The Solace of Rage

Guy Haley

In a castle fashioned from crystal, a weaver of destiny worked.

He, she, it – who could tell? None knew if the sorcerers had once been mortal or were daemon made. There were nine, or there were one, or there were both one and nine. In all things, including their number, they were mysterious. Or so they had meant to be.

The Many-Eyed Servant was one of the names of the nine, and it applied in this instance to a tall, skeletal figure, impossibly thin, with limbs like reed stalks and a body to match. Atop a strand of a neck balanced a broad head, disturbingly smooth and featureless save for a line of eyes along its ridge. A body of this sort was nought but a garment, and not the most important that it had occasion to wear. In this form, the Many-Eyed Servant’s cloak defined it, name and nature – a long covering made of eyelids that fluttered and blinked, from behind which moist eyeballs of every hue peered out curiously.

The Many-Eyed Servant dabbled long fingers in a pool of steaming quicksilver, flicking through the images it conjured there. Scenes of war. All the realms were in uproar with the coming of Sigmar. From time to time, it stopped to examine this hero or that, emitting a gentle purr of satisfaction when it saw one worthy of note, clucking in annoyance at those who disrupted its carefully placed webs of cause and effect. Once it had toyed with individuals of this type for its own ends. The Many-Eyed Servant had spent long lifetimes of men twisting the threads of fate into pleasing patterns – but no longer.

There was a tightness around its spindly limbs, chains of fate that were not of its making. Once it had been merely the Many-Eyed, but then Archaon had learned its one true name, and forced upon it the role of servant. Now it was bound to the Everchosen’s purpose, along with all its siblings.

The facets of the Many-Eyed Servant’s lair darkened along with its mood. Displayed by sorcerous means in panes of crystal were images of its eight counterparts. A few worked in their own dens, each a sanity-testing place conjured by the architect’s ineffable whims. Others were abroad in the realms, doing the bidding of their master. Wherever they were, they looked up as one at the Many-Eyed Servant’s pique and scolded him, wary lest Archaon’s attention be directed toward them. The Many-Eyed Servant hunched its shoulders and turned its back upon them. The others were overly concerned by Archaon. If Tzeentch learned of their bending to the Everchosen’s will, the displeasure of the Changer of the Ways would make Archaon’s worst wraths seem as nothing. Nevertheless, although the Many-Eyed Servant would not admit it was afraid of their current lord, it returned to its scryings, compelled by dread and duty.

Archaon demanded champions, and so the Many-Eyed Servant looked for them in every realm.

In the Realm of Beasts, there was a prairie of such extent it had no single name, a landscape that a man could not cross in the space of a single life. Stretching for thousands of leagues, the plains encompassed mountains and seas, forests and mighty canyons, but for the most part they comprised grassland of rich and infinite variety. Great beasts walked there, their horns as high as the crowns of trees. Men hunted them, as bewildering in the profusion of race and tribe as the beasts themselves were in variety.

The Bloodbloom Fields were found on these plains. The grasses were red, and its flowers crimson. The partly fossilised ribcages of animals of impossible size studded the scarlet, higher than cathedrals, their breastbones covered in patches of woodland that trailed long creepers earthward. Their eyeless skulls were osseous mesas, the phalanges of their paws greying crags.

At the time of the Bloodbloom’s breeding, when the wind blew just so, the flowers opened and spat their pollen to be carried far and wide. The flowers sang for days during this season. Individually, the voices of the flowers were almost too quiet to be heard, but the sound of millions together created a musical sighing that gave the Bloodbloom Fields its other name, the Singing Steppes.

These were rich lands, well populated with beasts and tribes. Even at the close of the Age of Chaos when Sigmar’s warriors rained down from the heavens with wrath in their hearts and lightning in their hands, there remained free people of the plains who had survived the terrible centuries. They were hunted because of it, for the gods loathe freedom above all else, but they survived.

It was to this place that the Many-Eyed Servant’s attention was drawn. Its restless fingers paused in their fretful dibbling, the ripples on the silver stilled. The image sharpened, and it leaned in closer.

Upon the Bloodbloom Fields was assembled a host of men. These were the Bloodslaves, the horde of Lord Kalaz the Hewer. The name came to the Many-Eyed Servant immediately. In ordinary times they moved restlessly across the plains, cutting a swathe across grass, herd and nation alike. Not today. Rank after rank of blood warriors and bloodreavers were arranged in a hollow circle atop a hill of stacked, gargantuan bones. To the north, the greying faces of the bones made cliffs twenty yards high; to the south, the hill sloped down gently to the plain. Atop this plateau, black and bronze armour gleamed in a sultry morning hazed by pollen.

Around the hill, the scorched marks of the Bloodslaves’ hundred campfires pitted the red with black. A broad road of crushed flowers stretched over the horizon, marking their passage to this place of battle. A trampled field of torn earth and dark bloody stains bore silent witness to the great slaughter that had been done there the prior day. Eight cairns of fresh skulls, still pink from flensing, ringed the site, all that remained of the Heyeran people.

The Heyeran’s horses’ bones charred in fires made with the shattered timbers of the defeated tribe’s chariots. A hundred of the tribesmen lived on, but in body only. Given the choice between the dark feast and death, they had opted to consume the hearts of their comrades. Already their old existence slipped from minds clouded with Khorne’s rage.

All present desired fresh slaughter, and none more than the once-Heyeran, but all was still. The horde waited in silence. Their eyes were upon the open space at the centre of the ring of flesh and brass they made. Save for the moaning of chained khorgoraths and the snap of banners in the wind, silence reigned.

The extermination of the Heyeran had been a costly victory. Lord Kalaz the Hewer was dead, cut down at the height of the battle, the last bold act of the War King of the Heyeran.

Five of the tribe’s Gorechosen remained. The slaughterpriest Orto, the bloodstoker Danavan Vuul, the skullgrinder Kordos and the tribe’s two exalted deathbringers. There to the south of the ring was the one who called himself Mathror, horned and proud. The other was the voiceless Ushkar Mir. The ranks of the Bloodslaves were a quarter reduced, the three other Gorechosen among the slain. It did not matter, for Khorne cared nothing for the deaths of his followers, only that death had been done, and the Heyeran had been worthy foes.

The banner of the tribe’s dead bloodsecrator spiked the earth. The hum of wrathful energy demanded a new bearer, but it and all other things must wait. Before aspirants could attempt acceptance to the circle of eight, the Bloodslaves required a new lord.

Ushkar Mir and Mathror glared at one another. They had fought for many years together, but such things counted for nothing among the worshippers of the Blood God. Barely contained fury radiated from both.

Mathror was a hulking brute, muscles swollen by the dark energies of chaos. A pair of brazen horns sprouted from his temples. He wore the Blood Armour, a spiked set of plates that completely enclosed his body from his cloven feet to his eyes. A bevor encased the lower part of his face, but he had no need of a helmet. His horns were as much a part of that dread panoply as any other piece, offering protection to his head. From above the bevor glared a pair of bloodshot eyes, yellow irised, trapped within a perpetual glower and overhung by brows tense with the need for violence. He bore a huge sword the weight of two men, finned and spined the length of its bloody blade. Old gore caked its runnels, but the edges glinted bright steel and were sharp enough to draw a cry from the wind. On his other arm he carried a tower shield, dark red, embossed with the runes of Khorne and the holy eight-pointed symbol of Chaos.

Ushkar Mir was taller. He too retained a general human shape, but was also grossly swollen with unholy power. An unbeliever would have seen him as a giant, although like all the Bloodslaves he had once been an ordinary man, untouched by divinity. About his face, Khorne’s whims were clearly exhibited. Mir’s lips had withered away, leaving his teeth exposed to the root in a perpetual snarl. Around his eyes was bound a brass ring, riveted to the bone of his skull with iron. The brass was stamped deep with runes. Dark now, they glowed hot in battle. Ushkar Mir’s head was consequently a mass of twisted tissue haloed by thin wisps of brittle hair, for the runes’ heat tormented him, driving him to greater rage, which in turn made them burn hotter.

Mir disdained armour, preferring speed and fury to a coward’s shell of metal. Beneath his simple leather harness his scars were clear to see, raised welts all across his back and chest. Unlike his mutilated head, these made coherent imagery – Khorne’s skull rune, Chaos’ eight-pointed star, and the four-base tally marks of his many slaughtered foes.

Mir’s twin axes Skullthief and Bloodspite lay crossed upon his back, their querulous heads muzzled by their sheaths. One was black, the other red, gifts from Mir’s master. His fists were clenched, the brass bands around his knuckles buckled with the expression of his great and furious strength. His chest heaved in and out, muscles flexing with every bullish breath. Mir’s snorting was a provocation, an invitation to violence. The noise of it dominated the hilltop.

Orto looked between the two once-men facing each other across the circle.

‘So?’ he said. A single word, loud as a bell and as clear as a trumpet call, carried on breath that reeked of blood. The Bloodslaves shifted at its uttering, movement rippling through the crowd’s mass. Fire kindled in their hearts after their rare minutes of inaction. However the day was to end, its beginnings were sown then, in that moment, in that one word.

Orto had drunk of the slaughtergruel the day before, a tincture of boiling heartblood tainted by daemon gore and powdered warpstone. Khorne had deemed him worthy once again, for he lived still, and he had been granted yet more power. His skin was taut with new muscle and his terse words carried the authority of the great Skull Lord himself. Power shone through him from Khorne’s own throne.

‘Mir is not worthy,’ said Mathror. ‘It should be I who leads.’

‘See!’ said Orto. He strode to Mir’s side on legs grown unnaturally long. He pinched at Mir’s muscles, rapped huge knuckles against Mir’s brass blind, caressed the raised scarring on his massive chest. ‘The gifts of Khorne.’

‘Gifts for the unworthy,’ said Mathror.

Orto touched the black and red axes of Mir fleetingly, so as not to rouse the daemons sleeping within.

‘Twin axes he bears, daemon-kin from Khorne’s own legions. These are not the marks of the worthy?’ Orto barked a laugh. ‘You deny Khorne’s judgement. Your skull shall be his.’ Orto gripped his double-handed axe meaningfully. It was a cruel thing, toothed with black spikes.

‘I do not deny the judgment of the Skull Lord,’ said Mathror. He raised his hand, and Orto paused. For all his monstrous appearance and the fire of rage that burned in him, he spoke evenly. His voice was no ragged war-shout, but a silken thing, suggestive and deadly, a weapon in its own right. ‘Instead it is you, Orto, who denies his sense of humour!’ Scattered guffaws came from the horde. ‘Khorne laughs at Mir, and that is well. You mistake amusement for favour. Ushkar Mir will not lead us. He lacks faith.’

‘You think you should lead? Ha!’ said Orto.

‘I will not follow you,’ said Danavan Vuul. Kordos the smith, as ever, said nothing.

A blood warrior stepped forward from the horde. He was smaller than many present, close in size to the city dweller he had once been. Tight black armour clad him, while his tall-crested helmet he carried under one arm, leaving his face free. His skin was pale blue, marbled with bloodmarks. His eyes were the same colour, so that they were hard to distinguish from the rest of his face. He looked a living sculpture carved from exotic marble. Even so, the intelligence in those eyes could not be missed. Skull was cunning, a master of intrigue in a herd of killers, and that made him dangerous on and off the field of war.

‘Skull!’ Orto spat. The priest despised Skull’s temerity, most especially in his taking of a holy name. ‘What do you want here?’

‘I speak for Mir,’ said Skull. His voice was high, insinuating.

‘You have no business here.’

‘Lord Khorne saw fit to deprive the Great Ushkar Mir of his voice, and then Lord Khorne saw fit to provide him with the service of Skull.’ He bowed to the slaughterpriest. ‘Skull speaks for Mir. Skull always speaks for Mir.’

Orto growled and snapped his teeth.

‘You dislike my name, I know,’ said Skull. ‘Must we have this dance every time we meet? If you would slay me, do so!’

‘You have no right to it,’ said Orto. ‘You will die for your blasphemy.’

‘You may challenge Mir to dispute my right,’ said Skull. ‘I am under his protection.’

Mir growled, the first sound other than his bellows-breath he had made since the gathering began.

‘Let the Court of Blades decide the matter. Then you may present your complaint directly to the brass throne,’ said Skull.

Blood rage flushed Orto’s skin, but he restrained himself. He had no desire to fight Mir – it was not a contest he could win.

‘Speak then, insolent wretch!’ he said.

Skull inclined his head in mock deference to the slaughterpriest. ‘I shall, and I say this – Mir is worthy.’

‘And why would you not say Mir is worthy?’ scoffed Mathror. ‘Your word means nothing! You are his thing, his creature. You live because of his patronage. How dare you address your betters – get out of my sight! When this is settled, I will come for you and scrape the flesh from your living bones. Run now, and you may survive a little longer.’

A smile flitted across Skull’s face. He adjusted the grip on his sheathed longsword. Mathror exaggerated. Mir was not his sole guarantor of safety – Skull was a talented warrior himself. He thought often on his own and Mathror’s relative might. Perhaps Skull’s skill was greater, though his strength was undeniably lesser. Khorne’s servants were not known for their consideration, but for those like Skull who could hold back the fury and fight with head and heart, life was full of such assessments.

‘Mir is worthy,’ said Skull again. ‘None fight better or harder for the Blood God than he.’

‘Fight harder? Maybe. I fight better,’ said Mathror, clanging his shield against his breast. ‘And however he fights, he does not fight for the Blood God.’

‘No?’ said Skull. He cocked one silver eyebrow. ‘Then who does he fight for?’

‘Ushkar Mir fights for himself,’ said Mathror, and his contempt revealed itself fully.

‘Your proof, my lord Mathror?’ said Skull.

‘His words are his proof. All heard them. His own prayer condemns him. “By each skull I pave the road to your throne, by each step I come closer to vengeance.”’ He quoted the prayer of Mir, one the champion had uttered quietly in every battle before Lord Khorne took his words forever. ‘Who else but a faithless servant would say that? And a fool to whit – none may fight the Lord of Skulls!’

‘Khorne took away his voice. There is nothing to hear,’ said Skull. ‘Khorne respects bravery. Mir is brave, not a fool. Khorne enjoys defiance, not the cringing obeisance you offer.’

‘Khorne took his voice to protect his toy so that none could hear his blasphemy! I am no toy. I am worthy, he is not!’ bellowed Mathror. ‘I will lead the tribe!’ He held up his shield and sword, and the larger portion of the Bloodslaves chanted his name.

Mathror sneered at his opponent in satisfaction.

‘Silence!’ shouted Orto, and his voice was the crack of Khorne’s own whip. The chanting of Mathror’s name faltered. ‘Mir is worthy,’ said Orto. ‘It is you who blaspheme. Mir reaps skulls and lives. They go to Khorne, as will Mir, his skull for the Skull Throne. You also fight for yourself. Your ambition to lead is clear. A true servant fights not for his own glory, but for Khorne’s.’

‘I am for Mir,’ said Danavan Vuul. He walked to stand by Skull and Mir, his well-fleshed body wobbling as he walked. ‘Khorne has use for all murder, no matter the cause or the manner of death. This is our creed. Mir is a greater deathbringer than you, Mathror.’

‘You are a coward who hides behind your whip, making others do your killing!’

‘My whip and blade bite deep,’ Vuul hissed through crooked, yellow teeth. ‘By their application I slay more than even you, mighty Mathror. Khorne cares not as long as the blood flows.’

‘Mir is a test!’ roared Mathror. ‘Many of us fell in the fight with the Heyeran. Khorne tests us with this blasphemer, rewarding him to see our reaction when we come close to failure time after time. He is displeased – that is why Kalaz fell. It is plain!’

The agitation of the horde was growing. A split formed across the mass of warriors. Men glanced at one another. Minds clouded again with Khorne’s red vision and the distinction between friend and foe became blurred, irrelevant.

‘Khorne is not a subtle god,’ said Skull. ‘Do we not follow him for his directness? Do we not revel in his rage? He has no time for petty intrigues. Skulls and blood are his demands, and Mir delivers no matter his own intent. That is why he is rewarded.’

‘This one is the proof of my argument,’ said Mathror, gesturing at Skull. ‘A weasel’s tongue in a serpent’s mouth.’

Mir growled again.

‘Venerated Skullgrinder Kordos,’ asked Skull. ‘Where will you throw your lot, with Mir or with Mathror?’

The warrior smith did not reply, nor did he move, his chained, burning anvil scorching the flattened red grasses. His masked face gave nothing away. Skull shrugged. Skullgrinder Kordos served Khorne alone. He had no loyalty to any man, and few words for them. ‘And what does the slaughterpriest say? You speak for Khorne, give us his judgement!’

Orto’s eyes flicked back and forth between the deathbringers, weighing them against each other. His black tongue wormed along scarred lips as he hesitated. ‘Khorne does not speak. Khorne is displeased we do not fight, but talk like weaklings. There is one way to settle this. Skull invoked the Court of Blades, so let the test of arms settle it.’

‘You will not name a favourite? You are unsure who will win,’ said Mathror. ‘You do not wish to take sides. Who can respect such cravenness? You display your weakness this day, Orto.’

The slaughterpriest puffed himself up and snarled. There was truth to Mathror’s words.

‘Does any of this matter?’ said Skull. ‘Mir is the best warrior. None is as mighty as Mir. No one has a higher tally in skulls and blood. Whether Mir reaps skulls for Khorne or Mir reaps skulls for revenge, it does not matter. All death is worship, however given. Khorne does not care from whence the blood flows.’

Mathror smiled evilly. ‘Now you see my point exactly.’ He drew his sword and leapt at Mir.

The horde bisected itself, swift as the surging sea parts on a reef. A faultline of animosity that had existed for many weeks yawned wide, those for Mir on one side, those for Mathror on the other. It was telling that Mathror’s followers outnumbered Mir’s by a third again.

Mir did not speak, but Mir could hear. Mir looked like an insensate monster, but Mir could think.

Here is what he thought as he unsheathed the axes Bloodspite and Skullthief: Mathror is right. I have no faith. I have only hatred for Khorne.

Khorne did not care. Khorne was amused, Mathror was right in that too.

Bloodspite and Skullthief cried out with joy at their release.

‘Blood for the Blood God!’ screamed Bloodspite, the red axe.

‘Skulls for the Skull Throne!’ replied Skullthief, the black axe.

‘I shall spill more blood than you,’ said Bloodspite.

‘And I shall take more skulls!’ rejoined the other.

The axes laughed metallically as Mir swung them. Several blood warriors were ambitious enough to chance their lives against Ushkar Mir, and flooded into the space between he and Mathror. None were his match, and all died quickly. Skullthief and Bloodspite drank the life fluids into their uncanny alloys. Their gleaming surfaces were never marred by the death they wrought.

The two parts of the horde crashed together with a tumult of bloodthirsty roaring. The singing of the Bloodbloom flowers was eclipsed by the clash of arms as the sides met. None were taken by surprise as their fellows fell upon them; these were warriors of Khorne, and they were ever ready for the spilling of blood and the red harvest of skulls. Men who had fought together and shared the flesh of the slain Heyeran around fires yesterday gladly buried their swords in each other’s guts today. Axes lopped heads from shoulders. Blood sprayed from severed arteries as limbs were cleaved from bodies.

‘Khorne! Khorne! Khorne!’ they roared. ‘Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne! Let the red votive flow!’

Within minutes, a battle that began as two rough sides degenerated into a formless melee. The flowers sang mindlessly and on the hill skulls watched disinterestedly as the warriors of the Blood God butchered each other. Sights like these were common occurrences in those dark times.

Kordos stood motionless amid the turmoil, awaiting some signal known solely to him. Orto roared his praises to Khorne as he fought, but was careful not to seem to help either Mir or Mathror. The melee would be done eventually, and his instinct for self-preservation stayed sharp even as the deep rage came on him. Skull protected his master’s back, his sword quick enough to best any but those of the Gorechosen.

In the centre of the battle, Mathror and Mir fought. They were well matched. Mathror was methodical, in control of every movement and action. Mir was rage and fury, his daemon axes screaming exultantly as he leapt and twisted through the air. Neither gained advantage. Mathror’s shield turned Skullthief and Bloodspite aside, and they caught Mathror’s blows in return. The air around the deathbringers was misty with smoke shocked from their weapons’ blades. Blinding, multi-coloured sparks erupted from them as they met. Bloodspite and Skullthief howled in anger. They were bloodletters of the legions, and they did not recognise defeat. No mortal weapon could stand before them, but Mathror’s was no ordinary blade. A mighty sword, heavy with blood-magic, this also was a gift of Khorne. The Lord of Slaughter was generous with his boons, for he liked to see them pitted against one another.

Mathror shoved Mir backwards with a combined push of blade and shield. ‘You cannot win, Mir. You lack the proper regard for Khorne. Only I am worthy of leading the Bloodslaves. Lay down your arms and acknowledge me as lord and you shall live.’

Mir made a curious growling and came in for another attack. Words he could not speak ran through his mind. I hate you, Mathror. I hate you all. I look upon what I have become, this monster of rage and anger, and I hate myself. But above all things I hate Khorne, and I will not rest until I have trodden the red road to its very end and stand before his brazen throne with my axes in my hands. You will not stand in my way, you will fall before me.

Khorne had rendered Mir dumb, and so his words went unsaid, but Khorne heard. In response to Mir’s treacherous thoughts the runes in the band that blinded his mortal eyes glowed with growing fire.

Searing pain built in Mir’s head. The furnace heat of the ensorcelled brass cooked his skin, transmitted down the iron nails into the bone of his skull where it gnawed and spread and baked his brain. The Bloodslaves saw the ring as a great blessing, but it was not. Khorne allowed Mir to live, but he punished him often and hard for his blasphemy. Pain became agony. Thought became impossible. Mir surrendered himself to his killing rage. The shades of red that coloured his vision grew deeper, until the world around him was clouded by a gory murk. Far away he heard the roaring howl of Khorne, ever hungry, demanding more skulls, more blood, more war.

‘Interesting,’ murmured the Many-Eyed Servant, watching from its crystal donjon. It was party to the secrets of men, being able to peer into their minds. The brass ring about Mir’s head was resistant to sorcery and stymied some of this ability, but the Many-Eyed Servant saw enough of Mir’s thoughts to intrigue him.

‘Here is a man who defies his own god, even while he serves him,’ it whispered. ‘Here is a man who is dedicated to Chaos, but to serve his own ends.’ The Many-Eyed Servant made a hideous sound which served it for laughter. ‘How Archaon will adore this one! How alike they are!’

More had to be done before the Many-Eyed Servant was convinced. The Bloodslaves were a lesser horde – their dead master had been no Khul or Baudrax. Kalaz the Hewer’s name was unknown beyond the rolling steppe. And who had sung the name of Ushkar Mir in either praise or fear? Few, if any.

‘A test, a test, I must set a test!’ hissed the Many-Eyed Servant.

It searched a while through the Realm of Beasts, a thousand scenes of strife and horror passing beneath its hands. In a land far away, it found what it sought. The ogor followers of Skargut burned to avenge the death of their master at the hands of Baudrax. They massed around their cook-priests, who at that very moment offered up the choicest offal to their hungry god, beseeching him to guide them to their foe.

Maw-portals opened, red and glistening as gullets. The ogors screamed out their desire for revenge and poured through.

For one such as the Many-Eyed Servant, it was a small matter to manipulate such simple magic and send the ogors where it willed.

Somewhere far away in the Realm of Chaos, the Many-Eyed Servant heard an angry, brutish bellowing, but it paid the complaints no heed. The Ravenous One was feeble. Tzeentch was not.

It seemed to the Bloodslaves that Khorne grew bored with their squabble. Around the battleground where Mathror and Mir duelled, several shimmers took hold of the air. The stink of magic flooded the plain. A foetid wind blew, ripe with the smell of spoiling meat, rank sweat and old food. As it rippled the grasses, the Bloodbloom’s song wavered. Discharges of energy crackled from the centre of the shimmerings.

‘Look! Look!’ bellowed Orto, severing the head from a screaming bloodreaver. ‘A new foe comes! Khorne blesses us! Khorne hears our war! Skulls! Skulls! Skulls!’

At first the magical storms stabbed lightning out randomly, earthing in the wargear of the dead. But the jags of power concentrated themselves, gathered up by magic into a double row of crackling, interlocking dagger shapes. Only when the skittering light blinked out were these revealed to be teeth – fangs in a mouth like Mir’s, bare of lips and dripping with drool.

With a roar, the first of these mouths opened into a gaping circular maw. The quivering skin of a realmgate was held between, delicate as a meniscus of saliva.

Through this stepped a huge ogor, then another and another. More gates opened, all around the horde and within it. A whole tribe of ogors charged into the brawling horde, knocking men flying with their huge guts and striking down those who raised their weapons against them with great clubs and mauls.

‘Khorne favours us! A true foe!’ shouted Orto ecstatically. ‘To war, to war!’

The battle between the Bloodslaves ceased immediately. Men stepped back from one another and unlocked their blades. Their prior enmity was forgotten.

‘Blood for the Blood God!’ they roared, and attacked the ogors gathering on the field.

‘Another time perhaps, Mir,’ said Mathror. He disentangled his sword from Bloodspite, but kept his guard up in case Mir had ideas other than a truce.

Through the fog of pain and rage, Mir recognised the greater threat and the opportunity it presented. Here were many skulls for his road, large cobbles on the route to revenge. He nodded to Mathror, and they stood side by side.

‘For Khorne! Skulls for Khorne!’ shouted Mathror.

Mir roared out his wordless self-hatred, and together they ran at the ogors gathering on the plain.

There were at least two hundred ogors, and they attacked with a cunning that defied their brutish appearance. The first wave threw themselves on their foe as the greater part organised. The ogors in the centre comprised their best fighters, far bigger than the biggest of the Bloodslaves, and heavily armoured. Large iron plates covered their guts and arms, and they carried long falxes which cleaved warriors in two with a single blow. The ogor vanguard, more lightly armoured, halted their advance into the horde. Mir saw that they awaited their fellows still pouring through the realmgates. The heavier ogors were forming themselves into a hollow arrowhead that new arrivals quickly filled in.

Skull jogged at Mir’s side. ‘We must crush them quickly, my lord, before their wedge is completed.’

Mir nodded. He understood this. Once he had been a general of note, and was greatly frustrated that he could not communicate his intentions. Tactics that he could not speak crowded his boiling head.

But Skull seemed to infer them somehow, and was able speak Mir’s own thoughts back to him.

‘My lord, should I call upon your authority? I can order the men by your name, tell them to form squares to oppose the ogor rush, when it comes. Mathror is no use. Look at how he howls after glory, trailing those bloodreavers behind him in no formation. They will break on the wall of the ogors!’

Mir grunted a laugh. It was true. He nodded at his follower. Skull peeled away from his side and bounded up the spongy, weather-worn surface of an ancient bone to the top of a knoll higher than the rest of the hilltop. Shortly afterwards a horn winded, and Skull’s voice cut across the battle, shouting orders to chieftains and champions.

‘Control your fury, warriors of Khorne! Meet the ogors together, do not throw your lives away piecemeal. Do not disappoint Khorne! As a wall of flesh and steel shall we throw them back! I speak for the Lord Mir. It is he commands you now! Form up!’

Men stopped to shake the rage from their minds, looking back to Skull. A small group of warriors already gathered themselves around him. Mir strode to Skull’s side atop the knoll, and the trickle grew to a flood, scores of men ranking up into tight blocks about the bony knoll. Mir roared out and men looked to him. He gestured with his axes, and they understood, deploying themselves to his intent without error. Soon five hundred well-blooded warriors stood in readiness. A score of skullreapers came to Mir’s side, all slick with gore. Their skullseeker leader saluted Mir, and they gathered as a bodyguard around him. Then came Orto and Kordos, and the deathbringer’s battle line was complete.

But many of the Bloodslaves did not heed Mir and instead followed Mathror.

The wedge of ogors was two hundred yards from Mir’s position. Mathror’s men had broken through their skirmish screen and seethed around the ogor arrowhead. Ogor weapons scythed them down, sickle blades hacking them into bloody chunks. Mathror fared well, slaying all who came against him, but there were always more to replace those felled, and the ogors required great effort to kill.

Mir looked to the flanks of the horde. The ogors continued to display their cunning. Large beasts were coming through the gates, arraying themselves into battle lines either side of the wedge. Bellowing at their shaggy mounts, the ogors goaded them so that the lines became oblique, facing in towards the leading edges of the wedge.

‘They mean to trap Mathror’s warriors between their skilled centre and the beasts,’ said Skull. ‘Should we aid them?’

The shake of Mir’s head was decisive. Mathror would live or die on his own. Those men that had chosen Mathror could die beside him. They were caught up in battle lust and remained ignorant of the approaching danger.

Mir’s attention was fixed on a massive ogor at the heart of the wedge. Bigger and even fatter than his followers, he stood a head over the next largest. His thick armour was decorated with gaping mouths inlaid in precious metals, and he carried a massive, two-ended bludgeon whose heads were huge ingots of spiked iron. Mir marked him. This gutlord would fall to his axes, he resolved, a fitting tribute to the god he would eventually slay.

The last of the ogor elite strode through the portal. The wedge was complete. A number of ogors lifted their hands to their mouths and let out a tremendous hallooing, strangely musical after a fashion, and the others drew themselves up.

‘Skargut!’ roared their warlord.

‘Skargut! Skargut! Skargut!’ they replied.

‘We kill for Skargut! Revenge!’

That was a sentiment Mir could understand.

The ogors marched. The rest of Mathror’s supporters were shoved aside as easily as children.

A second vocal trumpet hooted from the left flank, a third from the right, and the ogor war-beasts lurched into motion, braying loudly, their heavy tread making the ground shake. The war animals broke into a ponderous trot. Shouting their warcries, the riders guided the warbeasts to smash into the horde either side of the wedge, decimating the Bloodslaves. Mathror was confronted by a rearing monster sporting a wide sweep of stony horns, and disappeared under its feet.

Mir grunted at this with a hint of satisfaction, and turned his attention to the closing ogor elite. He stared at their leader until their eyes met. Mir saluted with his axes. The ogor inclined its head in recognition. The challenge had been accepted. The ogors picked up speed. They came on, guts swaying, shouting deafeningly. As they neared, they raised their weapons over their heads.

‘Brace, O bloody men of Khorne!’ shouted Skull. ‘Cast them back!’

‘Blood! Blood for Khorne!’ screamed Orto, and brandished his axe over his head.

Kordos silently wrapped one more loop of chain about his hand and gripped it tightly.

The ogors’ charge was slow, almost sedate, but when it hit the Bloodslaves’ line it was devastating. With a roaring cry louder than the falling of city walls, the ogors thundered into Mir’s men. Return shouts of ‘Khorne! Khorne! Khorne!’ were cut short as the first ranks of Mir’s Bloodslaves were crushed or knocked flying to land on those behind them. There was a rolling clatter emanating from the point of impact, followed by a second as the ogors’ long hook blades fell, lopping limbs and heads.

The men of the Bloodslaves were encircled, but they did not fall. Leaning into their adversaries, they pushed back against the great scrum of ogors. Their feet ploughed furrows in the blood-sodden earth as they were forced backward. Men threw themselves at other men’s backs, pushing hard until all the horde strained against the enemy. The ogor wedge penetrated only a little into the massed Bloodslaves. Their line flattened against that of the Chaos warband, and their charge was arrested. Hooked weapons whistled through the air, cutting down three men at a time, and the line buckled, but still the ogors could not force their way through to the bony knoll at the Bloodslaves’ centre. Men leapt up from the rear ranks, lightly armed bloodreavers running along the armoured backs of blood warriors. They screamed dark praise to their bloody god and hurled themselves forward, axes swinging for ogor heads. Dozens fell, split by the ogors’ massive blades, but more came through, planting their axes into piggy faces, or scrambling onto shoulders and stabbing down with serrated knives into the tough muscle of the ogors’ necks. Others leapt for the ogors’ arms, preventing them striking with their weapons. Their fellow warriors saw their chance, and pushed their blades up to the hilt in the ogors’ fleshy bodies.

With terrible screams and crashes, the ogors began to fall. The Bloodslaves’ horns let out a brazen call, and they surged forward.

From their vantage upon the bony knoll, Mir, Orto and the rest watched the battle shift. The ogors surrounded them in a long bow. Their war-beasts had done with Mathror’s men and were coming to the aid of the others, but the ogor elite barred their way, and the beasts milled about uselessly behind the main line. The time was right. Mir raised his axes.

‘Forward for the glory of Khorne!’ screamed Skull.

‘Skulls for the Skull Throne!’ shouted Skullthief.

‘Blood for the Blood God!’ shouted Bloodspite.

Mir leapt from the knoll, sailing with supernatural might over the heads of his warriors to smash into an ogor. The giant warrior was rocked off his feet by the impact, gaping in surprise at the power of one so small.

Its face was still wearing that expression when Skullthief swept off its head.

Mir ploughed on into the ogor elite. Now they were in disarray, not the solid wall Mathror had encountered, and he hacked his way through them. Where they pressed too thickly he leapt at them, pushing off their thick limbs and stout bodies with his legs. Every swing of his twin daemon axes killed another. By his efforts alone he opened a wide gap in the ogor tribe, and his skullreapers came behind him. Massive, mutated men whose Khorne-given strength was a match even for that of the ogors, they widened the gap in the line. Lesser Bloodslaves came in their wake, advancing over a carpet of ogor fat and muscle.

Mir fought forwards, seeking out the ogor lord. All the while, his open challenge to Khorne played in his head: By each skull I pave the road to your throne, by each step I come closer to vengeance.

The runes in his punishment band glowed with hellish fire. His flesh sizzled, but he did not stop his blasphemous prayer.

The last of the ogors between Mir and his target fell, and the ogor lord was before him.

‘You! Little man!’ roared the tyrant, pointing a finger fat as a man’s arm. Gobbets of saliva flew from his red mouth. ‘You I kill now.’

Mir raised his axes to attack. The ogor tyrant swept round his double-ended maul, catching Mir in the chest and slamming him backwards. The ogor’s smile of triumph turned to a snarl as Mir shook off the blow, though his ribs glowed with a swirl of bruises, and blood ran from a deep gouge that showed bone. The tyrant advanced on him.

‘I don’t know who you are, twisted one. The Great Maw sent us to you, and not to he who slew Skargut, but you will do as an appetiser. Your god killed Skargut the Great, Prophet of the Maw, so we kill you!’ grunted the ogor chieftain. ‘We smash you puny men down, then we eat your livers while you watch.’

The tyrant spun his maul around with astonishing speed, turning the iron heads into blurs of grey. Mir dodged one, then the second, but the third crashed into his face. Nails tore at his skull as his punishment band took the brunt of the blow. His head reeled, and he went down onto one knee.

‘Now you die. I ain’t one for pretty speeches, but I’ll tell you, I’ll kill every one of your bloody kind I see. I should have started long ago. Your god will learn to fear the followers of Skargut!’ The tyrant lifted up his maul, and brought it down towards Mir’s head with a force that would have pulverised the skull of a juggernaut.

Inches before the impact, Mir swept Skullthief and Bloodspite together onto the bludgeon, shattering it into a thousand spinning fragments of iron that glowed with magical heat. They hissed as they landed on the combatants’ flesh. The ogor roared, overbalanced by the sudden shift in the weight of his weapon. Mir’s unholy vitality drove back the pain of his wounds, and he stepped aside as the ogor stumbled forward. The chief half recovered before Skullthief took his leg off at the knee, and he collapsed to the ground. A hand he raised to protect himself was similarly removed by Bloodspite, who cackled madly as he drank the blood coursing over his blade. Great hot spurts of life fluid pumped from the tyrant’s wrist to drench Mir.

‘A curse on you and all your murdering kind,’ spat the ogor chief, before Mir ended him. The deathbringer stooped, picking up the sodden mass of the tyrant’s ruined head, and held it aloft. Its face twitched as Mir roared his incoherent defiance at his divine master.

The ogors quailed to see their mightiest warrior cut down. The end had begun for them.

Mir fought his way onwards, butchering ogors wherever he met them. Kordos barged past him, flaming anvil whooshing through the air, each ogor it hit engulfed and flung backwards. They wailed as their copious body fat ignited with the sorcerous fire, turning them into living candles. Danavan Vuul’s barbed whip whirled around his head to strike the Bloodslaves and drive them on, provoking them to greater savagery.

Many ogors were fleeing back to their gates. The Bloodslaves gave chase. A war-beast, its riders hanging dead in their harnesses upon its back, reared up against Ushkar Mir, threatening to pound him flat. A mad cry answered from the left, and the Bloodslaves’ two khorgoraths leapt at the monster. The beast fell. Mir did not stop to watch as one of the khorgoraths bit the beast’s head off, shattering its great horns in its powerful jaws, and swallowed it whole.

He ran on. Bodies large and small carpeted the field once more. He fought down his exultation at the slaughter. That way led to true damnation. He clung to the kernel of his own will that still survived. He cut down a fleeing ogor, then another. The maw gates shone redly not far away. And then there was Mathror, coming toward him, sword held high.

Mir abandoned his pursuit, and readied himself to continue his duel.

Skull grabbed his next trophy’s hair and yanked upward, preparing to cut his skull free so that he might add it to the growing cairns.

The man moaned and opened his eyes, and Skull let his head drop. He rolled the man onto his back. The warrior, a bloodreaver, blinked eyes that were free of rage and newly filled with fear.

‘Where am I? Where is this place?’ he said. He looked down his chest to inspect the deep wounds in his torso and saw the thick muscle, the crude tattoos, the spiked harness he wore as clothing. His eyes widened. ‘What has happened to me? What have I become?’

‘Ah,’ said Skull. ‘The fury has fled you.’

‘Fury? Who are you? Where am I?’

‘I am Skull,’ Skull said. He squatted next to the bloodreaver and drove his long knife into the turf. ‘Tell me, why do men fight?’

The man’s face creased in puzzlement.

‘I am dying, and you pose me riddles? Help me!’

‘I am helping you. Answer the question, and you will have some idea of where you are.’

The man gasped. His breaths were coming in short bursts, pink blood frothing at his lips. ‘A man fights to protect his land and his family. Or for money.’

‘And when those things are gone?’

‘A man fights to survive.’

‘Very good. So did you,’ said Skull.

The man’s face took on a look of horrible realisation.

‘Old gods! I remember… What have I done? What have I done! The redness has gone from my vision. I see, I see!’

‘Shhh,’ said Skull, and knelt by the warrior. He smoothed hair wet with sweat and thick with blood. The man’s skin was slick, his beard caked and filthy. His face was disfigured by tattoos like those on his body, but what looked out from behind the savage mask was pure anguish.

‘The red rage has left you. Khorne has no more use for you. He abandons you.’

The man wept. ‘I killed them all... My friends. I ate their hearts.’

‘And why did you do this?’ asked Skull. ‘You did it to survive.’

He looked over to where Mir and Mathror still battled. In the gathering evening the men fought, neither besting the other. The ogors were dead or gone, and the Bloodslaves had ceased their own struggles. Those handful who were left sank exhausted to their knees, dumbly watching the deathbringers. A few of them made their offerings to Khorne. Wandering the battlefield they hewed the heads from the fallen and piled them onto the cairns from yesterday’s battle. One of these had grown higher than the rest, and had been lit. Open jaws and eye sockets glowed with fire.

‘I shall tell you a story,’ said Skull softly. ‘There was once a land, with a glorious city named Mir at its heart. It had kings both just and kind, whose reigns were held to be exemplary. Mir had many armies, with fine warriors and knights mounted upon fabulous beasts, and a talent for battle. Hundreds of mages were theirs to call to war, and the peoples of its towns were master wrights. They were peaceable, but they turned their talents to the construction of engines of death readily enough once the gods abandoned the realms. By these means they remained free while the nations of their neighbours fell to Chaos, either destroyed or seduced one by one, until only the land of Mir was left, all alone in a sea of darkness.

‘For long years Mir persisted, a beacon in a dark age of blood. Refugees from other lands flooded the streets, but Mir took them in without complaint. Diversity became their strength.’

Skull sighed. ‘There is but one story Chaos tells, and that is of defeat. Fast or slow, it comes to all who defy the Four. Every year saw the borders of Mir shrink. A duchy here, an island there. Sometimes the land of Mir fought back and retook the lands it had lost. Every victory was tainted with sorrow, so many dead in return for territory made barren by the power of Chaos. Seas turned to blood, forests became hellish groves of screaming bone trees, farmland withered to dusty plains where phantom armies fought every night. Very little taken back could be made use of, and Mir died, one bloody bite at a time, until only the city remained.

‘Ushkar Mir...’ gasped the man. ‘He was the king?’

Skull shook his head. ‘No. Mir was not the king, but he was the champion of his age, blessed with an ability at arms to rival Sigmar himself, and a command of strategy not seen since the Age of Myth.’ Skull smiled at the futility of it. ‘But he could not win. Then came the inevitable night when Mir’s walls were assailed a final time. The full might of Khorne’s armies were brought to bear on this one last city, for Mir’s continued defiance had become an affront to the Lord of War. They could not hope to win. But Mir, he was... he is... a singular being. He looked out upon that endless horde of brass and steel, and he did not despair. He could not win, not on that battlefield, so he chose another. That is why Mir wished to survive, to find a ground better suited to victory. He was offered the Dark Feast by Korghos Khul himself, it is said. He accepted without complaint.’

‘So did I, so did I! I am sorry, so sorry.’ The man choked. ‘So sorry.’

‘Do not ask for forgiveness!’ snapped Skull. He pointed to the duelling deathbringers. ‘That is Ushkar Mir! His wish to live is no petty desire to preserve a worthless life. Mir plots revenge! By dedicating himself utterly to Khorne’s red road, he hopes to ascend to the heights of daemonhood, and challenge the gods themselves. Do you not see my friend? In a sane world, a man achieves immortality through his children or through his works. But this is no longer a sane world. Children are slaughtered and works cast down. If the great powers of the universe take family and achievement away, a man is left only one means to gain immortality – to survive, and to exceed his master. Of course, the Lord of Skulls knows of Mir’s desire, but I think the Blood God takes some pleasure in his defiance. Maybe Mir shall succeed, maybe hubris is the gods’ only weakness. Maybe... well, who knows?’

Skull looked down at the bloodreaver. Sightless eyes stared out of his face, the light gone from them. Horror remained on his dead face. ‘This is what I have learned, this is what Mir taught me.’

Skull stood. ‘Skulls for the Skull Throne!’ he whispered, and severed the man’s head with a quick downward strike of his sword. He retrieved his knife, took the head up and carried it to a pile where he tossed it high, then went to the next dead man to repeat the grisly ritual.

All around the battlefield, the skull cairns grew.

Finally, as night drew in, Mathror fell. The two deathbringers were exhausted, their bodies sporting dozens of cuts and Mathror’s armour in tatters. Blood stained their skin from head to foot. Mathror’s ankle turned on the horned helmet of a dead blood warrior, and he went down, driving the point of his nameless weapon into the warrior to steady himself. Were he fresh, he might have sprung back to his feet with alacrity.

Were he fresh.

Bloodspite swept across Mathror’s blade. With a chilling scream it cut straight through the metal. The magic left Mathror’s blade with a mighty bang, and the halves turned to granular dust that pattered down onto the ground.

‘Wait!’ said Mathror.

Skullthief was Mir’s answer to that plea. The daemon weapon lived up to its name, its edge so sharp it cut through the flesh and bone of Mathror’s neck without leaving a mark. For a second Mathror gaped and gurgled, his eyes rolling, then blood welled up through his mouth and along the line of the razor cut. Only then did the head topple to the floor. Mathror’s severed head lived just long enough to feel itself lifted from the ground in Mir’s brass-bound fingers.

When Mathror’s skull was laid upon the highest cairn, a silky, diabolical laugh rolled over the Bloodbloom Fields. It grew louder and louder, until it became a clarion ringing in the distance. Mir looked that way, toward the sound’s eminence far out over the Bloodbloom Fields. The stars swam and became eyes looking down upon him on the slaughter ground. A faceless creature, spread thin over the night sky regarded him. Man or daemon or both, Mir could not tell. Its body was tall and thin, its head oddly shaped with many eyes upon it. Its robe too was made all of eyes, millions of them, greater in number than the stars.

‘You hear the call, Ushkar Mir. Heed the horns of Chaos.’

Who are you? thought Mir, and the apparition heard him.

‘No one, and someone. I am the herald of Archaon. Go to him, fight for him. He will reward you. You hate the Lord of War. This is your chance to fight for something greater than a god.’

I desire only revenge, thought Mir. I fight to live, so that I might become great in the eyes of Khorne and come into his presence. There I will offer up true worship, I will smite him down.

‘As you wish, Ushkar Mir. Go to Archaon, in Shyish he awaits! Go toward the rising sun, there you shall find a gate amid the Arman Forests. It will take you to the Realm of Death! Go!’

The figure faded. The eyes closed, becoming stars again.

Mir felt rage unending, but his thirst for revenge outweighed it. He clung to this tiny pebble of himself. The core of who he once was grew smaller with every passing year, but it was not gone, not quite.

The Bloodslaves had a new master. There were but an eighth of the number that had been present that morning, but they were the strongest, the fastest, the most skilled. They gathered behind their new lord and awaited his command.

Ushkar Mir, Warlord of the Bloodslaves, threw back his head and roared at the sky.

About the Author

Guy Haley is the author of Space Marine Battles: Death of Integrity, the Warhammer 40,000 novels Valedor and Baneblade, and the novellas The Eternal Crusader, The Last Days of Ector, and Broken Sword, for Damocles. His enthusiasm for all things greenskin has also led him to pen the eponymous Warhammer novel Skarsnik, as well as the End Times novel The Rise of the Horned Rat. He lives in Yorkshire with his wife and son.

The storm breaks as the Stormcast Eternals go into battle for the first time. Read the first book set in the Age of Sigmar.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

The Realmgate Wars: Call of Archaon 3 – The Solace of Rage © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2015. The Realmgate Wars: Call of Archaon 3 – The Solace of Rage, 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: 978-1-78251-705-4

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

See Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com

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

eBook license

This license is made between:

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

(2) the purchaser of an e-book product from Black Library website (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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