat, tendrils squirming over his armour. Ramus could feel the hairs of his body standing on end and tasted the charge in his mouth.

With a word and a gesture he blasted a lightning bolt through the flanking cavalry, reducing ogors to ash and turning their massive mounts into squealing fireballs. Teeth bared, he unleashed the lightning again and again until his power was spent and all around him was brittle devastation. His body was aglow with its after-effects.

‘Who will be victorious?’ he called.

‘Only the faithful!’ the Protectors responded as they redressed their line.

‘Now I feel your passion,’ Vandalus laughed, opening his lantern’s cover again and sending scores more of the ogors to their hands and knees, crying blood.

Ramus smashed the butt of his reliquary through the neck of an ogor that was writhing in pain on the lowest of the fountain steps. The first real shouts of panic went up from the ogors and they began to fall back. Ordered to hold, the disciplined line of Hallowed Knights simply disengaged and watched them go.

Ramus saw them dash against a second line of maroon and gold and animal pelts that had pivoted across the plaza’s entrance like a raising drawbridge. The gloom was too heavy for him to see what happened next, but he could hear well enough.

With a two-footed thump, the Knight-Azyros landed beside him, in his way as strange a sight as the ogors had been. His golden helm had been picked out with several small ideograms like tattoos, representing stars, storms and wild beasts. Odd, rustling totems of feathers and leaves had been affixed to his armour, partially masking the intricate, amethyst scrollwork. He took Ramus firmly by the shoulder.

‘A fine anvil you make, brother,’ the Azyros said. ‘Come, meet the hammer.’

The burly warrior stood with one armoured boot on the back of a particularly large and messily slain ogor, a wooden cup in his hand. The cup was empty, but the prop seemed important to his sense of theatre.

He carried his helm under one arm, its absence revealing a shaggy bearded face cut by shallow scars. Given that such injuries could not survive the Reforging they must have been relatively recent and, judging from the patterning, Ramus suspected self-inflicted to some ritual end.

‘His name is Hamilcar,’ Vandalus explained. ‘He is Lord-Castellant of the Astral Templars, Eater of Bears and champion of Cartha.’

The Lord-Castellant’s heavy armour was decorated, if that was the word, with bloody palm prints to which scraps of animal hair had been stuck. He looked like a man-wolf from Azyr’s Eternal Winterlands. To Ramus, it appeared he and his warriors had ‘gone native’ to an alarming degree.

‘See how even the greatest fall to the halberd of Hamilcar Bear-Eater,’ the Lord-Castellant said, addressing all present. ‘The ogors have come before and we have beaten them back. They will come again and be beaten again because I am still here!’ His voice rose to a shout, disturbing the trio of gryph-hounds curled up around his feet where they dozed off a feast of ogor flesh. They growled sleepily as he went on.

‘You are men and women of Azyrheim. You could have lived your lives in safety and comfort, but instead you came here, returned to your homeland to reclaim it from Chaos in the name of the God-King Sigmar. Your courage is proven beyond question. But if anyone here now doubts their courage then let them not doubt mine. I am your protector and I will protect you all.’

He raised his cup high. The forest’s growl filled the pause.

‘To my protection!’

The mortal men and women assembled in the plaza mumbled back with a weary chorus. It put Ramus in mind of the surly response of a starving wolf pack.

They were gathered into auxiliary bow and spear detachments, between ten and twenty strong, marshalled around a host of Stormcasts in maroon and gold, of which there were about forty. Liberators and Judicators mostly, their armour embellished with a variety of odd fetishes and tribal markings.

A Protector with the hissing head of a leopard painted over his face walked between them, delivering each mortal a wooden thimble bearing his dole of oozing grey liquor. At Hamilcar’s nod, they downed them, sucking on the emptied thimbles for every last sticky drop.

Its nose was of tree sap with a familiar, coppery trace.

Crushing his empty cup in his hand, Hamilcar threw it aside.

‘To your posts. I want the gates repaired and men upon them ready for the next attack.’

Another chorus of semi-human grunts and the auxiliaries filed out.

Vandalus put his hand upon Ramus’ shoulder, ushering him forward. ‘Come. Perhaps Hamilcar can tell you something I cannot.’

‘Vandalus! Victory is ours!’ the Lord-Castellant bellowed, greeting Vandalus with a powerful embrace. He pulled away, his smile disappearing as he looked Ramus up and down. ‘Maelstrom of Light?’

‘Hallowed Knights.’

‘Ahh.’

‘Ramus is hunting a vampire called von Carstein.’

The informality of address made Ramus wince. Hamilcar’s bark of laughter hardened it into a scowl.

‘Mighty game indeed – one that would not survive an hour in this wood.’

‘He is here,’ said Ramus. ‘Sigmar would not have sent us to you if he were not. The God-King desires him dearly.’

And I want him, he thought, but did not add.

‘This is a dark land, and Sigmar sees little of it from Sigmaron.’

‘You sound as though you question him.’

‘A mighty gift you have there, Ramus, to know so keenly what is in here.’ He tapped on the side of his grizzled head. ‘What am I thinking now?’

Vandalus cleared his throat tactfully. ‘It was my beacon that guided you here. It is possible that your Mannfred is nearby, but our blindness spreads over a dozen cities, and many thousands of acres of forest, mountain and plain.’

‘Sigmar has never yet led me astray,’ said Ramus, stiffly. There had been as many Stormhost forgings as there were varieties of men, Ramus knew, but he could not entirely dismiss the indulgence that Sigmar was surely testing him in some way, by sending him to these Astral Templars. ‘Perhaps the ogors are involved? I can... sense... something evil behind them. It seems as though they have had you besieged for some time.’

‘They will fail,’ said Hamilcar dismissively. ‘Hamilcar’s arm never tires.’

‘I do not need your protection, Lord-Castellant. From truth least of all.’

Hamilcar grunted, stepping aside as equerries with stiff brushes, pails and what must have been grooming knives moved in to tend to his hounds.

‘Another few months and we would have been secure enough here to scour the brutes from their land ourselves. But then the darkness came. Rumours of dead men crossing the Junkar Mountains. Orruks on the plains, bigger than any yet seen. Something’s stirred them up, and ogor tribes have been heading this way for weeks. Any fewer of them and they might have passed right beneath us, but the forest floor is dark as all death.’ He was silent for a moment, scratching his bearded chin. ‘There’s nothing to eat down there, so while we’re still here they won’t stop coming.’

The leopard-faced Protector passed his cup to the leader of the final group of auxiliaries. She practically snatched it from him, spilling some and spattering his gauntlets with what looked like blood.

‘What is in the cup?’ asked Ramus.

‘Sap from younger branches, mixed with a little blood from the birds and animals the auxiliaries catch,’ Vandalus told him.

‘Blood drinking?’ Ramus hissed, aghast.

Vandalus chuckled. ‘When I was a man I was king of a desert kingdom, and we would often mix the blood and milk of our mounts to sustain us between oases.’ He touched fingers absently to his lips. ‘Funny. I remember the taste of it more than all the fine foods in the world.’

Ramus scowled. He would die again before confessing it, but he envied those who recalled lives as warrior-lords and champions. As well as he could piece his own mind together – and the pieces there left to him were fewer than they had once been – he had always been a priest. A translator of the divine will and a judge. A shadowed soul.

‘You do not remember fully or truly. None of us do.’

‘Indeed we don’t,’ Hamilcar rumbled. ‘But we are Astral Templars, and we are proud of what we do remember.’

‘But you have water,’ said Ramus, pointing his reliquary accusingly back to where the twisted gargoyle dribbled liquid from the cored trunk into a font.

Vandalus and Hamilcar shared a look. The Lord-Castellant sighed.

‘Tainted. Not a long story, but one that never changes. My walls however are another matter. Vandalus may have called for more of our own host, but I’ll not turn away an Exemplar Chamber, whichever colours they wear. Walk with me, Ramus. Help me hold Cartha and then perhaps I’ll be able to help you.’

They walked down steps, up others, over bridges trained from tangled branches, from one war-torn platform township to the next. Hidden things clicked and twittered at their passing, the boards creaked, and for miles in every direction giant leaves rustled and points of light winked, like stars but not. It was like the centre of a strange, living universe.

The path led through the camp to a roped bridge. From the cleanly sawn stumps protruding from the edge of the platform, the original bridge had been recently brought down, presumably to repel an earlier attack. The new structure swept over a moat that might as well have been bottomless, a febrile chasm of animal howls and thrashing leaves that awaited the unwary and the invader.

On the other side, a barracks yard bustled with Liberators. A hundred or more bow- and crossbow-armed Judicators stood on the walls, towering over the human auxiliaries that moved among them.

As with everything else Ramus had seen here, the walls were wood, entire trunks carved with battlements and hollowed out to function as towers. Workmen crawled over a gate made from planks thicker than a man was tall, hanging like spiders from a complex harness of ropes to patch a breached section.

The Lord-Castellant led him through the drizzle of sawdust to a set of steps that had been cut into the defensive wall, where five mortal auxilia in leather jacks and holding spears stood guard.

Four immediately stiffened as the three Stormcasts approached, but the fifth sat and did not seem to notice them at all. He was scratching at his bare forearm and clearly had been for some time. He stared at the blood that speckled the wooden steps as though he could see his future there. Two of the standing spearmen shuffled across to hide him, but only served to draw attention. Hamilcar glowered at them.

‘What’s this?’ the Lord-Castellant demanded.

The eldest and least ragged of the two straightened. ‘Gut fever.’

‘Wheezing sickness,’ offered another, speaking over his fellow.

The Lord-Castellant drilled each man with his gaze until all four had wilted. The seated man panted, scratching.

‘Has he drunk the water?’

The elder spearman shook his gaunt head. ‘He’s not. I swear it by Ghal Maraz.’

‘Then explain this.’

‘Explain it to me,’ said Ramus, stepping forward.

Hamilcar dismissed the two mortals with an angry jerk of the head, and squatted down beside the scratching man.

‘The fountain is the only source of water here and draws directly from the Great Tree’s roots. It has two faces, that of beast and that of man, and it follows a cycle. Now is the time of the beast. The beasts may drink – my hounds, the birds,’ he nodded to Vandalus, ‘and we must take what we can from them, but a man that drinks from the fountain at this time will eventually himself become a beast.’

‘And Stormcasts?’

‘Would you risk it?’

‘Is this fountain not guarded?’

‘Of course!’ Hamilcar snarled. ‘But somehow, this keeps happening.’ He gestured to one of the auxilia. ‘Take him to the tents. See that he’s restrained.’

Shaking his head as the unlucky man pulled his sick comrade up and walked off towards the rope bridge, Ramus took the steps to the parapet and looked out.

The darkness was in constant motion, branches sighing in the wind, leaves fluttering slowly downward. More gargantuan trees, some larger even than Cartha’s, rose through the void, shadowy pillars of grey and brown and mouldy orange, glittering with hundreds of thousands of tiny lights. Each that Ramus could see was connected to others by mile-long wood-turreted suspension bridges.

Cartha was not a city. It was a cluster of island states up here in the trees. With his soul’s eyes Ramus could see the cloud that hung over all. If von Carstein was not behind this place’s ills then the Lord-Relictor was a dracoth.

Vandalus appeared beside him. ‘We retook them once and will again. Once reinforcements arrive from our realmgate on the Sea of Bones–’

A warning blast sounded out from the sentry post on the gatehouse. The raucous calls of the forest itself almost immediately drowned it out, but the mortal sentry had clearly earned his position for the power of his lungs.

‘Flyer!’

Vandalus looked upward and suddenly tensed. ‘Sigmar...’

The Knight-Azyros’ light wings exploded out and lifted him off the ground. The incomer was already over the palisade and descending hard, motes of feathered light fading fast behind him. It was a Prosecutor. His armour was a deep, bruised purple. His wings were almost gone.

Vandalus collided with the injured Stormcast in mid-air. Arms squirmed around crippled war-plate, wings billowing out as the Knight-Azyros fought to halt his comrade’s fall and fell with him.

Ramus jumped aside as the two armoured bodies hit the ground like a comet. Coming in at a steep angle, they crashed onto the rampart walkway, the Knight-Azyros with arms and wings wrapped protectively around the Prosecutor’s body, and bounced on over the inner courtyard. They came to rest under a mound of wooden shields, Stormcasts and auxilia both running in to help. Hamilcar waved them brusquely back.

Shrugging off a shield, Vandalus unfolded his wings from about his chest. The Stormcast in his arms was pale from loss of blood, his wings skeletal. His armour carried a number of severe dents and blood trickled through the small slit over his mouth. His breathing was shallow, furtive, as if edging towards the point where the pain of a broken rib became too much.

It took a lot to kill a Stormcast. To beat one this hard took a lot more.

‘Brother,’ Vandalus spoke quietly, ‘what did this to you? Where is the rest of the scout retinue?’

The Prosecutor’s mouth worked drily before sound came out. ‘I... am... sorry...’

Vandalus shook his head. ‘Do not be. We will tell stories of your epic flight until the end of days.’

‘No... I am sorry... The Sea of Bones is lost. Our cities are gone and... there will be no reinforcements. I feared Cartha would have suffered the same.’ He closed his eyes, tightened his hand around Vandalus’ forearm and clasped it in a warriors’ embrace. ‘But you are here. Praise Sigmar. You will tell our stories... to the reforged.’

‘And they will retell them.’

Hamilcar growled. ‘What happened to the other colonies?’

The Prosecutor made to speak, but the light left his eyes, departed to the same heavenly abode as his wings. Vandalus slid the warrior from his lap and stood, just as the body dissolved into a bolt of lightning that blasted open the forest canopy on its return to Sigmar. Ramus mouthed a prayer for him. It was a journey he would wish on no one. For a moment those gathered looked to the heavens or at the scorched ground in silence.

Another blast of the horn broke it. Again, the forest sought to clamour it down, but this time the trumpeter refused to be drowned out and held his note. Soon, others took up the call until the full length of the palisade was ringing.

Gripping his reliquary, Ramus turned back around to the great suspension that yawned into the dark. He could feel vibrations underfoot, ripples running through the connected boards from the approach of something massive.

Ramus muttered a different prayer.

One of war.

The ogors were coming, and this time they came with shields. Tramping over the forest bridge three abreast, every first and third bore a shield of metal the size of a man and bossed with a ten-thumbed stab at a gaping maw. Arrows clattered off the iron shell. Even the foot-long sigmarite-tipped bolts of the Judicators could not punch deep enough to trouble the hulking ogors behind.

Hamilcar’s voice boomed from his fearsomely daubed helm, and he waved his arms wildly as though he held the power to bleed the ogors with the knifing motion of his hands. ‘From the side! Aim for their legs. Bring them down!’

The archers shifted their aim to little effect. These ogors were shock troops held in reserve for the final push. Occasionally, one would tip over the edge with a Judicator bolt splitting their knee but the integrity of the formation held, the unshielded ogor in the centre file of each rank having two hands spare to hold his shield-mates in line. The clank of ill-fitting greaves on iron boots rang over the dark-leafed abyss as they pushed through the arrow-storm to the gate.

Ramus was in the barbican, the rough-walled wooden tunnel between the inner and outer gate where the body-odour haze was thickest. He grunted, hammer locked with an ogor’s steel-toothed maul, shoulder to its gut plate and straining. There was a darkness driving it, pushing against his will even as the ogor pushed against his body.

‘Who holds the gates of heaven?’

‘Only the faithful!’

The Protectors and Decimators were far from their element in such cramped confines, so the honour of vanguard fell to the Retributors. The explosive crump of their weapons reverberated through the tunnel. Bow auxilia from the gatehouse garrison leaned over the internal battlements and loosed directly down.

Ramus pushed back against the ogor’s strength until it felt as though the pressure against the inside of his skull would crack his helm.

‘Who is the shield between Sigmar’s foes and the weak?’

‘Only the faithful!’

‘Who fights with the hearts of bulls?’

‘Only the faithful!’

‘Only the faithful!’ Ramus roared, slamming every ounce of reserve behind his shoulder.

The ogor staggered. Ramus drew back, opening a space between them, and then thrust his reliquary aloft. At a muttered prayer, lightning crackled about its pole and spat a bolt at the recovering ogor. The massive brute jabbered, spraying Ramus with spittle, but stumbled for him regardless on bandy legs that spasmed with Azyrite energy.

Hamilcar appeared on the battlements above. ‘A useful prayer! But you are in the Carthic Oldwoods now, and Sigmar cannot hear you unless... you... shout!’

The Lord-Castellant jumped onto the parapet and thrust his warding lantern over the tunnel, drawing back the shutter with his other hand in the same motion. Golden light flooded the tunnel. Ramus’ armour glowed as barriers of arcane protection enshrouded it. He felt himself strengthen, enough to push the ogor back, then mash its head so emphatically into its neck that its ribs exploded in his face.

Ramus found he had space to move. The pressure from the front was easing off. ‘They are retreating.’

‘Of course they are! Hamilcar Bear-Eater is always triumphant!’

Ramus dismissed the bluster with an irritable wave of his hand. Somewhere behind the sweaty scrape of withdrawing ogors, bells were being vigorously rung and drums thumped.

‘This is no act of panic. They are being called back...’ A cold wind washed against his face and he turned from the bridge towards it.

The sepulchral chill whistled through his helm’s eyeholes and pinched his eyes as a bat-like horror the size of a dracoth shrieked past them. Snapshots rattled off its hide – not flesh but some dark, gravestone metal – or simply passed through its ribcage in wisps of corpselight.

The monster turned from the walls, the thrashing torment of a nimbus of spirits somehow keeping it airborne. Then, with a shriek that killed the nerves, it bounded down, thumping into the bridge amidst a buffeting wail of ethereal dead.

Ramus gripped his reliquary so tightly that it creaked.

Hatred should be hot, a storm that struck wild and hard, but what he felt instead was cold, his heart deadened as though encased in a block of ice. The dread abyssal stamped around as though claiming some of the ground’s solidity for its own. Its eerily glowing nimbus moaned as it dimmed to reveal the beast’s master.

Hamilcar called out from the walls in astonishment. ‘Vampire!’

Ramus growled. ‘Mannfred.’

The vampire shortened the reins around his wrist, then leaned forward in the saddle to execute a bow for the watching Stormcasts. ‘In accord with the finest traditions of war, I offer you this one chance of surrender.’

Hamilcar held up his weapon arm so that all could see it. ‘If you want surrender, then come to my wall and beg for it.’

Mannfred offered an indulgent smile. ‘I salute your sense of occasion, Lord-Castellant. Truly. But you have nothing for me and nothing for them.’ He gestured to the ogors behind him who inched forward, salivating, in a rustle of mail. ‘Those you shelter, however... They will be dead in a week whatever we do here. Let us in, give them up to us, and together we might all survive what is coming.’

Ramus did not believe that Hamilcar gave genuine consideration to the vampire’s terms, but something in the warning had given the Lord-Castellant pause. Was it the talk of orruks and ogors on the march that troubled him more than the Betrayer of the Hallowed Knights?

‘Do not heed the poison that spills from this adder’s mouth!’ Ramus hissed. He slammed his staff down onto the bridge, energy arcing off in wild flares. Mannfred regarded him with amusement, but no hint of recognition. That he could enact such treachery and not even recall his victims only made the lightning storm more furious. Ramus turned to the ogors and raised his voice. ‘Whatever deceits this missionary of lies has used to delude you, discard them from your minds.’

‘Our need is mutual,’ Mannfred said, smoothly. ‘You do not know what is behind us.’

‘It can be no worse that what awaits them. Treachery. That is how you reward your allies.’

The vampire sat back in the saddle and looked him up and down. ‘Do I know you, Stormcast?’

‘I am Ramus of the Shadowed Soul, and I fell the day you betrayed Tarsus and the Hallowed Knights to the Great Necromancer. I know you, Betrayer, and for your crimes, Sigmar now knows you also.’

At the God-King’s name, lightning bolted from his reliquary, flaring off against a screaming barrier of tortured souls before Mannfred’s negligently upraised hand. With a predatory grin, Mannfred raised his hand above his head, fingers spread, the residual charge of Ramus’ lightning bolting from finger to finger. He looked past him to where Hamilcar stood with gauntlets clenched over his battlements.

‘Have you noticed your dependents acting most oddly of late, Lord-Castellant? Blood. It changes one, do you not agree?’

The vampire clenched his fist and a wave of power spilled out. It buckled the ogors’ shields, caused the banners above Cartha’s palisade to pull at their poles until they snapped. Stormcasts braced into the wave, buffeted as the dark grey wall of force hit their armour and passed around them as if they were rocks in a river.

The effect on their auxilia was markedly different. They were not rocks. They were sand, and the wave broke them. Blood vessels burst in their eyes and skin the moment it touched, men screaming or simply gargling on their own lungs’ blood as the wave passed through and splattered out the other side. Convulsions cracked bones, sent men wailing from the parapet, the survivors turning mad, bloodshot eyes onto the corpses and moving on them with an animal hunger.

Ramus spun around as the defensive line disintegrated before his eyes. ‘What bedevilment is this?’

Mannfred spread both arms in a flourish, urging his dread abyssal to rise on a column of weeping souls. A pack of subhuman creatures with torn clothes much like the folk of Azyrheim and tatty bat-like wings flapped over the gulf from the neighbouring tree in answer to their cries. Their wings were the same dull red as von Carstein’s cloak, their flesh fluted and spiked like his armour, their faces painfully drawn with the same patrician lines.

They had been remade in his likeness.

‘Blood does not cheat or lie, Stormcast. It belongs to the beasts, and the beasts want it back.’

A tortured shriek rang out from the palisade, a hunger for human flesh so acute it was no longer even remotely human. An auxilia sprinted along the parapet, weapon gone, mind gone, mouth covered in bloody drool, and hurled himself headlong into an Astral Templar.

The man – if the flailing, blotchy animal could still be called that – rebounded off the armoured giant, but not before another had leapt onto the warrior’s back and started tearing at the gorget spikes with his teeth.

Across the length of the wall, Stormcasts were being overwhelmed, torn from their war-plate like carrion pulled apart by hyenas. Flurries of lightning stole their bodies from around the teeth of the very men they had been despatched to defend, blasting the savages apart like flesh-wrapped fireworks.

Ramus caught sight of Vandalus and his Prosecutors taking to the skies, abandoning the wall entirely in favour of engaging the ghoulish crypt flayers struggling in from the deep forest sea. Behind them flew the Prosecutors of the Hallowed Knights, wheeling after the creatures.

Several beast-born threw themselves from the walls in grasping pursuit. Some caught trailing legs and dragged the winged warriors down. Others flailed, impacting in disjointed heaps on the berm. A handful staggered up on broken limbs and, whimpering in pain and hunger, dragged themselves towards Ramus.

From the other direction, the ogors once again lifted up their wall-shields and advanced. The bridge trembled with their tread, Mannfred’s mocking laughter a counterpoint in gusts and whispers.

Hamilcar backed up from the rampart, staring at the blood daubed over his gauntlets. ‘I did this...’

‘Back from the wall, to the city! We will hold the second bridge and make a stand there,’ cried Ramus.

Ramus spat, turning and blasting a ghoul from the wooden berm with a bolt from his reliquary. The burning creature plunged, shrieking, through snapping leaves and on into the dark. Ramus came about, mouthing a prayer, and sent lightning to scorch the front rank of ogor shields.

Hamilcar bellowed again, swinging his halberd overhead and cleaving the pair of man-beasts that came gnashing for his throat. ‘I did this! With Sigmar as my witness, Lord-Relictor, I will undo it!’

Blasting and bludgeoning a path, Ramus retreated from the ogors’ advance, through the splintered outer gate and into the barbican. Where, a few minutes prior, bowmen had stood and loosed, they now hurled themselves into the tunnel. Ramus’ reliquary drove forked lightning through those that blocked his way.

Taking the glowing staff in both hands, he looked back over his shoulder as an ogor in a studded helm crashed through the open gate, deep-set eyes peering over the top of its shield. It saw him and opened up to charge.

‘Down, Lord-Relictor!’

Ramus ducked as a rank of Judicators in Azyr-blue and silver levelled crossbows as one and unleashed a storm of bolts into the tunnel. The ogor fell, bolts bristling from shield and helm and jowly face. Retributors and Decimators moved in to shore up the inner gate with crates dragged over from the drill yard, and with the bodies of the dead.

The yard had slipped into a demented nightmare. Tortured screams abounded. Shadows darted, men and women gouging each other’s eyes out amidst tumbling leaves. Half of the Stormcasts pivoted to face them, but the ghouls seemed more interested in each other.

With a sudden inhalation, one of the corpses being piled into the barricade made a grab for the Retributor carrying it. Surprised, the Stormcast struggled with it for a moment, its arms squirming around his neck, then tore it off him and hurled it against the wall where it broke and did not rise again. The Protectors formed a cage around Ramus, stormstrike glaives striking up a static hum that almost drowned out the moans of the reawakening dead.

The barricade began to pull itself apart. Ramus noted Hamilcar’s absence and the incoherent cries coming from the Lord-Castellant’s last position, and broke into a run.

‘Back to the bridge!’ he ordered.

A small band of Astral Templars held the rope bridge. Subhuman beasts battered themselves against the Liberators’ shields and fell to their hammers by the score. Against such guileless opposition, the warriors might have held their position for hours, if not indefinitely, but they were beset from both sides.

Ramus felt cold spear his chest. Mannfred had not restricted his call to those on the walls. It had turned everyone. Everyone who had drunk, even once removed, the blood of Cartha.

With a doleful prayer, Ramus raised his reliquary again. After so much use it felt like lifting a stone block but he thrust it high, as if to rip open the sky in person, and dropped a thunderous barrage of lightning strikes onto the flimsy bridge. Obliterated, bits of wood and wailing beast-touched people plummeted into the forest’s depths.

The Judicator-Prime looked on. ‘It falls on me to point out that there is no other way out.’

‘Sigmar is our way out. And I will face the pain of that reunion gladly if I can push Mannfred von Carstein through the door ahead of me,’ snarled Ramus. ‘Astral Templars, to me!’

Cartha was gone. They had no cause to fight for now but his. He turned, scanning the chaos behind him.

‘The Lord-Castellant hunts for the Betrayer. Good. His is the only life of consequence in Cartha now.’

The Stormcasts formed up into a block around him, shields, blades and crackling hammerheads held outwards, the three corners facing away from the ruined bridge anchored by bulky Protectors. The savage-looking Astral Templars slotted in at the rear. The join between the two cohorts was seamless.

At Ramus’ gesture, the Decimators each doubled up with a Judicator and ranged ahead. The rest of the Stormcasts snapped to a forward facing, brought weapons to marching order and, as one perfect unit, broke into a run back towards the gate.

Their bodies were sacrosanct and of no value either to the ogors’ bellies or to the vampire’s ravenous new minions.

And so they had turned on each other.

An ogor encased from the waist down in heavy plate came blundering through the thin wooden partition of a barracks hall with a beast-touched man struggling in a lock under one arm and a shank of flesh dribbling from its mouth. Several more loped after it, evading the long swings of its fist and chasing it through the splintering wall of another structure on the opposite side of the yard.

Elsewhere, another lay dead on the ground, the leaf bed around it whisked up by the frenzied attacks of the beast pack that mobbed it. Somewhere in the bedlam, an animal like a wolf, yet not quite, howled. Several scattered beast packs lifted bloodied mouths from the glut and loped off towards the sound.

There, higher up in the canopy, a light pulsed in the gloom. Vandalus’ lantern. Even through the crowding foliage Ramus could feel the golden warmth of its summons.

Sigmar did not bestow the Knights-Azyros with wings simply to serve as messengers and heralds. They were the sigmarite-tipped blade of the God-King’s spear. It was in their nature to be at the sharp end of any engagement, and the pride they took in that fact was legendary. Ramus knew little of the Astral Templars, and did not care to learn what the Reforging might one day take away, but he understood the temperament of the Knight-Azyros well.

Wherever Vandalus fought, Mannfred could not be far.

He lowered his reliquary to point out the pulsing lantern to his retinue, just as the breathless pant and claw-on-wood scrabble marked the approach of something four-legged and frantic. Ramus took a firm breath, ready to again loose lightning, as a gryph-hound burst through the leaves and skidded to a halt in front of him.

It was limping, carrying one paw, its beak frothed and its fur matted with blood. Its sapphire-blue eyes were piercingly intelligent, but dancing with an animal fright almost painful to behold.

The air grew chill, a sense of spiritual pressure building. The hound sniffed the air in alarm, then looked up and shrank to the ground with a whine.

Ashigaroth dropped from the sky, slamming the gryph-hound down and ripping into its throat in a single, crushing instant. Tearing out muscle and tendons and spraying the ground with blood, the dread abyssal swallowed a chunk of flesh, and then shrieked its challenge as a wave of beast-born loped in from the shadows.

‘Judicators!’ Ramus called. ‘To your duty.’

Swaying in the saddle of his unholy beast, Mannfred observed the rank of boltstorm crossbows with indulgent good humour. ‘Why is it, I wonder, that Sigmar felt compelled to burden you with such poor imaginations? Very well. “Judicate” me, if you can.’

A volley of fire ripped through empty space as the dread abyssal leapt skywards. With a war cry from their retinue, the Retributors stepped forward to meet the charge of Mannfred’s beasts. Ramus turned from the slap of meat on metal and the ripping of joints from bone to follow Ashigaroth’s flight.

‘Spread out, Judicators! Follow his...’

The order died on his lips as the monster reached the apogee of its arc and began to descend. Strong hands on Ramus’ back pushed him clear. He hit the ground and immediately rolled over, just as Ashigaroth landed on top of the Protector that had saved him.

The Stormcast went under in a shriek of metal. The dread abyssal’s knife-like mouthparts went straight for the warrior’s chest, splitting his breastplate in two and digging in. With a toss of the head, it pulled something wispy and golden from the warrior’s ruptured chest cavity and swallowed.

The bolus glowed brightly through Ashigaroth’s skeletal neck as the monster struggled to get it down. It opened its jaws as though to gag, and vomited a bolt of lightning that struck towards the sky. The undead monster slumped forward, eyes quivering, and gave a rattling heave.

Ramus thrust his reliquary up towards the sheets of lightning flashing across the crowded sky. ‘His soul belongs to Sigmar. As does mine. As does yours.’

Ashigaroth heaved forwards and knocked his staff from his hands with a swipe of its claws, then struck him in the chest with the bony bridge of its skull and sent him stumbling. Mannfred stood up in the stirrups, a soft golden light nicking the edges of his armour, and pointed with his sword. ‘Outclassed and ready to die – now I remember you–’

‘Hold, blood-drinker!’

Lord-Castellant Hamilcar strode in from Ramus’ right with his lantern held high, halberd scraping across the wooden ground. Two snarling gryph-hounds came at his side, bursting forwards with a snap of their vicious beaks.

At his back marched a phalanx of Astral Templars, armour scraped and bloodied, adorned with savage icons, but Ramus could not recall any sunrise over Azyrheim so magnificent.

Hamilcar broke into a run. Then his hounds. Then his Liberators. Sigmarite pounded excitedly on thick wood.

‘Cartha is my city, vampire. I am the Bear-Eater, and today you are my prey.’

The Liberators crashed through the beast-born with the pleasure and ease of men kicking in empty packing crates, crushing open a path long enough for Hamilcar and his whirling halberd to charge through.

Ashigaroth twisted to get out of the way. Hamilcar’s blade cracked its shoulder and shards of blackened metal flew loose. The monster bellowed, throat still shivering, and fought to be airborne. Mannfred reined it in with a harsh tug, urging it forward instead to trample the Lord-Castellant under its hell-metal bulk.

Hamilcar raised his halberd across the abyssal’s throat like a barrier. Ashigaroth chomped furiously over the top of the haft for his armoured face, driving the mighty Lord-Castellant a dozen strides back for every snap of its jaws.

With a snarl, Mannfred stabbed for Hamilcar’s neck. The Lord-Castellant ducked the shoulder, bent his neck to the other side, and the blow pierced his cloak to glance off his armour. The abyssal twisted out from Hamilcar’s halberd with a furious shake of the neck and snatched a gryph-hound mid-leap from the air. It shook it hard, and tossed the brutalised animal clear. The second circled in low, clamped its beak on the abyssal’s hind leg, and brought those infamously powerful jaw muscles to bear.

Did unnatural beasts such as this feel pain? Ramus did not know. But he certainly felt the crack of fell metal as the gryph-hound bit down.

The dread abyssal retaliated with a head swipe that sent the Lord-Castellant reeling. Swift as a turning wind, Mannfred twisted in the saddle and plunged his sword through the gryph-hound’s spine.

Ramus snarled. ‘Bring him down! Forget everything that I said. The warrior who slays the vampire will be exalted by Sigmar forevermore.’

Mannfred brought his sword up. ‘Don’t think to forever just yet, Stormcast... You wish to return me to Nagash, but that is a journey I fully intend to make on my own terms.’

Ramus risked a quick backwards look.

His Paladins staggered under bodily blows as beast-born beyond counting ran into them headlong. There was barely room to deploy a shield, much less a thunderaxe, and even the Decimators who would ordinarily relish such a numerical mismatch were dragged into a melee that was literally hand-to-hand. Arriving piecemeal through the scrape of leaves and the snap of reluctant joints, dead things shambled into the stragglers’ backs, driving the ghouls’ unnatural frenzy into the surrounded Stormcasts.

Ramus glanced across to where his reliquary had been tossed. Mannfred was far too fast to let him reach it, far too strong to let the attempt go unpunished.

Hamilcar’s halberd beat a long dent into Ashigaroth’s shoulder blade, shoved it sideways with a shriek, and gave Ramus the time to unsling his silver shield. The Lord-Relictor fed his arm through the straps, and swung in behind the monster.

Sigmar’s Gift was heavy and polished, and carried an unusually wicked edge for a shield. It loosened an old memory, something he had once said to the warriors of his mortal nation as they had marched to war – a command to return with their shields, or on them.

That was how Sigmar wanted the Betrayer, and that was how he would get him.

Ramus struck for the slowly reknitting gash that the gryph-hound had put into Ashigaroth’s hind leg, but rather than putting the dread abyssal onto its belly, his hammer somehow crashed into Mannfred’s steel.

It was like punching a wall. Impact spasms jerked up his neck. He swung his shield across the vampire’s counter, turned the blow over his shoulder and stumbled back from the force. He got his feet into place under him, caught a glimpse of Hamilcar and Ashigaroth trading hits a few feet away, then Mannfred’s meteoric downstroke forced him under his shield again.

‘This realm will be mine, Stormcast. You cannot stop me. If Nagash will not welcome me then I will make him fear me.’

Ramus brought up his hammer as an arcane bolt leapt from Mannfred’s fingertips and scorched his breastplate. In that same moment he saw Hamilcar finally falling under Ashigaroth’s claws. The determined thumps of his halberd against the abyssal’s lower ribs continued, even after the ripping open of his faulds turned curses into screams.

Unable to reach Ramus while his beast finished with the Lord-Castellant, Mannfred let go of the reins and pounced from the saddle, launching himself into a spin of such power that he became a blur. He cannoned into Ramus, smashing him through the struggling cordon of Stormcasts and into a pack of feral beasts. Hands smothered him, scratched and bloody, individually weak but irresistible in such volume. Fingernails dug in between helm and gorget. They pulled at his arms and legs, pounded on his bruised chest. He felt the join between boot and greave creak and fought in vain to draw in his leg. Something bit down on the narrowly opened gap but, to his astonishment, the pain faded almost as quickly as it had flared.

He saw light, golden light, and he was the only one not screaming.

Vandalus.

Finished with the crypt flayers, the Knight-Azyros and his Prosecutors had returned. Beast-born reeled, screams bubbling from their throats as their corrupted flesh steamed, and Ramus immediately shook them off to sit upright. The light eased away his hurt and replenished his heart with faith. He saw Mannfred back warily from the aura, winding his wrist again through Ashigaroth’s hanging reins.

Ramus picked up his shield from where it had fallen on the ground. In that flash of the divine he knew what it was for, as though he had been gifted with it and despatched to the light of Sigmar’s herald for no greater purpose than this.

‘Betrayer,’ he called to Mannfred. ‘I told you that Sigmar knows you.’

He tilted his shield forward, its mirrored face cutting the light stream and turning its full force onto the vampire. Mannfred screamed as though he had been set ablaze, and a moment later the dead thing did indeed burst into purifying flame. Ashigaroth pulled on its wailing master, dragging him off the ground by the reins wrapped around his wrist in its own panic to escape.

‘No!’ Ramus gave a howl of frustration and looked upward. He could not see the Prosecutors directly, but he could tell from the faint shimmer of their wings they were up there. ‘Follow him! Do not allow him to escape again!’

In a sparkling impact of steel and thunder, Vandalus made landfall. The Astral Templar folded back his wings. The glow of burning buildings reflected in his armour made the animal iconography appear to dance.

‘I swore an oath of my own to hold this realm for Sigmar. I cannot fulfil yours for you as well.’

Ramus bustled to his feet in a fury, pushed immediately to the ground again as an ogor came barging through the heaving mass of beast-born, so desperate to pull away from something behind it that even the Hallowed Knights Paladins broke before it. The fat brute stubbed its toe into the ground and tripped. Its face slammed down, blood and spit leaking into the grain. A huge-bladed and oddly shaped axe was stuck in its back.

Ramus turned to look over the crushed bodies it had left in its wake.

Standing there was a dark-skinned orruk in thick armour, painted red and black and marked with a pair of crude glyphs, carrying a heavy, well-made shield. Its face was covered by an up-cutting iron jaw. As difficult as it was to judge an orruk’s mood through a layer of steel, it looked as surprised to see Ramus as Ramus was to see it. Is that what Mannfred had been afraid of? Orruks? Hardly a peril worthy of notice to someone with two gods after his blood. Before he could finish the thought, the orruk was gone.

Vandalus dropped to one knee beside Ramus and hauled him up. ‘Did you see the markings on its armour?’

‘What of them?’

‘They said “Great Red”.’

‘What of it?’

Vandalus clasped his forearm in one hand, his shoulder in the other, and ignited his wings. ‘Come, brother.’

From within the squall of animal cries and shrieking beasts, deep-voiced drums sounded out an urgent rhythm. Faster than a human beat, the tempo of something for whom the killing could not come quickly enough. The occasional, muffled cry of ‘Waaaaaggh!’ rose over the din.

‘Sigmar repopulated other cities here,’ Vandalus explained. ‘Cartha is lost but we have others to protect. Come with us, and perhaps there you will find your vampire again.’

Despite the tension cramping his jaw shut, Ramus nodded.

Cartha had fallen. Now was the time of the beast.

Fist of Mork, Fist of Gork

David Guymer

The fire had been banked with earth and soot, and splinters of creamy white bone sat like teeth in the ashes. Embers spat resentfully at the night. It was almost smokeless. Say what one liked about the Astral Templars – and in the sanctity of his own thoughts, Ramus said plenty – they were not careless. Though they neither felt the cold nor feared the dark, the brooding champions in maroon and gold sat close to the fitfully glowing pit.

Vandalus stared right into the heart of the embers. Even sat as he was with his wings unlit, the Knight-Azyros carried a barbaric kind of nobility. His eyes sparkled like sacred pools, his helm shining in his lap and his long golden hair falling free. He kept his voice low, as though speaking to the fire.

‘The ogor was eighteen feet tall...’

He glanced up. Shadows danced across the metal-cast faces around him. A few were survivors of the siege of Cartha. They had been changed by their time in the wildwood – their armour was scratched and marked with feral icons, their cloaks grimy and torn. The others had been called down in the days and weeks since by the light of Vandalus’ beacon. They were keener in every respect: the bright colours of their armour, the edges of their gladiuses, their faith in their purpose. They sat forwards, attentive, rapt.

‘Eighteen feet tall, and heavier than seven men. Hamilcar had already slain a dozen of the ogor’s best warriors, but we were all tired, all hungry, and this was a brute altogether more formidable than any yet to have breached the gates of Cartha.’

‘There is no ogor so large...’

Ramus was only half attentive, half interested. The warmth of the fire was on his back, his eyes on the dark where he preferred them.

Hacked into by axe and by fire, the Carthic Oldwoods’ northern border looked like the site of any of the thousand massacres that Ramus had seen, after the armies had moved on and the crows were done. Jagged bits of tree stuck out of the ground like the unburied dead, gleaming white in the moonlight where animals had stripped them of bark.

The forest clicked and twittered. An odd snuffling moved through the undergrowth not far from the camp. Gorse, tangled and black and crisp, crunched underfoot as a small party of Hallowed Knights ventured warily ahead. Crouched and alert, Ramus watched the night breathe. ‘Moreover, I doubt there ever has been.’

‘Never is a powerful word to throw around so fearlessly,’ said Vandalus.

Ramus scowled. For him it was comfortable, a settling of facial muscles into positions to which they were well accustomed. No one could see what he thought behind his skull helm in any case. ‘The Lord-Castellant’s deeds that day were impressive enough. Why embellish them?’

Vandalus sighed and leaned forwards, goading the embers to sparks with a dead branch. ‘Hamilcar will return, but what will he remember after his Reforging? Who knows?’ He gestured to the Stormcasts sitting around him. ‘So we will remember for him.’

The animal in the woods snuffled nearer. Hunger coiled Ramus’ guts into knots. He did not know how long it took for a Stormcast to die of hunger. He willed it back. He did not want to be the first Lord-Relictor to return to Sigmar with that knowledge.

The creature stopped moving. A grunting, scraping noise followed, accompanied by the swaying of a pale tree about twenty feet into the forest. Ramus picked up his reliquary, black soil crunching under his grip on the morbid icon. The animal sounded big, which was strange.

Stranger, it sounded careless.

‘If it is untrue then what purpose does it serve?’

‘He died for Sigmar,’ said Vandalus. ‘Is that not worth a little glory?’

One of the fresher-looking Astral Templars leaned in towards the firepit. ‘Perhaps you could tell us the tale of Hamilcar’s fall, Lord-Relictor?’

Vandalus’ eyes sparkled. After weeks of pursuit by ogors, ghoul packs, orruks, and things his language had no name for, this lack of respect was still the most disagreeable thing Ramus had seen since his last death. He could speak of how he and his retinue had held the gates of Cartha, of how he had destroyed the bridge to spare the Astral Templars from being overrun by ghouls, or how he and the Lord-Castellant had fought side by side against the great betrayer, von Carstein. He could have said all that.

‘Sigmar demands much of those to whom much is given. He died for Sigmar. If he desires more glory than that, then I pity him.’

‘Careful, Ramus, a poet lurks somewhere under the black.’

Ramus took a deep breath. The tree had stopped swaying and the rustle of leaf litter was coming nearer. Maybe fifteen feet away now. He strained to see through the tangled moonlight. A twig snapped. He turned towards it, raising his reliquary.

Standing half in shade, sheared by a beam of glittering silver light, was Iunias of the Retributors. He silently gestured for Ramus to follow. The Lord-Relictor nodded, equally silent, and glanced to Vandalus as he pushed off on his reliquary and rose to follow the Retributor.

‘Be ready to move again when I return.’

Iunias clasped Ramus’ pauldron in welcome as he approached, and pointed through an ethereal arch of leaning saplings, bent by wind and scratching beasts, to where Sagittus was standing in a puddle of moonlight, crossbow aimed at the shifting wind.

‘Shhh...’

The Judicator held up a gauntleted finger, listening.

Crouched beside a bole that had been so well polished it shone like a slice of the moon, an Astral Templar wreathed in the skin of a wild boar glanced across at his comrades. In spite of his expressionless dark mask he looked somewhat embarrassed by their attention. He said nothing, however, and returned to his work, chipping at the pale trunk with the glinting tip of his gladius.

Behind the sigmarite of his faceplate, Sagittus exhaled slowly. He dropped his hand, lowered his aim only slightly less grudgingly, and turned to Ramus.

‘I heard... I thought I heard...’

He pulled himself together, shook his head, haloed in moving streams of silver.

‘I thought I heard something.’

Ramus lay a gauntlet on his second’s shoulder. Ghosts. Trees that walked. Animals that could speak as men and adopt human form. Ramus did not doubt that most of the myths of this realm had some truth. Chaos had twisted the realms in countless ways, but Chaos was not the half of it.

The world had been well twisted long before the betrayals of Nagash and Gorkamorka brought the golden Age of Myth crashing down on mortal heads. He sighed.

Betrayal. It always came to that, as constant as a turning world...

But he was Lord-Relictor. His first duty was to abjure and forefend, to keep the souls of his charges pure.

‘Faith, Sagittus. If something calls, let it call the night away. If it comes, I expect it to be filled with bolts.’

Ramus saw the Stormcast relax a little. He clasped his pauldron once more and moved on.

The Astral Templar looked up as he approached. Brakka was, according to Vandalus, something of an unlucky legend. No one had been despatched to the soul-forges more times and been remade. So it was said.

The deep maroon of his armour was almost black, haloed with gold. His cloak was unkempt, similarly colourless in the dark but for a smear of old blood. There were days when Brakka recalled little beyond his name, Sigmar’s, and how to use his hammer, but he could tell dirt from dirt like no one else, alive or dead.

Silently, the warrior indicated a streak of black paint that had been scraped across one flank of the tree – from a shield, perhaps, or an armour plate. He showed Ramus his gladius. There was a tiny sliver of steel there that he had dug out of the wood.

‘They passed this way.’ Ramus did not intend it as a question. He did not need to ask the man whether he was sure.

Brakka nodded.

‘How far ahead?’

The Templar held up a finger and stood, backing off soundlessly, and waved for Ramus to follow. The surrounding trees thinned as he picked his way expertly around them, another flood of moonlight making his armour’s gold edging shine. He pointed through the opening. Ramus turned to look.

The pale tree stubs climbed towards a low rise. Poking out of the summit like snaggled teeth, partially screened off by hanging greenery, the angles of a stone circle gleamed an unquiet white.

A tower made up of bent metal plates, streaked with rust, leaned incongruously into the overgrown henge, like a troggoth spreading out on a sylvaneth’s leafy bed. A dark glyph depicting an iron-fanged jaw with a monstrous underbite caught the moon in its full, faded glory.

Sagittus did not shift his gaze from the forest.

‘A strong vantage point.’

‘Difficult to take by surprise.’

With his eyes, he tracked the most likely path up the slope. He could see where trees had been snapped and brushwood flattened. There were even bits of discarded gear glinting metallically in the undergrowth. Either the ogors had become desperate or the skills of Brakka’s past life were rubbing off on him.

Had the Betrayer got wind of their approach and pushed his warband hard for a last stand on favourable ground? Ramus had wounded the vampire badly in their last encounter. It would be reasonable to conclude that a rematch was low on his list of desires.

‘It is an orruk fort.’

Ramus looked again at the dark stain on Brakka’s cloak. The fight with the black-skinned orruks the first day out from Cartha, or maybe the ambush at the river? The woods were crawling with them, splinter bands of a hundred or so left by the main horde as it pushed forward, through Cartha and on.

Where to, and why? Easier to ask why the tide rises. The going had become easier now the orruks’ front line was behind them, but still...

‘We’ve already lost half an Exemplar Chamber, and I can ill afford to lose more. We should break camp now. We might yet catch them before the dawn.’

‘The vampire will be weaker if we wait for the sunrise, and a little rest will benefit us far more than it will his ogors.’

Iunias’ dry chuckle strained through his mouthpiece.

‘The vampire would move faster without them. He fears this forest’s inhabitants more than he fears us.’

‘And who will teach the Betrayer of his error?’

The dawn would see the return of Mannfred von Carstein to Sigmar, and then the God-King would present the Betrayer to Nagash and the Dark Powers would tremble at what Ramus of the Shadowed Soul had made be. Peace between the two great deities of Order, and Lord-Celestant Tarsus’ soul set free to lead the Hallowed Knights into the great battles that would follow.

Wary despite the excited beating of his heart, he touched his fingertips to the silver rim of his shield, Sigmar’s Gift, and drew his warhammer.

Sagittus and Iunias likewise reached out and brushed the two-tailed comet emblazoned upon it. ‘Only the faithful,’ they intoned in unison.

The summit was empty. More or less.

Birds crowed from the bushes, and from gaps in the odd crushed-together construction of the tower’s rusted outer shell. Ramus could see their beady eyes from within the tangle, hear the impatient shuffle, the rustle of feathers. The birds he could live with. It was the ogors that were causing his senses offence.

There were about three dozen of them lying in wait, hidden from view of the forest by the way the knoll lipped, then dipped, then rose again before reaching the henge. Staked out in neat, slouching files.

Ramus’ nose wrinkled from the stench. He raised his reliquary to indicate a halt, and the Stormcasts’ uphill march clattered to a standstill. Vandalus and the Prosecutors beat hard to hold their positions overhead.

Ramus had been a priest of Sigmar long before he had entered the Temple of Ages and endured the twelve rituals to become Lord-Relictor. The divine storm did not merely imbue him: it was his to channel. He could glimpse into the spirit world and view the soul-eternal.

Something was amiss here. Slimy against his skin, filling his mouth with its taste. Evil had settled into the rugged hilltop’s depressions like stagnant water.

‘Keep your distance.’

He kept an eye on the sagging ranks of ogors as he sidestepped them to a crumble of old wall. Something moved there, slippery, like an eel squirming over his spiritual sense. He brushed aside a creeper.

The ruin was daubed with finger art, just enough paint left to make out the shapes of beasts and monsters. A chill passed through his empty belly, as if he could hear the trumpeting of the herds through his fingertips on the stone.

He shivered. Without them altering in any discernible way, the images seemed to slide across the wall and back into cover. Stick figures carrying spears followed them. They were green-black, faded, thicker drawn around the arms than the legs.

‘Be this the work of men or orruks...?’

He withdrew his hand. The wall was empty.

Chanting a prayer for the rebinding of his soul, he turned away, aware without needing to see it that the images would be spreading back. This had been someone’s holy site once, long before the Age of Sigmar, a place where men had worshipped the turning of the seasons or the migrations of the herds.

‘And Mannfred has taken the time to defile it. Why?’

‘Lord-Relictor.’

Iunias pointed with his star-soul mace.

‘Over there, by the tower.’

Ramus looked. A set of stone steps led up to a bulging metal doorframe, bent outward in the middle as though by generations of too-wide elbows. The door itself had warped almost off its hinges. The lintel stone was festooned with bone fetishes made from small animals and birds, which clinked together like wind chimes.

What Iunias was pointing to, however, was on the steps, or flanking them – two more rows of stakes each topped with a human skull at a jaunty tilt, and articulated to a crudely wired skeleton. Some of the bones were still fleshed, and even had thin bristles of hair, but they had clearly been here a lot longer than Mannfred’s ogor allies.

An outraged murmur passed through the Astral Templars. Azyrheimer or native tribespeople, the people of this land had been sworn to their protection. Loudly muttering oaths of vengeance to his brothers, against ogors and orruks in equal measure, one of the Liberators wandered towards the front rank of stakes.

Ramus received the sudden sense of something buried deep inside the nearest ogor’s dead flesh. Wispy and faint, it glowed torpidly.

A soul. Sigmar, the ogor was not dead.

‘Away from it. Away, now!’

The ogor gave a deep, fleshy moan and made a grab for the Liberator. The stake creaked forward, but had been set deep into the hard ground. The ogor flailed as though it were drowning in mud.

The Astral Templar gave the bloated zombie a moment’s baleful look, then mashed in its head with a side-on crack from his hammer. It caved like an oversized fruit, splattering rotten mush all over the Liberator’s armour.

The undead thing stopped jerking and slumped back. Its neighbour however turned its neck towards the Stormcasts, eyes rolling like dice in a cup, and began to moan. Then its neighbour started to struggle against its stake until the whole hilltop rumbled with grunts and barks.

Ramus backed off, arms spread to dissuade anyone else from getting any closer. The cacophony echoed from the tower, carrion birds billowing through cracks and windows in a panic. It rang from the old stones of the henge, pealing out over the bleak wood like a funerary bell.

With his reliquary a barrier in front of the line of Stormcasts, he pressed a finger to his helm’s gumless teeth. The warriors fell silent. After about a minute of unrewarded thrashing and moaning, the ogors too fell still.

‘A curse on this place.’

It dawned on him then that Mannfred’s ogors must have perished weeks ago. That was how they had kept ahead of the Stormcasts without food or rest. In the time he had wasted chasing down a shambling decoy, Mannfred and his abyssal mount could be anywhere. The Betrayer had never even been here at all.

‘Damn it!’

He raised his reliquary and unleashed a bolt of lightning upon one of the standing stones. It blasted apart, rubble clattering against the wall of the derelict tower and tumbling down the opposite slope.

Vandalus descended slowly, dropping the final dozen feet to land beside him.

‘Better?’

‘No.’

With a jab of his reliquary that clinked the dusty relics stored within, Ramus pointed to one of the dully moaning corpses.

‘Let it down.’

The gore-splattered Liberator shrugged, set down his hammer as he moved round behind the corpse, and then raised his boot.

The kick snapped the stake in half. The ogor barked out a moan, raising the dead trunk of an arm at its assailant, but missed by a foot as its face crashed into the dirt. A gut that rigor mortis had made no firmer rippled under it as the ogor dug fingers into the dirt and tried to rise.

It moved as a dead thing moved, uncaring for the fingernail that snapped off against a stone or the awkward bend demanded of its elbows and knees. With a wet groan it fumbled to its feet, tottered for a moment, unbalanced by its own tremendous paunch, and then lunged for Ramus with a snarl.

It came at him so clumsily that even as a mortal man he could probably have got out of the way, the sway of its gut dragging it a foot off to the side for every forward stumble it took.

But Ramus could barely recall what mortality must have felt like, and he had no intention of going anywhere. He ducked under the shambler’s swinging arm, stepped in close to its sloughing chest, and forced fingers around its throat.

His grip could have bent iron. The ogor’s neck squelched and popped as flesh and ligaments gave, but it was well beyond the need for breath. Semi-congealed fluids leaked through Ramus’ fingers as it pushed against his grip.

With its greater reach and uncaring strength it clobbered him. Massive arms bashed his helm one way and then the other. He gritted his teeth and bore it, squeezed harder. The ogor’s eyes bulged, and then something in its neck went snap.

The body fell limp, collapsing into Ramus’ grip. With a grunt of effort, he drew the ogor a little higher so his arm was outstretched and almost vertical, supporting the ogor’s weight by its broken neck. Bloodshot eyes rolled in their sockets. Its jaw worked drily.

Ramus snarled through gritted teeth.

‘Yield.’

He spoke not just with his own voice, but also with his spirit voice. The weird doubling effect gave the watching Stormcasts chills.

The ogor’s eyes flickered, seeming to focus on him, then went placid. Its tongue creaked and rolled, a gasp of stale air wheezing from the back of its throat.

‘Never, shiny man. Skraggtuff won’t never yield to no one.’

Vandalus and the watching Astral Templars murmured in surprise and revulsion.

Even Brakka glanced over and made a warding sign of some kind across his chest. Ramus ignored them, bending his will towards the ogor’s small, confused soul. It was likely that the trapped spirit did not yet even realise it was dead.

‘Mannfred has betrayed you, left your tribe here to die. Join us, Skraggtuff, and help me take vengeance upon him.’

The ogor’s throat rattled, eyes rolling inwards as it remembered.

‘Betrayed... Gaarrgh, I remember... I remember, the slimy gnoblar... I’ll have out his guts and eat ’em.’

‘Tell me what you remember.’

‘Promised us food. Promised our lands back... But he didn’t care. Only wanted someone to fight him through the Ironjawz. Us and them eaters he took from the Tree City...’

‘Ironjawz?’

If Vandalus was troubled by this news of the ghouls that Mannfred had made of the citizens of Cartha then he hid it well.

‘I’ve heard of them. An orruk tribe that once dominated here, before the Age of Chaos gave them greater battles in other places. Do they make a return?’

He stepped nearer.

‘Have they come to fight us?’

But Skraggtuff did not answer. He could see or hear no one but Ramus.

‘And where did Mannfred want you to take him? Where has he gone?’

‘Over the mountains... The Bone Sea... Talks about it always, never stops...’

Ramus glanced to Vandalus. From the first day, the Astral Templar had sought to convince him to seek out the Celestial Realm within the Sea of Bones. The convergence of their two objectives could only have been a sign that Sigmar yet smiled on his quest.

‘What does he seek there?’

‘Dunno. Talks about it always, but never says anything...’

‘Do you think it’s the realmgate itself that Mannfred is after? Does he seek to take an army to Azyrheim?’ Vandalus asked.

Ramus gave a curt shake of his head. ‘Mannfred is many things. I’ll say this for him, he is no fool.’

He turned back to the ogor, but before he could interrogate the soul further a set of iron shutters mounted just below the tower’s conical roof squealed open.

An orruk of staggering immensity squeezed his head and shoulders through the window and looked down. Jewellery dangled perilously from flappy ears, from a lower lip thicker than both of Ramus’, and from a heavy, sloping brow.

Had the brute been squatting on the henge-side of the tower then Ramus could begin to imagine why the structure would have such difficulty remaining upright. He was that big. A tatty cloak of what looked like human flesh with iron squares sewn in scraped against the window’s metal sides.

In a guttural patois, the orruk spoke.

‘Dis is Weird Zog’s hill!’

Ramus made to raise his reliquary and call down Sigmar’s storm, but Vandalus’ hand was the faster. The Knight-Azyros caught his arm at the gardbrace and eased the reliquary back down.

‘There was a truce once, brother, between the orruk tribes and the native men of the Oldwoods. They aren’t unreasonable, if you can convince them to respect you.’

Pushing Ramus aside, he stepped forward, his celestial beacon and his starblade held out wide to make himself appear large. He ignited his wings in a scream of lightning.

‘My name is Vandalus. Men once knew me as the King of Dust, the conqueror of the Yellow Sea, and now Herald of Sigmar. My lord and yours are the best of rivals, orruk, but there is no hatred between them. Tell us how you came by these ogors, and we will pass.’

The orruk’s face twisted in anger. He jabbed a thick finger, metal ringed, at the broken zombie still in Ramus’ grip.

‘Dat woz mine.’

‘But how–’

‘Mine! Traded good iron fer it. Now look.’

He looked over the armoured Stormcasts and gave a yellowing, gap-toothed snarl.

‘Wot’s meat worth, thunder man?’

The orruk uttered no prayer, performed no arcane gesture, but his eyes suddenly began to glow green. A halo whooshed up from his slab shoulders, as though he had doused himself in oil and been set alight. The green flames rose into the hulking form of a looming orruk, two heads thrashing to tear their conjoined body apart.

Ramus saw it, though he was not sure the others did. This Zog was a weirdnob. A shaman. The orruk gave a drunken, demented laugh.

‘Mine!’

Ramus spat a hurried counter-prayer, but abandoned it before the opening line was out as a massive ectoplasmic fist condensed above his head. It crackled with white veins. A ghostly umbilical ribboned back to the weirdnob in his tower.

The orruk pulled up his shoulder, and hefted his magical fist high. Ramus swore, wrestled Vandalus back with his arms around the Knight-Azyros’ shoulders, and both went tumbling as the great fist slammed down.

Rock blasted apart in a roar, arcs of green lightning mushrooming from the crater. The mace-wielding Astral Templar that had been directly under the impact was obliterated. Ramus saw the warrior come apart through the fizzing green: a man, then a statue made of dust that burst apart as the bolt of lightning tore his soul back to Sigmar.

Energy surged out from the impact site at terrific speed. Stormcasts hit by the blast screamed, armour seared, bent, buckled, all in the span of a split-second as the force bubble enveloped them and then threw them out across the hilltop.

Ramus was already down when the bubble burst, and that was probably what saved his life. He felt the ground tense up, recoil from the blow, then flex back with a vengeance, flipping him over.

A Prosecutor of the Astral Templars cartwheeled across his line of sight. A Hallowed Knight hauled himself from the rubble of a wall. He heard Vandalus yelling orders, felt the rush of wings and saw him shoot into the air. Ramus stabbed his reliquary into the bucking ground like an oar into wild waters, and, dizzied but unbowed, he stood.

He called for the Retributor and Protector Primes, his vision spinning with bodies and residual force.

‘Iunias. Cassos. Spread out and fall back to the forest. Make way for the Judicators. Sagittus!’

‘Here, Lord-Relictor.’

‘Bring that shaman down.’

The Judicator retinues were pushing into the foliage that blocked up the henge, squatting amidst the rubble walls for cover when the order was given.

‘Loose!’

Their aim was exemplary, but with the ground shaking and the tower swaying it would have taken a god to score a hit and the sigmarite-tipped bolts duly plugged the surrounding metal walls.

A moan arose from the small rocky crater that the weirdnob had punched out of the hill. One of the stakes had been knocked over and the captive had rolled in – still impaled, the ogor was crawling up the near side.

Sagittus half-ran from his retinue to the lip of the hole and loosed his crossbow. The bolt fizzed through one ear and spat out the other, pitching the shambler face down into the mud.

Weird Zog screamed, smouldering green eyes bulging from his face.

‘Miiiine!’

With the back of his fist he banged on the tower’s exterior wall, another half-formed spectral hand slicing back and forth across the face of the moon.

‘I know you boyz ain’t still asleep in dere. Get out here you lazy sloggerz. Weird Zog’s Weirdmob. Great Red. Waaagh!’

There came a pounding from inside of the tower. Ramus turned towards the rusted gate at the top of the skeleton-lined steps just as a monstrous iron boot kicked the doors open.

Ramus gripped his staff tight. The figure blocked the door. His first thought was that it was an armoured construct of some kind. Surely nothing natural could be large enough to have been encased inside.

It thumped down the steps, four at a time, and turned its fang-like face grille as an Astral Templars Liberator charged it with a feral yell. The thing hit the Stormcast with a metal bludgeon so hard that the warrior was almost knocked out by his own shield.

The Liberator staggered into the tower’s wall, shook out his shield arm and barked like a wounded savage as the thing came at him with its other weapon. A huge iron gauntlet, claw-hooked and painted red, clamped shut over the warrior’s breastplate and the Astral Templar was lifted, snarling, from the ground.

Unyielding sigmarite and pitted iron scraped against one another, and then the armoured orruk slammed the Liberator hard into the ground. It turned to Ramus.

The face grille passed through the moonlight, and Ramus saw the dark green flesh and brutish yellow eyes banded in shadow inside. He saw the whole thing swell up with a deep breath.

‘Waaaaaaggh!’

More clanked down the steps, far too big to run, big enough that it did not matter. Eight. Maybe nine. They were too large, their armour too mismatched and misshapen, to count them properly. Ramus knew that orruks grew throughout their lives as they aged and fought, but he had never encountered even the mightiest warboss as big as the least of these... these... Ironjawz.

Ramus raised his reliquary like a standard and let it crackle with Azyrite energy as another swing of the claw smashed in a Liberator’s faceplate and blasted him back to Sigmar.

‘Faithful, to me!’

The remaining Astral Templars converged. A similar body of Hallowed Knights would have formed a shield wall, trusted to their comrades in arms to protect them, but the Astral Templars came at the orruks like wolves in winter.

Hammers of holy sigmarite crashed against iron plating. Axes, clubs and mace-like gauntlets beat on shields. A Liberator was suddenly hoisted like a banner above the melee in the first brute’s claw, kicking uselessly at its head.

Another warrior drove the pointed base of his shield into the joint behind its knee. It grunted and buckled slightly. The suspended warrior got his fingers into the orruk’s grille and tore at it with a vicious, animal sound burbling from behind his own mask.

The Ironjaw bellowed back, spraying both helms with spittle, and grunted in sudden pain as a shaft of light scalded across his grille.

Vandalus dropped out of the night sky like a falling star, trailing fire, and threw out a beam of golden light that hammered the big orruk full in the chest. The brute was thrown back, armour charred, as though taken out by a charging knight with a lance. Vandalus shot past.

Stabbing light beams blitzed the confusion of metal bodies, burning orruks, invigorating the Stormcasts, and in a rumble of thunder the Azyros flashed over the henge and was gone. His Prosecutors followed through the smoke in close formation, hammering the standing Ironjawz with javelins.

A broad brute in spiky plate adorned with glyphs and with a javelin sticking out of his immense pectoral armour shook a fist at the passing heralds, punched away an Astral Templar’s shield and hacked the warrior almost in half down to the groin.

‘Only the faithful!’

Ramus watched as Iunias led the Hallowed Knights Paladins forward. Of the thirty despatched with him from Sigmaron, just ten were left, the losses felt most keenly by the Decimator and Protector retinues.

The last of them remained close to Ramus as a bodyguard while the Retributors broke forward. There was no shield wall here, but no man ran a single stride ahead of another. They were a storm of thunder and faith that would break the enemy as Sigmar would one day break the hosts of Chaos.

A lightning hammer split open an Ironjaw’s crude belly plate in a violent thunderclap, doubling it over. Iunias was already following through, star-soul mace rising, cracking back its head and breaking its neck in one powerful blow. The remainder of his retinue piled in behind.

The Judicators meanwhile were keeping up their barrage on Weird Zog. The second fist coalesced out of the rain of moonlit debris, the left to the other’s right. The green was lighter, less corded with veins, knuckles knobbled with bone rings. That was where the differences ended.

The henge and five of the Judicators disappeared under the falling green slab, nothing left of either but a hole in the ground.

They could not afford these losses. They were few enough as it was. Ramus pushed up his reliquary just as it thumped out a crackling wave of power.

‘Pull them away from the tower, Sagittus! The shaman is mine...’

Overhead, black clouds boiled in the dark sky. He roared into the sudden gale.

‘Sigmar! Heldenhammer! Stormlord! Show this beast the light of Azyrheim!’

Lightning cracked down from the churning thunderhead and blasted the roof off the tower. Scraps of hissing metal rained down, what remained resembling a twig that had been brutally twisted off its branch. The weirdnob leaned out and looked up, livid.

Power leapt from the tip of Ramus’ staff and earthed in the crooked iron conductor that was the orruk’s tower. Ramus gritted his teeth, tasted salt and copper, charge pouring from his staff and into the tower until the structure began to glow blue, tendrils of Azyrite power ribboning up and down its length.

The weirdnob gripped the sides of his window and seized. Saliva foamed from his mouth. Energy ran through his chest, lit up his eyes, and sprayed from his ears.

Finally the orruk managed to let go, coughed up a smoke ring and tipped forward. Ramus lowered his staff.

The orruk hit the bottom step like a sack of nails, managed a half-somersault and slammed into the ground face down, neck bent under its own massive shoulders.

The silence that fell was so abrupt that even the ogors with their moans seemed too taken aback to fill it properly. Smaller pieces of glowing metal pattered over the two new craters.

Ramus turned to Brakka, who pulled a bloody gladius from an Ironjaw’s throat between helm and gorget and–

He stopped, and looked back to the fallen weirdnob.

‘Sigmar, surely not...’

With a stiff grunt, the weirdnob pushed himself off the ground. Ramus watched with amazement as the orruk continued to unfold. Even his own hulking warriors, even the ogors, straining to grab at his cloak, had little over him by way of height and all were shamed in a comparison of muscle.

The orruk bulged. Brushing some of the black, peeling bits from his arm with a clink of his metal-sewn cloak, the weirdnob looked at Ramus and cackled. His teeth were as wide as Ramus’ fingers and yellow as off milk.

‘Morky. Very Morky.’

The orruk’s grin devolved into something rubbery and evil. His eyes flashed green.

And then his head exploded.

Vandalus’ starblade carved through the weirdnob’s skull and deep into the dense muscle of the neck as the Knight-Azyros dropped from a great height, slamming bodily into the dead remains of the orruk a split-second later.

He whipped up, agile as a mountain cat, holding out his lantern and tearing back the shutter to burn the Ironjawz coming towards him. Cassos despatched the last with an explosive uppercut from his stormstrike glaive.

Leaning against his staff, Ramus pushed away the sudden wave of weariness. He turned to Vandalus, voice even, choosing to ignore the fact that they were both breathing hard and doused in gore, as if their earlier conversation had never been interrupted.

‘I assume you know how to reach the Sea of Bones?’

‘The Belial Ocean Pass is the only way to move an army over the mountains and it is a month or more in the taking, at least. But we are few now, as Mannfred’s own forces must be. It is possible that we could risk the Heldenline.’

A shiver passed through Ramus at that, and he had to look up to reassure himself that a black cloud had not just stolen the moon away. He turned his skull-faced mask to look north.

There, beyond the ghostly prickling of lifeless woods, an ugly, heavily weathered old mountain range cast long shadows over the landscape. They were lumpen and misshaped, and appeared almost to move as Ramus watched them. A trick of the dark, surely?

But he had heard of the Heldenline...

‘Lord-Relictor?’

The shiver ran down Ramus’ arm and prompted his fist to clench. He squatted down and took hold of Skraggtuff’s neck where he had dropped the ogor. The brute’s features still held their ghoulish semblance of un-life.

‘Get off! Skraggtuff doesn’t want–’

The corpse’s spine crunched, his head coming away from his shoulders in a wrenching of crushed bone and fleshy tendrils. His eyes twitched.

‘Ow.’

The head bobbled over the broken ground to Brakka’s feet. The Astral Templar looked down at it without a word.

‘We have a guide. We take the Heldenline.’

‘You have heard of the Heldenline, Lord-Relictor?’

Sagittus, tramping through the rugged scree of the mountain pass, held out his arms for balance on the loose ground. Dawn was creeping over the peaks, leaving slashes of pink here, or gold there, while in creases and folds the old night lingered.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Your reaction when Vandalus mentioned it. I have fought alongside you for some time now, Lord-Relictor.’

Ramus nodded. He was Lord-Relictor, of the fourth Stormhost to be forged. Of the twelve rituals he had endured, the first had been of Recitation – to weed out the unworthy early, he supposed, for the histories of the realms were neither pleasant nor short.

He carried those stories proudly, like scars. History was a passion, and he had few enough of those. His knowledge of it went deeper and further than most men would dare.

‘Long ago, early in the Age of Myth, there was a tribe of orruks known as the Junkar that lived in these mountains. Favoured by both halves of their unruly god, revelling equally in trickery and in war, they were unbeatable in any arena. Men fled the cities in their millions, sealing the realmgates behind them as they went, and the Junkar rampaged up and down the realm for generations.’

Like almost every such tale Ramus had committed to memory, it was one of unparalleled might leading to an even mightier fall.

‘So glutted on battle had the leaders of the Junkar become, so massive had they grown that, unassailably mighty though they were, every battle left them wearier than the last, and every march to new fields became more arduous. In the end, they no longer moved at all, settling in the mountains that they had once called home.’

Sagittus pivoted his boltstorm crossbow almost imperceptibly towards the brooding line of unpleasant peaks.

‘The Junkar Mountains...’

‘A name not lightly bestowed, not here.’

‘I assume they must have perished long ago.’

‘An orruk’s need for conflict knows no bounds and over the centuries, the Junkar abandoned their god and turned their war upon each other. Some treatises claim it to be the longest unbroken war in the history of the realms or the world-that-was. They say it continues to this day. Only a narrow strip of neutral ground holds the two sides apart: those pledged to Mork – he who was cunning but brutal – and those pledged to Gork – he who was brutal but cunning. It was called the Heldenline.’

He rapped his staff on the stony ground.

‘For Sigmar Heldenhammer. It was he, in the closing days of the age, who had personally bested both sides’ champions and wrought this thin margin of peace, hoping one day to reunite them again and turn them against the Dark Powers.’

He snorted, unsure whether to continue.

‘In some of those accounts, it was said that the God-King was so badly beaten that his men did not initially believe it was truly him when he returned to Sigmaron.’

Ramus plunged his staff into the rocky scree, rubble sliding around his boots, and looked darkly over the misshapen piles of rock that loomed high on either side.

The largest was little over half a mile high, but they were rugged, intimidating, bunched up against one another like a wall of barbarian hillsmen about to pour into the pass. Coarse black vegetation coated their upper reaches, the occasional spindly tree hanging from a crag and nodding in the wind.

That wind was strangely humid and sulphurous. Furrows blew through the short grasses, flattening and stiffening them, reminding Ramus horribly of human hair.

An odd grunting sound echoed amongst the flat-topped peaks. An animal, perhaps, or a pack of them, but Ramus could see nothing move and the sounds seemed to come from nowhere in particular before the echoes took them on and carried them.

Iunias and the Retributors were several hundred yards deeper into the pass, walking slowly, arranged in a lopsided chevron with the Prime at its head. From right to left the pass was steeply sloped, the ground loose so the warrior on the far left wing was struggling to push his feet through the stones.

Following a few hundred paces behind, spread out in no particular formation, the Judicators covered their brothers’ advance. They were wary, very wary, strain showing in every stop, start and shift of their crossbows.

Ramus tried, and failed, to shake off the sense that the mountains themselves were watching him, growing taller, inch by inch.

Or moving closer. Inch by inch.

‘Easy. Have faith, brothers.’

He shook his head firmly, resting a hand on Skraggtuff’s large skull, which now hung from his hip – Brakka had shown an uncommon artistry with a knife. The skull’s jaw opened and closed silently, wordlessly, still animated by whatever dark magic clutched at the ogor’s soul. It and the shield on Ramus’ back clanked against his armour as he walked. The echoes were aggressive and over-loud.

Half an eye on the peaks, he tried to walk more evenly, but the moving ground made even that impossible, and two-score armoured Stormcasts simply could not move silently.

The Astral Templars took the rear, quiet for perhaps the first time in their lives, carefully watching the mountains.

‘Our destination is in sight!’

Vandalus’ cry called Ramus’ attention upwards. Prosecutors in maroon and gold banked and soared on wings of light. They looked tiny, specks of gold with their own glowing haloes. They were spread out in a long line, the most distant far out of sight, and likely already overflying the Sea of Bones. He tried to draw reassurance from that, but for some reason could not.

He watched Vandalus swoop towards the right hand of the range. He felt his heart jump into his mouth, struck by a sudden fear of those mountains that was all the more crippling for being an emotion he had never thought he would experience again. He stumbled, wargear clanking, let go of Skraggtuff and tightened his grip on his reliquary as though the safeguarding of Sigmar’s realm depended on it.

‘Do not venture from the Heldenline!’

The pass pulled his voice apart and scattered it.

The Heldenline... The Heldenline... The Heldenline...

Rather than simply diminishing, the echoes became successively more brutish, grunts and growls in place of syllables, and what came back was a horrific distortion of his words.

HELDENLINE.

Wincing, Ramus waved his arm in from the right.

‘Keep back...’

Back... Back... Back...

Signalling that he understood, the Knight-Azyros veered off, but Iunias raised his hand sharply and the Retributors ground to a halt.

BACK.

There was something there in the pass ahead of them, a hump, like a sand dune made of stones or some kind of cairn. Its presence alone could not explain the odd prickling that the sight of it gave Ramus inside his skull. People died and were buried under piles of stones in mountains across the Mortal Realms, but no one had passed this way in centuries.

Except for Mannfred, of course. Except for Mannfred.

‘Weapons!’ he roared – to hell with his guttural echo! – tearing free his hammer just as the first skeletal arm burst through the stone pile and seized Iunias’ leg. The Retributor swept up his mace, but was pulled to the ground, fleshless limbs sprouting from it to claw at his breastplate.

More were rising. Dozens. Hundreds. The split-crack report of the Retributors’ lightning hammers already echoed around. Sagittus gave the order and the Judicators poured a salvo of bolts into the half-buried horde.

A rattle from further up the pass spun Ramus around. Another legion of skeleton warriors was digging itself up out of the ground.

‘It’s an ambush!’

Brakka thrust his warhammer and gladius to the heavens, gave a bloodcurdling howl, and charged alone towards the second force. As though granted permission, the other Astral Templars erupted with cries, each one their own, and tore off in ragged pursuit.

The Astral Templars could fight – by the Celestial Dragon, could they fight! – but Ramus wasn’t about to rely on them to be as diligent in defence of their brothers as they were in the persecution of their foes. And forward lay the path to the Betrayer.

‘Who shepherds the souls of the lost to Sigmaron?’

‘Only the faithful!’

No one was bothering to be quiet now and to Ramus’ surprise it felt good. He almost smiled. That was how good it felt.

Bellowing a prayer to Sigmar that was as loud as any he had ever made, he sent a bolt of lightning splintering through the ranks of undead.

‘Who confronts the blasphemous and the unclean?’

‘Only the faithful!’

Lightning whipped and arced from his reliquary, his ghoulish helm strobing blue-white and black. Skeletons exploded, bone chips scything through the horde and littering Ramus’ path with blackened shrapnel that popped under his boots.

A bony legionnaire in a tarnished breastplate and helm, missing one arm and half its ribcage, tottered towards him. With a growl, Ramus hefted his reliquary staff, staving in the undead warrior’s skull and sending what was left of it sailing into the melee.

‘Who will be victorious?’

‘Only the faithful!’

A beam of light lensed down from the sky, strafing through Ramus, Iunias, Sagittus, and back up the pass. For the moment that it illuminated him, Ramus felt uplifted, as though faith in Sigmar’s will alone was enough to carry the day. Vandalus arrowed overhead, low, fast, the golden light of Azyrheim shining from his lantern and burning a trench through the undead.

‘Back to your graves, damn you!’

The light was Sigmar’s gaze, and where it fell on them the spirit that animated the undead warriors simply evaporated into the air, leaving lifeless bones that collapsed like dominoes in the Azyros’ wake.

He banked hard and pulled up, beating his wings to go chasing some screeching ethereal thing that rippled over his head.

Iunias delivered swift and crushing blows with his star-soul mace, blasting skeleton warriors apart.

‘Praise be to Sigmar, Lord-Relictor!’

Ramus grinned.

‘Praise be to Sigmar indeed. Shoulder to shoulder! Form a wedge and drive through – let us show these Astral-savages how the Hallowed Knights wage war!’

His warriors cheered with one voice, the clashing of plate making them a single armoured body. Theirs was not the war of hotheads or angry hearts. That was the purview of the Astral Templars and the orruks, and they were welcome to it. The Hallowed Knights’ strength was in discipline, conviction, faith in each other. It was worship in silver and blue, and it led Ramus’ heart in song.

‘Forward!’

The phalanx advanced. Skeleton warriors, still spread out and facing the wrong way to confront the change in formation, broke against a rolling wall of sigmarite. Lightning hammers spoke with ear-splitting booms.

The last two Decimators took the edges, handling their long-hafted thunderaxes with consummate skill and no little grace, armoured Paladins weaving about themselves ribbons of bone fragments and seething energies. As one they ground forward.

A notched blade slid under a Retributor’s armpit. He screamed and then dissolved into a rising bolt of lightning, back to Sigmar.

The Judicator at his back smashed open the skeleton’s skull with a torrent of bolts. The warrior to his left stepped in to fill his place, crushing the skeleton underfoot. The formation narrowed. Ramus yelled over the din of battle.

‘On! On! I can see the end!’

Or, at least, he believed he could, and belief had always been enough.

The echoes of battle creaked through the sullen range, changing as Ramus’ voice had been changed. The crack of rock, the tearing of roots, the split of stone.

But not of stone.

The ground shuddered and groaned, a reverberating string of snaps of knotted old muscle and cable-tight sinew. Ramus swayed with the tremors. From where he was standing, at the far left edge of the Heldenline, the mountain that Vandalus was flying over seemed to uncurl. He stopped fighting for a moment to stare upwards.

‘Sigmar give me courage. Sigmar give me strength.’

That explained the disappearance of the Junkar. The legend had said they had grown massive...

Ramus could only watch as an arm to rival the great spires of Sigmaron rose slowly up into the sky, blocking out the sun and plunging the pass into shadow.

‘I told you, Knight-Azyros – do not cross the line!’

Watching that mountainous limb come down was like watching a glacier wall falling away – apparently slow, but only because it was so very, very large. Vandalus was already moving out of its path, wings folded and dropping like a stone.

The arm missed him by at least a hundred feet but it was so impossibly big that it dragged a void behind it that the surrounding air rushed in to fill. Ramus saw the Knight-Azyros snatched up, wings rifling, rushing back up over the Junkar’s swing, and then sent spinning out of control.

A great wrenching from the opposite side of the pass turned Ramus around. Immense pillars of legs were unfolding, light coming through newly opened gaps, drawing away from the soil they had become rooted in over thousands of years.

His head tilted as far back as the join between helm and gorget would allow, he backed away. As if he could escape that.

A monster that defied his ability to describe stood tall. The crack of a neck thicker than the Hallowed Knights’ formation sent trees and rubble cascading down its chest.

‘Beware!’

Sagittus dropped to his knees and raised his arms over his head as boulders fell amongst them. Cassos fell, but his blessed sigmarite armour held firm.

Ramus looked back to the mountains. The pass was suddenly about a hundred yards narrower. Half of the fragile skeletons still in front of them were gone, obliterated utterly.

More Junkar were stirring on both sides of the line. A question, wildly, inappropriately urgent, arose in Ramus’ mind.

Which side is for Gork, and which for Mork?

The answer was irrelevant, but for a paralysing moment his mind refused to consider anything else. He thumped the side of his helmet, stabbed his staff into the ground to push himself back up, and then raised it high.

‘Sigmar, be my hammer!’

Lightning lanced from his reliquary and blackened a portion of the mountain. It was like trying to burn down a cliff face.

Vandalus was having similar luck. The Knight-Azyros had stabilised himself now and was sending tight beams of light into the mossy eyes of the Junkar on the other side of the pass. They simply rumbled in annoyance and shut their eyes, their eyelids thick like curtain walls. It slowed them if nothing else, but the Heldenline was continuing to close.

Those enormous eyes ground open again and, for a moment, Ramus thought he saw a glimmer of recognition, as though the Junkar felt the touch of something to be feared in his power.

It was not just his imagination that made the word Sigmar from those echoing, brutish grumbles.

Ramus spread his arms wide, to both sides, as though when the moment came he would hold the truce that the God-King had won in battle with his bare hands, and dug deep of the divine storm.

‘Lords of the Junkar. In the names of Mork and of Gork and of Sigmar before whom you swore peace, I command you back.’

Nothing but the tearing of rock and the calamitous pounding of the earth. Vandalus circled overhead, coming heavily in to land alongside Ramus.

‘We are warriors of Sigmar!’

He held his lantern aloft and let it bathe them both in light. Ramus’ reliquary blazed.

‘No one relishes a fight more than us, but when there are greater foes to be found, you orruks and we men of Sigmar have always fought side by side. Fight with us now!’

The nearest of the Junkar lowered its immense fist. It blinked glacially. A confused grumble trembled out into the deepest reaches of the range.

Ramus gave a snort of disbelief. They were heeding Vandalus and not the power that imbued him? But no. He realised. They were heeding the both of them, together. One Mork, the other Gork, Sigmar the divine and Sigmar the barbarian king.

A skeleton rattled towards him, the Stormcasts’ tight formation well and truly broken open. His hammer’s sideswipe knocked its teeth through the side of its skull. Vandalus stamped through the ribs of another that was crawling towards him.

The Junkar gave an ominous rumble.

Ramus cursed them, inwardly. He was not Sigmar. If asked, he would fight the Junkar and give praise for it, but theirs was not his war. It was time to get out.

‘Ruuuuuuuuuun!’

It was an unfamiliar order, but came surprisingly naturally in that moment.

Iunias smashed a skeleton apart, shoulder-barged another as it blundered into Ramus’ path and roared as two more grabbed him from behind and threatened to wrestle him to the ground. Ramus stopped to help him up.

‘Leave me!’

Iunias dropped his mace to reach back and haul the skeleton over his shoulder. The Retributor wrung its spine between his massive hands. Another charged into his back, almost knocking him flat.

‘I will hold them here. Go.’

Ramus grimaced, but nodded, already backing off.

‘Tell Sigmar when you see him, he will soon have his vengeance.’

Iunias was chanting the canticles, joy in his voice, as he went under. Ramus turned and almost ran straight into Vandalus.

‘My men, brother. They’re trapped further back in the pass. I’ll not abandon them!’

‘You will see them again! You cannot fight an army and I cannot hold back a mountain! We have to leave!’

With a howl of anguish, Vandalus spun around and took to the air, leaving the Lord-Relictor alone. Ramus turned to watch the Astral Templars fight. They died for Sigmar and the least he could do was remember their story to tell of it.

And, by the Celestial Dragon, could they fight.

The last thing he saw was Brakka, the last man standing, hammer in one hand and gladius in the other, bellowing for all he was worth atop a pile of bones. No one had been despatched to the soul-forges more times and been remade.

An unlucky legend that would not end today.

A dry wind breathed over the Sea of Bones, like a bored and ancient ghost blowing dust from the flat expanse. A pall hung over it, bone white, cloaking the sky with the diffuse, eerie glow of endlessly refracted sunlight.

But there was no sun. Twisters of dust twice the height of a man snaked over the barren wastes.

Ramus had been expecting the sea that the name implied, but what dragged at his boots now was a vast desert, not one of ice or sand, but of bone. Bones of every type. Bones of every age and species and extent of decay.

And there was dust. He would not have been surprised to learn that it was endless. Such a natural barrier was surely impassable, even for the Junkar of old. That was how it had come to be named.

How many millions – billions – must have perished here? What disaster had slaughtered them, and what madness allowed the creation of this mass grave? Those were questions that even Sigmar might struggle to answer, but there was one that Ramus felt he could now answer for himself.

He knew why Mannfred von Carstein had come here.

‘What is that?’ murmured Sagittus. Dust had built up around his eyeslits and mouthpiece, and ground from his joints like pepper from a mill when he raised his arms to cover his eyes and peer into the dust storm.

Ramus waded forwards. The wind had lifted the dust from one corner of a partially buried structure. It had been scrap metal, painted red, and covered with glyphs of a painfully familiar design.

‘Orruk,’ said Vandalus, bent with exhaustion, hauling himself one foot at a time to Ramus’ side. ‘I can read it a little.’

‘What does it say?’

‘It’s an Ironjawz fort, what do you think it says? It says “Back off, begone, you’re not welcome. The boss of this place is the Great Red, and he’s bigger than your boss.”’

‘Eloquent. But no one is greater than my lord. We will defeat this Great Red too, if we must.’

Vandalus laid a comradely hand on Ramus’ shoulder. His blue eyes smiled.

‘We will do it together. Brother.’

Great Red

David Guymer

Forward, thought Ramus, as though it were sheer will rather than Azyr-forged muscle that thumped his boot into the dust and dragged the other past it.

He could see nothing through the swirl of dust beyond the spitting candle flare of his reliquary staff, hear nothing but howling and the nail-like rap of fine grains of weathered bone hitting his black plate. He did not pity himself the loss of his senses. If there was anything that could be felt anywhere on the Sea of Bones then it was dust and sand and endless wind.

On, his mind intoned, and his body responded to the word as though it were a rod across his back. I will cover every grain of this accursed desert if that is what it takes to have Mannfred von Carstein’s neck between my hands, he swore silently.

The shield, Sigmar’s Gift, clanked against his back. The skull of the ogor, Skraggtuff, swung out and in and banged against his thigh. And he pushed on, forward.

‘We should ride this storm out, brother,’ yelled Vandalus. The Knight-Azyros was to Ramus’ left and half a dozen paces behind, walking bent into the wind, the skeletal frame of his wings tugged back. Wind-whipped totems of feathers, leaves and bits of bone swirled around his maroon armour, partially obscuring the depictions of stars, storms and wild beasts in gold. ‘My Prosecutors saw a huge number of Ironjaw orruks moving ahead of us. We could be on top of them already. The dust will give us no warning.’

Ramus snorted. ‘I thought men once called you the King of Dust.’

‘An easy title to claim and an easier one to give to another, but the dust respects me no more for it.’

‘We go on. Our guide is insistent that this is the Betrayer’s path.’

‘An ogor, and a dead one at that. The dead cannot be trusted.’

There was a dull pain in Ramus’ chest. Lord-Celestant Tarsus had used to say that. He shook his head and ploughed on.

He touched his fingers to the shield banging against his shoulders. There was a sudden hiss of burning metal and he snatched his fingers back. He smiled a grim smile as he shook off the sting. Sigmar’s Gift had delivered unto the Betrayer the God-King’s fire, and it remembered. The closer they drew the hotter it burned, and Ramus ardently prayed that the same would be true for Mannfred von Carstein’s undying flesh.

The ogor skull butted his thigh plate and bounced, out, in, and banged again. Skraggtuff had initially been part of a trap left for them by the Betrayer, but Mannfred was not the only one with talents.

Was he not Ramus of the Shadowed Soul, Lord-Relictor of the Fourth-Forged Host, the Hallowed Knights? His will was a conduit for the divine storm. Life and death were his to go between.

Splaying his fingers over the skull’s broad features so that they scratched in the sand over its eyes and mouth, he closed his eyes, and bent his mind towards the soul-eternal. He could see it still, a dull ember bound by the Betrayer’s dark necromancy to the ogor’s bones.

‘Awake, Skraggtuff.’ His spirit voice darted in and around his flesh like a sibilant, quicksilver tongue.

The sepulchral echoes that rang back from the storm brought an animal growl from Vandalus’ mask. He raised his lantern and readied his starblade, warily. ‘I still don’t like this, brother.’

Ramus ignored him. He did not like it either, but Sigmar demanded much of those to whom much was given, and the ogor was what Ramus had been given. If he was to recapture Mannfred, and in so doing atone for the failure of his embassy to the Great Necromancer and the loss of the Hallowed Knights’ Lord-Celestant, then he could ill afford to dismiss such gifts from his enemies.

‘Awake, Skraggtuff. It is I, Ramus, your brother in vengeance.’

Frost rimed the weathered metal of Ramus’ gauntlet where it covered the skull’s mouth. A spark of blueish light took up deep within the dead thing’s eyes.

‘Ungh. You.’ A pause. They were creeping in more often, growing longer. ‘Are we there yet?’

‘You tell me.’

‘He’s near. I can smell him. Can’t you?’

Ramus pulled his hand away. He felt the tenuous bridge between them snap and the light guttered and died. The frost on his palm needled to nothing, scoured to bare metal by the wind.

‘What did it say?’ Vandalus shouted after a moment.

‘He is near.’

‘That still leaves the problem of the Ironjawz.’

To the left and right, haggard-looking Hallowed Knights marched, draped in dust cloaks so heavy that only the meanest sliver of gold or silver glinted through the storm. Nodding in thought, Ramus forced himself on into the wind.

Were the Ironjawz a problem? Or were they just another gift from his enemies?

‘Sigmar has seen us this far, my friend. Have faith that he will not let us stray now.’

The broad axe hit Ramus’ shield with the weight of a felled tree. It scratched, snarled, squealed for purchase, but the shield held firm. Sigmarite was more miracle than metal, able to take many colours and forms, and this part of his mortis armour was far tougher than the mirrored silver it appeared to be. All that force had to go somewhere though, and if the shield did not yield, then it would go through Ramus.

He grunted with effort and the throbbing pain. His arm yielded, and the back of his shield struck his skull helm, twisted his face in, and drove his shoulder remorselessly down towards his bent knees. Metal scraped over metal. The crushing weight lifted, dragged back for a final, cleaving blow. Ramus imagined it scuffing along the dusty ground and looping up, up, glinting at arm’s length above his assailant’s monstrous head. The moment.

With a roar, he uncoiled and slammed his shield through the brute’s unguarded jaw.

The big orruk grunted. It was an ugly mound of muscle, sinew and scar tissue encased in armour plates, impractically thick. Sand-worn spikes thrust out from shoulders, forearms and thighs. Another set curved up from the collar, so long they almost doubled as a visor and forced the orruk to squint between the notched edges. There were no conventional ‘joints’ or obvious points of weakness. There were no buckles or straps. Rather, the plates had been bent into one another as if by hand.

It swayed back maybe half a foot, braced its back leg, then drove a knee that sliced the lower rim of Ramus’ shield into his groin and knocked the Lord-Relictor’s legs from under him.

Not the reaction he had been hoping for.

‘Tough, these Ironjawz,’ he muttered as he rolled sideways.

He caught a glimpse of silver and blue where a Retributor and something hunched and dusty tussled in the wind, and then the orruk stomped down a boot.

Ramus came up onto his haunches, grey sand spraying from his hammer as he smashed aside the orruk’s axe. This was not a duel. Neither axe nor hammer was a weapon of refinement. Each was designed for smashing and killing, as the orruks and Sigmar’s Stormcast Eternals had themselves been so designed.

A lot of blood had been shed since Ramus had last crossed an opponent he could not overpower with the simple virtues of smashing and killing.

They crossed hafts and strained, beast versus divine. The orruk’s nose flapped wetly where Ramus’ shield had broken it, green-black blood and snot bubbling out with every breath, but it concerned the brute not at all. Ramus felt the desert dust sink around his boots. His arm began to burn with the effort.

‘We are not... your... enemy!’

Putting all his remaining strength into it, Ramus levered his haft up, turned the locked weapons like two halves of a wheel and forced the orruk to be turned with it or let go. It chose wrong. Ramus guessed right.

‘Hah!’

The orruk folded after its weapon, its nose cracking against the headbutt coming the other way. Ramus heard the crunch and splatter of a half job being messily finished. The orruk bent across him, off balance, axe blade in the dust. Ramus rammed his shoulder into its ribs, this time sending it stumbling away, then lashed his shield back across its jaw with a sound like an iron pot being smashed through a wall.

The blow actually straightened the orruk up. Its head snapped almost fully around, but it did not seem to feel a bit of it below the neck. It stuck out an arm and grabbed his throat.

Ramus felt his feet kick away from the ground as the Ironjaw hauled him to the level of its spiked grille. It glared at him with scrunched up red eyes. The visible bit of its dark face, wedged in tight, was scabbed with tough stubble. Its breath stank of leaf mulch and mushrooms.

Metal squealed as the Ironjaw tightened its grip, seeking to shape Ramus’ armour with its bare hands as it had presumably shaped its own. Like his shield, the armour held. It would take more even than the grip of an Ironjaw to make sigmarite bend. It still felt as though his eyeballs were going to burst out of his face.

He smashed his hammer into the orruk’s grille, but could not deliver force enough to break it. At the same time he drove his boot into its gut, but could not hit anything more vulnerable than muscle and iron. He managed to hook a finger up the orruk’s nose and dragged it up towards him. The creature twisted irritably and snapped at his hand, spraying his faceplate with spittle.

His vision began to blur. Bent, disjointed figures stumbled through the beating dust into his peripheral view and then faded to black. His ears, however, seemed to grow keener to compensate. The rasp of sand on dead throats, the pop of old joints.

‘Not... your... enemy.’

There was a hiss, a string of metallic thunks and a row of foot-long Sigmarite-tipped bolts stitched up the Ironjaw’s side. It grunted, in surprise rather than pain, and glanced down at the striking line of starmetal piercings running from hip to armpit. Ramus swung his boot up onto the lowest bolt. The sigmarite shaft held true, blessed be, his kick twisting the bolt sharply and driving it deeper into the orruk’s guts.

And that, by almighty Sigmar, it felt.

Ramus had his feet on the ground and dry, dusty air in his lungs before the orruk had thought to let rip a howl. Letting his shield hang from the wrist strap, he took his hammer two-handed like a mallet and cracked it across the side of the Ironjaw’s head. Moving around behind it, Ramus hammered his weapon into its back and shoved it down onto its face. It struggled to push itself up only for its arms to sink into the sand and Ramus’ boot to step on the back of its neck.

He ground in his heel until its spine finally snapped. The Ironjaw went limp, and Ramus made sure with a last hammer blow that cratered the back of its head and stippled his black greaves with gore.

‘Tough, these Ironjawz.’ He glanced sideways and nodded. The Judicator lowered his boltstorm crossbow, his dusty armour silver and blue. ‘My thanks, Sagittus.’

The Judicator-Prime gave a quick nod, redressed his aim to a point just above Ramus’ shoulder and fired again. Bolts fizzed past, and punched into the shambling corpses until there was no longer enough meat left on them to stand.

‘Only the faithful, Lord-Relictor.’

‘Only the faithful.’

With another tilt of the helm, the Judicator turned back to the fight.

Ramus did the same. He spotted his reliquary where he had left it, plunged into the shifting bone sands, both a battle standard and a waypoint should any of his knights become lost in the swirl. A fuzz of Azyric power spread into the grey around it, illuminating the morbid imagery of faith, death, and the storm depicted thereon in fits and snatches. Big, hulking shadows brawled around it, tusks, blades, and iron plates glinting blue, on the ground and in the sky above.

As Vandalus had predicted, the dust had allowed the Stormcasts to walk right into the Ironjawz and given neither side warning. Finding the orruks themselves beset was something neither had anticipated. Mannfred had been wily enough to avoid an encounter with the warclans of the Great Red thus far.

If Ramus had expected the orruks to be grateful for his aid – and in that initial flush of self-righteous glory in which he had almost felt his breath upon the vampire’s back, he had expected it – then he should have expected too his disappointment.

It was impossible at a glance to tell who had the edge. Sigmar’s Stormhosts excelled in close combat, as they had been forged to excel in all things, but the Ironjawz took a savage delight in it, as if they had been purposefully bred to go toe to toe with the mightiest warriors in the realms, and some of the largest carried twice the weight in muscle and half again the breadth.

Ramus stowed his shield and ran for his reliquary. He snatched it up, feet sliding in the shifting dust before he regained his footing, boot wedged under a sand pile of long, partially buried bones.

‘You!’ came the grunted, straightforward challenge, from a veritable behemoth of armour plate mounted on a seething, boar-like beast veering from the churn of bodies. ‘You’re mine! The Great Red’s gonna be the first over the Bone Sea, and I’ll be there with ’im.’

Its iron frame was so massive that it was almost as thick across the shoulders as it was tall. Each pauldron looked to have been remade from a complete anvil, and its elbows struck out like the two points of an upended diamond. Its mount was itself dressed in knotted sheets of mail that abraded its grizzled fur with every step and no doubt accounted for a measure of its wild-eyed ill temper.

The beast swept itself a path through the dust with long, saw-edged tusks, snorted, and thundered into a charge.

Ramus drew back his reliquary, lowered it as though it were a spear and the orruk a charging juggernaut. He growled the opening bars of a prayer. Lightning played around the metal haft. He felt a static tickle under his gauntleted fingers.

Before he could unleash it, the orruk was gone.

There was a creak, then a groan, as the Ironjaw’s hands flapped up despairingly, and it sank rapidly into the ground. Ramus backed up quickly, his own feet sinking into the sudden flow of dust.

‘Grindworm!’ he roared, biceps bulging as he pushed back with his staff against the swelling current. He sought out Sagittus and his other Primes, couldn’t see them in the confusion, but waved his arm back anyway. ‘Stay clear!’

The ground flexed like a muscle and an Astral Templar Liberator disappeared in a plume of dust. There was a trembling deep underfoot. Stratified layers shuffled and restacked, the subterranean flows of sand shifting to accommodate the approach of some kraken of the desert sands, and then a terrific explosion carried the lot of it sky high, bones and debris blasted like grapeshot around the bolt of lightning that jagged up in search of the sky.

Ramus swore as his body plunged a foot deeper into the sand. Knuckles and teeth and weathered nubs of bone he could not identify swirled around him like the surface manifestation of a developing whirlpool. Everywhere, fissures opened to drink in the desert dust and the shambling undead, while Stormcasts and Ironjawz wrestled for the skeletal islands the retreating sands laid bare, carcasses so vast that entire armies could have fought over them unnoticed.

And then the Ironjaw leader and his boar mount reappeared.

Thrashing about under six feet of dust, both orruk and beast were trapped in a hellish, faceless orifice large enough to swallow both whole with room to spare. Dust spouted around the struggling orruk and a segmented body that seemed to be made wholly of sand reared up out of the desert floor.

Ramus scowled, trying to draw further away from the rising worm, but the suction on his legs was tremendous.

He did not know whether the creatures were truly living predators or a natural phenomenon of the Sea of Bones. The Astral Templars, however, had dubbed them grindworms, for the screeching, sand-scratching roar they made as they appeared and killed. Their attacks seemed random, drawn by fighting or the movement of large numbers on the surface, but Ramus could not with certainty say that there was not some malign will driving this monster onto him before all others.

He forced his staff into the sand, not deep enough to arrest his downward slide, but enough to slow it. He clamped his hammer to his belt and took the reliquary in both hands. Overhead, storm clouds boiled through the gravel-white sky. ‘If you hear this, Mannfred, if you see it, then pray tell me how this feels.’

A bolt of lightning tore through the sandstorm and detonated the grindworm’s emerging head. Clods of sand and tiny pieces of glass rained over the desert. The Ironjaw, torso blackened, legs gone, hit the ground with a muffled clank.

Ramus gave a roar of defiance as the headless sand-beast thumped to the ground not far from where he was caught. Every muscle heaved in the direction of one last gargantuan pull towards freedom. There was some give. He felt his legs beginning to slide out of the dust, could see the weathered black plate of his thigh. He bared his teeth for the coming effort.

‘Can I help you, Ramus?’ Vandalus called down. ‘Or do you mean to climb out yourself for a greater tale?’ The armoured angel beat his wings, dust fizzling and popping as it was blown through his lightning feathers. His attention was down, pointing at Ramus with his sword, clearly blind to the gaunt shape flapping furiously towards him.

‘Attend yourself, Azyros.’

Vandalus turned his head, lifted and unshuttered his lantern in the same moment it must have taken him to recognise the threat, and burned the ghoul from the sky with a searing shaft of celestial light. The ghoul simply evaporated. By the time he had closed his lantern again and looked down, Ramus had dragged his body out and onto more stable ground.

He looked around. The grindworm was sinking into the desert, the dust it had disturbed beginning to resettle into new formations, burying titanic skeletons greater than dragons and lifting still more from the depths. Already a whole new landscape, utterly alien to what had been before, lay about them. The surviving Ironjawz were withdrawing – and it was a withdrawal – into the storm. The remaining undead were being methodically hacked apart by the Astral Templars and Hallowed Knights. Ramus counted exactly two dozen of the former and about double that of the latter.

More losses.

Vandalus touched down on the sand and walked towards him, blade pointed accusingly at Ramus’ hip. ‘I told you that the dead cannot be trusted, brother. That thing you carry led us right into that battle.’

‘It took us on Mannfred’s trail, which is all it can be expected to do. The battle is on us.’

The Knight-Azyros snorted and stowed his weapons. ‘As it should be. And with the Ironjawz occupied with the dead it was a battle we had every chance to avoid. Astral Templars will never grieve over a pointless exercise in killing, but I know you saw it too.’

‘I had believed that if the Ironjawz could see us fight alongside them then they might be persuaded to aid us in our quest. The Sea of Bones is vast. Even I am not so proud as to deny that we could use their aid if we are to search it fully.’

‘What you could use, brother, is ten full Stormhosts scouring this wasteland west to east, and driving your vampire into the desert sun. We should focus our energies on seeking out the Celestial Realmgate.’

‘No!’ Ramus snapped, startling himself with his vehemence. ‘No,’ he growled, more softly, but with teeth still. ‘This path has been set before me by Sigmar himself and I will not veer from it one inch.’

‘Peace.’ Vandalus clasped Ramus’ forearm and with the other hand gripped his pauldron plate. Some barbarian embrace from the Azyros’ mortal heritage. ‘My Chamber has enough bad blood with Mannfred to follow you, you know that, but did the black-skinned orruk we captured on the Marrow Delta not tell us it was the Great Red himself who took the realmgate from my brother Lord-Castellant in the first place?’

‘A realmgate you cannot now find.’

Vandalus flung out an arm. ‘Light of Sigmar I may be, but I defy anyone to find their way in a landscape that changes from moment to moment.’

‘And was it not also you who once spoke to me of the reasonableness of orruks? That all one needs to earn their trust is to win their respect?’

‘The orruks I knew,’ Vandalus muttered darkly. ‘These Ironjawz are another breed entirely. I don’t know what you would have to do to earn the respect of such foes.’

Ramus shook his head, his hand drifting to the skull at his hip, a faint but reassuring whisper occupying the darker corners at the back of his mind that might otherwise provide a purchase for doubt. ‘I am resolved. If the Great Red can be convinced that Mannfred is the threat he surely is, if he can be won around by our strength...’

He clenched his gauntlet and Vandalus took a step back. The look Ramus felt from behind that gilded, implacable mask was searching. The Knight-Azyros shook his head and raised his hands. ‘As you want it, brother. I had my Prosecutors follow the Ironjawz retreat. I heard one of them speak of a fort not far from here.’

‘Then gather the host, Azyros. We march the moment they return.’

The Ironjawz had erected their fortress on what must have been the only example of static geography for a thousand leagues. It was certainly the first that Ramus had seen since crossing the Junkar Mountains.

It was a skeleton, the mountain-sized remains of a Titan of the Age of Myth, and cold proof, were it needed, that Mannfred von Carstein could never be allowed to possess the Sea of Bones. The skull was buried under a massive dune, vertebrae arching high up into the dusty sky where a scrap heap of rust-brown walls, towers and metal gangways vied for height and space. Ribs that had been weathered smooth by aeons of wind curled beneath it like a dead spider’s legs. Sand devils whipped and swirled around the half-buried bones. Partially sheltered under the gargantuan cavity, a fleet of ironclad war-junks – ships of all things – creaked and listed and banged together.

Vandalus had told him that orruks liked to build high, that the size and towering nature of a boss’ stronghold spoke directly to his status. The Ironjawz seemed even more itinerant and warlike than the orruks of Ramus’ experience, but they were every bit as territorial. Whatever warboss ruled from this structure was surely very high indeed.

Perhaps even the legendary Great Red himself.

Green shapes cavorted over the distant walls, jeering. The scrap fort’s windswept turrets clattered and clanged with gongs, cymbals and pans.

‘Rank up, shields ready, weapons high, Prosecutors in formation,’ Ramus barked.

He looked left, seeing the two lines of Hallowed Knights, mixed Paladins front, Judicators back, glittering silver and blue, as straight as statues in the wind. To his right were the Liberators of the Astral Templars, their battered maroon and gold decked out in eclectic war paint and charms that wagged about them like animals’ tails. Above, Astral Templars Prosecutors hung in the sky like baubles of light. The harsh wind tugged at their fur cloaks and the strips of scripture stuck to their war-plate. It had even managed to tease some of the hair from under their sealed helms and whipped it giddily about them as though triumphant at what it had done. They had been beaten hard, but they were all the more magnificent for it. By Sigmar, they stood yet.

‘Let them see what the strength of the finest two chambers in Sigmar’s host looks like. Who shines with his light?’

‘Only the faithful!’ shouted the Hallowed Knights, and even a handful of the Astral Templars, gamely attempting to out-shout their brothers-in-arms.

Bursting with pride in them all, Ramus returned his attention to the fort.

‘Three of its sides overhang the monster’s ribs,’ observed Vandalus, pointing them out. ‘An aerial assault on that quarter would almost certainly find the orruks’ defences unprepared.’

‘You have not the numbers to carry out such an attack,’ Ramus returned.

Vandalus clapped his shoulder. ‘Which is why I’ll need my brother to relieve me.’

Ramus shifted his gaze to the gate. According to millennia of military theory, it should have been the weakest point. The Ironjawz were clearly unfamiliar with this theory. Their gate was a lump of iron that, at first glance, actually looked fractionally too large for the frame it had been wedged into. It would take a monstrous application of force simply to get it open, much less to knock it down.

The approach to the gate however was the first, and arguably greater, obstacle. An uncertain-looking stairway of iron planks, not all of them flat, zig-zagged up the titan’s spine towards the fortress. It was presumably stable enough to bear the tremendous weight of an Ironjaw but it was a challenging path, and every second that the Stormcasts’ attention was on not falling to the desert floor was a second in which the wall’s defenders would be showering them with missiles.

‘Restrain yourself, Azyros. We do not need to take their position outright, just impress upon their leader our strength as allies.’

Vandalus waved a clenched gauntlet in the direction of the fort. ‘What did you think I was proposing?’

‘But first,’ muttered Ramus. ‘To get their attention.’

Ramus raised his reliquary and muttered a grim prayer. The sky began to bruise, deeper, blacker, and a sudden wind blew against Ramus’ back and swept the dust off it to leave the smell of thunder and fresh rain. Sheet lightning flashed. The thunderhead folded and churned, the wind whipped into a howling cyclone with Ramus the eye of the storm.

‘I am Ramus of the Shadowed Soul,’ he roared. The wind stole his voice from his mouth, but it rumbled from the black clouds like the anger of the storm itself. Rain lashed the scrap fort, deadening the chaotic clangour. ‘I am Lord-Relictor of the Hallowed Knights, the Fourth-Forged of Sigmar’s Eternal Host. I seek embassy with your leader. The one that calls himself the Great Red.’

‘That should do it,’ Vandalus yelled.

Thunder rolled, unappeased, and the rain picked up. Ramus saw several of the Astral Templars turning their faces towards it, letting the water rinse the dust from their faceplates. The Hallowed Knights stood still, statues come rain or storm. From the fortress however, something moved.

A horn was blasted, a set of deep drums enthusiastically pounded, and in a tooth-aching squeal of metal along bone, the scrap fort’s great gate began to grind open.

As Ramus watched, a huge orruk in garb garish enough to be seen even through the downpour danced through the opening gate. It was clad in a spiked and heavily decorated half-plate of mismatched iron scraps and painted bone that clapped as it dropped, leapt, and spun down the stairway. It was unarmed in the conventional sense, but carried a club-like length of bone in each hand, using them to slap its thighs, its wrists, its iron garb and each other, in a frantic, strangely thrilling rhythm.

A mob of black-skinned orruks in conventionally wrought heavy armour, full helms and shields stomped out behind the weird warchanter.

Following them with a swagger came the true Ironjawz themselves. Ironclad behemoths, each one clanked inside a personal battle-frame that made the black-skinned orruks look like whelps, wrapped for their own safety in foil. They nodded metal-encased heads to the warchanter’s rhythm, bashed axes, maces, and articulated fist-claws to the beat.

‘I’d say they weren’t impressed,’ shouted Vandalus, wings shrieking into energetic life as he lifted himself off the ground.

‘Lines of battle,’ Ramus snapped.

The Astral Templars clumped forwards and locked shields. His own Exemplar Chamber bore no shields – wielding instead a deadly blend of two-handed thunderaxes, stormstrike glaives and lightning hammers – and simply took a forward step to maintain a perfect line with their more eager Astral Templar counterparts.

As they positioned themselves, the first of the greenskins reached the rain-packed desert floor. There they spread themselves into battle lines that mirrored those of the Stormcasts, except for being half again as long and several ranks deep. Ramus estimated that they were outnumbered at least three to one. The big Ironjawz brutes held the centre, flanked by disciplined detachments of the sober black orruks. On the left flank, opposing the Astral Templars, was a vast and unruly mob of grots, armed with anything that was going and cursing shrilly across the rain-driven gulf. On the opposite flank, two full ranks of boar cavalry drew themselves into a roughly unified mob and snorted impatiently for the signal to go.

‘No flyers,’ Ramus muttered, choosing to focus on that advantage, however small.

The Protector, Cassos, scoffed at his Lord-Relictor’s attempted optimism. He was the last of that particular calling left. Ramus had never seen a man more adamant in avoiding his return to Sigmar’s keep.

Ramus thrust his reliquary above his head and looked down the line. ‘Who fights with Sigmar by his side?’

‘Only the faithful!’ sang the Hallowed Knights.

‘Who will be victorious?’

‘Only the faithful!’

The warchanter took the last few steps in a leap and began to flap about in the sand, hunched over as he danced up and down the greenskin line, sticks a blur, huffing and grunting in a singsong growl. Faster, louder. The orruk sank to his knees in front of the Ironjawz brutes in an ecstatic crescendo, bone sticks drumming on his thighs. The rain lashed his upturned face as he roared, and the entire greenskin line erupted with him.

First to break forwards were the brutes, then the black orruks. The boar cavalry, for all their impatience, got themselves together last but quickly pulled ahead as the vicious beasts thundered into a gallop. Only the grots held back, loosing a volley of arrows that sucked wet sand well shy of the Astral Templars.

‘Hold,’ Ramus muttered, conscious of the Astral Templars edging forward, then turned to glance over his left pauldron. ‘Judicators, loose.’

A rattling volley of sigmarite-tipped war-bolts fizzed towards their distant targets, arcing up, up into the rain, and droning down, their accuracy and potency far superior to the missiles fired by their greenskin counterparts. The bolts fell amongst the boar cavalry, thunking into heavy armour. One boar-beast slammed to the ground with a foot-long bolt in its shoulder and crushed its rider. The beast behind barged it out of the way on its tusks without slowing down. The rest rode on, armour bristling with shafts and crackling with Azyrite power.

‘Again. Loose.’

Another volley shot across the distance. This time there was no need to correct their aim for range. The boar cavalry were a wall of scrap iron and bludgeoning power. The ground shook. Another Ironjaw rider took an impaling hit in the belly, grunted, but did not fall. To the right, an Astral Templar in shining bright maroon and gold, called only recently from Sigmaron to Vandalus’ beacon, aimed high, and drew back on his enormous shockbolt bow. There was a rush of charged air as the giant arrow twanged from the bowstring. It looped over the running black-skinned orruks, fizzing like a firework, and exploded amongst the grots in a storm of lightning.

The boars picked up speed. Wet sand flew from thundering, iron-shod trotters. They were now just moments away – close enough for Ramus to see the red of their slathering mouths. Grasping his reliquary, Ramus closed his eyes. He could hear their grunting breaths, feel the shaking of the ground, but he set it aside to focus his senses on the rampant energies of the divine storm that raged around him. It was untouched, as wild as Azyr’s Eternal Winterlands.

‘There is no shaman here,’ he muttered as he opened his eyes.

‘That will level the field,’ said Cassos.

‘Yes, it will.’

Feeling his power rise to fill him, Ramus lifted his reliquary. He felt its unsubtle pull, as though it would lift him from the ground and make him as one with the broiling storm clouds if he did not fight to control it.

‘Sigmar, lord of lightning!’ he roared. ‘Bare their flesh to Azyr’s fire.’

He blasted a lightning bolt into the onrushing cavalry, reducing orruks to ash and turning their brutish mounts into running meat. Teeth bared, he unleashed his power again and again until his body glowed. Lightning blitzed the terrified beasts, bolt after searing bolt, until armour bubbled over scorched flesh, and hulking warriors squealed like pigs as they rolled in sand to quench the flames.

‘Sigmar!’ he cried, breaking into a charge with his steaming reliquary held aloft. ‘He fights beside us!’

The two armoured blocks slammed together in a splintering squeal of shields and blades and split pig-flesh. A thunderaxe hacked off an Ironjaw’s arm at the elbow in a clap of noise. A riderless boar impaled a Retributor on a tusk. Bolts whistled from behind. An orruk bellowed a curse, and a moment later was spit through. Weapons hummed with Azyric charge. Two Ironjawz shoved towards Ramus, barding grinding until it shrieked. There was a snap of energy, a crimson blur that cut left to right, and both orruks slumped headless from their mounts. Cassos swept in front as the boars pulled apart and galloped past, stormglaive whirling with such venom it looked as though he must be holding two of them. It threw a barrier of spattered red between Ramus and the press of Ironjawz, and flicked the desultory shower of grot arrows waspishly from the air.

The Retributors and Decimators surged into the break, the Astral Templars a yard ahead as always. Ramus heard the Stormcasts’ savage howls and the ring of starmetal as the Liberators crashed into the black orruks and through to the brutish Ironjawz behind. Smashing and killing. War as the God-King had always meant it to be.

Vandalus lanced overhead, beams of light from his lantern punching golden holes through the orruk ranks, then rolled left while the Prosecutors that followed peeled right.

Flight alone was a mighty task for these angels in armour, and to do it with grace demanded not only a fluidity of body, but a finesse of mind and will that transcended even the superhuman. Wielding javelins like lances and celestial hammers two-handed, they thumped into the terrified grots like comets. Bodies flew, and to a cacophony of ululating war cries, the Stormcast barbarians set about tearing the light skirmishers apart.

The grots were broken almost as the first Prosecutor fell to earth amongst them, and they were already fleeing for their weird ironclad paddle ships.

‘Ardboyz!’ bawled the heaviest brute in the block of Ironjawz ranks, clacking a big, clunky grabber claw, all rivets and red paint, at the second mob of black orruks. ‘I has this. Go sort out those ones with wings.’

The second mob wheeled one hundred and eighty degrees and tramped back towards the grounded Prosecutors.

‘The centre holds,’ called Sagittus from somewhere nearby.

‘Judicators to the flanks!’ shouted another Stormcast.

Ramus drove his boot heel into the face of an Ironjaw that was trapped under his dead boar. Cassos’ stormglaive hummed around him like an angry guardian spirit. Somewhere amidst the smoking remains and the iron clamour, Ramus could hear the orruk warchanter pounding away with his bone sticks. A vicious tempo that the orruks strove to match with their weapons.

‘The brutes rally to him,’ growled Cassos. ‘See how they shield him.’

An Ironjaw rose up in front of Ramus like a wall. It was the claw-toting boss, and the brute alone occupied the width of two others. Ramus dropped his shoulder and slammed into the Ironjaw’s pectoral before he had the chance to turn his weapons on him. Air woofed out of him, but he did not yield an inch. The grabber claw champed shut inches in front of Ramus’ neck. The Lord-Relictor swayed back, whipped up his hammer and deflected the moon-shaped axe that had been scything for the crown of his helm.

A crackling stormglaive spat across his turned shoulders. The Ironjaw bent out of reach, swatting the blade gruffly aside on the back of its claw. It was a split-second distraction and Ramus took it. His hammer dented the iron cladding the Ironjaw’s right side and drove all the brute’s weight onto his left. It gave a threatening growl and paddled its arms for balance, but had nothing free to stop Cassos punting his stormglaive into its throat and tipping it onto its back.

Ramus knelt over the big boss and smashed the brute’s helm open with a blow from his hammer.

‘Sagittus!’ he roared, as Cassos moved protectively in front of him. The warchanter’s tempo had picked up, and it seemed to thump out of the bloody air. Ramus caught glimpses as the rest of the Ironjawz mob pressed forward to defend the performer. Its eyes shut, mouth open, it played through the grip of some wild, degenerate rapture. ‘Take him down, Sagittus.’

Heavy bolts hammered into the Ironjawz but they held firm, too thickly packed for the missile fire to get through. Even the Prosecutors that had managed to retake to the skies before the black orruks’ charge had hit home found their javelins and thrown hammers blocked or knocked out of the air. And driving it all to ever greater heights of aggression and fury, was that drumming beat.

‘I have him, brother.’

Vandalus swooped in behind the block of brutish heavy infantry, and there executed a barrel roll that dragged him across the rear of their formation. He unshuttered his golden lantern. Ironjawz howled as the wondrous light of Azyrheim burned across their backs, bled through cracks too slight for any boltstorm bolt or stormcall javelin to reach, and even tightly shut as they were, brought green smoke from the warchanter’s eyes.

The orruk’s demented chant bubbled off in a rabid scream.

Ramus saw the Ironjawz waver, enough for him to barge through the heavier orruk warriors and put the warchanter out of his torment with a hammer blow to the temple.

That was enough for the remaining black orruks, who immediately began to break off and run after the scattered grots. The Ironjawz however, outnumbered and surrounded, fought on.

Vandalus flung out his wings and speared upwards into the rain. The pall around him thickened. Lightning flashed. Ramus felt the hairs on his body respond to the rising charge and sparks dance along the points of his reliquary’s sigmarite halo. The Knight-Azyros slid his lantern’s aperture to its widest setting and the full force of its illumination seared the dark of the storm away. For a moment, for one divine moment, Ramus felt the eyes of the God-King upon them all.

The throaty screams that greeted his gaze were affirming – the sudden, burning blindness of the apostate. The sky cracked open and lightning jabbed again and again into the desert floor like a chisel against a tooth, until the rain-soaked ground was cloaked in bone dust and all Ramus could see were the flashes.

Cassos laughed as cries of ‘Sigmar!’ greeted the Azyros’ display of might.

The cloud began to settle, thinning as it did to reveal the glitter of maroon and gold, perfect as gemstones. Two dozen Stormcast Eternals, fresh from the barracks of Sigmaron and perfect to the finest facet of their war-plate, gave voice to a thunderous cheer and charged the Ironjawz’ rear.

Breathing heavily, Vandalus landed beside Ramus.

‘Difficult to win an audience when everyone’s dead.’

Ramus smiled grimly. ‘The Astral Templars were not part of the embassy to Shyish, were they, my friend?’ With an amused snort, he pointed over the determinedly fighting Ironjawz to the scrap fortress, seemingly abandoned on its lonely, bone-top promontory. ‘A day or two of rest will serve us well. We will regroup, resupply, and recover the Betrayer’s trail. And maybe someone will show up to reclaim it.’

The Ironjawz’ clan hall was cold. Air came in through a pair of iron-grilled fireplaces in the long side walls and ruffled the dyed skin hangings. A long feasting table filled most of the floor space, a mishmash of metals so beaten, rumpled and chewed on there was not flat space enough to set a jug.

Ramus took it all in with a cursory sweep of his gaze. He stood with the open door behind him where it was coldest, dust circling, the big fireplaces either side, the table extending before him to a large, bloody iron throne. A hide banner covered the whole wall behind it, depicting two crudely drawn glyphs on a red background. He knew little of the orrukish languages, less of their written forms, but these he had seen everywhere.

Great. Red.

‘We have searched the compound thoroughly, Lord-Relictor.’ Sagittus stepped in from outside, letting in the dull clangour of pots and pans, strung up wherever they might catch the wind. Mist clung to his grim-faced silver mask. His boltstorm crossbow hung by his side in one heavy gauntlet. ‘It is empty.’

‘Very good,’ Ramus murmured. In his mind he pulled those two symbols apart, turned them over, searching for the hidden complexity that was so jarringly absent.

‘Lord-Relictor?’

‘Look again.’

‘My lord, I assure you.’

Ramus turned his head towards his second, the deep sockets of his skull helm boring in. ‘When I feel assured, I can guarantee that none will know of it before you.’

The Judicator gave a stiff bow from the neck. ‘Very well, my lord. Once more.’ His boots clicked on the metal floor as he walked back outside.

Ramus returned to his contemplation of the fluttering banner. Sagittus had not been part of the Warrior Chamber at the Bridge of Seven Sorrows and had not experienced the Reforging. He had not been given the time to reflect on the consequences of that quest’s failure. Tarsus was Sigmar’s and he had been stolen. To Ramus’ exhaustive knowledge of the histories, such a violation had never befallen another Stormhost and the shame of his participation in it seared. And if he should fail to recover the Lord-Celestant now…

The Hallowed Knights were a company of immortals. There was no precedent for the elevation of one of their number to leader.

He touched his fingers to Skraggtuff’s skull and closed his eyes, giving himself to the cold. His lips parted in a wisp of vapour. They were numb and pinched.

‘Awake, Skraggtuff.’

‘Mmmmm,’ came the answering echo, the dull murmur of a dreamer.

‘How much ground has Mannfred gained on us? You are connected through the ether, Skraggtuff.’

‘Mmmm.’ Ramus felt the impression of a wretched spirit, tossing and turning, eyes flickering between sleep and wakefulness. ‘Not far. Time to sleep maybe. Just for a bit.’

Ramus withdrew his fingers with a start and opened his eyes, his perceptions suddenly, jarringly normal. He blinked a few times, licked his lips, worked his fingers to restore them to some kind of warmth, and as he did so a door clicked open at the far end of the hall where there had been none. It put a ruck into the banner that had been draped over it and blew dust in underneath. A golden gauntlet felt under the fabric, swept it up and back over the top of the thick metal door. Vandalus peered around, looking slightly lost, then turned to Ramus and pointed to the ceiling.

‘I came in from the roof. Don’t be too harsh on Sagittus, it was bolted from this side.’

‘Did you–’

‘No,’ Vandalus sighed. ‘I did find a grot hiding back here, but I suspect it was his duty to open the door for whoever sat in that throne.’ He pointed to it and gave a dead-eyed smile. ‘Orruk bosses prefer high spots. It shows everyone else how important they are, and lets them see everything that’s theirs.’

‘See how far?’

‘The dust covers everything. Not far.’

‘Show me.’

White, as deep as the eye could show. The one thing from his experience that Ramus could compare it to was being trapped in mist. It looked like mist, superficially perhaps, but to stand within it was to know what deceptive devils appearances could be. It was bone dry and bitingly cold. The wind hissed. Bone shards tinked against his armour and further out where he could not see, all around, the chitter of bone whispering across bone was constant. If the dead were to converse away from the ears of the living, then Ramus knew by the chill in his soul that this was how it would sound.

He moved to the spiked, metal rampart, set his gauntlets on the sharpened edge, and peered down. White. All the way. He could not even see the spiral stair any more.

The wind moaned against his helm’s frozen sides. Sound moved strangely in the Sea of Bones. It hung in the air, making it seem sometimes more like being under water than on a desert. The dull mutterings he heard could have been an army passing under his nose, a lone beast trumpeting a thousand leagues away, or even the tectonic wars of the Junkar, far, far behind them.

Something on the rampart beside him blew its nose and he turned his scowl upon it. He had reasonably assumed that ‘found a grot’ meant ‘killed a grot’ but now the wretch was looking up at him with wide wet eyes, ears flat back against its head, Ramus had to concede that the mood was not exactly on him either.

Gorkamorka had once been part of Sigmar’s great pantheon, he reasoned. It was belligerence, rather than fundamental theistic differences, that set the two powers at odds.

‘We are looking for the Great Red,’ he said, speaking firmly. ‘Where is he?’

‘’s not here,’ the grot squeaked.

‘I see that. I asked where he was.’

‘Gone.’ The grot swallowed, the big lump in its throat bobbing up and down. ‘Gone to fight at the thunder door.’

The scrawny greenskin nodded vigorously.

‘Why?’ asked Ramus.

‘To fight.’

‘But why?’

‘To be first over the Bone Sea. Think of the fame. Even the old Junkar never did that.’

Ramus turned to Vandalus, over by the door onto the stairwell.

‘The desert nomads that greeted us on our first arrival believed the Sea of Bones went on to the edge of the world. In Cartha’s libraries, we found texts describing distant lands, so far across the lifeless plain that even the Age of Chaos had yet to reach them.’

Ramus snorted. ‘Stories told to give hope to children.’

‘’s true,’ piped the grot. ‘And the Great Red was all about to head off too. Had his boats loaded and everything, before the dead one snuck in and took his thunder gate.’

Ramus’ jaw clenched. His chest had gone suddenly cold.

Mannfred.

‘He means the Celestial Realmgate,’ said Vandalus, moving across.

‘There’s another fort there,’ said the grot quickly, warming to its theme. ‘’s very important. The Great was gonna use it to bring in stuff and store it. ’s a long way over the Bone Sea.’

‘Tell me about the dead one,’ Ramus demanded, dropping down beside the grot and eliciting a terrified squawk. ‘Tell me everything you know about Mannfred.’

‘Wait,’ said Vandalus, turning to the deep white view and cocking a gold-helmeted ear. ‘Do you hear that?’

Ramus gave an irritated wave, but as soon as he did it he realised that the distant susurrus had changed. It was no longer so distant, for one. Drums. It was scores and scores of big, deep drums. The cracked chant of guttural voices. The tramp of armoured feet.

‘Clear the skies,’ said Vandalus urgently. ‘As you did before.’

Though he ached body and soul from his efforts in the battle, Ramus raised his reliquary and gave voice to a doleful prayer. The wind picked up and the dust pall began to thin, the sky so cleared blackening and producing a rumble of distant thunder.

‘There!’ Vandalus shouted.

Wearily, Ramus looked in the direction the Knight-Azyros pointed. The stamp and clank of massed ranks rolled in from the desert plain towards the scrap fort. Several score of the damnable warchanters cavorted ahead of armoured columns, each a thousand strong, beating out a marching rhythm that held little in common with their neighbours’ to create a raucous banging. Steaming between the formations, vast ironclad paddleboats, top heavy with crowded siege decks and bristling with artillery, chugged through the sand. Energy coursed through them and occasionally arced off. Ramus could see one of the strange Ironjaw shamans enthroned on the main deck of each monstrous vessel. He could sense their power, swollen to near god-like proportions by the weight and vibrancy of their greenskin kith around them, and somehow understood that these vessels served equally as troop transports, shock weapons, and amplifiers to ward off the grindworms.

The Great Red had planned his warclan’s migration well.

Searching the marching files, Ramus saw him at last.

‘There he is. The Great Red.’

A dark shape, a knot of ill-defined aggression, hung over the front ranks, mounted on a lumpen monstrosity of a creature that beat furiously at the surrounding air as though to physically subdue it with its small but muscular wings.

Ramus was aware of Sagittus shouting from under the iron floor beneath him, Judicators charging for the walls and priming crossbows.

‘So many,’ Ramus muttered.

‘Too late to worry about that now,’ Vandalus snapped. ‘You wanted to impress the Great Red and I’d wager that’s him right there. Impress him. Be strong, show no fear, and if he doesn’t kill us both then maybe he’ll be intrigued enough to hear your piece.’

Nodding his understanding, Ramus turned back and channelled his voice into the storm. ‘I am Ramus of the Hallowed Knights, orruk, and I have been waiting for you. Come to me, and let us settle this as equals.’

He strained to catch the Great Red’s reaction as the wind failed and cloaked the space between them in dust. The last thing Ramus saw was the Ironjaw’s beast pulling ahead of his army and striving for height.

‘A maw-krusha,’ said Vandalus. ‘I saw one in the Carthic Oldwoods once. The native ogors used to leave living prey in the forest to keep the monster from their tribes.’

Ramus caught the grot staring at him in open-mouthed, wide-eyed, and flat-eared horror. He grunted and turned to Vandalus. ‘Will he come?’

‘He will. No orruk would let a challenge like that go unan–’

The Azyros looked sharply up. Ramus heard it at the same time. It sounded like–

‘Waaaaaaggh!’

Ramus pushed himself back against the spiked battlement as an armour-plated boulder smashed into the centre of the rampart.

The structure tilted sharply and squealed. Ramus clung grimly onto the rampart spike with one hand, arm hooked behind it and grinding on the metal. He saw the grot tumble past him, smack once against the wall, again on the skeletal structure, coming apart like a ball of yarn and disappearing into the pall.

Unconcerned by the swaying tower and the alarmed clangour of chimes and bells, the maw-krusha unfolded arms and legs and rose up onto knuckles the size of Ramus’ fists. Forelimbs covered in hard scales, some of them carrying faded red paint, opened out like a pair of shield walls to reveal a head that was almost all mouth. A massive underbite, made even more pronounced by a muzzle of huge prosthetic fangs, chomped up over its small red eyes.

Stooped under a mass of wargear with ironclad thighs around the monster’s neck and toes scraping the ground, was the largest greenskin Ramus had ever seen.

He had had cause to say that many times over the past months, but he doubted he would ever have another. The brute was gigantic, clad in thick armour daubed half and half in red paint and black, with massive, clawed gauntlets and spiky boots, dull red with old blood. Only its head was exposed, the black and red pattern reversed with a slash of red paint over its brutalised, dark hide. One eye was nailed shut with an iron plate, a wandering green eye crudely drawn over it. The megaboss grinned down at the Stormcast, a slow, ape-like drawing in of muscles to reveal a mouth full of sharp, oversized metal teeth, bloody where they must have bitten into the roof of its own mouth.

If Ramus and Vandalus had stood together and been clad in a single piece of armour, they could not have been as large.

‘I’m da Great Red,’ the megaboss bellowed, voice so deep it seemed to come up out of the ground. The beast snorted and dragged its knuckles over the floor in an agonising screech. The Ironjaw glared at Ramus with his one eye, then twisted to mark Vandalus with a squeal of metal plates. He turned back to Ramus. ‘Kill my boyz, take my stuff, you fink you’re big enough to take Korruk da Great Red?’ He dropped his heavy jaw and roared with laughter.

Ramus planted his reliquary into the metal between them. ‘This land has been claimed. From the Celestial Realmgate to the Junkar Mountains and beyond the forests of Cartha, this land is Sigmar’s.’

At the name ‘Sigmar’ power lashed from his staff and stung the hulking Ironjaw a blow to the shoulder. Korruk jerked back, bellowed in pain and shock, electric spasms forcing out a grunt of annoyance as he involuntarily yanked on the chain attached to his mount’s spiked collar and locked his thighs down on its neck. It choked out a growl and instinctively threw out a battering-ram punch that smashed Ramus in the gut and off his feet.

His legs flipped over his head. Light to dark. Sky to metal. His face plate smashed the top of the crenel spike, a crack spidering from the left eye socket of his helm. Dark to light, the sky above him. He flung out a hand and caught the spike. His arm snapped taut and jerked him back, slammed his body hard against the fort’s metal wall. Ramus’ feet slid across the wall without getting any kind of purchase.

‘Haha!’ roared the Great Red. ‘Maybe you should both have a go. Hah! Take turns, maybe.’

A flash of light burned like forked lightning through Ramus’ shattered orbit as Vandalus explosively took wing. There was another bark of pain from the Ironjaw, and the clash of blades.

With a grimace, Ramus tested his bicep against his weight and heaved. He began to lift, bellowed as his shoulder passed his elbow, and then tossed his reliquary back inside and hauled himself after it. He collected his staff and rose, lightning pouring into him until the metal beneath him turned blue.

Vandalus and the Great Red were fighting high up above the fort’s roof. The Azyros flitted agilely around the Ironjaw’s monstrous axes, leaving a glowing trail where he passed as though it were a net, cleverly lain to trap the brute in his own savagery.

The megaboss’ metal teeth glinted hungrily, one booming growl rising from his vast jaw without any apparent need for breath. He was a green storm, destruction made manifest, his brute physicality merely the solid housing for a force of nature. His axes flashed down together, forcing Vandalus into a parry that sent the Azyros spinning. The maw-krusha’s claws clenched as though taking the air in its grip and then lunged out. A paw like a gargant’s spiked mace smacked the careening Azyros, and hammered him back down.

Vandalus hit the roof in a blaze of spinning pinions and rolled until he hit the inside of the parapet. Ramus could hear armoured boots pounding up the staircase below. It would be Cassos.

‘Sigmar is the true lord here, beast!’

Lightning stabbed from Ramus’ staff and coursed through the megaboss and his monster. The Ironjaw sprayed Vandalus in phlegm before he could grind his metal jaws shut. Blood ran down his chin as his enormous body seized. Howling, flapping with erratic fury, the maw-krusha crashed back down. Exhausted, Ramus recalled the flow of current and turned to check on Vandalus.

The Knight-Azyros stood up, almost fell right back over, but steadied himself with a widened stance and shook out his light wings, creating a dazzling show of might and colour, as if to ward off a rival or a predator. To Ramus’ surprise, Korruk gave a rumbling chuckle. The Ironjaw dismounted with a gravely structural clang and kicked his war-beast out of the way.

‘You fight good for thunder men. Better than the big boss I killed at the thunder door.’

Vandalus started forwards, only for Ramus to hold him back.

‘Take him,’ hissed Skraggtuff, down by his hip. ‘While his guard’s down.’

Of their own volition, Ramus’ muscles tensed to lift his reliquary, but then he frowned. ‘I did not summon you.’

‘He’s too strong. He doesn’t need you. He won’t listen. End him while you have the chance.’

Ramus lowered his staff. ‘That is Skraggtuff’s voice. But those are not his words.’

A sepulchral chuckle issued from the skull. Not one, in fact, but two, an eerie echoing effect as though he were being laughed at from both sides. The first was gruff and breathy, recognisably Skraggtuff, while the other was the sound of courteous good humour. Korruk ground his thickly armoured slab of neck around, one eye narrowed in annoyance. It was that, rather than the voices from the other side, that turned Ramus’ insides colder than the desert wind.

Ramus was the conduit for the divine storm, the beacon for the soul-eternal.

Only he could speak with the dead.

‘Awake, Skraggtuff,’ whined the skull in a wheedling falsetto. The ogor’s voice was gone, replaced entirely by the urbane imposter that Ramus recognised all too well. ‘So tediously stentorian. Where is Mannfred, Skraggtuff? You are connected through the ether, Skraggtuff.’

Now that it was presented to him, it was clear that the voice had always been there behind the ogor’s words. How had he not heard it before?

‘That voice,’ breathed Vandalus.

‘The Betrayer.’

‘Here, O conduit of the tepid squall, beacon of arrogance eternal. Tell me, are the Stormcast Eternals prone to delusions or is it just you? Imagine, believing that your quaint, half-mastered talents could begin to rival mine.’

The voice tutted, and Ramus realised that it was no longer coming from the skull. A hazy human figure had appeared, wavering about a foot above the rampart. His black, ridged armour was dented and scratched from countless battles, and the red cloak he wore, though magisterial still, was tattered. The wind blew through him, his long dark hair fluttering in some other breeze. His hair was wilder than Ramus remembered, his teeth longer, his eyes redder. His patrician features were horribly burned. Sigmar’s gaze was not so swiftly healed.

‘Poor, pathetic hero.’

‘You brought me here,’ Ramus yelled, fury making his voice crack. ‘You led me by the damned nose. Why?’

‘Temper, temper, Lord-Relictor. What kind of example does that set the peasants?’

‘Why!’

Mannfred laughed. ‘I think we demonstrated back in Cartha that I have little to fear from you.’ He half turned towards Korruk, one melted, hairless eyebrow suggestively raised, like a school master trying to goad the proper answer from a well-intentioned but slow-witted pupil.

‘Me?’ rumbled the Great Red, scrunching up his face in thought.

‘Where have you just been?’ Mannfred prodded.

‘The thunder door.’

Vandalus’ face dropped in understanding. ‘Just think, my friend. Had you gone straight to your realmgate as you suggested then I might never have been able to get by the Ironjawz to take it.’ The megaboss drew up at that. ‘Of course, Great Red here would have killed you out of hand, but we can’t have everything can we, and as he’s likely going to do that anyway, that would have come at no real cost to you.’

The apparition turned to Ramus and bowed. ‘Of all the Stormcasts I have encountered, dear friend, you are the most rigid.’ He grinned, teeth sharp and somehow brighter for their transparency. ‘I appreciate rigidity in my friends. It makes them so much easier to bend.’

‘I am no friend to you, Betrayer,’ Ramus spat, but Mannfred continued as though he had not heard, and turned to the glowering Ironjaw with a long, low bow, cloak falling to a floor that was not there.

‘It will be I, not you, who will be the first to cross the Sea of Bones. The march of my horde will be felt in the Realm of Death.’ With an elaborate flourish, he rose and turned back to Ramus. ‘I will hold our mutual friend Tarsus with affection, when he is my prisoner instead of Nagash’s.’

With a spluttering cry, Ramus thrust his reliquary into Mannfred’s wavering face and cried out to Sigmar for lightning. His staff pulsed blue-white and sprayed power in indiscriminate, arcing forks that carved through the apparition without effect. The vampire replied with a tolerant smile, swept his cloak across him and became a cloud of red that disintegrated on the wind.

‘Dwell upon your failures, Stormcast,’ came the disembodied voice, ‘as I make the Sea of Bones mine.’

Korruk’s sudden howl of fury struck Ramus from any fixation on his own boiling blood. Stomping around without another intelligible word, the Ironjaw jumped onto his maw-krusha’s back and kicked the beast into the air. It gave a bellow, flung out its vestigial, leathery wing-flaps and leapt from the parapet. It dropped into the pall like a stone.

Ramus listened as the megaboss’ livid cries receded. He bowed his head as though in prayer. His eyes stung. It was impossible to hear the Ironjaw and not be reminded of the same unthinking rage that had driven him to this place. Despite it, his heart hammered for further vengeance.

If only his own intemperance could be soothed away as readily as the bone cloud took the Ironjaw’s.

‘Vandalus. Brother, I–’

‘What’s done is done, brother. Sigmar will judge you, but not I.’

Ramus hung his head. Such a covenant should have been reassuring, but for some reason the prospect of receiving Sigmar’s judgement gave him a flutter of apprehension.

The Knight-Azyros spread his wings, stowed his starblade, and offered Ramus his hand. ‘What are we waiting for, brother? Would you leave all the fighting to the Ironjawz?’

Ramus lifted his face to the golden light of the Azyros and felt an icy peace quell his heart – the peace that only a certainty of purpose could bring. The Hallowed Knights had departed Azyrheim to renew old alliances, and perhaps a truce with the warriors of Gorkamork had always been Sigmar’s will.

‘They will have all the fight that they please,’ he said as he clasped the Azyros’ gauntleted hand. ‘But Mannfred is mine.’

Only the Faithful

David Guymer

Vandalus cut through the ethereal pall like a javelin. Clouds ripped by. Clouds with faces that screamed with horror and hatred. Clouds with claws that scratched his purple and gold armour.

‘I am a Knight-Azyros of the Astral Templars,’ he shouted into the wind, his warrior’s heart urging that the dead-storm’s challenge be met with a response. ‘I am storm-forged, a herald of Sigmar. I have fought daemons of air and lightning over the molten sky rivers of Chamon. I was forged to fly!’

The wind moaned and cried. Too many voices to comprehend. What Mannfred von Carstein had conjured to conceal his fastness in the Sea of Bones was no mere storm.

Only the restless souls of billions could carry such anguish.

The air was so thick he could barely see his fingertips, could hear little beyond moaning whispers and the crackle of his wings. He only knew which way was down because if he stopped beating his wings for long enough then that was the direction he fell. His first inkling of the Prosecutor in front of him was the repulsive hiss as two sets of Azyrite wings came into contact with a crack of discharge. His shoulder clanged into the other warrior’s hip and both were sent spinning.

‘Vand… ou… doing… ere.’

Vandalus fell, clung to by insubstantial hands. Air whistled through his thrashing wings. He fell for one painfully beaten out heartbeat before managing to right himself, wings flaring out to arrest his descent.

His heart hammered on, regardless. Head spinning, he scanned the boiling souls around him and spotted the glint of purple and gold of an Astral Templars Prosecutor. Dust and sand battered the warrior’s already badly scuffed armour, the halo thrown off by his beating wings humming with static. Vandalus recognised him as Kanutus, one of the warriors called from Sigmaron to pursue the vampire into the desert.

‘You’re supposed to be on the left flank,’ Vandalus yelled, swinging his arm in that direction. ‘The left!’

‘… what… say… on… right.’

Vandalus shook his head and banged the side of his helm with his gauntlet. What he wouldn’t give to look into Kanutus’ eyes and see his lips move.

‘Any sign of the vampire? Or the Celestial Realmgate he holds?’

‘By… the… agon… see… thing.’

‘All this time he’s been ahead of us, brother. Now he makes the mistake of standing still and we have him. The orruks and our brothers punish the undying’s legions, but they can’t fight the entire Sea of Bones.’

The Prosecutor shrugged off a clutching shade. ‘Spe… for your… elf. I will… gladly… em all.’

‘We need a direction to attack if we are to take the head of this snake.’

Vandalus gestured to signal that he was going down. His wings dipped. The relentless soul-drag on his shoulders waned. For a moment he hung, unsuspended, pulled under by shapeless fingers – then he tilted forward. The blood rushed to his head and he grinned.

With a whoop, he dropped. The dead surged to smother him, but he was an arrow and pierced them layer by layer, reducing them to tatters in his wake, the Sea of Bones a dust-strewn target billowing up to greet him. He saw a patch of dark against the churning white of the sky, then the curve of a dune and the spiky outline of gigantic bones. They became more defined as the soul-clouds were stripped away, almost as if they were growing out of the Sea of Bones to impale him.

From the ground, the Sea of Bones was dust: rising dust disturbed from the earth by the march of armies; falling dust carried in on the cry of the soul-wind. And where the two met and merged, blinding dust, shrinking each warrior’s battlefield to a gritty fugue of rattling bone and bobbing witchlights.

From the air however, it became more. It moved, undulated, almost a living thing comprised of the two vast armies that pushed and strove against each other.

The warclans of the Great Red Ironjawz were a wall of red and black, fifty thousand of them or more in impressively monstrous armour, lumping forward like flowing lava. The deathless legions crushed against them were of another order entirely. Rank upon rank, packed in shoulder-to-shoulder and marching tirelessly, went way back into the haze. Stick shadows, lurching through the dust cloud. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of bony, scrappily armoured heads and shoulders, spears waving above them.

The Great Red’s ironclad siege boats lobbed green-tinged energy that blasted open the skeletal legions, while gargants of bone and weird horrors of dust waded through entire mobs of Ironjawz. Dead things screamed. Orruks howled. Catapults twanged back and forth. Hundreds of warchanters drummed out a dervish beat. A charge of gore-gruntas – the orruks’ savage boar cavalry – momentarily filled the air with grunts and snapping bone before a weirdnob brought a massive ectoplasmic foot stamping into the ground. With a great ripping of bone, a skeleton so vast that the clouds had to part around it tipped into the hole that the orruk’s magic had thumped into the ground, and began to collapse.

Vandalus saw more devastation in that one moment than in all his lives before.

‘Thunder man.’

Korruk the Great Red hung in the air, his maw-krusha working vestigial wings to carry him towards Vandalus. His massive, clawed gauntlets each held an axe, one an enormous half-moon in black, the other flat-bladed like a butcher’s cleaver and blood red. His head was the one part of his body left unarmoured, the black and red pattern reversed with a slash of crimson paint over the dark, scarred flesh. He grinned a mouthful of bloody iron teeth.

It had been the Great Red who had first taken the Celestial Realmgate from the Astral Templars tasked with its defence and then built a fort on it. But common enemies demanded uncommon allies.

‘A good enough fight for you?’

‘Hah!’ Korruk replied simply.

‘This landscape has changed since I saw it last. Do you know which way our... your... old fortress lies?’

The hulking Ironjaw pointed Red Axe into the murk. Vandalus held up his celestial lantern and drew back its gilded shutter. Golden light streamed from the opening and, for one brief moment, burned a clear path through the wailing spirits.

Made bitty by dust and distance, lapped at by an ocean of bobbing spears, a citadel rose from the Sea of Bones like the spines of a surfacing kraken. The ossified edifice was blistered with Ironjaw scrap fortifications. Most of those structures had suffered damage or been torn down, and the latter made a jagged earthwork of mangled iron around the basilica’s dust-shrouded basin.

The Ironjaw defences were new to him, but even the citadel itself was different to Vandalus’ memory of it. Cancerous, bony growths threw up bizarrely shaped towers, twisting battlements and ridges. The realmgate was there, strobing a fitful blue at the citadel’s heights where the original, long-destroyed stronghold had been raised to control it. He was no Lord-Relictor, but he could see that it looked damaged somehow. Scores of fizzing, intermittent copies of it slashed the sky, others partially or wholly buried under the ground and spitting out great geysers of sand.

‘What madness is this?’

‘Dunno,’ rumbled Korruk. ‘It wasn’t broken when my boyz were here.’

‘Then the vampire did this. I have to tell Ramus.’

The Great Red gave a huge shrug and dropped. Vandalus saw the maw-krusha thump into the middle of a block of skeleton warriors like a bludgeon scattering sticks.

Listening to the bellows of ‘Waaagh!’ as Korruk and his beast got stuck in, Vandalus followed him down.

Levelling off gracefully, he plunged between a yawning pair of ribs a hundred feet high and flashed across the length of the battlefront. Tarnished helmet. Ragged banner. Snap of claw. Splash of red. Orruk. Undead. Orruk. The undead forces were essentially interchangeable throughout, numerous as grains of sand in the desert, and like sand, no hardship at all to throw in an enemy’s face.

The line stretched over several dozen miles and scores of brutal clan-scale melees, and even at his speed and altitude he could not yet make out the far end of it.

Lightning laced what was nominally earth to what was notionally sky, stitching bone dust and soul-ash with a sputtering light. It was there that the Hallowed Knights lent their disciplined solidity to the sheer numbers of their Ironjawz allies.

Vandalus raced towards it.

Bone crunched under Ramus’ boot. He was surrounded, packed in tight by rattling, whispering dead. Sacrificing what would have been a vital forward step, he shoulder-barged the spear-warrior pressing his right side. It crumbled under the might of sigmarite, the press of bodies knocking down several others behind it. The ground trembled slightly underfoot, but he ignored it. With space to swing his hammer, he swung – a fierce underarm swipe from right to left that launched a grinning skeleton warrior six feet into the air.

‘Who is the hammer in the God-King’s hand?’ he yelled.

‘Only the faithful!’ came the fierce reply.

Just a few paces behind, the small Exemplar Chamber of Hallowed Knights crunched in his wake. Their armour gleamed silver and gold under the weak sun, and the weapons they carried crackled with the energies of the divine storm, responding to the power of their Lord-Relictor’s reliquary as though challenged to demonstrate their potency.

‘The line is uneven,’ called Sagittus.

‘It will do,’ Ramus returned.

A pity it had taken the exploitation of his own failings by Mannfred von Carstein to teach what it was to forgive.

‘Of the sixty cast into the hell of Cartha to bring vengeance upon the Betrayer, few of us now are left,’ he shouted, the dead falling to pieces under his hammer with every word. ‘Lesser men might waver, but there is naught lesser about we Hallowed Knights. Every one among you is a proven hero, tested in battle, and remade in the fury of the Reforging. Each of you has called upon Sigmar’s name in battle and been heard. Who will shed his mortal flesh in the name of the God-King’s righteous cause?’

‘Only the faithful!’

The ground trembled again, more vigorously this time, enough to shake the Bones of Heroes stored in Ramus’ reliquary.

‘Do you feel that?’ spat Cassos, the warrior’s stormglaive humming with protective energies.

Ramus turned the deep sockets of his mortis helm towards the coming horde. The fell glow of their eyes turned the churning soul-winds an uncertain blue. A huge bone formation rose into the cloud behind them, a lattice of dim, dark lines that wavered like dead trees in a storm. There was a dull thump, and Ramus felt the tremors run through his armour.

With a roar he raised his reliquary. Lightning arced across the morbid imagery of faith, death and the storm depicted thereon, spitting between staff and sky and back again.

‘Who is the lightning in his heart?’

‘Only the faithful!’

To the shouts of his warriors, the snap of bone, the clap of thunderaxes, lightning sprayed from his staff in a blazing torrent. The reliquary shook in his hand as he commanded the current to widen, and roared as he drove it deep and hard into the horde. Bone blackened and cracked as armour cooked. Bodies were blown apart, lightning scything through the enemy ranks again and again until all before him was black and ruined.

With muffled whoops and yells, the Ironjawz mob on the Hallowed Knights’ right flank spilled into the opening, shinned aside blackened, grasping hands, and began to wade ahead. Ramus could hear the heavy thunk of their armour on the sand, even over the wind, and the insults they shouted at each other and at the Hallowed Knights behind them. More distantly, dim cries of ‘Waaagh!’ wove in through the howl.

Ramus’ hard-earned humility slipped away in a moment as he sneered at the raucous display. The Ironjawz lent sheer numbers to the Hallowed Knights’ measured advance, but it was on the shoulders of the Stormcast Eternals that victory or defeat would ultimately be carried. Mannfred was here. Somewhere. The warmth of the shield, Sigmar’s Gift, slung across his back attested to it. In punishment for the wrongs done upon the Hallowed Knights, the relic had delivered unto the Betrayer the God-King’s fire, and it remembered. Ramus ardently prayed that Mannfred’s undying flesh remembered it too.

‘They are coming again!’ came Sagittus’ cry. ‘Decimators to the fore. Judicators, loose.’

The ground shook again, violently. Ramus swayed with the tremor. A bolt whizzed loose over his head as the Judicator retinue moving up behind the Paladins stumbled. Ramus watched it whisper into the dust, already high and rising, and a second later heard it dink off something massive. Ramus grasped his reliquary and looked up as the soul-storm swept away from that lattice of bone shapes to admit a ribcage the size of a war-barge. A kneecap wider than a Liberator’s shield swung forwards. There was a thunderous shake as the skeleton’s giant foot slammed into the ground.

‘Bone gargant!’ Ramus yelled, holding his reliquary for stability as the Ironjawz poured forwards. A flurry of bolts chipped the monster’s skeleton to little avail.

It was at least seven... eight... no nine times taller than a man. Its brow was flat, shoulders heavy and hunched, arms long and thickly boned, but despite its gross misproportions it was roughly man-shaped. In one hand, it dragged the thighbone of a beast that must have been even larger. The witch glow from under its ridged brow was piercingly bright and evil. In unnerving silence, it drew its bone club up over its head and smashed it down on the Ironjawz.

Where there had been a hulking slab of armour brandishing an axe, there was a squeal of metal and a bloody splatter. A hunk of meat soared through the air and slapped wetly into Cassos’ rerebrace. An orruk bellowed at the crushed ruin of its foot while, on the other side of the club buried into the sand between them, another gawped over its shoulder plating to where it remembered having an arm.

The rest of the mob surged forwards with a roar, only to be brushed away like dead leaves by the sweep of the giant’s club. A kick broke an Ironjawz brutish boss in half and sent him back at the Hallowed Knights like a missile.

‘Down, Lord-Relictor!’

Cassos dragged Ramus aside, and the mangled body hurtled past and smashed down a following Judicator. The Stormcast’s broken body took on a glow, then dissolved into Azyrite energy and blasted the hero’s soul back to Sigmaron.

Pushing Cassos aside, Ramus raised his reliquary high. Fear had no hold on him now, and what little he still remembered of the feeling had been beaten out in successive Reforgings. But even had he still been mortal, he did not believe that he would have been afraid. He would surely have laughed as he laughed now.

‘The Betrayer sends his mightiest against us. He is close. Our hands are around his dead heart, and all we need do is squeeze.’ His voice broke with fury. ‘Who will rip the Betrayer’s head from his inhuman neck?’

‘Only the faithful!’

‘Only. The. Faithful!’

He could feel his reliquary being drawn skywards, charge dragging on monstrous charge. With a godly effort, he pulled it back, the sky itself seeming to split open as he drew a titanic bolt of lightning from the heavens. There was a flash as it struck the giant’s elbow. Its bones were lit black, the gaps between them white. Thunder rattled every piece of armour for miles around, and the goliath’s arm was blasted off at the shoulder in a blizzard of splinters.

The Hallowed Knights shouted words of glory and praise as bone fragments pattered across their armour.

Ramus raised his hammer for discipline. A strange corruption of the familiar scent of the divine storm gusted across him. It was foetid water, languid energy. His spiritual sense, that which even as a mortal had marked him apart, jangled like a string of bells. It bade him look up.

He had the impression of corporeality being split, of things that should not have been being made. A besmirched sliver of Azyric light bled through the soul-wind and sputtered wide.

‘The realmgate,’ cried Sagittus in confusion. ‘How can this be?’

With eyes trained to the soul-eternal, Ramus thought he saw something. For a moment, he glimpsed an iron turret and a red-cloaked figure in ridged black armour, clutching some manner of arcane artefact. He was surrounded by slavering ghasts that fawned over his every gesture, the jewels around their clawed fingers in stark contrast to the bloodied rags draped over their shoulders.

Betrayer.

Into that singular moment was also forced a dozen dizzying perspectives of the battle being fought around him. Orruks charging. A clatter of spears. Ghouls tearing skywards on ragged wings. A bloom of green-tinged fire. Perhaps this was how Sigmar or Nagash might see this battle played out, but it was too much to carry. His final impression was of Mannfred. The vampire seemed to turn to him, to see him across the void, and grinned.

‘It is not the realmgate. Sigmar must have sealed the way once he was aware of Mannfred’s tampering.’

‘Trapping us here,’ Sagittus muttered.

Ramus nodded. The least of their concerns. ‘It is a copy. The vampire taps the energy of Sigmar’s gate. He is directing it somehow to open new portals at will.’

‘If a few miles is the best he can muster then I am not worried,’ Cassos sneered.

‘We all should worry, Cassos. He practices on us. With such a weapon, and the Sea of Bones at his disposal, the Betrayer will be a formidable enemy.’

As if the vampire had been listening, the portal flashed and a second gargant made of bones staggered through. It stamped on a tottering Ironjaw and sent another flying with the smash of a splayed metal club. A third colossus walked into the other’s back. It was half as tall again with long, slender bones.

‘Hallowed Knights, forwards!’ Ramus roared. ‘For Sigmar, for Tarsus, and for the soul-eternal.’

The Stormcasts gave a roar, echoed by faceplates and distant voices, and broke into a charge. Ramus turned from them, hammer drawn back, and spotted a glimmer in the sky. He glanced towards it and it brightened, firing a beam of golden light that sheared cleanly through the taller bone gargant.

Vandalus shot through the rising plume of bone dust.

The Knight-Azyros shone like a solitary candle in a storm, his battered war-plate a magnificent gold, finished with the Astral Templars’ purple. The second gargant swung its metal club. Vandalus dodged agilely out of the way, and the club smashed through the other’s spine. Vertebrae sprayed out and the already struggling monstrosity collapsed as though hidden necromantic wires had been cut.

The surviving Ironjawz, and those clumping forwards to reinforce them, pumped their weapons in the air. Warring shouts of ‘Gorka’ and ‘Morka’ gave way to uncertain cries of ‘Sigmar.’ The Knight-Azyros swung about and brandished his golden starblade, which the Ironjawz lapped up with an approving roar.

Vandalus came heavily into land, balancing uneasily on the carpet of bones. Ramus strode towards him while the exuberant Ironjawz and the Hallowed Knights pushed on, making brutal work of the remaining gargant.

‘We’ve found him,’ said Vandalus.

Ramus indicated the guttering portal, now slowly fading. ‘I saw.’

‘The Liberators of the Astral Templars hold the right flank as you do the left. The Ironjawz advance slowly, but advance they do, and Korruk himself now drives for the realmgate citadel.’ He turned and pointed with his shuttered lantern. ‘The Great Red is about half a mile in front and fast pulling ahead. He is like an engine, brother, built for killing. We may win this yet.’

‘You doubted?’

Vandalus shrugged.

‘Part of me wonders how we will rid the citadel of the Ironjawz once they have reclaimed it,’ said Ramus.

‘I’m tempted to let them keep it.’ Vandalus laughed at Ramus’ sudden glare and held up his hands to show that he was not serious – at least not entirely. ‘One battle at a time, brother. Worry first that the Great Red will be done with the vampire before you catch up.’

‘Never!’

Vandalus spread his wings and prepared to take flight once more. ‘Then up your pace, brother. One way or another we drink this eve in Sigmaron.’

His Imperial Majesty Angar Utrech XVI, Abhorrant Ghoul King of the Carthic Oldwoods, growled and slurped a string of jellied consonants. One heavy hand formed a ring around his eye. It was a sickly, sightless yellow, and a jelly-like substance oozed out of the tear-duct as he squinted. The left hand made another ring about nine inches in front of the right, slowly rotating the focus of an imaginary eyeglass.

‘I see no sign of these would-be besiegers, Lord von Carstein,’ was what he thought he said. Mannfred allowed the flesh-eater’s warped reality into his mind so that he could hear him properly.

The vampire leant over the thick Ironjaw battlement, the oily cool of the Fang of Kadon between his hands, the point wedged into the graffitied metal. He had used the artefact to locate the hidden gates to Nagash’s underworld, but its powers over the lesser portals that existed within realms went far beyond mere divination.

‘Trust me,’ he whispered, strained, almost forgetting to add, ‘my liege.’

As potent as he was at his full strength, the flesh-eater court was, as a group, still more so, and he was far from his full strength. The Stormcast priest, Ramus, had seen to that.

The sand that blew into the melted ruin of his face cut like silver. The beating hearts of the ghastly court pounded in his ears. He heard their rasping breaths, the distant clangour of steel and the incongruous rattle of silverware where he knew there was none.

Click, click, click, went the imaginary dial on the imaginary eyeglass.

He tightened his grip on the Fang and murmured a calming incantation.

His monstrous legions would hold the Stormcasts at bay. And if by some miracle they did make it into his citadel, then Utrech’s court was always hungry.

‘A thousand marks says that the greenskins won’t make the outer walls,’ said Utrech, sliding his brawny hands smartly together and slipping the ‘eyeglass’ into a nonexistent coat pocket.

A growling chorus of ‘hear hears’ from the courtiers and sycophants in attendance intruded spontaneously into Mannfred’s pained reality. The backs of fingers were clapped lightly in bloody palms. Rings were rapped against the rampart’s thick iron cladding.

Mannfred hissed in pain and tried to ignore it.

When this strange court of ghouls had first found him, half-starved and barely alive, scrabbling through the Carthic Oldwoods for worms to feed on, he would have been easy prey. Instead they had fed him, feted him. By the rules of the odd little fantasy that the semi-vampiric Utrech lived through them, he was akin to visiting royalty. Through the blood of theirs he had taken, he had come to know glimpses of their world.

‘What say you, Sir Othamar?’ said Marquess Corinne, her drooling growl coming via her August Majesty’s imposed delusion as a lilting flutter of genteel elocution. She turned to the brooding templar standing guard on the stairs, hulking and obtrusive in black armour, the red paint scuffed out. ‘Would you not rather be bloodying your sword on these unruly savages?’

Sir Othamar, however, was an orruk and a dead one, commander of the garrison left behind by the self-styled Great Red, and said nothing. The Marquess pouted hideously.

A stabbing pain passed though Mannfred’s head, and he moaned. It was a sensation he dimly associated with the bringing up of vomit. Another imperfect reflection of the Celestial Realmgate split across the sky with a sound like shattering glass.

‘Bravo!’ slobbered the Viscount Henzel von Kurze.

Mannfred closed his eyes for a moment’s inner peace, then looked up to share the ghast’s wonder at what he had wrought. Scores of fizzing, intermittent portals pulsed feebly in the soul-tortured air. Some were side on, slits in the air. Others faced away. They seemed to contain eerie reflections of Mannfred and his court, but in every one there was something subtly incorrect in the image. There he was, cadaverously thin, the Twelfth Mark of Final Death hanging over him. And there again, surrounded not by fawning courtiers, but naked, horribly muscled beasts eyeing him with rapacious hunger.

The original realmgate stood within an arch of bone that by some arcane vicissitude had been braided with marble by Sigmar’s original settlers. It put Mannfred in mind of a man near death, suspended on the rack and somehow managing a fitful sleep between bouts of torture. Sigmar had abandoned it, left it for dead, a sacrifice to preserve more valued lives. But life was determined, whatever form it took. There was power in the gate yet, and the Fang of Kadon would drink it all.

He felt an ache in his gums, and his own fangs began to lengthen. The Sea of Bones was just the beginning. The Realm of Ghur was but the first step. Nagash would beg him to return, or he would cower in his crumbling keeps.

‘I require more time if I am to raise the mightiest and most ancient creatures,’ he said, speaking softly and patiently. ‘The Titans of Myth that sleep under the Sea of Bones. And the Fang needs far more of the realmgate’s power if I am to extend a portal to the lands beyond the Sea’s far border, where the gateway to Shyish is to be found.’

‘Time, is it?’ dribbled Utrech.

He waved over a hunchbacked ghoul bearing a tray that was at once half of an old wooden table and a fine silver tray. Utrech picked up a raw piece of spare rib. The last piece of Skraggtuff’s ogors, Mannfred presumed.

The delusory self-image the Abhorrant King shared with his court was of a young man with the swagger and errant confidence of birthright.

What he was was an abomination with no place in a world once trodden by gods. His breathing was quick and shallow and gurgled from his mouth. Long teeth for the ripping of uncooked flesh and powerful muscles for the grinding of bone had thickened his jaw and it hung low down his neck. His arms and chest were bare, a greenish grey, and ugly with hard slabs and cords of muscle.

The obliterated rib fell back onto the tray with a loud thunk.

‘You’ve been fair by us, von Carstein. You gift me a dragon to ride and an army to lead, and what time I have to give in exchange is yours.’

‘Most kind,’ Mannfred murmured, offering a brief nod of the head as the Abhorrant King turned with a swish of imaginary tails and sloped past the brooding Sir Othamar.

A few moments later, a terrible shriek made the unbound souls that filled the sky scatter, and a bone-grey terrorgheist carrying the Abhorrant King climbed into the wind. A pack of wolfish varghulfs chased them hungrily, their snarls and howls snatched by the soul-storm.

‘Good hunting, my liege,’ said Mannfred, with a predator’s smile. ‘May my good friend Ramus receive you well.’

Vandalus was still climbing into the shrieking gale when the portal shattered out of the storm above him. He tried to turn, but he knew it was too late. The portal was on him, a protean disk of Azyrite energy that filled his immediate sky. He didn’t know if the vampire had directed this portal specifically to target him, but it seemed akin to using a fireball to rid a gryph-hound of ticks.

Bad luck caught up with everyone in the end.

He struck the gate. The air became light. It was like hitting a mirror, fractures spreading out in slow motion, time dragging almost to the point at which it stopped.

He fell through. The fragments under him broke into ever-smaller pieces. And again. And again. The physical and the magical became indistinguishable and his mind struggled to translate what it perceived in the best way that it was able. He felt unearthly music on his skin, smelled colours through the tips of his fingers. He saw otherworldly suns rise and explode. Structures of unassailable marble, the white citadels of Sigmaron, soared and crumbled and rose again. Dust. Sand. Weeping spirits. The Sea of Bones caught from a hundred angles, every one of them the same. The ether burned on his skin, despite his armour. The fire became a single note, shrill and whining.

The barrier shattered, and the noise fell away in pieces.

Suddenly he was rolling, not through air or astral winds, but along the ground. Light sky. Dark ground. Light. Dark. Bones snapped under his armour as he crashed through. He could hear the rattle of skeletons and see the wink of bronze and the gimlet blue gleam of witchlight.

His light-wings exploded in a clap of thunder, blew a hole in the block of marching dead, and dragged him sharply out of his roll.

Straining hard and shivering, he beat into a climb. He was back on the Sea of Bones. Not where he had been, but it was better than some of the alternatives he could describe.

A ghoul shrieked, flying at him on tatty wings. The ghoul gibbered at the last second before smashing into him. It bounced off, broken, and before Vandalus could adjust he was mobbed by flapping red wings.

Ghouls hissed in his face and scratched his armour with their claws. Something tried to rake at his wings, received a snapping burn for its troubles, and fell off with a cry. The stink of burnt meat clogged his nose hole. A grey-skinned flesh-eater with high, sunken cheeks dragged its fangs down his thigh plate. Another wrestled itself around his leg and scrabbled. Bit by bit, he felt himself being dragged back to the ground.

He tried to work the shutter of his lantern, but he was still fuzzy from his journey through the vampire’s portal and his fingers couldn’t seem to recall how to do it. After several increasingly violent attempts to force it, he remembered to twist the catch and then pushed the shutter open.

For one cosmic moment, he felt himself burn. Hot and pure and loud, even if the void was too black for anyone to know it but him. Then it was gone. He closed the lantern’s shutter with a hiss of gold over gold, and it was raining burning ghouls.

‘Where have you sent me, vampire?’

No sign of Ironjawz. No sign of Stormcasts. He had clearly fallen well over the undead side of the battle. He had to find out where he was, and return to Korruk and Ramus quickly.

A death-shriek ripped open the soul-winds before Vandalus had a chance to use his beacon. A huge skeletal beast with shredded wings dropped through the tear in the sky, its long neck straddled by a subhuman monstrosity, hunched and slavering and gripping a gnawed bone club with scraps of flesh still attached.

Then the terrorgheist’s aural bow-wave hit Vandalus. He was rather more substantial than the ghosts of the Sea of Bones, but the monster’s scream still struck like the paralytic stinger of a venomous beast. It froze the strength in his muscles. It petrified the thoughts as they formed in his head. The magic that gave light to his wings held him aloft, but only until the descending monster snatched him from the air and crushed him to the dust beneath its weight.

Vandalus looked up at death’s ghoulish face through the claws that pinned his body to the ground. It was a ghoul king. He had seen the like skulking in the Carthic Oldwoods. It was as muscular as an orruk, almost as big even without armour. Its skin was a grot’s mealy green. Nasty yellow eyes appraised him as though a plate bearing something unfamiliar but not unappetizing had been pushed in front of it. The abhorrant made a slobbering, gurgling growl that sounded like speech.

‘What are you saying?’

The ghoul king’s eyes widened as though offended and it raised its club.

A flash of black and red smeared across Vandalus’ eyes. There was a crack of bone and a judder of iron, and the terrorgheist emitted a sepulchral shriek before flapping back like a gate struck open by a battering ram. Vandalus gave an involuntary gasp as the crushing weight was withdrawn from his chest. He dragged himself and his broken armour to his feet and re-established his bearings.

The thing that had hit the terrorgheist ground ironclad knuckles into the dusty ground and brought up a sullen, rolling growl. A wall of panting, iron-skirted pig flesh crunched and gored through bone, both ‘living’ and ‘dead’, to catch up with their megaboss. The weak sun winked off the polished iron of the gore-grunta Boyz’ spears. Vandalus had made it a point to learn the names of the Great Red’s major warclans. The knucklebone beads that that particular clan braided through the hair of their animals chattered as they rolled nearer. Running alongside them to the drumbeat of Gorkstikks and Morkstikks were the Wurld Masher Brawl with their giant hammers. And on the other flank, struggling to hold the same reckless pace in their ridiculously bulky armour, the Rok Nobz.

In the path of the advance, Vandalus thought. He’s brought me within reach of his stronghold.

The terrorgheist emitted a snake-like hiss, lifted its front legs off the ground and hoisted its neck, raising its abhorrant master high above the Ironjaw’s head.

There were no clever words. No pithy insults. The terrorgheist’s head simply snapped forward on the end of its long neck, jaw wide to snap off Korruk’s head. The maw-krusha hammered the bone-dragon across the snout with a swinging fist. The terrorgheist made a moaning sound. A broken fang whizzed out and spanked off the Great Red’s armour, and its neck sawed across the Ironjaw’s shoulder.

The two monsters crushed into one another. The terrorgheist’s thick, bony neck wrapped over the maw-krusha’s back end and gnashed at his legs. The belligerent beast clubbed furiously at whatever the undead thing had under its ribs. Scratching, beating, biting, growling, the two monsters abused each other into a brutal stalemate, with the Great Red and the abhorrant hanging on, face-to-face.

The ghoul king’s vituperative gibber rang through the blizzard of bone chips that Korruk’s axes struck from his club.

‘Like speakin’ to a zoggin’ gore-grunta,’ the megaboss grumbled.

Korruk turned the abhorrant’s club on Black Axe’s curved edge, then thumped his forearm smartly through the flesh-eater’s teeth. The ghoul king blubbered from its bloody mouth. Its clammy hand grabbed Korruk’s wrist. The Ironjaw instinctively recoiled, then bellowed in surprise as the ghoul king sprayed his face with pinkish spit. While Korruk shook his head, the abhorrant smashed his elbow joint with its club. The big orruk didn’t seem to feel it. The broken joint mashed the ghoul king’s nose and, with a slurp of pain, the flesh-eater let go.

Pink snot dribbling over his eyes, Korruk gave vent to a titanic roar, flexed the muscles of arm and shoulder and pushed the elbow joint squealing back into place.

The terrorgheist drowned him out with a triumphant shriek. The monster, benefitting from having neither ligaments nor tendons, had worked its back foot double-jointedly over the maw-krusha’s champing teeth and pushed back its neck. Snapping and spitting for each other’s necks, the two beasts nevertheless managed to shove each other apart.

‘Stupid, zoggin’…’

‘I have him!’ Vandalus cried.

He spread his wings to take flight, then closed them immediately over his head as a furry comet punched into the desert between him and the Great Red hard enough to send the first wave of Rok Nobz flying. It was as though the soul-storm had finally judged that enough was enough and decided to settle matters with its own fists. Dust and bone shards exploded in vibrant colours as they struck Vandalus’ wings. The fizzling discharges died away. A hairy, winged, wolf-bat thing – a varghulf – shook out of its crater and threw itself at the shouting Rok Nobz with a howl.

Vandalus ran to meet it, a bounding leap carrying him over the Ironjawz, and slammed bodily into the rabid beast.

The impact forced it onto its heels and Vandalus’ starblade slashed a red mark across its chest. He dropped his shoulder and rammed it. It gave a little, but big as he was, it was bigger and wasn’t to be surprised again. An arm as long as two of his and shaggy with hair hit him across his breastplate from shoulder to groin. The air burst out of him and he felt his boots rise off the ground.

His wings flew out to arrest his fall and the varghulf, expecting him to be at least a foot further back than he was, howled in unexpected pain as his sword pierced pectoral muscle, then lung, then shoulder blade. He beat himself higher and in so doing ripped his blade out.

The bleeding varghulf lashed for his legs with its claws, missed, tensed to jump after him, then bellowed as a Rok Nobz axe sank into its shoulder meat. Then the swipe of a gore-grunta’s tusk yanked its steaming guts over the cold desert and the only noise it made was the gristly crunch of galloping boars.

More of the monsters continued to drop out of the sky like a rain of comets and, as Vandalus sought out the Great Red, braying hordes of ghouls loped ravenously towards the embattled Ironjawz. Skeleton horses ran alongside, barely keeping pace, with more howling varghulfs arriving on foot. The ground quivered, and Vandalus watched as the soul-winds appeared to swell and then shred apart before an entire phalanx of bone gargants on the march.

‘Is there no end to them...?’ he murmured.

‘I want my thunder door back!’ He heard Korruk roar, and turned towards the sound.

The megaboss’ maw-krusha was mobbed by ghouls and skeletons. A warrior in bronze armour stuck its spear into the beast’s armpit. It didn’t react as the shaft snapped, nor even as the monster dragged its fist through it – unless you counted being smashed to bits as a reaction. The Great Red booted a grinning head off a set of hanging pauldrons and hacked Red Axe through the arm of another as it stabbed for him with a halberd.

More kept on shambling in, steel blades and bits of bronze sweeping towards him on a tide of bone. Spears, pikes and halberds stabbed at the maw-krusha’s side while bony fingers grasped up for the Ironjaw’s weapons. The monster shattered a dozen in one blow. Billhooks swung up at Korruk from all sides. Red Axe and Black Axe sent them back to the Bone Sea in splinters.

‘The Great Red don’t lose!’

He flung wide his dusted weapons, pushed out his chest, and opened his dripping iron fangs to the choking sky.

‘Waaaaa-’ He rammed his heels so hard into the maw-krusha’s belly that the brute actually squawked. It beat its muscular, winged arms as though willing the ground to mock it for trying to fly and, against all odds, lifted off. It didn’t last long, but then it didn’t have to. ‘-aaaaa-’ The maw-krusha arced gracelessly over the broken, squirming skeletons and smashed into the terrorgheist’s side like a sledgehammer. ‘-aaggh!’

The terrorgheist went down with a rusty snap. Its ribs cracked under the blow. The maw-krusha made doubly, then triply sure with a series of blows to its head. The shovel-slams after that were overkill, but Korruk was too busy to stop him. Assuming he could.

Vandalus saw the abhorrant where it had rolled clear of its broken beast. The ghoul king came up in a spray of sand and hefted his club, breathing wetly and hard.

Korruk dismounted, leaving the maw-krusha to its retribution, and clanked towards him. Skeletons ran full into his armour and simply broke as he built up speed. Some notion of what was coming entered the ghoul king’s sickly yellow eyes and he started to back up, too afraid to actually turn his back on the giant Ironjaw and run. Korruk smashed apart a skeleton that got between them and swung Black Axe for the abhorrant’s head. Straight down. Quick and brutal. The flesh-eater snapped out of it just enough to beat the blow aside with his club, and recovered some of his sneer, only to drop it again when Red Axe hacked off the hand at the wrist.

Blood splurged from the shortened arm. Korruk kicked the flesh-eater in the chest, cracked a rib, and flung him back ten feet. The ghoul king crumpled in a heap under the fizzling portal that had spat out Vandalus.

Korruk lifted it by the neck as easily as he might a drunken grot and held it to the portal’s flickering light as though for a proper look. The dust and sand that clung to the ghoul king’s bloodied body made it a grainy white, jumping between shades from second to second. White. Blue. White. Blue. Only its chest and face, facing away from the portal, were a fixed, resigned black.

‘Tell Man… Man…’ Korruk bared his iron teeth and growled. ‘Tell ’im the Great Red’s comin’.’ With that, the Ironjaw plunged the flesh-eater’s head into the portal up to its lower ribs. The portal flashed like a lightning storm, and a sudden pull dragged on the Ironjaw’s hand. The body thrashed for a moment and then was still.

With a grunt of effort, as though he were dragging a sand raft out of a dust flow against the current, Korruk pulled the body out. What was left of it. Vandalus shivered at the sight of the flat, glassy tissue that now closed off the section through the abhorrant’s chest the way its head and shoulders had once done.

‘Morka...’ Korruk grumbled.

Orruks were a superstitious race. Even an Ironjaw megaboss wasn’t too tough for a healthy fear of the weird.

‘There are too many,’ Vandalus shouted. He smashed apart a skeleton with a blow from his hammer, and turned back to Korruk.

Vandalus didn’t fear a death in battle. It was one of the first human foibles that immortality took away. Korruk was not human, nor was he immortal, but Vandalus saw the same fearlessness in his one, savage eye. It was strange to stand before the orruk as an equal. It felt right, like the halcyon days long gone.

‘You and me then,’ Korruk said, hefting his big axes. ‘Try and keep up.’

Vandalus grinned. ‘I do have wings.’

The first of the running varghulfs charged towards them. They were shaggy and slobbering, long teeth sharply white against the pitch dark of their gaping mouths. Vandalus felt a familiar tingle on his skin and tasted tin on his lips. He had his lantern raised, but before he could operate it, two shots of lightning from above incinerated both beasts. Bits of gore with hair stuck to them slapped down, a lot of them over the broad target that was Korruk’s armour. Ramus strode towards them at the forefront of a line of Hallowed Knights Paladins.

‘Azyros,’ he said, by way of greeting as the Stormcasts surged past to bolster the Ironjawz and check, for the time being anyway, the vampire’s sally. He acknowledged the towering megaboss with a nod, but no words. The Great Red growled back.

All friends here, thought Vandalus.

‘We must take the realmgate at all costs,’ Ramus intoned. ‘End the Betrayer and all of this is over.’

‘I don’t see how,’ Vandalus replied. ‘Whatever we bring, the vampire has more. We are stalled, brother, and I’d guess several miles from his citadel yet.’

‘You don’t speak for me, tin man,’ rumbled the Great Red, and beat down a skeleton that had tottered through the lines, slipping on the glassy lightning scar on the ground. ‘No one steals from the Great Red.’

‘Don’t misunderstand me. The Astral Templars will fight to the death. But I would rather look my real enemy in his eyes before I’m returned to the forge.’

Ramus pointed his reliquary back towards the portal. It pulsed in the swirling dust, white and blue, unaffected by any of it. ‘In his hubris, the Betrayer leaves the path open to us.’

‘That’s no better choice,’ Vandalus cried, shaking his head with a sudden, unworthy fear. ‘I’ve passed through that door, brother, and you’ll find nothing on the other side but Chaos.’

‘The light of Azyr is incorruptible and indivisible. There are many portals, but one gate only, and it is there.’ Ramus swung his reliquary to where the bone gargants smashed into the thin line of Hallowed Knights, past the squeal of sigmarite and the stabs of lightning and into the soul-storm. ‘I have seen it. I have seen where the Betrayer waits, confident in his power over the storm and contemptuous of mine. Twice now he has bested me, but today his overconfidence will undo him. Have faith in me, brother. There is but one realmgate and I shall guide us there.’

Vandalus glanced towards Korruk. The Ironjaw looked at the portal and the messily halved abhorrant with a shudder, then towards the soul-shrouded bone gargants. Their massive arms rose and dropped like colossal hammers.

‘Nah. My way’s better.’

‘With me then, all who are faithful,’ Ramus cried, driving a bolt of lightning skyward from his reliquary and calling the surviving Hallowed Knights to him.

Vandalus watched the Lord-Relictor walk into the light. White. Blue. White. Blue. Then gone.

Just the soul-storm and the battle remained, the Ironjawz shouting as they ran in unruly formations to their dooms. Ramus was right. There could be no victory against these odds.

‘Only the faithful,’ he muttered, and followed.

There is one gate. Ramus repeated the mantra, over and over in his mind as foul, corrupted lightning lashed at his panoply of faith and etheric winds buffeted him, howling with the many voices of the unquiet dead. There is one gate. If he were to look then he knew he would see many, but they were falsehoods all and so he did not look. Eyes could be deceived, but the truth he kept in his heart where no evil could violate it.

There is one gate.

His Hallowed Knights were beside him. They shared a spiritual bond and their faith was his strength even as he felt them ripped away, one by one, cast into mirror portals that exited all across the physical battlefield. They would survive the experience as Vandalus had, but isolated from their allies, swamped by undead, their separation would ultimately prove fatal.

‘Sigmar demands much of those to whom much is given,’ he bellowed into the maelstrom, seeking with his words and his will to anchor their souls to Azyr and to the divine storm – but he could not even hear himself.

There went his second, Sagittus. The Judicator had questioned him often, and Ramus was aggrieved, but not surprised, that he should be amongst the first to falter. Then went Cassos. Ever prideful, ever arrogant. The Protector-Prime tumbled onto the Sea of Bones and disappeared under a shrieking mob of flesh-eaters.

There is one gate.

As far back into his mortal existence as Ramus could recall, he had always been a priest. There had been no life for him before Sigmar. He was without vulnerability, without vice. The Lord-Relictors were warrior priests, but for him, the ‘warrior’ part of that dyad had always come a distant second.

Discarding his hammer, he took up the shield, Sigmar’s Gift. Many lies shone upon its silver face, but it carried only one true reflection. It had delivered the God-King’s fire unto the Betrayer, and it remembered. He turned his head in the direction it pointed.

Portals whirled there like stars, a nightscape that had been hyper-accelerated in order to watch the full lifespan of creation in a few short seconds.

There is one gate.

But which one?

Suddenly, Vandalus was there beside him, and the celestial radiance of his beacon showed the pale imitations of Azyr’s light for what they were. The false portals dimmed and faded and the one true gate shone like the last star at the universe’s end.

‘There is one gate!’ The Knight-Azyros yelled into his mind.

The bedlam of energy and noise came together into a blinding wall of light and then shattered.

Ramus was kneeling as though in prayer on a rampart flagged with tiles of bone. Steam rose from his armour. The wind hissed. Bone shards hit sigmarite with a forlorn little sound like pebbles being dropped into a votive well. He looked up. A handful of Retributors and Judicators had made it with him, and Vandalus. They stood, lightning winding around their armour.

Their faith was a source of inspiration and joy.

At their backs, the realmgate sputtered and glowed. It was cold, sealed by Sigmar, a charcoal blue ember that was slowly guttering down. Ramus wondered whether it might be reopened, and how. The God-King had the power to seal the gates to his realm, but only from the other side could such gates be unbarred.

A hiss of fury came to him through the soul-gale. Mannfred von Carstein stood on the other side of the metal-over-bone rampart. The vampire’s white hair was wild and lashed about in the wind. His teeth were longer than when Ramus had first encountered him, broken and caged in the Land of the Dead, and his eyes were redder. An animal kind of madness affected them, a symptom of this realm perhaps, or the energies he had been attempting to barter with. Ramus focussed on the vampire’s face. His patrician features were horribly burned. The mark of Sigmar’s lash.

Stiffly, the vampire bowed, as though acknowledging the honour Ramus showed him by presenting himself thusly on his knees. The muscle-clad ghasts that surrounded him flexed and drooled.

With a scowl, Ramus rammed his reliquary between the bone flags.

At the same time, Mannfred drew his ancient, basket-hilted sword. In his other hand was the oily curve of the Fang of Kadon, wrested from the ghouls of Helstone with the good faith of Hallowed Knights. It was about the length of a dagger, and it dripped with power.

There was a crunch as the dread abyssal, Ashigaroth, descended on a nimbus of keening spirits that wefted and wove about its bulk, and clamped its claws onto the parapet behind its master. Even amongst the deathless horrors to which Mannfred had bestowed unlife, it was a rare and unique terror. Ramus had personally witnessed the beast swallowing a man’s soul, and savage a charging gryph-hound with the barest twitch of its beak.

‘You do not look as hale as the last time we met, Betrayer.’

‘Nor you, Stormcast.’

‘Looks can deceive.’

‘Most things will, if you allow them to.’

‘Distract the beast, Azyros,’ growled Ramus, eyes fixed on Mannfred’s. ‘The rest of you... the vampire is all that matters here.’

With an ululating war cry, Vandalus leapt into the air. The Hallowed Knights thundered forwards, as did Mannfred’s ghasts. The turret of the Ironjaw fort was too narrow for either side to build much momentum, but the two sets of inhumanly massive bodies carried force enough of their own to smack together with a sound like mallets softening up raw meat. Ramus saw Vandalus dart away from Ashigaroth’s snapping beak and disappear around a bartizan that projected from the turret’s corner. Then Ramus found his full attention occupied.

Mannfred strode towards him.

‘Step away from the realmgate.’

‘Never.’

‘I do not ask twice.’ Face twisted by a predatory snarl, Mannfred lunged for his throat with the tip of his sword.

Ramus swung his shield into it, knocking it aside. It was only then that he realised that he still did not have a hammer. He muttered a prayer, his reliquary bursting into Azyric light as he swung it like a mace and cracked the dead hand that wielded the Fang of Kadon. Mannfred cursed and spun away.

The vampire dropped low and stabbed under Ramus’ guard. The blade nicked his faulds before Ramus could counter. He stepped off in a bid to keep the distance between them that favoured his staff’s length, but the vampire was quickly on him. He danced, feinted, eyes everywhere, moving like a snake. The Fang of Kadon scraped an ‘X’ across the face of Sigmar’s Gift.

‘Behold the glory of Sigmar, vampire!’

Ramus stamped his staff’s black ferule onto the ground. Ribbons of energy stroked across air and ground, driving the vampire back. He took the moment granted to take in the carnage. A ghast took a thunderaxe in the gut and exploded outwards from the midriff, splattering everything in pink. Another ripped the right arm clean off a Judicator’s body and used the crossbow still in its grip to club in the screaming warrior’s helm. He heard Ashigaroth’s shriek and saw Vandalus crash through the bartizan’s iron walls. A beam of light sheared back through the jagged breach and drove the dread abyssal higher, out of reach.

‘Marquess,’ Mannfred hissed, still swatting at the tendrils of energy that ran across the dark ridges of his armour. ‘Take this one and I will see to it that you take Angar Utrech’s throne.’

The powerfully built creature he spoke to glanced hungrily towards the Stormcasts. Hulking, grey, peripherally female, it loped towards Ramus on its knuckles and opened its heavy jaws. Ramus slammed it aside with his shield, broke its neck, and used its momentum to propel himself into Mannfred as he lashed the shield back across him.

Mannfred recoiled in pain and shock. Blood was dribbling from a shallow diagonal line that joined his right temple to the left side of his mouth.

‘Only the faithful!’ Ramus roared as the vampire’s cut began to bubble and the blood dappling the blade-rim of his shield began to steam.

It remembered. And behind him, the realmgate responded.

It opened just a crack: not physically, but with the unsubtle energies of the divine storm. Light streamed through the opening with a pure clarion note like the trumpet call of Heaven, and Ramus felt all his bruises and aches soothed. The vampire shuffled away from him, blood dripping onto the metal flags.

‘What have you done? How?’

The skin sealing the gate vibrated like an ivory horn in the moments after it had been blown, and a shadow formed against the Azyr blue. It was a human shape, larger than a man, rounded by the bulk of armour. There was a rippling snap of discharge as the burly figure stepped through. He bore a long, gold-hafted halberd in one gauntlet and an ornately filigreed lantern in the other. His armour was the deep purple of sunset. As Ramus recognised him, his heart soared on the storm winds of Sigmar’s miracle.

His name was Hamilcar, Lord-Castellant of the Astral Templars, Eater of Bears, and Champion of Cartha.

The Stormcast whirled his halberd one handed and decapitated a ghast with a splitting blow to the side of the neck. ‘The Bear-Eater has your scent, undying,’ the Lord-Castellant bellowed with a thunderous laugh. ‘He has come back for you!’

Two more Astral Templars emerged from the gate behind him, and then two more, marching in column. Beside them, walking in a metronomic lockstep and also in ranks of two, came something that Ramus could never have dreamed to see marching under the light of Azyr – not given the outcome of his embassy to the Lands of the Dead. They were wights, encased in black armour, and clad in the bitterest, most unforgiving chill. The liche that led them out half a length behind Hamilcar’s giant stride was clad in ragged robes and encased in ridged armour of archaic design that rattled loosely against his bones. He carried a long staff, around the tip of which strange black flames pulsed, and a tomb-blade that summoned actual tears from the streaming souls it touched.

‘Arkhan the Black,’ said Ramus in disbelief. He turned back from the gate and thrust his blazing reliquary towards the no-longer-so-distant Heavens. ‘The gate between Sigmaron and Stygxx has been unsealed!’

Mannfred slithered back like an adder. He shoved a ravenous ghast into Ramus’ and Hamilcar’s path. Arkhan gestured with his staff and the flesh-eater was withered on the spot, consumed in a puff of black flame. Mannfred pressed back against the spiked metal battlements and cast about in desperation. Spotting something that Ramus could not see through the intervening combatants and the debris thrown out by the wrecked bartizan, he dropped down. When he sprang back to his feet he had his sword arm locked around Vandalus’ throat and the Fang of Kadon pulsing over the Knight-Azyros’ heart, a crowing sneer on his lips. The Astral Templar looked dazed.

‘No closer, Stormcast.’

Hamilcar gave a mocking laugh and impaled a ghast to the halfway point of his weapon’s haft. ‘Look at who you’re speaking to. Do you think I fear for my brother’s life?’

With a scowl, Mannfred turned to Arkhan. ‘The Sea of Bones is our freedom. I could have conquered this realm and lived as a god. Imagine, if you can, what we could do together.’

‘I know my duty as I have always done since the earliest of days,’ the liche returned, his voice sepulchral and harsh. ‘The Undying King raised you high. You are one of his Mortarchs. But your fear of him and your jealousy of your fellow servants has unmade you.’ He lifted his staff. ‘It is, as always, my pleasure to serve him as his instrument in this.’

‘Ramus,’ said Mannfred, wheedling, turning from the heartless liche. ‘Do you think that Nagash will ever release the soul of your Lord-Celestant? Do you think he would ever release a soul of his? I am your only chance if you want to see Tarsus made whole again.’

‘I too know my duty,’ Ramus intoned. He barged aside a ghast that was wrestling with a Hallowed Knight for his thunderaxe, and made to run at Mannfred – only for a hulking orruk-zombie to clank into his path. Its axe thumped into Ramus’ shield.

‘A less craven cur would jump,’ said Arkhan. ‘The fall is long, but Nagash’s vengeance on you, prodigal, will be eternal.’

‘Let Nagash’s wrath atrophy as he does. He shall never claim me.’ Mannfred glared at Ramus and Hamilcar and raised the Fang of Kadon high. ‘And neither shall Sigmar.’

‘No!’ Ramus screamed. He knocked back the armoured zombie and hurled his shield.

It emitted a discus hum as it carved through the air, slicing the vampire into halves through the belly at the same moment that the Fang of Kadon plunged through Vandalus’ breastplate and impaled the Stormcast’s heart. Both howled as though struck by lightning. The channelled energy of the active realmgate pulsed from the Fang and through them both, suturing them together with stitches of Azyr-light. The vampire’s pale skin shone white. The Azyros glowed like a forge through the joins in his armour as though his blood had been transformed into thunder.

The light emitted a shrill, bat-like scream, and the two bodies folded into one another, flattened, thinned, dragged towards a central point around the Fang of Kadon, and then slurred out into a spitting portal. It was purple, as though discoloured by blood, and larger than any that Ramus had yet seen manifested over the Sea of Bones. But it lasted for barely a second. Blood spatter and bent bits of roasted armour fell over the tower top as it collapsed back on itself.

There was nothing left but smoke and a black stain on the ground.

Arkhan and Hamilcar advanced together. The liche poked at the ground with his staff while the Astral Templar sniffed at the air.

‘Is he dead?’ said Hamilcar.

‘The dead are not so easily destroyed, and that one lingers more determinedly than most. He will be somewhere within this realm. The Fang of Kadon manipulates the pathways that exist within worlds.’

‘I’ll find him,’ growled Hamilcar.

‘And I,’ said Ramus, solemnly.

‘Not you,’ said Arkhan. ‘I bring a message from Sigmar. Your work here is done. Mannfred is beaten, his ghouls broken, and his army will crumble before the sun sets. Your lord has other duties for the Hallowed Knights.’

Ramus’ bow was forced. The thought of Mannfred finding justice at the hands of another – any other, he thought, with a glance towards Hamilcar – pained him. He sighed.

‘Much is demanded of those to whom much is given.’

‘Quite so.’

Ramus felt himself smile. Perhaps the suffering endured by his chamber had all been part of Sigmar’s plan, had led him to this moment. The champions of the God-King and the Great Necromancer stood together in victory over a common foe. Somewhere in the far, far distance, something big and definitely alive delivered a cry of ‘Waaaggh!’

It was a reminder, if Ramus needed one, that the Sea of Bones must yet see one more battle.

And that not all alliances could last forever.

About the Authors

Josh Reynolds is the author of the Blood Angels novel Deathstorm and the Warhammer 40,000 novellas Hunter’s Snare and Dante’s Canyon, along with the audio drama Master of the Hunt, all three featuring the White Scars. In the Warhammer World, he has written the End Times novels The Return of Nagash and The Lord of the End Times, the Gotrek & Felix tales Charnel Congress, Road of Skulls and The Serpent Queen, and the novels Neferata, Master of Death and Knight of the Blazing Sun. He lives and works in Northampton.

David Guymer is the author of the Gotrek & Felix novels Slayer, Kinslayer and City of the Damned, along with the novella Thorgrim and a plethora of short stories set in the worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000. He is a freelance writer and occasional scientist based in the East Riding, and was a finalist in the 2014 David Gemmell Legend Awards for his novel Headtaker.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2016.
This eBook edition published in 2016 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Cover illustrations by Christian Byrne and Roman Kupriyanov.
Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

The Realmgate Wars: Mortarch of Night © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2016. The Realmgate Wars: Mortarch of Night, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer, Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world. All Rights Reserved.

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

ISBN: 978-1-78572-089-5

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