This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury, it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering Worlds Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever nearer, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

As winter gave way to spring, the plagues began. The first tentative snowdrops had barely raised their nodding heads when a bulbous mass of cuttlefish slapped across the land, burying everything beneath a carpet of twitching tentacles. The good folk of the Empire took the creatures for daemons and attacked them with pitchforks. They built quivering pyres of cephalopod flesh and tried to burn the land clean of corruption. Beleaguered bands of militiamen attempted to maintain order but as the piles of cuttlefish rose, so did the hysteria. Whole towns were abandoned, left to a few misguided souls who attempted to worship the gasping creatures, draping themselves in homemade tentacles and prostrating themselves in the hope of salvation. What began with a few isolated eccentrics quickly blossomed into a cult and the Emperor was forced to act, making an example of the more prominent lunatics. A priest by the name of Otto Gyllenborg was dragged into the grounds of the Imperial Palace and set alight, screaming to the last that he was the one true prophet of the fish god.

It soon became impossible to find roads. The pulsing, briny creatures blurred the landscape, turning everything into a confusing mess of shifting hues and leaving the outlying provinces utterly cut off. The threat of starvation led to rioting and then, just as it seemed the Emperor might have to wage war on his own people, a second plague began.

On the third night of Jahrdrung, the Emperor’s terrified subjects looked up to see that the Chaos moon, Morrslieb, was collapsing. For weeks it had looked more bloated and sickly than usual, but now fragments of its greenish rock were fluttering down from the heavens. The people of the Empire screamed in terror as emerald sparks settled on their houses and erupted into flames. The fires spread quickly, dwarfing even the still-smouldering pyres of cuttlefish, and a thick miasma settled over the land, pierced only by the pallid light of Morrslieb, leering down over the carnage it had wrought.

Plague after plague followed. By the twelfth of Jahrdrung, every cat in the Empire had begun to speak, demanding food with such persistence that people packed mud into their ears to escape the thin, whining voices. A few days after that, a fierce wind blew in from the north, carrying a stench so sulphurous that the air became almost impossible to breathe. Hundreds of people choked and died and those who survived were forced to wear odd, funnel shaped masks to keep out the evil humours. It was then that the mass exodus began. Armies of masked refugees abandoned their homes and marched on our fair capital, Altdorf. Furious, afraid and gagging on the noxious air, they pounded the city gates, demanding help. As the numbers swelled into the thousands and madness continued to pour from the heavens, the Emperor turned to the one man he felt sure would have an answer, only to find him as lost and afraid as everyone else.

– Wolfgang Spitteler’s Plagues and Portents – A History of Celestial Magic

CHAPTER ONE

Caspar Vyborg had not slept for days and as he watched the stars wheeling overhead, he let out a long, mournful yawn. ‘What’s the point?’ he muttered, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. ‘Wretched moon.’ The light of Morrslieb had made even the most familiar constellations unreadable, painting the heavens such a lurid green that the wizard could barely distinguish Ulric’s Beard from the Great Hammer. He sighed and dropped his gaze to the packed streets that surrounded the Celestial College. Altdorf’s labyrinthine alleyways were crowded at the best of times, but since the plagues had taken hold, the city had been completely overrun with refugees from every corner of the Empire. The scene was even more bewildering than the sky, and Caspar turned away with a despairing grunt.

His observatory was a riot of discarded scrolls, overturned armillary spheres, glinting lenses and dog-eared almanacs. As the moonlight poured down through the domed glass roof, it washed over the sheets of paper. Every one of them was blank.

The old man hummed loudly as he returned to his desk. The sound was a tuneless drone that gave him no pleasure, but it at least drowned out another sound: a harsh, metallic ticking that was seeping in through the walls of the college.

Caspar glanced wearily at the blank scrolls of vellum strewn across his desk, then rummaged in his thick blue robes, looking for something. A rattling mass of sextants and spyglasses hung around his neck, but the object he sought was a medallion – a gem-studded comet made of solid gold. He clutched his badge of office with all the strength left in his arthritic fingers. ‘I’m still the Grand Astromancer,’ he whispered, squeezing the metal so tightly that his bones began to ache. ‘Whatever happens.’

There was a knock at the door and he flinched, hiding the medallion back beneath the other objects and giving it a protective pat. He surveyed his chamber with a muttered curse. The place looked like the den of a lunatic. Ignoring his various aches and pains, Caspar hobbled around the room, swaying awkwardly from side to side as he stuffed useless tomes into drawers and placed globes back onto shelves. After taking a deep breath to calm himself, he grabbed a long staff that was resting against the desk and opened the door.

The figure waiting outside was dressed in robes of the same rich blue, but he was much younger – no more than fifty – and towered over the frail figure of Caspar. He looked bedraggled and exhausted. His robes were drenched in mud and his hair was leaning from his head at an odd, windswept angle. His face was beaded with sweat and he was panting heavily but, without pausing to catch his breath, he held up a glass tube, sealed at either end with ornate silver clasps.

‘Magister–’ was all he managed to say before the old man’s staff cracked his nose, sending him reeling back into the darkened corridor.

‘Wait!’ he cried, trying to stem the blood that rushed from his nostrils.

Caspar gave no response as he shuffled forward and landed a blow on the man’s shoulder.

The messenger cowered against the wall as the old man pounded his robes repeatedly with the staff, like a cleaner working at a rug.

‘Beetles!’ screamed Caspar as he swung.

A look of relief washed over the man’s face. ‘Oh,’ he gasped, frantically dusting down his robes. As he moved, dozens of death watch beetles fell from his robes and scuttled away, adding their ticking to the rattling chorus that filled the night. ‘I removed as many as I could, but they get everywhere. It’s impossible to–’

The old man jabbed his staff into the messenger’s stomach. ‘There!’

‘Yes, yes, very good, Grand Astromancer,’ wheezed the younger man, flicking some more glittering shells from his robes.

Caspar grabbed him by the arm and hauled him into his chamber, slamming the door behind them.

‘They’re taunting me!’ growled Caspar, glaring up at the messenger and waving his staff. ‘Do you know what it’s like, listening to that sound all day, every day?’

‘Yes, my lord, I assure you I do. The plagues are Empire-wide.’

Caspar sneered dismissively and shuffled back to his desk, collapsing into a chair with a grunt.

The messenger stepped hesitantly into a shaft of green moonlight. The look of pride returned to his face as he tapped the glass tube in his hands. ‘I’ve ridden from the north, my lord – all the way from Ostland. My name’s Johann Belmer. I’m not sure if you’ll remember me, but I’m an adept of the order. I bring news from your old friend, Tylo Sulzer.’

‘A friend is he?’ Caspar raised his eyebrows. He straightened the black skullcap that covered his thinning grey hair and proudly raised his chin. ‘Not friend enough to come here in person, even when his old master is in such dire need. Even when the Emperor is threatening the order with dissolution if I don’t find an answer to this mess.’

‘Ostland is consumed by madness, my lord. Please understand, Magister Sulzer’s every waking moment is spent trying to decipher the meaning of these plagues. He was hard pressed even to write this letter.’

Caspar leaned across his desk with bitterness in his eyes. ‘Much good it will do!’ He levelled one of his crooked fingers at the glass tube. ‘Open it then! Go on! Let’s see how much use it is.’

‘It will only open for you, my lord.’

‘Of course.’ Caspar snatched the tube and muttered a quick spell. There was a shimmer of blue light and a metallic clunk as the silver clasps fell away. Caspar slid out a scroll, broke the seal, peered at the paper and nodded. Then he handed it to Johann.

Johann frowned as he turned the paper back and forth in his hands, peering at both sides. ‘There are no words on it.’

Caspar let out a bitter laugh. ‘Of course not. In your haste to get here, you’ve failed to even notice the latest plague.’ He waved at the piles of blank paper that covered his desk and the featureless star charts on the walls. ‘Just when we need our learning more than ever, it has been taken from us.’ He shoved an armillary sphere across his desk. The brass rings swung wildly around the central orb and Johann saw that the metal was blank – the rows of zodiacal glyphs that usually adorned it had vanished.

Johann shook his head in horror.

‘Yes, now you see.’ Caspar pointed through the glass roof to one of the college’s other domed spires. ‘And the Grand Astrolabe is exactly the same: utterly blank. We’re blind. There’s not a written word left in the Empire.’

Johann was stunned. Without the means to record its auguries and prognostications, the Celestial Order was powerless.

The two wizards fell silent and the room filled with the sound of ticking beetles.

Caspar grimaced and reinstated his loud, tuneless humming.

‘Well,’ muttered Johann, more unnerved by the humming than the beetles, ‘all is not lost. Magister Sulzer confided in me before I left. I know the gist of his letter, even if I don’t know the detail.’

The Grand Astromancer narrowed his eyes and spoke in his most magisterial tones. ‘You presume to know the mind of your master?’

‘Of course not, my lord, I merely know that he wished to remind you of a certain prophecy – one that you both studied in your youth.’

The colour drained from Caspar’s face. ‘Prophecy?’

Johann nodded eagerly. ‘He said you would know the one. He even recited it to me.’

Caspar’s myopic eyes strained even harder. ‘He recited it?’

‘Well, yes, but I can’t remember it all, I’m afraid. I didn’t think I’d need to.’ Johann closed his eyes and frowned, clutching his temples as he tried to recall his master’s words. ‘There was a line in it – something about an “openhearted man, with flesh as clear as truth”. Magister Sulzer seemed to believe that this “openhearted man” was preordained in some way to save our order from ruin.’ Johann paused and nervously ran a hand over his neatly trimmed beard. ‘I think he believed that this man might one day become head of the Celestial Order.’

Caspar gripped the head of his staff so tightly that the veins in his age-mottled hands began to throb. When he replied, there was an edge of barely controlled venom in his voice. ‘Did he?’

Johann nodded, smiling awkwardly. As he wracked his memory for another fragment of the prophecy, he felt something moving up the side of his head. He reached up to dust it away, but Caspar beat him to it. The Grand Astromancer’s staff was topped with an orb of solid porphyry and as it connected with Johann’s skull, the younger man let out a yelp of pain and dropped heavily to the floor.

‘You’re covered in them!’ cried Caspar, lurching around the desk and crunching the beetle beneath his heel. ‘Get out!’ He began pounding Johann with his staff again and sent him scurrying to the door. ‘Get out, get out, get out!’

As Johann tumbled out into the hallway, Caspar slammed the door shut and slid an iron bolt across the ancient oak. Once it was secure, he let out a furious howl and began stomping around the chamber, lashing out with his staff and creating a whirlwind of flying papers and overturned furniture. ‘I’m the Grand Astromancer,’ he hissed, collapsing back into his chair.

As he sat there, trying to ignore the endless ticking, Caspar lifted his medallion again and peered at it. ‘They all think I’m past it. They all think he’s the one, but who brought him here? Who found him? He didn’t know an augury from an oar when I began training him. And what’s he doing now, as everything goes to hell? Nothing. Nothing of use, at least.’ With a rattling, wheezing cough, the old wizard climbed to his feet and shuffled off down a gloomy corridor, still cursing as he disappeared into the shadows.

After a few minutes he reached another towering door and shoved it open with a screech of protesting wood.

The room beyond was lit only by the green light of Morrslieb pouring through another domed glass ceiling. It was a circular chamber, built of smooth, polished marble and it was empty apart from a single robed man, hunched over a glittering moondial. He was tall and unusually thin, and his face was hidden in the folds of a deep hood.

The man did not look up as Caspar approached. He kept his gaze fixed on the moondial, carefully studying the shadow thrown by the triangular gnomon at its centre. The face was made of eight concentric circles, each cast from a different metal and designed to spin independently of each other. As he worked, the man turned the discs back and forth, clicking them into different positions and muttering numbers under his breath.

Caspar watched him for a few minutes, a look of distaste on his face. Finally, he took a deep breath and stepped closer. ‘What do you expect to achieve, Gabriel?’ he asked. ‘Without the means to record what you see, how can you hope to discern a pattern?’

Gabriel remained focussed on the moondial, but after a few seconds he croaked a single word.

Caspar shook his head, clearly irritated. ‘What?’

‘Razumov,’ said Gabriel a little louder, his head still bowed.

Caspar pursed his thin lips and looked up at the emerald night sky. ‘Razumov? The Kislevite? Why waste your time on that old folktale? Even if the legend were true, we’ve no idea what kind of power he was trying to discover, or even where he died.’

‘He died a few miles north of Altdorf,’ said Gabriel in the same deadpan tone. ‘Where the town of Schwarzbach now stands.’

Caspar’s face twisted into a snarl as he realised that Gabriel had unravelled yet another age-old mystery. He clenched his fists as he imagined how the rest of the order would greet this latest discovery. Yet again, they would lavish praise on the savant. Yet again, there would be thinly veiled suggestions that Caspar’s power was waning and that maybe he should hand the reins over to someone younger; someone with more potent gifts; someone like Gabriel.

When Caspar spoke again, it took all his effort to keep his voice soft. ‘Schwarzbach, really? How fascinating. So near. But, of course, the location of Razumov’s grave is meaningless unless one could discover the specific equinoctial signs he used to predict the eddies of magic. Without an exact date and time, it would be impossible to recreate his rituals.’

Caspar smiled to himself as Gabriel considered this.

‘The 29th of Jahrdrung.’ Gabriel’s words came in a gentle mechanical staccato. ‘Midnight.’

The smile on Caspar’s face became a grimace.

Gabriel finally looked up from the moondial, throwing back his hood and allowing the light to wash over his gaunt features. His head was skull-like, an effect heightened by his lack of hair – his pate was completely smooth and even his eyebrows were hairless. His skin was alabaster-pale and strangely translucent, so that the pulsing of his veins was clearly visible. ‘I could find the exact place,’ he said, stroking the face of the moondial. ‘Morrslieb waxes full on the 29th. Then I could summon the ruins of the tower. I could harness the power Razumov sought.’

Caspar’s panic grew as he thought of the messenger’s words. Could this be it? Could this be the final straw? ‘Remind me again,’ he said quietly, ‘what exactly was Razumov’s story?’

‘He wanted a wife. Someone else’s wife. A Kislevite princess, Natalya. She was interested in astrology. She was interested in other… things. So Razumov researched storms. Divine storms. Storms that wrack the night sky.’

‘You mean the azyr? He tried to harness azyr just to woo a woman?’

‘Yes, he sought azyr, as we do. But he made no provisions. He did not protect himself. He did not consider Chaos. There was a warrant for his arrest. It was too late, Razumov was too dangerous. He fled, easily. To the south. To the Empire. His body changed. His mind changed. He forgot about the princess. Magic consumed him. He conjured a great tower out of the hills where Schwarzbach now stands. It was a fulcrum, an axis for the heavens. He studied the aspects of the moons, memorised astrological phenomena. Predicted Morrslieb’s proximity to his tower. Opened his mind to a storm of azyr unlike anything the world has seen before or since.’

‘And he died.’

‘He died. Razumov’s calculations were flawed.’ Gabriel shook his head and a note of confusion entered his monotonous drone. ‘Somehow. Even after so many years of research, he forgot a crucial phrase. The magic tore him apart. It pummelled him into the ground, along with his tower.’

Caspar stepped closer to Gabriel. As he did so, he noticed that the wizard’s robes had fallen open slightly at the neck. He averted his gaze, unnerved by the strangeness of the man. Below the neckline of his cloak, Gabriel’s flesh was almost completely translucent. Before he looked away, he saw the pulsing of the younger man’s heart. Caspar shook his head as he considered the changes that had wracked the wizard’s body. When he had first passed through the college doors, just a few decades earlier, Gabriel’s skills were limited, to say the least. He had shown an uncanny affinity with animals that had almost led him to a witch hunter’s pyre, and a knack of predicting the outcome of card games, but beyond that he was just a slightly eccentric farm boy. Caspar had offered him an apprenticeship, out of curiosity more than anything else, but, to his amazement, Gabriel had quickly surpassed almost all of the other magisters, in skill, certainly, but also in strangeness.

‘And you think you could finish what he started?’ asked Caspar.

Gabriel nodded without looking up, unaware of Caspar’s discomfort. ‘Yes.’ He frowned. ‘Only one thing doesn’t fit.’

‘What?’

‘The auguries indicate a metal mountain. They say I would need to ride a mountain of gold.’ He shrugged. ‘It makes no sense, but it’s not important. I could raise the tower. I could harness the stars.’

Caspar’s legs began to tremble and he looked around for a chair. Seeing none, he settled awkwardly on the stone floor, letting out a small groan as the cold clamped around his arthritic bones. Darkness closed in on him as he considered the implications of Gabriel’s discovery. There was no doubt that he would be correct – he was like a freakish living almanac. The loss of written language meant nothing to someone with the movements of the entire cosmos locked inside his head. Caspar also had no doubt that news of Gabriel’s discovery would quickly reach the ears of the Emperor – the very Emperor who had recently questioned Caspar’s own ability to fulfil his duties. He pressed his hand over his robes, feeling the hard lump of the medallion as he pictured Gabriel explaining to the Emperor how he climbed Razumov’s tower and drew unimaginable power down from the stars. The Emperor would order Gabriel to replace Caspar as patriarch of the order, and free the Empire of the plagues that were blighting it.

Tears formed in Caspar’s eyes as he stared into the shadows. He could picture nothing but the tattered ruins of his own future. He could feel his life ebbing away from him, slipping through his fingers. As needles of pain pricked across his scalp, he saw something else and gasped, not in pain, but delight. A trail of lights had begun dancing across his retina and he realised that the sight was vaguely familiar. It reminded him of the visions he had experienced as a youth. Even then, he had never known if the lights were real or imagined but, at times of crisis, they would often fill his thoughts. As a young apprentice, he had learned to discern pictures in the brilliance – brief, shifting glimpses of the future.

Caspar had to stifle a smile as he realised his old powers had not entirely deserted him. As he focussed on the glow, he saw a vision of himself standing at the top of a storm-lashed tower, silhouetted by great, swirling tides of magic. The vision faded as quickly as it came but, as the lights receded, Caspar realised that, even now, there might be hope for him.

Gabriel had already turned his attention back to the moondial, forgetting his master as he attempted to decipher one of the myriad puzzles still locked in his skull. He did not notice as the old man climbed to his feet and leaned closer, his eyes glinting dangerously.

‘Do you trust me?’ asked Caspar, placing a tentative hand on Gabriel’s shoulder.

Gabriel looked up and finally showed a trace of emotion, clearly upset that Caspar would feel the need to ask such a thing. ‘Of course.’

Caspar nodded and graced his strange protégé with a paternal smile. He would have expected no other answer. He had saved Gabriel from the clutches of a witch hunter. He knew that the wizard considered him his only friend.

‘That’s good, Gabriel. I think you should share this hope with no one else, at least until we’re sure it’s not a mistake, and…’ he hesitated, squeezing Gabriel’s shoulder, ‘if anyone is to attempt such a hazardous task, I think the duty should fall to me.’

‘You, my lord? The head of the order? Razumov died. What if you…?’

‘It is precisely because I’m the Grand Astromancer that I must take on this mantle.’ Caspar felt a twinge of guilt as he played his next card. He knew that Gabriel’s biggest weakness was a complete blindness to his own potential. ‘If you’re honest with yourself, Gabriel,’ he said, adopting his most caring tones, ‘you know this task is beyond you. Maybe one day, but not now. You’re still little more than an apprentice.’

Gabriel’s pale cheeks flushed briefly with colour. ‘Yes. Of course.’

‘Don’t feel ashamed, Gabriel. You’re brave, not vainglorious, but I think you must agree that it would take a magister of many years’ experience to achieve such a thing.’

Gabriel looked at the floor, appalled by his own presumption.

‘I cannot do it alone though, old friend.’ Caspar gripped Gabriel’s arms. ‘Will you make the journey with me? Will you be at my side as I gaze deep into the unknowable heavens?’

Gabriel stood up and pulled his robes a little closer around his neck. There was an intense look on his face and he replied in an earnest whisper. ‘I would be honoured.’

Caspar clasped his hand. ‘Then we should leave soon. If your theory is correct, I may even be able to harness Razumov’s power to solve the mystery of these wretched plagues.’ He stroked his long, serpentine goatee and finally allowed himself to smile. ‘Perhaps I can remind the Emperor of our true importance.’ He ushered Gabriel towards the door and then paused, frowning in confusion. He turned around and scoured the shadows. ‘There are no beetles in here.’

Gabriel shrugged as he opened the door. ‘I asked them to leave.’

CHAPTER TWO

Reiksgraf Niclas von Südenhorst leaned back in his saddle and smiled. Even the repugnant light of Morrslieb could not dampen his mood this morning. A hundred Knights of the Twin-Tailed Comet were mustered before him, just a mile north of Altdorf, and as the sun failed to break through the thick green pall, Niclas thought his men made a suitable replacement. Every sword, breastplate and shield was polished to a dazzling sheen and as they cantered towards him, the Imperial standard snapped proudly over their plumed helmets. Attending on the knights were dozens of squires and servants, making final adjustments to their lords’ armour and driving wagons laden with supplies and weaponry.

‘This is my moment, Captain Stoltz,’ said the reiksgraf, looking proudly at the knights. As he spoke, he flared his nostrils and lifted his chin, so that the moonlight flashed in his monocle.

‘Your moment, reiksgraf?’ replied the knight at his side. He wore the same intricately filigreed plates of armour as his commander, but where von Südenhorst was slender, straight-backed and tall, like a sliver of Reikland steel, the captain resembled a bull stuffed into a can. His armour strained to contain his hulking shoulders and thick, trunk-like arms, and his face was almost entirely hidden behind an iron-grey, shovel-shaped beard.

The reiksgraf turned to face him with a disdainful sneer, addressing the old warrior like a despairing parent. ‘Look around you, captain.’ He waved his sword at the brackish swamps that surrounded the city. Green-lit fumes were draped over the landscape, leaving nothing but the ghost-like silhouettes of trees and the distant glow of funeral pyres. Death and lunacy had besieged the capital. Hordes of refugees were looming out of the darkness wearing their strange bestial masks, and beetles were still raining endlessly from the low, fleeting clouds, rattling against the knights’ armour and ticking ominously in the long grass. ‘These truly are the End Times.’

The captain gave a noncommittal nod. He had served the reiksgraf’s father with unswerving devotion for three decades, but had yet to make up his mind about the order’s new commander. He had a suspicion that a life of privilege might have thinned the blue Südenhorst blood.

‘Do you follow me, soldier?’ asked the reiksgraf. ‘The Empire’s on the verge of ruin and the Grand Astromancer asks the Order of the Twin-Tailed Comet to ride out with him. This is no ordinary exercise.’

‘I believe the messenger talked only of investigating a ruin up in the Howling Hills. There was no mention of the current…’ the captain’s vocabulary failed him as he waved at the strange scene.

‘Use your imagination, captain,’ snapped the reiksgraf, curling his lips back from his teeth in a lupine snarl. ‘Why would the Celestial College have need of an army to investigate a ruin?’

‘Begging the reiksgraf’s pardon, but they didn’t request an army. The messenger only made mention of a small honour guard.’

The reiksgraf blushed and sat even more stiffly in his saddle. ‘Well, it’s sometimes necessary to read between the lines when dealing with astromancers.’ A note of derision entered his voice. ‘Even you should know that.’

Captain Stoltz’s eyes flashed dangerously and he gripped his destrier’s reins a little tighter.

‘Ah, speaking of which,’ said the reiksgraf, nodding back towards the city gates.

A black coach-and-four was ploughing through the crowds of refugees. There was a small, stylised silver comet on one of the doors, and Captain Stoltz immediately recognised the symbol of their patrons, the magisters of the Celestial College.

As the carriage approached, the curtains drew back and the wizened face of Caspar Vyborg scowled out at them. ‘What’s this?’ He nodded at the ranks of knights and squires. ‘I asked for a few guards, not an invasion force.’

The reiksgraf’s blushes deepened but he replied in the same clipped, stern tones he had used with his captain. ‘My lord, the Empire is more dangerous than ever. A journey into the Howling Hills will require every sword at our disposal. And we have no idea what we might find in Schwarzbach – the place has been cut off for weeks.’

Caspar clenched his jaw as he looked back at the besieged city gates. ‘We’re meant to be slipping away without drawing undue attention to ourselves. Now I imagine the whole of Altdorf is discussing our departure.’ He nodded to the north. ‘Let’s go, before the Emperor himself decides to join the parade.’

With that, the wizard drew his head into the carriage and rattled the curtain back into place.

The reiksgraf had prepared a long, self-aggrandising speech with which to greet the Grand Astromancer, but the words stalled in his mouth as the carriage lurched into motion and trundled past him. He turned to Captain Stoltz and waved at the ranks of soldiers. ‘What are you waiting for, man? We’re not here for our health.’

The smog deepened as they rode north, until it was hard for the riders to see anything beyond the slimy, cuttlefish-strewn road. As Captain Stoltz peered into the perpetual dusk, he decided that blindness might be a blessing. If he tried to discern anything in the shifting, oily darkness, he quickly started to doubt his own eyes. He thought he saw shadows slipping up through the mire and circling overhead. He assumed at first that they were tendrils of fog rising from the marshes, but they moved with an odd sense of purpose. He saw from his men’s faces that they had noticed them too, and were beginning to mutter nervously to each other.

‘My lord,’ he said, nodding at the shifting shadows, ‘could this be another plague?’

The reiksgraf gave no reply, keeping his gaze fixed on the wizards’ carriage.

Captain Stoltz scowled in the dark, not used to being ignored. Turning to the columns of knights, he held his sword aloft. ‘Keep your eyes on the road, men. You’re too old and ugly to jump at shadows.’

A brief ripple of laughter greeted his words and the oppressive atmosphere lifted a little.

As he looked at the virulent green horizon, bathed in Morrslieb’s evil light, Captain Stoltz wished he could dispel his own fears as easily as his men’s.

CHAPTER THREE

‘I will not die in Schwarzbach.’ Steffan repeated his promise to himself as he ran, trying to ignore the pain it had already brought him. As he sprinted down into another fog-shrouded gulley, his exhausted legs finally gave way and he tumbled headlong across the sodden turf, grunting and cursing as he rolled, before slamming into the charred remains of a tree. He lay there for a few seconds, his face inches from the blackened bark, wondering what new monstrosity was staring back at him. Then he realised with a bitter laugh that it was a dead cuttlefish.

‘What have I done?’ he muttered under his breath. In the warm confines of an inn, the idea of escaping from Schwarzbach had seemed like an act of inspired bravery, but now, as he lay panting in the mud covered in fresh wounds, it seemed more like lunacy.

He heard voices calling his name, and looked up to see the rest of the party clambering down into the gulley. They were a pitifully small group now. The thing that had crawled out of the swamp had eaten Christoff with disgusting relish, swallowing his still-pumping heart like a delicious oyster. After that they had abandoned all pretence at fighting and simply fled. Within the hour they encountered a grotesque, enormous toad. The vile thing had devoured Alexius with such enthusiasm that he barely had a chance to scream.

And so it had continued. Every glade and valley harboured creatures so bizarre that they beggared belief. Steffan’s men died in the jaws of a bewildering array of beasts: great serpents with human faces that swooped down from the clouds, lumbering ogres with the heads of eagles and a host of other things so unnatural that Steffan would have found it impossible to describe them without sobbing. As they ran, he wondered if Morrslieb could have somehow spawned the creatures. The loathsome moon had swelled beyond all recognition, filling the heavens with pulsing light and painting everything a nauseating green. Dawn had ceased to have any meaning as the putrid disc began to outshine even the morning sun and Steffan had lost all track of time. Morrslieb had clearly grown tired of its celestial role and decided to seize control of the earth, pouring its malice from the heavens and rebuilding the world in its own vile image.

‘Steffan,’ gasped a lanky, ginger-haired youth, dropping down by his side. ‘Are you hurt?’

Steffan looked up at the boy. He had never intended to bring children, but the wretched sneak had spied on the gathering at the Golden Hammer and demanded a place in the escape party. Steffan pulled himself up into a sitting position and felt hot agony erupt behind his eyes. It joined his body’s chorus of other complaints in a delirious, screaming opera of pain.

‘I’m fine,’ he lied.

The others emerged from the shadows, their ashen faces filling with relief when they saw that their captain was still alive.

‘For pity’s sake,’ said an old man called Völkel, trembling as he approached, ‘take us home.’ He was one of longest-serving members of Schwarzbach’s town watch. His face was ugly with scars and his arms were networked with impressively lewd tattoos, but as he rushed over to Steffan, he threw his shattered pikestaff to the ground and whined like a child, waving at the walls of the narrow crevasse they had entered. ‘What are we doing out here, captain? Do we all have to die before you’ll turn back? There’s nothing in Schwarzbach to match these monsters. Whatever you think of Thadeus Groot, he doesn’t compare to this!’

Several of the other watchmen howled their agreement, waving at their terrible injuries as justification.

Steffan climbed wearily to his feet and peered into the swirling fog, ignoring the tumult that had erupted around him. ‘My sword…’ he muttered.

Samuel followed his gaze and immediately raced off into the dark, returning a few seconds later with a proud grin and the captain’s broadsword in his hand.

Steffan snatched the weapon and held it aloft. The unwholesome light of Morrslieb gleamed across his shaven head and threw his eyes into deep pools of shadow, giving him such a look of menace that the men immediately fell silent.

Once he was sure he had their attention, Steffan spoke. His voice was edged with fury, but he kept it low, knowing that any sign of panic from him would be disastrous. ‘I gave no orders. You’re here of your own free will. I shared my suspicions, that’s all.’

‘But what if you’re wrong about Thadeus?’ asked Völkel. ‘And who could have predicted this kind of madness?’

Steffan looked down and grimaced at the oily mass of beetles rushing over his boots. He knew that Völkel was not just referring to the plagues, though. ‘It’s true that I never expected this level of…’ He faltered as he tried to think of a way to describe the creatures. ‘I thought the attacks on Schwarzbach were the extent of it. I never dreamt that the monsters would grow in number as we headed south.’

‘There’s no way we could reach the capital now,’ said Völkel, looking around at the others. ‘What are we – three miles south of Schwarzbach?’ He motioned to the men’s various injuries. ‘And look at us.’

Steffan glared at Völkel. ‘I would still rather take my chances out here than in that vipers’ nest.’ He looked north, towards the faint silhouettes of Schwarzbach’s turrets and spires. ‘I will not be party to whatever devious games Thadeus is playing. And,’ he looked at each of the men in turn, ‘when I reach Altdorf I intend to name everyone who has stood with him.’

The men looked nervously at each other and Völkel blanched. He seemed on the verge of apologising when Samuel let out an incoherent yelp.

‘What’s that?’ cried the boy, his voice a shrill, hiccupping screech.

Steffan turned to see a huge shadow loping up the gulley towards them. It was hard to be sure in the gloom, but it resembled a man – a man who towered over the treetops and caused the ground to shake as he walked.

‘Quick!’ barked Steffan. ‘Stand together! Raise your weapons!’

Most of the men obeyed, but Völkel cursed in fear and bolted. As the rest of the watchmen huddled into a defensive group, Völkel began scrambling up the side of the gulley.

The giant lurched from the shadows with astonishing speed, swinging a huge, spiked club at the fleeing man.

Völkel snapped like kindling and dropped to the ground.

The giant scraped him up and wrapped its jaws around his twisted body.

Steffan and the others watched in stunned silence as the towering monster calmly ate Völkel piece by piece. The man’s screams were brief, but awful, and even when Völkel’s body was little more than joints of meat, the sound continued to echo around the hills.

Once he had finished eating, the giant turned to face them with a low, snorting belch.

Moonlight washed over its head, revealing a face that was revoltingly human, apart from the single, blazing eye that dominated its forehead. As it approached, the ground shook so violently that the men struggled to stay on their feet.

It came to a halt a few feet away and addressed them in booming, hungry tones, drooling Völkel’s remains from its huge jaw. ‘Go to sleep. Let me take the bad away.’ Its gash-like mouth twisted into a hideous approximation of a smile. ‘No pain.’

To Steffan’s horror, the monster’s words almost made sense. He noticed that some of the men were shaking their heads in confusion and lowering their swords. ‘Don’t listen,’ he cried, shoving the men nearest to him. ‘It’s bewitching us.’

The sound of Steffan’s voice seemed to break the spell and the men huddled closer, raising their weapons again.

The monster loomed over them. ‘There’s no place for you,’ it grunted. ‘Look.’ It waved at the fearsome heavens. ‘Your world has gone. You’re ghosts.’

‘Stay together,’ hissed Steffan, pulling the others closer. ‘It can’t take us all.’ As the words left his mouth, he knew they were a lie. The creature would simply wait until exhaustion got the better of them. Eventually, one of them would drop his guard and then the thing would attack. He looked around the circle of drawn, pale faces and realised that he had led them all to their deaths. Then he noticed the young boy, Samuel. He had drawn a hunting knife and had a grin on his pale, freckled face.

Steffan stared at the boy in shock for a few seconds. Then he began to laugh.

The monster paused and sniffed, sensing Steffan’s change of heart. Then it raised its club, preparing to strike.

‘Who’s with me?’ growled Steffan, levelling his sword at the monster.

‘The bigger they come…’ replied the boy, still grinning.

‘You mean to attack it?’ gasped one of the men.

‘It’s that or die.’

The giant twisted its grotesque face into a frown as it tried to follow the conversation.

‘On three,’ cried Steffan, but his men knew the old ploy and moved on the count of two, launching themselves at the monster with a chorus of terrified oaths.

The giant was not expecting such defiance and stumbled back as the men’s weapons bit into its legs.

There was a flurry of blows as men and giant tumbled across the hillside, all attempting to land a killing blow.

After a few minutes, the giant let out a furious bellow and backed away, trailing blood and shredded leather armour in its wake.

Three more militiamen had fallen, crushed by the giant’s pounding blows, but Steffan, the boy and two others were still upright and clutching their blades with grim determination.

The giant rocked back on its heels and was preparing to swing its club again, when it stumbled and clutched its neck.

Steffan and the others looked around in confusion. Arrows were whistling through the darkness and thudding into the giant’s thick hide.

‘This way!’ cried a soldier, looking down from the top of the gulley wall.

Steffan squinted and cursed under his breath. ‘Groot’s men.’ Then he looked at his men’s desperate, hopeful faces and sighed.

The monster hesitated for a moment, then backed away as more arrows found their mark.

As rows of soldiers began clambering down towards Steffan and his men, the giant fled into the night, letting out a last, furious howl as it disappeared into the darkness.

As the rest of the watch rushed to greet the newcomers, Samuel hesitated, giving Steffan a questioning glance and raising his knife.

Steffan looked longingly to the south, reluctant to give up on his dreams of reaching Altdorf, then shook his head and gently lowered the boy’s blade. As the soldiers approached, he sheathed his sword and placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘The game’s up,’ he whispered.

A group of armoured state troops marched across the grass towards them, led by a man so fat that he had to be carried on a sedan chair. He spilled over the sides of the wooden cabin in a profusion of velvet and sable and in the moonlight, it was hard to be sure where his rolls of fat ended and his ceremonial robes began. His jowly face was clean-shaven apart from a tiny tuft of hair under his lower lip, and he resembled nothing so much as a grotesquely oversized infant. Even his shapeless felt hat resembled a baby’s bonnet.

‘Steffan,’ he cried, his voice thin and girlish. ‘What are you thinking? What are you thinking? You know it’s not safe out here anymore.’ The man’s spherical face was full of concern as he climbed awkwardly from the chair. ‘Elger Schilling said he saw you leaving through the south gate, heading towards the hills, but I thought he must have been drinking.’

Steffan’s stomach knotted with rage. He had paid the gatekeeper good money to bite his tongue.

‘Bürgermeister Groot,’ he replied, taking the hand that was held out to him and placing a kiss on the fat, ring-laden fingers. He tried desperately to think of some clever explanation for their actions but could think of nothing. ‘I wanted to gauge the monsters’ numbers,’ he said eventually, cringing inwardly at the obvious lie.

The bürgermeister frowned, and his eyes sank even deeper in their fleshy pits. ‘And you did this without speaking to me?’

Steffan squirmed awkwardly as the bürgermeister peered at him, and the rest of the watchmen looked at each other in dismay.

‘The captain wanted to do this on his own,’ piped up Samuel, stepping out of the darkness. ‘But we saw him leaving and insisted that we accompany him. He didn’t want to risk any more lives than he had to.’

‘Is this true?’ asked the bürgermeister, looking from the lanky youth to the captain.

‘Yes, my lord,’ replied Steffan. ‘I knew it was a dangerous plan and I didn’t want to endanger the lives of others.’

The bürgermeister shook his head. ‘You’re a brave man, Steffan, but at times like this we really can’t afford to have secrets.’ He waved at the shimmering mass of beetles flooding down the gulley. ‘This madness will soon pass. Sigmar knows we’ve all suffered over these last weeks, but we must stand together until the world becomes sane again.’

Steffan nodded, but his shoulders drooped despondently as he realised that his men had died for nothing. He knew he would never convince any of the survivors to make a second escape attempt.

As the soldiers led them back across the acid-green hills he muttered under his breath. ‘I will not die in Schwarzbach.’

CHAPTER FOUR

Grand Astromancer Vyborg peered out of the carriage window. The reiksgraf and his men were busy making camp and there was no sign of Gabriel, so he snapped the curtain back into place, bolted the door and dragged a small chest from beneath his seat. He turned a key, flipped open the lid and drew out a large trout, splashing water over his robes in the process.

A chorus of laughter broke out nearby and Caspar paused. For a few seconds, it seemed as though the merrymakers were approaching the carriage, but then the noise died away and the wizard continued his work. He slapped the fish down on the opposite bench, muttered a quick cantrip and proceeded to gut it. Once he had removed the entrails, he dropped the skin, flesh and bones back into the chest and moulded the intestines into a vaguely circular shape. Closing his eyes, he placed a hand over the pulsing mess and began to mutter under his breath. A pale, blue light formed around his fingers and the intestines started to tremble.

After a few minutes, Caspar removed his hand and examined the results of his spell. The blood-splattered, blue-grey pile had formed into a vague approximation of a human face. The blue light was pulsing through the worm-like innards and the face’s ‘mouth’ was trying to form words. Finally, after emitting a long, watery belch, it began to speak.

‘Helena?’ gurgled the intestines, quivering with excitement, ‘is that you, my love? I can’t stop thinking about you. I can still feel your–’

‘By the comets, Tylo,’ snapped Caspar, shaking his head in disbelief, ‘who’s Helena?’

The innards stopped wriggling and the glistening face adopted a comical look of surprise. ‘Who’s that?’

‘It’s your patriarch,’ cried Caspar, ‘Grand Astromancer Vyborg!’

The intestine-face gasped and began to undulate violently, attempting to dismantle itself.

Caspar held out his hand and flooded the fish’s innards with more blue light, forcing them back into shape.

The writhing simulacrum struggled for a few seconds, still attempting to escape, then gave up and twisted itself into a hideous grin. ‘Old friend,’ it burbled, filling the carriage with a fishy stink. ‘I had no idea. How wonderful to hear from you after all these years. How are you?’

‘How am I?’ cried Caspar. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, man! The world’s on the brink of ruin and the Emperor blames me. How do you think I am?’

The face rippled into an awkward grimace. ‘Of course, of course. Most unfortunate, the whole situation. But I’m sure–’

‘And to top it all, the entire order has begun doubting my ability to lead. A doubt that will grow if old fools like you start prophesising my downfall!’

The innards writhed uncomfortably. ‘Caspar, old friend, I contacted you in the utmost secrecy. I ordered Belmer not to show that message to anyone else. If he’s been blabbing, then I assure you I–’

‘The idiot recited that stupid rhyme about a man with clear flesh taking my place as head of the order. Do you realise how precarious my position already is?’ Caspar lowered his voice to a furious growl. ‘And, by a horrible coincidence, one of our magisters actually does have skin that is oddly translucent. Just think what kinds of misunderstandings that could lead to! He could be used as a rallying point by all those who would like to see me fail.’

‘His skin is translucent, you say? Is it so clear that his heart is visible?’

Caspar let out a strangled moan. ‘That’s not the point, Tylo. The point is that I am the Grand Magister, not some strange yokel who happens to have stumbled on to a few prophecies.’

‘So he’s not a fully ordained member of the order?’

Caspar let out another incoherent cry and slammed his fist down on the bench, jolting the innards out of shape for a few seconds. Tylo now seemed less keen to escape, however, and the face quickly reasserted itself.

‘Could it be that he is the one the prophecy speaks of?’

‘No it could not,’ snapped Caspar. ‘I have tutored him myself and he’s barely capable of rational speech, never mind leading our ancient and honourable institution.’

‘Very well,’ sighed the face, looking unconvinced. Then it narrowed its glistening eyes and peered at the carriage. ‘Have you left Altdorf, Caspar? Surely it’s not wise to travel at the moment?’

Caspar’s face lit up. ‘Ah yes, but I’ve discovered the solution to an age-old mystery, Tylo. I’m about to harness incredible power, the kind of power that would make stopping these plagues seem like child’s play.’

‘Thank Sigmar.’ The face grimaced. ‘We can’t go on like this. Ostland’s rivers have all turned to malmsey wine. The whole province has been drunk for days. People are in such a state that they don’t realise they’re killing themselves. I’ve managed to boil the treacly stuff down into its constituent parts, but I still can’t get the wretched drunks to take any water. Once our enemies realise our borders are manned by inebriates, Sigmar knows what will happen.’ The face licked its visceral lips and lowered its voice. ‘Mind you, it’s not all bad. I have been pursuing the Duchess of Orlsburg for months to no avail, but since she started drinking she–’

‘Spare me the details,’ snapped Caspar. ‘Do I need to remind you why I banished you to that godforsaken armpit of a province?’

The entrails fell quiet.

‘Have you seen anything else odd?’ the Grand Astromancer asked. ‘Creatures? Monsters, I mean?’

Tylo laughed. ‘Monsters? In Ostland? That’s hardly worth reporting up here, old friend; you know that.’

‘Anything out of the ordinary then.’

The glistening tubes formed into a frown. ‘Well, I suppose there have been more stories than usual, and they do seem to be getting odder. At first I thought it was down to the wine, but I suppose some of it might be true. I mean, they’re used to a hard life up here, but in Ferlangen they’re reporting lizards as tall as trees, walking on their hind legs and devouring men in one bite. I can’t ever remember hearing of such things before.’ Tylo’s voice grew shrill. ‘Actually, just a few miles north of Wolfenburg they’ve seen giants made of moss and weeds, crawling from the marshes and dragging passers-by to their deaths. Just this morning I heard that in–’

‘Calm yourself, man,’ interrupted Caspar. There’s nothing to be afraid of. The whole Empire is full of such tales. The monsters and the plagues are all linked somehow but, in a day or two, I will be able to channel the winds of azyr like none of us has ever managed before. Then I’ll be able to hurl Morrslieb back onto its natural course and set the world straight again.’

‘How?’

The Grand Astromancer grinned. ‘I’ve solved a riddle that has baffled every one of my predecessors. After years of research, I’ve finally pinpointed the location of Razumov’s tomb.’

The fish innards let out a moist whistle. ‘Razumov? The Kislevite? Really? You’ve found out where he died?’

‘And how to succeed where he failed.’

The fish guts twisted into a surprised expression. ‘Caspar, that really is impressive. I have to admit, I didn’t think you had–’

At that moment, there was a rattle at the carriage door.

Caspar cursed and smeared the innards across the bench until they no longer bore any resemblance to a face. Then he scooped up the dripping mess and slopped it back into the chest, before sliding it under the seat.

‘Magister,’ gasped Gabriel as Caspar opened the door. His face filled with concern as he saw that the upholstery was splattered with blood.

‘It’s nothing,’ said the old man, wiping away the mess with his robes. ‘I was performing a simple augury. I wanted to ensure that we would reach Schwarzbach safely, that’s all.’

Gabriel frowned as he climbed into the carriage, but did not question his master further. ‘The reiksgraf has overruled his captain.’

‘How so?’

‘We continue tonight. His men are allowed to eat, but not sleep.’

‘Good, good!’ snapped Caspar, opening the curtains and looking up at the pockmarked face of Morrslieb. ‘It’s the 26th of Jahrdrung tomorrow and we haven’t even reached Schwarzbach yet. It will take time to prepare for the full moon.’

Gabriel nodded. ‘We leave within the hour.’ He pulled his robes a little tighter as he looked up at the moon. ‘We will reach the site tomorrow.’

It was dusk by the time they approached the Howling Hills and the gloom was almost impenetrable. Odd, fleeting shapes could just be seen moving ahead of them through the shadows, and the knights readied their weapons, muttering prayers as they peered into the darkness. Even the lustre of their armour seemed to pall as they slowly wound their way into the inky foothills.

They were two hours into the hills when the expected attack finally came.

Captain Stoltz was scouting ahead of the main column when he heard them. He cocked his head to one side and then turned to his trusted adjutant, another scarred veteran by the name of Lukas Rosenberg. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, reining in his charger and throwing back the visor of his helmet.

‘Captain?’ replied Rosenberg with a frown, bringing his horse to halt beside Stoltz’s.

‘Listen,’ whispered Stoltz, holding up his hand for silence.

At first it was hard to hear anything beyond the jingling of the approaching knights, but as Rosenberg strained to hear what his old friend was referring to, he made out a deep rumble. ‘It could be thunder,’ he suggested, but even as he spoke, he drew his sword, clearly not convinced by his own theory.

Captain Stoltz scowled as he looked up at the hills on either side of the road. ‘This would be a wretched place to be ambushed.’

‘Ambushed? We’re only a stone’s throw from the capital. Surely no one would dare to–’

Stoltz silenced Rosenberg with another wave of his hand. ‘Look,’ he said, nodding at the brow of the hill on the east side of the road. Where the fog-shrouded hills met the venomous sky, a line of horses had appeared, silhouetted against the glowering moon.

‘They have no riders,’ said Rosenberg, standing up in his saddle to peer at them.

‘Sound the alarm,’ snapped Stoltz. ‘I’ve never seen wild horses form into ranks before.’

Rosenberg nodded and unclasped a trumpet from his saddle.

As the long, wavering note filled the valley, the approaching knights drew their lances, raised their shields and brought their steeds to a clattering halt; all except Reiksgraf von Südenhorst, who kicked his horse into a gallop and sped to the captain’s side.

‘What are you playing at, Stoltz? The Grand Astromancer has no time for delays! He does not expect us to quail at the sight of every stray horse.’

Captain Stoltz looked back at the carriage. Caspar and Gabriel had climbed out onto the road and were huddled together, deep in conversation and peering up at the hills.

‘Begging your pardon, reiksgraf, but I think our patrons will appreciate the danger of the situation.’

‘Danger?’ cried the reiksgraf, squinting through his monocle at the hillside. ‘From horses?’

Stoltz shook his head. ‘If they are horses, then they’re horses without riders, mustering in orderly rows. That’s not quite the same as a “stray horse”, reiksgraf.’ He looked again at the silhouettes massing on the hilltop. ‘And there’s something else odd about them.’ He rummaged in his saddlebags and drew out a small brass telescope. As he focussed the lens on the horizon, he grunted a bitter curse.

‘What is it, Captain Stoltz?’ asked Rosenberg, not used to hearing his old friend sound so unnerved.

‘I’m not sure,’ he replied in a quiet voice, handing the spyglass to the scowling general. ‘I think you ought to take a look, reiksgraf.’

Von Südenhorst rolled his eyes as he took the telescope, but when he looked again at the horses he blanched and clenched his jaw. ‘Sigmar’s teeth. What are they, Stoltz?’

The question went unanswered as the creatures launched their attack, swooping down the hillside in a black tsunami of gleaming hides. The monsters vaguely resembled horses, but they were several feet taller than the knights’ chargers and had broad, leathery batwings ending in cruel, curved talons. Their heads were crowned with brutal, bull-like horns and their eyes blazed with a crimson fire. Their charge was made all the more unnerving by their silence: no war cry or trumpets accompanied them as they raced towards the knights; there was nothing but the thundering of hooves and the beating of hideous wings.

The knights raised their shields to meet the charge but, just before the impact, hundreds of the creatures spread their wings and launched themselves into the air, swooping above the soldiers like birds of prey.

For a few moments, it seemed as though the knights would be overwhelmed. The monsters had slammed into them at such a speed that their orderly ranks immediately collapsed and, with half of their enemy soaring overhead, the knights found themselves attacked from every direction. The daemonic beasts began a silent orgy of killing: lashing at the men with their talons, crushing them beneath their heavy hooves and gouging them with their horns.

‘Regroup!’ bellowed Captain Stoltz, kicking his horse into action and racing back towards the carnage.

The reiksgraf cursed and raced after him, elbowing the older man aside as he passed by. ‘Charge!’ he cried, ducking as one of the huge black shapes hurtled overhead.

Gradually, the knights began to regain some semblance of order. The creatures made a terrifying sight, but they were not clad in good Reikland steel and the point of a lance halted them just as surely as any other foe.

With Captain Stoltz and the reiksgraf at their head, the knights charged into the fray, skewering dozens of the monsters before discarding their broken lances, drawing swords and hacking more beasts from the air.

‘More of them,’ grunted Rosenberg, appearing at Stoltz’s side.

The captain rose up in his saddle and lashed out with his sword, sending one of the monsters crashing down onto the road behind him in a flurry of ink-black wings and clattering hooves. Before it could rise, Stoltz dropped from his horse, grabbed his sword in both hands and hammered it down through the thing’s neck, showering his armour with blood.

‘What did you say?’ he gasped, climbing back into his saddle and turning to his adjutant.

‘There are so many of them,’ cried Rosenberg, raising his shield just in time to prevent another one of the creatures tearing his face off.

Stoltz lashed out again with his sword. His blow was so ferocious that it took the monster’s head clean off, spinning it across the tightly packed crowds of combatants. He followed the direction of Rosenberg’s gaze and saw what he meant. Hundreds more of the winged beasts were charging down the hill. ‘Where are they coming from?’ he asked, wiping the gore from his visor and preparing for the next impact.

As the hillside disappeared once more beneath an ocean of black muscle and pounding wings, Captain Stoltz glanced briefly at the general. The reiksgraf’s haughty features had been transformed by a feral snarl. Stoltz wondered if he might have misjudged the youth.

Before the next wave of monsters had reached the bottom of the hill, the clouds overhead suddenly rolled together into a single great thunderhead that hung right over the battle. Horse and man alike stumbled as a powerful wind struck up from nowhere and whipped the clouds into a funnel of lightning-charged power.

Captain Stoltz was about to cry out in confusion when he saw the cause of the strange weather. The two magisters had climbed on to the roof of their carriage and raised their staffs to the heavens. As they twirled their rods in unison, the cloud spiralled over their heads, the winds tearing cobbles from the road and rattling the knights’ armour.

As Stoltz and the others looked on awestruck, blinding arcs of lightning began to splinter from the shadows, shimmering in the whirlwind and flickering around the wizards.

The winged horses baulked as the air filled with electricity and the weather grew more ferocious.

Finally, as their storm seemed about to tear loose and destroy all of them, Caspar and Gabriel simultaneously cried out, holding the tips of their staffs together and levelling them at the approaching horses. Their words were lost beneath the sound of the storm, but the effect was impossible to miss. Spines of lightning came together in a brittle, dazzling tower before slamming into the hillside with such force that it seemed sunlight had briefly returned to the Empire.

The sound of the blast was incredible and the shockwave toppled half of the knights from their horses.

‘By the gods,’ gasped Stoltz, picking himself up from the ground as the echoes faded. With its energy spent, the whirlwind began to disperse, but the explosion had left a shrill ringing in the captain’s head and his skin was still tingling with static. He had seen celestial magic before, but nothing as potent as this. He looked over at the carriage and saw that Caspar Vyborg looked just as shocked. The Grand Astromancer was shaking his head in disbelief as he studied the crater they had carved in the hillside.

‘Captain!’ cried Rosenberg, shoving Stoltz to one side as one of the daemonic horses bore down on him. The beast was badly wounded and its eyes were rolling with fury and pain.

Rosenberg tripped and fell and, as the horse circled and swooped back towards Captain Stoltz, he realised to his horror that he had no weapon.

Reiksgraf von Südenhorst charged through the battle and drove his sword into the monster’s face. The beast crashed to the ground and, before it could rise, the general wrenched his sword free and struck again, pinning it to the ground with a determined grunt.

Stoltz clambered to his feet, readying himself for the next attack, but as he looked around he saw that the wizards’ light show had decided the battle. Two-thirds of the monsters were dead and the rest were galloping into the dark, with victorious knights pursuing them.

Stoltz nodded gratefully at the reiksgraf. ‘You saved my life.’

The young general gave him a stern nod, doing his best to appear calm and dignified, but as he looked around at the carnage, his eyes were gleaming with pride.

As the carriage lurched into motion, Caspar dropped heavily onto the bench. His hands were still aching from the blast and his skullcap had slipped to one side, spilling his hair over his face.

‘I’ve never felt anything like it,’ he said, looking warily at the younger wizard.

Gabriel was sitting motionless at his side with his eyes closed. ‘The air is thick with azyr. It responded to our presence. It was waiting.’

Caspar looked at his hands. The skin was blistered and raw. ‘Then we’ll have to be very careful when we reach the ruins of Razumov’s tower. The concentration of azyr will be even greater there.’ Strangely, the thought did not worry him. The power of the storm had made him feel thirty years younger. It had gripped him like a drug, flooding his crooked old limbs with life. He had not felt so exhilarated since his first teenage experiments with magic. The idea of channelling even greater amounts of the stuff set his heart racing. He looked out of the window and saw that the mood of the rest of the company was very different from his own. The knights were riding in silence, their eyes scouring the hilltops as they continued north. The battle had been brief, but the knights’ losses had been heavy and the strangeness of the attack had unnerved them. Caspar followed their gaze and peered at the darkened hills. ‘I’ve never heard of pegasi so close to Altdorf. And such a strange breed. They seemed more bat than horse.’

Gabriel nodded. ‘Morrslieb’s orbit is unnatural. The heavens are in turmoil. The winds of magic are bending reality. The creatures of Chaos are displaced.’

Caspar nodded and tried to adopt a concerned expression, but all he could think of was the power he had felt when the storm took hold. He leaned back in his seat and tried to rest, but when he closed his eyes all he could see was his own face: young again and gilded by lightning, his eyes blazing with godlike power.

CHAPTER FIVE

Thaddeus Groot wheezed asthmatically as he made his way through the debating chamber of Schwarzbach Town Hall. One of his men was supporting him as he walked, but his face was still flushed and beaded with sweat. The room was long, rectangular and lined with faded banners. There was a large stained-glass window at one end that usually flooded the place with light, but with the Empire draped in a constant gloom, the bürgermeister had to rely on the light of a flickering candle to lead him down the central aisle.

At the far end of the ancient chamber was a locked door. Thaddeus drew a large bundle of keys from within his robes but paused before using them. The rattling of the keys echoed oddly around the rows of empty seats and Groot turned to the man by his side, a rangy, beak-nosed officer with glossy, ink-black hair swept back in a ponytail. ‘Someone’s in here, Zelter,’ he snapped, shoving the soldier back down the aisle.

Groot watched anxiously as the soldier searched the room, but after a few minutes the man shook his head and announced that they were alone. Groot did not look entirely convinced, but he unlocked the door anyway and hurried on into a small library, locking the door behind him and leaving the soldier to wait in the hall.

The library’s shelves had once been crammed with municipal lore – hundreds of tithes, levies and Imperial statutes recorded in thick volumes of cherry-red calf leather – but now the folios were all empty; the foiled numbers had disappeared from their spines and the beautiful, illuminated letters had vanished from their pages. Fortunately, Groot was not interested in research. He locked the door behind him, set his candle down on a reading desk and approached a Sigmarite shrine that dominated the room. The shrine was far older than the rest of the building. It had allegedly been rescued from a nearby monastery during the Wars of the Three Emperors, but no one could be sure of its true origin. The centuries had not been kind to the God King. The stone had eroded so badly that Sigmar’s face was little more than a featureless mask and his powerful muscles had blurred into one hulking mass of stone. His thick, square fingers were still visible though, and they were spread out over a small, wooden table, placed there in more recent years by a local priest as a receptacle for offerings.

Groot was careful not to look at the statue’s face – even in such a ruined condition, he found it unnerving. The bürgermeister removed the table and reached around behind Sigmar’s back, grasping a crumbling column of rock that had once been recognisable as Sigmar’s warhammer. The bürgermeister grimaced as his pudgy fingers scrabbled over the ancient stone, unable to find purchase. After a few muttered curses, he finally found a tiny depression in the stone and jabbed his index finger into it.

The empty books trembled on their shelves as the shrine rolled back into the wall, revealing a gloomy stairway. Cool, fusty air rushed over the bürgermeister as he picked up his candle and stepped into the darkness.

The stairs led steeply down into damp, crumbling cellars and then deeper, beyond the foundations of the town hall and onto a narrow, partially excavated street. The subterranean road must once have been a wide thoroughfare, but only a sliver of its original width had been unearthed. Groot struggled to squeeze his vast stomach through some of the narrower bends, but the deeper he went, the more excited he became, rubbing his meaty palms together and muttering to himself as he scrambled over the ancient stones.

After a few minutes, he reached a door at the end of a long passageway. The light of his candle flickered over its surface, revealing an intricate array of carvings. The faces staring out of the wood might once have been heroic, or even beautiful, but centuries of decay had warped them into something far more sinister: tortured-looking, featureless grotesques, who seemed to cry out in pain as Groot shoved the door open and filled the tunnel with the sound of screaming, rusted hinges.

As the door opened, a mound of rats tumbled out, scattering from the bürgermeister’s light and scurrying into the shadows. Groot paid them no heed, but the second thing to emerge did cause him to falter – a thick, cloying charnel stink that filled his nostrils and left him retching into his ermine robes. For a few minutes he could do nothing but grimace and cough, then he pulled his robes up over his face and stepped through the doorway.

The darkness that smothered Groot was so profound that his candle could only illuminate a few feet in every direction. He shuffled slowly on through a series of empty rooms and down more stairs. Opening another door, he came to a halt in a small, rat-infested cellar. The room was so tiny that his candle finally managed to push back the shadows, revealing a slight, hooded figure waiting patiently in the corner.

The figure recoiled as Groot approached, but was clearly excited by his presence – twitching and fidgeting in the shadows and tapping the floor with a black spiked staff that ended in a crescent of talon-like horns.

‘What news, Groot?’ The shadowy figure had a voice like autumn leaves being crunched underfoot.

‘My lady,’ gasped the bürgermeister, attempting a bow, ‘they’re not here yet.’

‘You’re wrong.’ There was anger in the voice and Groot flinched, as though expecting to be struck.

‘Are you sure, my lady? I’ve just spoken to Steffan, the captain of the watch, and he travelled several miles into the hills without seeing any sign of strangers.’ He laughed. ‘They encountered quite a few other things though. I don’t think they will be–’

‘They left Schwarzbach?’ hissed the woman. ‘What for?’

Groot’s face twisted into a grimace. ‘They were just scouting the nearby hills, my lady. That was all.’

‘How can you be sure?’ The woman’s voice was verging on a scream. ‘What if they’ve learned something? No one must speak to the magisters before they arrive. We’re only two nights away from the full moon. Nothing can be allowed to go wrong.’ She looked down at the floor. There was a pile of bones at her feet that gleamed faintly in the candlelight as she stooped down to stroke them. She spent a few moments placing the bones in various different arrangements on the floor, muttering under her breath. This seemed to calm her and when she turned back to Groot, her voice was softer. ‘The magisters will be here tomorrow night. Nothing can be allowed to disrupt our plans before then. Do you understand?’

‘Yes! Yes!’ Groot dropped to his knees, peering at the vague shapes on the floor. ‘What shall I do?’

The woman clutched her cruel-looking staff in both hands and stepped closer to the bürgermeister. As she stooped over him, his candle revealed a brief glimpse of her ashen skin and matted silver hair. ‘You must kill them, Groot – Steffan first, then his friends. Do it quickly.’

Groot nodded eagerly. ‘Of course, my lady. Anything you desire.’ He massaged his quivering cheeks and frowned again. ‘It’s so difficult keeping everything on track though.’ He looked hungrily at the staff. ‘Do you think you could lend me a little more strength? Just to see me through this last stretch?’

The woman sighed, then gave a grudging nod.

Groot closed his eyes and sighed with pleasure. Loosening the belt around his robes, he allowed them to fall open. His entire body was covered in bleeding, open sores and as he leaned towards the woman, some of them parted slightly, revealing rows of tiny, pointed teeth.

The woman raised her staff and placed the crescent of horns against his trembling chest. As she dragged it gently over his skin, a string of new sores erupted, causing Groot to moan even louder.

Just as the bürgermeister’s pleasure seemed about to overcome him, the woman snatched the staff away and withdrew into the shadows.

Groot tumbled to the floor, reaching after her with a pitiful whine.

‘No more,’ she hissed, ‘until they are dead.’

CHAPTER SIX

‘Schwarzbach,’ announced Captain Stoltz as the general dismounted and stood beside him.

The two knights were looking out across a wide, moonlit valley and on the opposite side was a fortified town, circled by a thick stone wall punctuated by squat, pugnacious-looking towers. Soldiers could be seen moving on the battlements and the Imperial standard was hanging lifelessly from the inner citadel.

‘Still standing, at least,’ said the general, squinting through the gloom. ‘The walls are manned too.’

Captain Stoltz nodded. He was surprised. Their journey through the Howling Hills had been far worse than any of them could have predicted. His grey beard was flecked with dried blood and there were several new dents in his plate armour. After the pegasi, a string of strange creatures had launched attacks – monsters whose anatomy was bewildering in its complexity. None of these encounters had been as testing as the first skirmish, but several more knights had died and Stoltz was relieved to see that their destination was still intact.

He nodded at the walls nearest the gates. As the vile glow of Morrslieb washed over the stones, it revealed a network of cracks and scorch marks. ‘Looks like they’ve been dealing with these beasts for a lot longer than we have.’

The reiksgraf straightened his monocle and flared his nostrils. ‘Well, their trials are now over. Whatever has been assailing them will meet the same fate as everything else we’ve encountered.’ He mounted his horse and waved his men onwards.

As the glittering columns of knights snaked through the darkness, a lone trumpet blast rang out from the battlements and Schwarzbach’s huge, south gate swung open in greeting.

A few bleary-eyed townspeople stumbled out onto the road as the reiksgraf led his men towards them. Some of them cheered and rushed to greet their rescuers, but Stoltz saw that they did not stray too far from the gate and they watched the hills anxiously until the knights had all entered the town and the gates had slammed shut.

‘Who is in charge here?’ cried the reiksgraf, surveying the town. The buildings were built in a similar architectural style to those in the capital – a claustrophobic crush of teetering, half-timbered houses, all leaning out over the flagstones in a huddle of narrow, leaded windows and crooked, spire-like gables. Dozens more people began emerging from their houses, and as they all began to speak, it quickly became impossible to make out anything in the din.

The reiksgraf frowned and held up a hand to silence the mob, but the cries just grew louder as more of the townsfolk emerged from their houses.

‘My lord,’ cried Captain Stoltz, pointing to the far end of the square.

Two groups of men were making their way through the growing crowd. The first was a led by a stern-faced veteran, and looked to be the local watch – they were clad in thick leather jerkins and carrying lanterns that revealed brief glimpses of their anxious faces. The second group was a unit of armoured state troops, mounted on warhorses and led by a hugely obese man carried upon a palanquin. Stoltz noticed that the veteran leading the watch seemed desperate to reach the reiksgraf before the other soldiers, but he was only halfway across the square when the state troops overtook him.

‘Welcome!’ cried the fat man as his soldiers helped him down onto the flagstones. He waddled over to the reiksgraf and held out his hands in greeting. ‘I’m Bürgermeister Thadeus Groot. You cannot imagine how delighted I am to see you!’

The reiksgraf dismounted and gave the bürgermeister a stiff nod. Then he waved at the excited crowds pressing around them. ‘Is there anywhere we can talk, Bürgermeister Groot?’

‘Of course, of course!’ Groot nodded to the wiry, hook-nosed officer at his side. ‘Sergeant Zelter can see to your men, if you’d like to come with me.’

The reiksgraf spoke to Captain Stoltz without looking at him. ‘Come and find me when the men are settled.’ Then he stepped closer to the bürgermeister and pointed out the wizards’ black carriage. ‘I’m here as an escort for the Grand Astromancer of the Celestial College, Caspar Vyborg, and his colleague, Gabriel Bloch. The Grand Astromancer wishes to speak to you regarding a matter of the utmost importance.’

Groot’s eyes widened. ‘The Grand Astromancer, you say? That’s wonderful news.’

The reiksgraf frowned. ‘The arrival of a wizard is rarely greeted with such enthusiasm, Bürgermeister Groot. Are you acquainted with Magister Vyborg?’

The bürgermeister suppressed his smile and clutched his hands together, looking suddenly nervous. ‘No, general, we’re not acquainted.’ He waved at the holes and scorch marks that covered Schwarzbach’s ramparts. ‘I’m as wary of sorcery as the next man but, in the current situation, it seems to be our only hope.’ He peered at the wizards’ black carriage. Caspar’s tiny, wrinkled face was just visible, squinting out at the raucous crowds. ‘Is that him?’

The reiksgraf nodded proudly.

Groot smiled again. ‘If anyone can liberate Schwarzbach, then it’s the Grand Astromancer himself.’

There was a clatter of barding and hooves as the knights were escorted to their quarters. As the crowds began to disperse, the reiksgraf led the bürgermeister towards the black carriage. ‘I’m afraid that things are far worse than you might imagine, Bürgermeister Groot.’ He waved at the Chaos moon, hanging low over the rooftops. ‘This madness is Empire-wide. You’re not the only town to have been cut off.’

As they reached the carriage, Groot nodded earnestly. ‘We should retire to my town house.’ His eyes widened as the two wizards climbed down onto the square and looked around. ‘It sounds like we have a lot to discuss.’

As soon as the other knights were settled in their lodgings, Captain Stoltz set off to find the reiksgraf. He cursed under his breath as he considered the offhand way the general had dismissed him. ‘The young brat should remember his manners,’ he hissed as he hurried through the narrow, winding streets. After a few minutes, he realised he must have taken a wrong turn. The streets were getting narrower and darker, and there was no sign of the square. He clattered to a halt and lurched off in another direction, heading for a distant row of turrets that looked vaguely familiar. The street became an unpaved, muddy path that ran between a jumble of rundown shacks and outbuildings. ‘Where am I?’ he growled, coming to a stop again and spinning around. Between two of the shacks, he thought he could just about see the town wall. ‘Right,’ he muttered, ‘let’s follow that back to the gate.’

Stoltz had only taken a few steps when he heard a man cry out, either in pain or anger.

He clenched his jaw as he looked down a narrow, dismal-looking side street. There was a faint light flickering in a window. ‘I don’t have time for this,’ he muttered, but as he continued on his way the voice cried out again. The scream was even more desperate this time and it was followed by a crash of splintering wood.

He looked back down the darkened alleyway, still reluctant to get involved, when a young redheaded boy bolted towards him out of the darkness. The youth was going to race straight past, but Stoltz grabbed him by the arm and pulled him close. ‘What’s your game, lad?’ he growled. ‘Up to no good, eh?’

The youth stared at him in terror and struggled to escape. Then he noticed the heraldry on the knight’s breastplate and became still. ‘You’re not from Schwarzbach,’ he gasped, with sudden hope in his eyes.

Stoltz shook his head and was about to speak when he was interrupted by the sound of more smashing wood and another agonised cry.

‘You have to help Steffan,’ cried the boy, gripping the knight’s arms. ‘They’re killing him. All we did was try to leave!’

Stoltz freed himself from the boy’s grip and glared at him. ‘Who’s Steffan?’

‘He’s the captain of the watch!’ cried the pale-faced youth, pointing down the alleyway. ‘Groot’s sent his men to murder him!’

Stoltz shook his head and laughed incredulously. ‘The bürgermeister? Why would he murder the captain of his own watch?’

The boy leaned closer and lowered his voice to a venomous hiss. ‘Because Steffan has learned the truth about him!’

Stoltz wondered if the boy might be deranged. He certainly looked unhinged. The sounds of fighting were growing in volume though, so, after giving the town wall one last wistful look, he allowed the boy to lead him to the house.

The front door was in splinters and the foul lunar light revealed a group of figures inside, lurching back and forth and hissing feral curses at each other.

Just as the knight stepped into the doorway, there was a loud bang and the room filled with smoke and the smell of saltpetre.

Stoltz shoved the boy behind him, drew his sword and bellowed into the smoke. ‘What’s going on here?’

One of the figures dropped heavily to the floor and the others rushed towards Captain Stoltz. The first man to emerge had his hair swept back from his angular face in a long, black ponytail and Captain Stoltz realised to his shock that he recognised him.

‘Sergeant Zelter?’ gasped Stoltz, frowning as he realised it was the officer who had escorted them to the barracks. He looked barely recognisable. His eyes were staring and wild and a few strands of his hair had come loose and were plastered across his pale, sweaty face.

‘What’s happening?’ demanded Stoltz.

The officer recoiled, obviously horrified to be recognised. ‘Captain Stoltz,’ he gasped, lowering the smoking flintlock pistol in his hand. ‘What are you doing here?’

As the other figures stepped out into the moonlight, Stoltz saw that they were all state troops and that several of them were bloodied or bruised. He shook his head in confusion and was about to speak when the boy broke free from his grip and dashed away.

‘They’ve murdered him!’ he cried as he disappeared into the dark.

Stoltz shook his head in disbelief, but as he looked back at the house he saw that the smoke was clearing, revealing a body sprawled on the floor, blood pumping from a terrible chest wound. It was the stern-faced man who had tried to approach the reiksgraf in the town square.

‘Is that the captain of the watch?’ he asked, stepping a little closer. ‘Have you been attacked?’

Captain Stoltz let out a grunt of annoyance as Sergeant Zelter poked him in the side of his chest. ‘What are you doing?’ he said, scowling at the soldier in confusion.

The sergeant’s face twisted into a furious grimace. ‘Why did you have to come down this street?’

Captain Stoltz shook his head. ‘What do you mean?’ Then he noticed that the sergeant had dropped his pistol and now had a long, thin knife in his hand. The blade was dripping with fresh blood and, as pain exploded in his side, Stoltz realised he had been stabbed. Falling to the floor, he tried to speak but found that his mouth was full of warm blood.

Sergeant Zelter leaned over him, drawing back his dagger to strike again, and Captain Stoltz noticed that the soldier’s sleeve was torn and that the skin beneath was covered in hideous, open sores.

As he took his last gurgling breath, Stoltz was sure that the sores were opening and closing, revealing tiny, jagged teeth.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Groot frowned in confusion. ‘And this Razumov built his tower in Schwarzbach?’

They were sitting in the bürgermeister’s study. It was a handsome, oak-panelled room, lined with now-useless books and lit by the warm glow of the oil lamp perched on the mantle beside Groot’s desk. Caspar and Gabriel were seated opposite Groot in comfortable, high-backed armchairs, and the reiksgraf was standing just inside the door, as proud and motionless as a decorative suit of armour. It was a cosy scene. For a few seconds, an observer might have imagined that the plagues had ended and the Empire was sane once more; then they would have noticed the endless ticking of the beetles, crawling across the casement windows and scurrying across the floorboards.

‘No,’ replied Caspar, glaring at one of the beetles. ‘Razumov lived many, many centuries ago. We’re not sure exactly when, but he built his tower long before the days of Schwarzbach. Maybe even before the time of Sigmar.’

The confused expression remained on Groot’s face. ‘Then what do you expect to find after all these years?’

Gabriel leaned forward, his pale, skeletal face as emotionless as ever. ‘The tower was a conduit. The state of the bricks and mortar is unimportant. We’re here to complete Razumov’s ritual.’ He waved out of the window at the dazzling face of Morrslieb. ‘He channelled vast quantities of azyr through the tower. There will be an indelible link with the luminary bodies. No length of time would diminish it.’

Groot nodded and leaned back in his chair, causing the wood to creak under the pressure. ‘I see.’ He continued looking at Gabriel for a few seconds. ‘And, if you were to achieve this – I mean, if you manage to raise the tower somehow – what would happen then?’

Gabriel shook his head, looking utterly bored. ‘In the current situation, it is impossible to know. If the ritual is completed as Morrslieb waxes full, whoever is in control of the tower will unleash a great power.’

Caspar leaned forward, his rheumy eyes glittering with excitement. ‘Do you understand, bürgermeister? If I can do this, I will channel the winds of magic at their most powerful. Just think what I could achieve. The monsters that have besieged you are just a part of the story. The whole Empire is blighted, but if I can do this thing, I could set the world back on its axis.’ He slammed his staff on the floor, crushing the beetle with undisguised glee. ‘History will be made here, bürgermeister, tomorrow night.’

The 29th of Jahrdrung dawned with a chorus of howls and a crash of splintering wood.

For the fifth time that week, the proud walls of Schwarzbach braced themselves against a ferocious beastmen attack. A tide of cloven hooves, snarling bovine snouts and brutal iron blades thundered down from the hills and slammed against the town gates. The attackers vaguely resembled men, but their belched war cries carried no trace of humanity and, as they threw themselves uselessly against the walls, their eyes burned with animal hunger.

Arrows rained down from the battlements as the exhausted state troops began another long day of battle. As the soldiers fired down on the ocean of scarred flesh, they had to shield their eyes from a blinding emerald glare. Morrslieb had now waxed full and grown so vast that it obscured the heavens, its maleficent glare driving the beastmen into a frenzy of bloodlust. As they reached the gates, a huge bull-headed brute rose above the others and roared out a series of commands, waving at the gates with a battered two-handed axe. From deep within the mass of fur-clad bodies emerged a crude, iron-clad battering ram and, as the bull-headed figure continued to bellow his orders, the beastmen began pounding it against the gates, filling the narrow streets with an ominous booming sound.

As the gates buckled and creaked, it quickly became clear that they would not last the morning – the supports cracked and groaned pitifully as the creatures piled their weight against them. Hollow-cheeked men shook their heads in fear as they watched the endless waves of attackers charging towards them. Arrows flew wide of their marks as soldiers’ hands began to shake with fear. None of them had ever seen such a vast gathering of beastmen. As the monsters scaled the walls, the moonlight flashed in their black, merciless eyes and glinted along their jagged blades.

As the noise of battle swelled, Reiksgraf Niclas von Südenhorst calmly polished his monocle and pushed it into place. He and his knights were mustered in the street, on foot, just a few feet behind the creaking gates, and from this close the noise of the enemy was deafening. Their feral chant boomed through the gates like a storm, battering against the gnarled oak.

The reiksgraf drew his sword and his knights did the same, filling the square with the sound of scraping metal. He turned to look back at the gleaming, orderly ranks and nodded in satisfaction. Their faces showed no trace of the panic that was running riot on the walls. ‘This is it,’ he whispered, turning his gaze back towards the buckling gate. ‘Even my father never faced such a horde.’

A squire approached and handed the reiksgraf his tall, winged helmet.

‘Is there still no sign of Captain Stoltz?’ snapped the reiksgraf. ‘He should be here to witness my triumph.’

‘No, my lord,’ replied the boy. ‘He hasn’t been seen since last night.’

The reiksgraf slammed the helmet in place, unable to hide his irritation. ‘How inconvenient.’ As the boy turned to leave, he called out to him. ‘Find a good vantage point then. And make sure you see everything that happens. I don’t want my deeds to go unrecorded.’

The squire bowed and hurried gratefully away from the gates.

‘Come on, you filth,’ hissed the reiksgraf, willing the gates to break. His whole body was trembling with suppressed energy and his breath was coming in short, snatched gasps. The gates bowed again as the screaming monsters slammed the ram against it. Support struts exploded in a shower of splinters, but the doors still held. The reiksgraf felt as though he was one blow from a place in history. He could already see his name preserved forever in legend and myth.

He looked back again, over the heads of his knights. The light of the moon threw odd shadows across the tightly packed buildings, making it hard to see anything very clearly, but he could just about make out the square and the town hall at its centre. His chest swelled with pride. The Grand Astromancer was relying on him. The reiksgraf looked down at the keen edge of his sword. On this fateful day, the safety of the whole Empire was in his hands.

He closed his eyes for a second to whisper a quick prayer. When he opened them again the doors were tumbling, unleashing a tide of such lunacy that, for a few seconds, he froze in horror. Then, as his knights raced past him, the reiksgraf shook his head and joined them, slamming down the visor of his helmet and launching himself into the fray.

‘It’s here.’ Gabriel had set up his moondial on the steps of the town hall and was peering at it intently.

‘Are you sure?’ cried Caspar, straining to be heard over the attack on the gates. The reiksgraf had left a small group of knights behind to guard the wizards, and Caspar had to barge through them to get a clearer look at the device. Morrslieb was scattering a bewildering combination of shadows across its face and Caspar shook his head in confusion. ‘How can you understand it?’

Thaddeus Groot was standing a few feet away, leaning heavily on two of his guards. He was watching Gabriel intently as he turned the metal rings. ‘Your colleague has a rare skill, Grand Astromancer. Did you say that he will be the one to raise the tower?’

‘No!’ Caspar’s tiny frame shook with rage and his black skullcap slid from his head. ‘Only I can do such a thing!’

The bürgermeister raised his eyebrows at the vehemence in the old man’s voice and even Gabriel looked up in surprise.

Caspar clenched his jaw and attempted to speak more evenly. ‘Gabriel is indeed a wonderful student, bürgermeister, but he is still a student. Only an experienced magister such as myself could hope to harness such power.’ He placed his skullcap back over his thin strands of hair and forced a brittle smile. ‘The Emperor himself has requested that I find the cause of these plagues, so it is crucial that I be the one to complete Razumov’s ritual.’

‘Of course, of course,’ muttered Groot, raising his hands defensively. ‘Forgive me, magister. Please, continue with your work.’

Gabriel stepped away from the moondial and approached his master. ‘This is the place. The configurations all indicate it. The town hall is built over the ruins of the tower. We must recite incantations in the most central room. By midnight, the celestial bodies will enter their most auspicious houses. Then the storms of magic will begin in earnest.’

Caspar clutched his staff in both hands and nodded eagerly, turning to the group of knights. ‘In that case I suggest you guard the steps while we begin–’

The Grand Astromancer’s words were interrupted by the sound of exploding timber.

The group gathered on the steps turned to see the south gates collapsing, scattering shards of wood across the square. As the debris settled they saw the beastmen horde flooding into the town, led by their towering, bull-headed leader. They were met head on by the glinting ranks of the reiksgraf’s knights and a horrendous din filled the streets – the clanging of swords, the roar of feral beasts and the blare of trumpets all combined in one unbearable noise.

‘Sigmar,’ cried Caspar. ‘I thought you said the gates would hold, bürgermeister?’

Groot staggered back against his guards and shook his head in disbelief. ‘By the gods. This is…’ He peered through the clouds of dust at the battling figures. ‘They’ve never attacked in these kinds of numbers.’ He frowned and looked back at the town hall, as though expecting an explanation from the shadows within. Then he looked back at the wizards, his face crumpling with fear. ‘What will you do?’

Gabriel grabbed the sleeve of his master’s robe. ‘We must begin. We can’t wait until midnight. We must raise the tower.’

Caspar was still staring at the carnage erupting at the gate. He nodded in reply, but as he registered Gabriel’s words he frowned and pulled back from his apprentice’s grip. ‘Wait a minute! What do you mean, we can’t wait until midnight? None of the stars will be in alignment. How can we complete the spell if the heavens are out of position?’

Gabriel closed his eyes and muttered a series of calculations. Then he gave a firm nod and looked up at the moon. ‘It can still be done. This is the correct day. Only the initial current will be weakened. Echoes of Razumov’s sorcery will reverberate as you climb his tower.’ He looked at the old man with concern. ‘Do you need me to–?’

‘No!’ snapped Caspar, drawing himself erect and dusting some imaginary lint from his robes. ‘If you’re sure we can do this,’ he flinched as the invading horde let out another deafening roar, ‘then let’s find the spot.’ He waved his staff at Groot. ‘Lead on, bürgermeister. Take us to the central chamber. Quickly!’

They hurried into the building, pausing only to bar the doors behind them. The bürgermeister led the wizards and knights into the debating hall and waved at a mosaic in the centre of the floor. It depicted a lion rampant surrounded by a circle of flaming, twin-tailed comets. ‘That’s the heart of the place,’ he gasped, before hurrying over to a window in the far wall. He peered through the rippled glass at the fighting outside. ‘I can’t understand it,’ he muttered, shaking his head and frowning at one of his guards. ‘There are so many of them.’

Caspar paused, thinking the bürgermeister’s words sounded a little odd. ‘I don’t think those damned wretches will be concerned with disrupting our plans, bürgermeister.’

Groot laughed nervously.

Caspar frowned, sensing that he was missing something, but, at that moment, Gabriel cried out, listing a series of constellations and numbers.

Caspar whirled around and saw that the wizard was staring up at the ceiling.

‘What do you see?’ asked Caspar, stepping over to him.

There was a distant look in Gabriel’s eyes that seemed to suggest he was looking beyond the vaulted plasterwork. ‘This is it,’ he announced, nodding at the stones beneath them. ‘This is the site of the ruins.’ He tapped his staff on the floor. ‘We must begin.’

Caspar gave an eager nod and removed a tall, thin bottle from within his robes. ‘Stand back!’ he cried, waving his staff at the knights. ‘Leave the room, all of you. Wait in the entrance hall until we’re done.’

As Groot and the others backed away, Caspar uncorked the bottle and began walking in a circle around Gabriel, pouring a thin stream of viscous liquid onto the floor. As the liquid splashed across the tiles it hissed angrily, sending up trails of blue smoke. Gabriel made several circuits, until the two wizards were surrounded by a shifting, diaphanous wall. As the smoke rose towards the ceiling, it shimmered and flashed in the moonlight as though it were bedecked with thousands of tiny stars.

At the same time as Caspar was creating the wall of smoke, Gabriel was covering the floor with dozens of arcane chalk marks, using each one to chart the movements of a different heavenly body. Then he traced his staff across each of the intersections and mouthed a long, garbled incantation.

Once the two wizards had completed their preparations, they knelt together in the middle of the smoke circle and closed their eyes. They reached out with their left hands, pressed the tips of their fingers together and began to mutter the spells they had rehearsed in Altdorf.

Groot and his men edged back towards the curtain of smoke, peering in wonder at the silhouettes of the wizards, but before they had taken more than a few steps, the knights barred their way.

‘Gentlemen,’ said one of them, gripping the hilt of his sword and nodding at the door. ‘The Grand Astromancer requested that we leave him in peace.’

One of Groot’s men sneered and placed his hand on the knife in his belt. It was the officer with the long black ponytail and the beak-like nose. ‘Really?’ His voice was low and menacing. ‘And if we don’t, what will you–?’

‘Sergeant Zelter,’ interrupted the bürgermeister, grabbing his guard by the shoulder and shoving him towards the door. ‘Show some manners.’ Groot smiled sweetly at the knight. ‘Of course we’ll leave, my friend.’

The knight did not return the smile, and he watched Groot closely as they headed back into the entrance hall.

Behind the wall of smoke, Caspar’s mind was racing to keep up with Gabriel’s. His thoughts began to fill with the strangest visions. First he saw crowds of cuttlefish, pulsing and writhing in the space between him and Gabriel. As he watched in disgust, the molluscs merged into a single gelatinous mass. The lump of rippling flesh began forming into a vaguely humanoid shape, with spindly, twitching limbs and a vast grinning mouth. The thing was utterly disgusting, but the most disturbing thing was how infectious its humour was. As the creature began to chuckle, leaking clouds of flies from its misshapen mouth, Caspar found himself grinning along.

‘Wait!’ he cried, opening his eyes. ‘What is this?’

‘You must stay focussed,’ said Gabriel in his usual deadpan voice.

Caspar suddenly found Gabriel’s blank, skull-like face as terrifying as the vision had been. He glanced briefly at the wizard’s neck and noticed that the expanse of transparent skin had risen higher. The lower workings of his throat were now visible. He could see the man’s gullet twitching as he swallowed.

Gabriel noticed the direction of his master’s gaze and pulled his robes a little higher. ‘You must not deviate,’ he insisted. ‘Recite the words as we rehearsed them.’

The old man hesitated for a few seconds then touched his fingers to Gabriel’s and closed his eyes again.

‘The winds of magic will appear,’ said Gabriel flatly, ‘but in many guises. Do not be distracted. The crucial moment will be brief. We must latch onto the current that is most rich in azyr. Then I will withdraw and allow my portion of the magic to enter you. If the ritual has been successful, you will feel Razumov’s tomb rising beneath you and be able to use it to harness more power.’

Caspar nodded, but as he began to mouth the incantation, a terrible thought occurred to him. Had he been wise to trust so completely in this strange man? He had told no one else of their destination – apart from Tylo Sulzer, and the old letch was on the other side of the Empire, chasing drunken women.

An unnatural breeze struck up from nowhere and began to circle them, ruffling their robes and drawing sparks from the wall of smoke. As the ground beneath them began to buckle and shake, the Grand Astromancer realised that the whole building was starting to tremble. There was a series of jangling blasts as the windows imploded, then the walls groaned mournfully as great cracks spread across the stones. As the spell neared its completion, the smoke circle became a whining cyclone of magic, snatching blue flames from his staff and flooding his limbs with vigour.

Great shocks of arcane power blasted through Caspar’s old bones and as he uttered the final word of the spell he started to laugh.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Von Südenhorst cried out in frustration and stumbled back into the crush of bodies. As he fell, his sword slipped from his blood-slick gauntlet and clattered across the road. The rest of his armour was equally drenched in gore and his shield had been wrenched from his arm. The hulking, bull-horned leader of the beastmen was tantalisingly close, but every time he got near, one of the lesser monsters had blocked his way. As the reiksgraf cursed his luck, another goat-faced mutant loomed over him, raising a battered iron sword.

The reiksgraf cried out as the weapon shaved off a portion of his left shoulder. The blade sliced through armour and muscle with sickening ease and the beastman let out a bellow of pleasure as the general’s blood filled the air.

Von Südenhorst scrambled backwards, clutching his arm, furious at his lack of progress. The monsters had massed in such incredible numbers that tactics had become meaningless. As his men tried to hack them down, they simply drowned beneath a crush of iron-clad hooves and stinking, scarred flesh. Dozens of them had died in the first ten minutes of battle.

‘Regroup!’ he cried, managing to briefly raise his head above the mass of heaving bodies and flailing swords. ‘Defend the town hall!’

As the beastman swung its sword for another blow, the reiksgraf drew a knife and jammed it deep into the monster’s belly.

The beastman belched black blood and tried to throttle the knight, but as its viscera fell away, so did its strength and it collapsed on top of him with a final grunt.

The general screamed as the creature’s bulk crushed him down into the mound of corpses. A sharp pain flashed in his neck as his head twisted at an unnatural angle and for a moment he lost consciousness. Then, as the weight of the advancing army pressed down on him, the knight wrenched himself free and climbed to his feet.

A fist slammed into the visor of his helmet, knocking him onto his back. The pain in his neck returned with a vengeance and he blacked out again.

When he awoke, he realised that several minutes must have passed. There were no living knights anywhere near him, only hordes of howling, bellowing beastmen, tramping across his battered body in their eagerness to advance.

The reiksgraf rolled aside and the monsters blundered past, too caught up in their impending victory to pay him any heed. He scrambled clear of the charge and saw a group of his men, cornered by the side of the gate and surrounded by an impressive mound of fallen beastmen.

‘To the town hall!’ His voice sounded ragged and odd, and as the knights looked towards him their faces blanched.

The reiksgraf grinned as one of the men dashed to his side and handed him a sword.

‘Your shoulder…’ said the man, grimacing.

‘The town hall,’ repeated the reiksgraf, fending off a blow with his new blade. His attacker stumbled back and von Südenhorst followed up with a fierce backhanded slash that split the monster’s throat like a new mouth and sent it toppling to the floor. The general strode confidently through the battle, waving his men back down the street as he went.

The remnants of von Südenhorst’s army were gathered on the town hall steps. Only thirty of them were left to receive their general, and the host gathering around them was in the hundreds, if not thousands. A few hastily-fired arrows were still raining down from the battlements, but most of the state troops had either died or abandoned their posts.

The reiksgraf barked orders as he reached his men, demanding that they form into orderly ranks, but as he turned to face the oncoming horde, he hesitated. The moon was waxing ever brighter and as it did so, it seemed to feed the lumbering brutes gathering around them. They howled in delight and raised their swords to the writhing heavens, tasting victory.

CHAPTER NINE

Groot stumbled out onto the steps, watching in amazement as the building behind him started to collapse. Ancient columns were shearing up through the disintegrating roof like the ribs of prehistoric monsters, tearing through the walls and billowing great plumes of dust into the air.

The knights and guards staggered out after him and, after a few minutes, so did Gabriel. The wizard’s face was as emotionless as ever, but his robes were flickering with flashes of light and the astrolabe mounted on his staff was crackling with power.

‘What are you doing out here?’ demanded Groot, his voice shrill with terror. ‘Has he failed? Is he dead?’ He waved at the tumbling building. ‘What’s happening?’

Gabriel looked through the bürgermeister with blank, incandescent eyes. ‘The first part is complete. Razumov’s tomb has answered.’

‘Then what are you doing talking to me? By the gods, man, you should be helping your master! You’re meant to be catching starlight!’

Gabriel showed no sign of emotion as he shook his head. ‘The fulcrum is a focus for one mind.’

The two men looked back into the heaving clouds of dust and falling masonry. As the final section of roof slammed down, they were forced back down the steps, shielding their faces as great chunks of stone tumbled and spun around them.

‘Where’s the Grand Astromancer?’

They turned to see the reiksgraf elbowing his way through the tattered remnants of his army. He was a mess. His armour was dented in several places, the wings on his helmet were bent at a ridiculous angle and his shoulder was a gruesome lump. ‘Has he completed his work?’

Gabriel shook his head, but before he could speak, he noticed the crowds of beastmen gathering at the foot of the steps. The monsters had paused to watch the building collapse, as though the whole scene had been engineered for their amusement.

Groot flinched at the size of the army and backed away, but Gabriel composed himself and continued. ‘It’s not a simple process,’ he said, waving his staff at the ruined building. ‘Watch and wait.’

They all looked again at the rolling banks of dust and, true to Gabriel’s word, something odd started to happen. Most of the masonry had tumbled to a halt, but a few larger, older stones had begun lurching into the air, halting at predetermined points as though placed by an invisible hand. As they jerked upwards, they created a disjointed spiral of blocks, hovering in the air, enmeshed by a glittering network of flames.

‘Is that it?’ gasped Groot, clutching his trembling jowls. ‘Is that the tower?’

Before Gabriel could answer, the beastmen grew tired of the display and charged into the knights with a guttural roar.

‘Hold your positions!’ cried the reiksgraf, rushing back to his men with his sword aloft.

The clatter of steel on steel rang out across the square as the knights made a desperate last stand. They fought with incredible skill, but it was clearly hopeless. Thousands more beastmen were still trying to force their way through the town gate.

‘Is there nothing you can do?’ wailed Groot, grabbing Gabriel’s arm and turning him towards the swirling column of rocks rising behind them. ‘He’s almost there! Can’t you buy him some more time?’

Gabriel studied the drifting, skeletal tower. The ancient blocks were floating several feet apart and the whole edifice was slowly rotating, with the base hanging several feet above the ground. But even in such a disjointed state, it was possible to imagine the style of the original tower. It was very different from Imperial architecture, with ornate, undulating cornices and a slender spire topped by a bulbous, onion-shaped cupola. Arcs of light were leaping between the blocks, tying the whole swirling mass together and filling the air with electricity.

The smoke parted for a second and Gabriel caught a brief glimpse of his master.

The wizard looked barely human. Fingers of lightning were sparking from his flesh and dancing along the length of his staff. His hair was whipping around his head in wild, shimmering strands and his eyes were blazing with light. As he climbed, he was still mouthing the words of his spell and, even through all the swirling currents of magic, his laughter was quite audible.

Gabriel turned back to Groot, remembering that he had been asked a question. ‘Buy him time?’ He looked down at the battle below. The reiksgraf seemed unable to accept defeat. Every time the knights faltered, he roared defiantly and rallied them again but in just a few short minutes, another dozen of them had been torn apart. Seeing no hope of martial victory, Gabriel lifted his gaze to the hills and trees beyond the ruined town gate. Morrslieb’s light had begun to pulse, dragging the landscape in and out of view, revealing frozen glimpses of wind-lashed clouds scudding across the sky. Gabriel frowned, scouring his memory for a prophecy that might be suitable. Then his eyes narrowed and he looked down at his wrist, irritated by something. One of the death watch beetles had crawled down his sleeve and onto his hand. He stared at it for a few seconds, then looked back at the sky. ‘Perhaps,’ he muttered, launching the beetle into the storm with a wave of his hand.

Groot watched anxiously to see what the wizard would do. He expected an elaborate spell, or at least a dramatic flourish of his staff, but to the bürgermeister’s disappointment, Gabriel did nothing; he simply closed his eyes and remained stock-still.

Groot looked down at the struggling knights. Despite their general’s furious protestations, they were dropping at an alarming rate. Groot shook his head in dismay and peered at the cracked foundations of the hall. ‘He won’t have time,’ he whispered, too quietly for Gabriel to hear. ‘What should I do?’ Then he noticed something odd. The square was growing darker. He looked up, presuming that a cloud must be passing across the face of Morrslieb.

‘What’s this?’ he gasped, as a swirling black shape rushed over the town walls. It resembled a huge sack, miles wide and whipped by the wind as it sped towards them. He turned to Gabriel and repeated his question but, as the darkness approached, Groot’s words were lost beneath a deafening clicking sound.

Down below, the beastmen stumbled to a halt and looked up at the vast shadow forming over their heads. The reiksgraf rallied his men once more, trying to seize the opportunity, but the knights paused too, lowering their swords and muttering bitter curses as they studied the sky.

Groot flinched as Gabriel finally opened his eyes. They were featureless and black, like lumps of ebony sunk deep in his skeletal face. Then the sky began to fall, crashing down across the square in the form of millions of fluttering beetles. Their clicking grew even louder as they enveloped the beastmen, scurrying under their crude iron armour and scrabbling into mouths, ears and eye sockets. The Chaos horde became a whirling mob of flailing limbs as the beetles began to suffocate them.

As the knights realised what was happening, they howled in delight, brandishing their battered weapons and hacking down the few beastmen who managed to emerge from the boiling, black scrum.

Gabriel looked down at the mass of toiling shapes and shook his head. ‘Not enough,’ he muttered, surveying the carnage. The beetles had stalled the vanguard of the beastmen army but there were still thousands more of the monsters pouring into the square. As they reached their struggling, smothered brethren, they simply clambered over them, hacking at their own kind in their eagerness to reach the stranded knights. He turned his gaze back to the tree-lined hills, considering all the vile, slithering obscenities they had encountered during the journey north. He wondered how far he could extend his reach. The storm of magic was still growing all around him, jangling in his fingers and crackling between his teeth. As his robes snapped around his slender frame, whipped back and forth by the screaming tempest, he realised he had never felt so alive, or so potent. He flexed his fingers and savoured the power. Then he gave a firm nod and raised his staff into the flickering tumult. ‘Perhaps…’

CHAPTER TEN

Caspar felt the storm growing wilder but remained focussed on his task, chanting his spell like a hymn and hauling himself up the drifting stones. As he climbed from one block to the next, it seemed as through the tempest was willing him on, wafting him from one piece of rock to the next like a leaf caught on the breeze.

With a final, reckless leap, he reached the shattered cupola and came to a halt. He was nearly fifty feet from the ground and the winds were deafening. The cupola was topped with a rusted iron spike and Caspar gripped it tightly with one hand, using his other hand to thrust his staff out into the flickering coils of lightning.

He caught a glimpse of the battle below and frowned in confusion. His words faltered as he saw the beastmen army draped in a shimmering mass of beetles. Clamping his eyes shut, he continued his spell, determined not to be distracted at this final, crucial stage. Even with his eyes closed, the light of Morrslieb burned into Caspar’s thoughts, filling his head with grotesque, oddly enticing images. He was no longer afraid though – only exhilarated. He felt like he was twenty, and full of youthful vigour. No, he corrected himself, he had never felt this powerful.

As he neared the culmination of the spell, the storm rose at his command, heaving and swelling in time to his words and spinning the tower around him like a flimsy toy. As the final syllable flew from his lips, Caspar felt like a god.

There was an ear-splitting roll of thunder, right overhead. The town shuddered, fell briefly into pitch darkness and then erupted with dazzling light. Windows cracked, lintels snapped and doors burst from their hinges as the tremor rolled through the blazing streets. Caspar howled in delight. Raw, untrammelled azyr screamed through his body, pouring into him from the heavens and flooding Schwarzbach with dazzling emerald fire.

Caspar’s moment of triumph was short-lived.

As the light of Morrslieb tore through him, he quickly realised it was passing on to a second point, lower down the tower. At first, he felt no fear, assuming this was the fulcrum that Gabriel had described – the great axis of power that had been prophesised. Then, as he reached out with his thoughts, his confusion turned to dismay. The presence below had a vile, lustful sentience. It was deliberately draining the azyr away from him. As the feeling grew, he opened his eyes and looked down through the spinning column of stones. To his horror, he saw a fast-moving figure climbing up towards him, attracting strands of lightning like a lodestone drawing iron. It was a hooded man, dressed in filthy, blood-red robes and he was scrabbling up towards him with a series of spasmodic, spiderlike movements.

Caspar howled and wrenched the current of azyr back towards himself.

The man below let out a strangled roar and looked up, clawing the air as strands of magic slipped from his grip.

As the stranger’s hood fell back, Caspar saw his face and groaned in horror. It was a grey, scarred mask of rotten flesh, with two smouldering embers for eyes. As lights flared and pulsed through the spinning tower, he saw that the man’s robes were embroidered with the foul sigils of the Chaos Gods. He cursed. A sorcerer must have followed him through the hills, hoping to steal the power of Razumov.

‘It’s mine!’ screamed Caspar, lifting his staff and wrenching more of the magic from the heaving clouds. As the power blasted though him, he began to feel drunk. It took incredible effort for him to focus on such prosaic matters as hanging on to the spire and not plummeting to his death. For a few dangerous seconds he forgot about everything: the tower, the plagues, Gabriel – all he could see was the intoxicating light piercing his mind. Then, just as he was about to let go of the spire and abandon himself to the experience, a woman’s voice rang out, jarring him from his trance. The voice was filled with such hurt and longing that, for a moment, he did not recognise the words, then, as the desperate cry was repeated, he realised the voice was calling a name: ‘Razumov!’

Caspar shook his head and looked down at the hooded figure. To his horror, the rotten-faced man was now only a few blocks below. He had paused though, to look back at the source of the awful screams. There was an old woman standing beneath the base of the tower, her matted grey hair whipped about by the storm and her frail body struggling to stay upright in the face of the ferocious wind. She was clutching a long black staff, crowned with a crescent of horns and she was waving it desperately.

‘Razumov!’ she wailed, her voice swelling and diminishing as the wind hurled it back and forth. She called out something else in an exotic eastern language, but the final word was clearly another name. ‘Natalya!’

Natalya? Caspar’s stomach lurched as he remembered Gabriel’s tale of the Kislevite sorcerer and his unrequited love. His dazed mind finally realised the implication of the woman’s cries and he looked at the man crouched a few feet below. The faded symbols on his robes were sewn in the same ornate style as the reliefs on the tower. Caspar moaned in despair, realising in one terrible instant the true nature of Gabriel’s prophecy. He had indeed summoned a great power into the world. He had summoned Razumov himself.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Gabriel slumped back against the shattered ruins of the town hall. As the storm of magic wracked his flesh, his eyes rolled back in their sockets and his body began to shudder.

Groot shook his head in wonder. Schwarzbach’s buildings were pulsing with lurid energy. Torrents of arcane power were howling through the narrow streets. Razumov’s tower was spinning ever-faster overhead – sparking, shimmering and hurling stones across the sky. The army of beastmen was now so vast that it had overcome the plague of beetles and it was once again piling into the beleaguered ranks of knights. As Gabriel began to shake and drool, his staff grew incandescent with power, blasting shards of light across the town walls and into the hills beyond.

Seeing that Gabriel was no longer aware of him, Groot decided to edge back towards the drifting tower. There were now two figures clinging to the stone blocks and his heart pounded as he heaved his vast bulk through the cyclone. After a few steps, he halted. There was a new sound on the wind: a brittle, metallic screech, loud enough to cut through the din of the storm-lashed battle. He looked back at the town walls. Gabriel’s magic was still fanned out, like a shimmering net, but Groot could not locate the source of the terrible sound. It seemed to be originating from every direction at once.

At the foot of the steps, the beastmen faltered for a second time and looked around in confusion.

The screeching grew to an unbearable pitch and, just as Groot thought he could stand it no longer, a huge portion of the town walls exploded inwards, revealing a towering, flame-shrouded dragon.

‘Gods preserve us,’ gasped the bürgermeister as the dust settled.

The monster was over thirty feet tall, covered in thick, blood-red scales and drooling fire from its long, quivering snout. As it waded into the town, it rolled its huge head on its shoulders and flexed its enormous clawed fists. Its eyes mirrored the light pouring from Gabriel’s staff and the two of them were linked by great cords of diaphanous power. As it lurched across the flagstones, the town wall exploded behind it in several other places.

Groot’s panic grew as more dragons smashed into Schwarzbach, belching flames, tearing through walls and making straight for the town hall.

‘Is this you?’ he cried, grabbing Gabriel’s robes and trying to rouse him from his fit. ‘Have you summoned these things?’ The bürgermeister howled in pain as electricity scorched his hands, throwing them back.

Gabriel slumped weakly to the ground and gave no reply, but as more of the dragons entered the town, his shaking grew more violent and needles of light began pouring through his translucent skin.

A deafening crash came from the foot of the steps and Groot whirled around to see that the first of the dragons had launched itself into the air and was now hanging directly over the battle, beating its vast, tattered wings with slow, booming strokes.

Some of the beastmen were still struggling with their shroud of beetles and, even if they had wanted to, they could not have fled. The rest of them were racing towards the town hall with such momentum that, even as they saw death looming overhead, they could do nothing to halt their charge. As the dragon’s ferocious breath blasted down on them, they erupted like kindling, with no chance of escape. Dozens of horned, blackened figures crashed into each other, wailing furiously before collapsing in smouldering heaps.

Other dragons swooped across the square, scorching the flagstones with rippling gouts of fire. Noise and heat filled the air and winged monsters struck from dozens of different directions, devouring the beastmen with piercing, hungry shrieks.

The dragons’ acrobatics whipped the storm into an even greater frenzy. As they banked and dived, they scored dazzling lines of magic across the sky, wrenching the winds to even greater violence.

The reiksgraf and his knights backed away from the madness, wide-eyed and speechless as they watched the colossal beasts at work. The dragons were quickly butchering the packed crowds of beastmen. It seemed for a while that they would destroy the entire army without any serious resistance; but then the leader of the beastmen climbed across the charred remnants of its kin and raised its two handed axe over its head, bellowing in defiance at the circling dragons. As its booming cry rang out, the other beastmen howled in reply, raising thousands of axes and spears as the dragons banked around for another attack.

As before, the monsters poured columns of flame across the army, incinerating swathes of beastmen, but this time, those who evaded the fire fought back, hurling a thick cloud of spears at their swooping attackers. Most of the weapons bounced away, but a few found their mark – piercing soft fleshy joints and huge amber eyes. One of the monsters veered off course with an agonised screech and demolished an inn, scattering bricks and barrels across the square. At the same moment, the bull-headed beastman leader hammered his axe into the wing of another dragon, sending it thrashing wildly to the ground. Hundreds of beastmen saw their chance and swarmed over it, hacking and jabbing with furious determination, until the thrashing ceased and the creature lay still.

As the dragons died, Gabriel’s eyes blinked open and he curled into a foetal ball. ‘Caspar,’ he groaned, shedding the cords of light and sending them dancing up into the heavens. ‘It’s too much.’

As Gabriel writhed in pain, the bonds that linked him to the dragons broke free and the creatures faltered. Some of them swooped up into the heavens, leaving the battle completely, but others turned on their kin. Pairs of struggling dragons began tumbling from the sky, scattering chunks of scaled flesh through the air and hurling thick bolts of fire. The monsters’ frenzy blinded them to their danger and as they crashed to the ground, the bull-headed beastman led a furious attack, swarming over the flailing creatures with a chorus of howls.

As the battle grew more frenzied, the storm responded in kind. Groot had to grab a ruined pillar as the wind screamed across the steps. The houses that surrounded the square began to tremble and splinter. Roofs cracked and panes of glass began to explode from their frames. Groot realised that the ground itself was starting to shudder, as though straining to be free from the earth. Gabriel was lost in his pain, so the bürgermeister looked back at the tower. It was now impossible to make out any details. The ancient structure resembled a pillar of green fire, trailing dozens of luminous roots and reaching up towards the blinding face of Morrslieb.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Caspar felt the tower crumbling beneath his fingers. The building was spinning with such ferocity that he could no longer see the battle, or even the town. The world flew by in a whirl of magic and astral fire. His head pounded as he tried to keep his thoughts sane and fixed on the present. The power ripping through his mind was heady and irresistible, but he knew that a moment’s hesitation would see him hurled out into the vortex. Beneath him, he could still make out the jerking, irregular movements of Razumov, clambering across the drifting stones. The sorcerer – Caspar no longer doubted his identity – had ceased vying for control of the magic. At the sound of the old woman’s cries, he had abandoned the contest and begun climbing down towards her.

What a fool, thought Caspar as he watched the man clamber towards his centuries-old beloved. As the torrent of azyr poured through him, Caspar felt the years tumbling away. He straightened his back and flexed his muscles, groaning with pleasure. ‘I am the Grand Astromancer!’ He saw now how ridiculous his fears had been. How could Gabriel ever have replaced him? The prophecy was ridiculous. Tylo Sulzer was a fool. As his words left his mouth, they formed a gout of green fire that snaked up into the heavens.

As he watched the pair of ancient lovers approaching each other, Caspar guessed at some of their story. He realised that the old woman must have bargained with the Ruinous Powers. How else could she still be alive after all these centuries? The strangeness that had overtaken Schwarzbach must be a result of her dark magic. Caspar couldn’t imagine what foul rituals she had performed to bring her plans to fruition.

As the old crone reached out to Razumov, her cries of delight sliced through the fury of the cyclone. Caspar shook his head at her incredible gall. She must have engineered this whole situation, bringing a powerful Celestial wizard to her lover’s grave, in the knowledge that no one else would have the power to channel the storm that was brewing. And all for nothing. With this much power, destroying Razumov would be no harder than crushing a beetle.

Caspar raised his staff and channelled a tiny portion of the storm into the knotted yew, then levelled it at the two figures below, preparing to end their romance in a funeral pyre.

Before he struck, Caspar paused to watch the bizarre turn of events that was unfolding. As Razumov reached his devoted lover, he knocked her down with a fierce backhanded blow, sending her sprawling to the ground.

Caspar shook his head, astounded by the sorcerer’s ingratitude.

Razumov ignored her protestations and snatched the horned, black staff from her hands. Then he let out a long, inhuman howl of ecstasy.

The old woman grasped at his robes, wailing with grief, but he simply kicked her away and clutched the staff to his chest, cradling it like a child.

Caspar shrugged and poured green flames down the centre of the spinning tower, aiming the rippling blast at Razumov’s head.

Just before the column of light struck home, Razumov looked up. There was a grin on his face as he raised his staff, catching the blast in the crescent of horns and hurling it back.

The world stopped.

The tower ceased to spin and the noise of the storm vanished as abruptly as if a door had been closed.

Caspar stumbled forwards, confused by the sudden lack of momentum and only just managing to grab the tower’s spire before he fell. The silence was horrendous. After the raging fury of the cyclone, to hear nothing was almost unbearable. He looked around in confusion and saw that, although the tower was now motionless, the world outside was not. Beyond the ancient masonry, a sickening torrent of scenes was pulsing in and out of view, and none of them made any sense. He saw virginal, frozen wastes and heaving, bottle-green oceans, but no glimpse of Schwarzbach.

‘What–?’ he began, but then cut himself off mid-sentence. Although he had spoken quietly, his words boomed through the tower.

His question was answered by the scraping sound of fingers scrabbling over rock. Caspar looked down and saw that Razumov was climbing back up the tower. His earlier urgency had vanished, and there was now a sardonic smile on his rotting face as he pulled himself up the stones.

‘Razumov,’ cried the woman sprawled at the base of the tower. ‘My love? Don’t you recognise me? It’s Natalya!’

Her voice was cracked and inhuman but Caspar realised he could now understand every word. I’m omniscient, he thought, thrilled by his growing power.

Razumov did not look back as he answered in the same shredded tones. ‘Of course I remember you, you wretched witch. I remember everything.’

Natalya shook her head fiercely. ‘Razumov, please! I’ve turned the world on its head, just so that the Emperor’s stargazers would come here and return you to me. I even kept your staff safe, so you could continue your work. I’ve paid for my treachery!’

Razumov paused to glare at her. ‘You’ve paid for nothing!’ He levelled his staff at the woman. ‘You ruined everything. Everything! I have lain rotting in the ground for all these long centuries, because of you! I could have been a god by now, if you had not let me down.’

Natalya clutched her grey, sunken cheeks and shrieked. ‘I panicked! I thought that I would lose you forever if you completed the ritual.’

‘So you murdered me?’

‘No!’ Natalya’s voice became an agonised screech. ‘I never meant for you to die. I thought that if I omitted one small phrase, the spell would simply fail and we could continue as we were, together!’

Razumov whined, clawing at his own face as he listened to the woman’s words. ‘You betrayed me!’ he cried, jabbing his staff in her direction. A deafening boom filled the tower and a finger of lightning splintered from the crescent-shaped horns, knifing into the woman’s chest.

She spun from view with a final hideous croak.

Caspar shook his head, amazed by the bickering Kislevites. Then he raised his own staff and unleashed a gout of blue fire.

Razumov blocked the column of light, catching it in the circle of horns for a second time and hurling it back.

Caspar screamed as a terrible grinding sound filled his ears. It felt as though his mind were being torn apart. For a few seconds he could do nothing but crouch in a ball and shiver as white noise tore through his head. Then the sound cut off and silence returned.

Caspar opened his eyes to an inky void speckled with shimmering points of light. He was drifting through vague, luminous clouds and as he looked down at his own body, he cried out in confusion and delight. ‘I’m made of stars!’ He tried to reach out and touch his new form, but instead of an arm he saw a trail of meteors burning through the darkness. He laughed at the beauty of it but, instead of sound, he emitted a spiral of astral particles. Stars, gas and dust clouds poured out of him, looping, billowing and spinning through the empyrean. Caspar’s laughter grew hysterical as his mind dissolved into the waltzing heavens. Then he paused, trying to steady himself, sensing danger.

There was another presence in this celestial dream.

Somewhere beneath him a shadow was forming, devouring light as it tumbled and writhed through the firmament. Caspar’s laughter became a scream as the blackness engulfed him, filling his astral flesh with agony.

Grasping for the remnants of his physical self, Caspar recalled his hand, clutching a gnarled staff. He breathed a half-remembered spell and replaced the darkness with a dazzling green fire.

The awful grinding sound returned and when it stopped, the scene had changed again.

Caspar was swimming through an ocean of red. He was material once more, but rather than seeing the tower, he found himself hurtling through a vast quivering tunnel. He panicked, believing he was drowning, but then realised he had no lungs or mouth. He was a pulse of blood, thundering through warm, living flesh. The world was filled with the sound of a massive, booming drum and as Caspar surged along the tunnel, the sound grew louder. In the liquid darkness ahead, he saw a vast shape, pulsing in time to the beat – a crimson cathedral of muscle, pounding faster and faster as he approached it.

My heart, he thought.

As the booming grew in volume, Caspar sensed the same malignant presence he had felt in the stars. It was Razumov, he realised, pursuing him through the heaving tide.

A shadow was spreading across the walls of the tunnel, painting the glistening red walls grey as it raced towards the pounding heart.

Caspar cried out again and pictured his staff once more, imagining his previous self launching another bolt at the hooded Kislevite.

The heartbeat doubled in speed and Caspar spun out control, losing all sense of self and purpose.

The grinding sound wrenched through the tunnel and the scene changed again.

Caspar was perched once more at the top of the tower, but for a few seconds he could not recognise anything. Even his own body looked utterly alien. He panted in confusion, feeling his heart racing beneath his scorched robes. He clutched his chest, recalling the grey stain that was racing towards his heart.

A bitter curse rang out from below.

Caspar looked down to see Razumov, sprawled on one of the tower’s ancient steps, with a blackened hole where his chest should have been.

The sorcerer groaned and hauled himself into a sitting position, grabbing his staff from the floor and looking up at Caspar with a dazed expression.

As Caspar looked at the ragged wound, his eyes began to play tricks on him. It looked as though the hole was turning into a mouth. The torn flesh and shattered bones reminded him of the fanged grin he had seen earlier that day, when he and Gabriel began their spell. A strange hysteria gripped him and as he stared into the bloody hole he began to giggle.

Razumov saw his chance and clambered to his feet, ignoring the glut of black liquid that poured from between his broken ribs. The wound seemed to have no effect on him as he bounded up the now-stationary rocks. Within seconds he was at Caspar’s side.

The astromancer came to his senses with Razumov just a few feet away. He swung his staff, smashing it into the sorcerer’s corpse-face with a wet crunch and lighting up his skull like a green lantern.

At the same instant, Razumov jabbed the horns of his staff into Caspar’s belly, filling his robes with crimson fire.

The two colours combined into a dazzling white flash, silhouetting the two men in a blazing corona. They both froze, fixed in place by the currents raging through their bodies.

The smell of cooking meat filled the air.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Gabriel woke with a start. The ground was heaving beneath him like the deck of a ship and the town was filled with light. It looked as though Morrslieb had achieved its aim and enveloped the landscape. The wizard climbed unsteadily to his feet and looked around. He could just about make out the vague shapes of knights, beastmen, dragons and other, even stranger things. The whole riotous menagerie was tumbling back and forth across the square and none of the combatants seemed quite sure who they were meant to be fighting. It was less like a battle than a panicked riot. Buildings were toppling all over the town and the people of Schwarzbach had abandoned the relative safety of their cellars and lofts to flee in terror. Monsters devoured half of them before they reached the town gates, and Gabriel dreaded to think what would be waiting for those who reached the hills.

He looked back towards the tower, wondering how things could have gone so spectacularly wrong. He had to shield his eyes from the incandescent column of light and, as he stepped closer, his hairless face started to redden and blister. He ignored the pain and peered into the blaze. After a few seconds he saw a rotund, silhouetted figure, standing near the base of the fire.

He hurried towards him. ‘Move back! You’ll be destroyed!’

As the bürgermeister turned around, Gabriel saw that even though his face was hideously burned, it was locked in a manic grin.

‘It’s working!’ he cried, his voice little more than a croak.

Gabriel stepped closer, grimacing at the heat. ‘What? Has my master harnessed the power of the stars?’

Groot laughed wildly and dropped to his knees. ‘No, you idiot. I’m talking about my mistress. Natalya’s centuries of grief are finally over.’ He collapsed onto his back, still laughing as blood bubbled up between his teeth.

Gabriel reached into the inferno and grabbed the man’s foot. Groot was much lighter than he expected and he managed to drag him back across the rippling flagstones to the steps. He shoved him behind a stump of ruined wall and knelt by his side. ‘What do you mean? Who is Natalya?’

Groot was seconds from death, but his blood-slick chins were still quivering with laughter. ‘Razumov’s love, you pallid freak. You and your senile master have done nothing but her bidding since you left Altdorf.’

‘Her bidding?’

‘Yes, her bidding, you simpleton!’

Gabriel leaned back, shaking his head. ‘How–’ he began, but he realised that Groot was beyond hearing. The flames had utterly destroyed his lungs and he was coughing up thick, clotted lumps of blackened flesh. As his massive body shook, a morbid curiosity overtook the wizard and he gently pulled open the man’s robes, confused as to how someone so huge could weigh so little.

As the charred cloth fell open, Gabriel hissed and leapt to his feet, backing away quickly from the dying man. Groot’s body was covered in gaping mouths, lined with tiny fangs. They were opening and closing as he shivered and moaned, consumed by hunger, even as they died.

Gabriel looked back at the tower. ‘It’s a trick,’ he droned. ‘A cult.’ He lifted his staff, preparing to brave the flames, but before he had taken more than a few steps the world tilted on its axis and threw him through the air, smashing him into the crowds of battling figures. As he rolled and stumbled through the tumult, he saw something almost too strange to bear. The storm was raging with such power that it had torn the whole town from the earth. He glimpsed a crater – a vast bowl of scarred earth, where Schwarzbach should have been – then he slammed into a wall and lost consciousness.

The world swam back into view but it was not the world Gabriel remembered. He was trapped beneath a chunk of masonry. It had shattered a bone in his leg – he could see a pale, bloody shard jutting out from his robes. The pain was breathtaking, but he realised that the stone had probably saved his life. Figures were tumbling past him as the town flew free, unshackled from gravity or logic. He groaned in pain and looked around at the chaos. Schwarzbach was not just in flight, it was collapsing. Whole districts had sheared away, hurled into the ether and leaving the central square with a halo of fractured, cobbled streets.

Beyond the town’s crumbling borders was a confusing montage of shifting hues and strange, briefly glimpsed vistas – landscapes torn from every corner of the world. Gabriel saw places that would have made no sense wherever they were. He saw great oceans of fire and towering forests of ice, but as soon as he tried to focus on any of them, they vanished, replaced by something equally absurd. He used his staff to lever the stone off his leg, then sat up and looked back at the tower. It had vanished, replaced by a slender column of nothing. It looked like a hole had been torn in the air, revealing the blank canvas behind reality.

The strangeness of it hurt Gabriel’s eyes and he looked back at the square. The knights and monsters were clinging desperately to life, hanging onto the rubble as Schwarzbach heaved and rolled. He noticed that one of the knights was struggling towards him and looked familiar.

‘Reiksgraf,’ said Gabriel.

‘Stop it!’ cried the knight as he tried to approach. The town was hanging at such a surreal angle that the reiksgraf had to climb down a street as though it were the sheer face of a mountain.

Gabriel shook his head in confusion. ‘Stop it?’

‘We’re dying!’ cried the knight, waving his broken sword at the spinning streets. ‘Stop the town! Land us somewhere!’

Gabriel nodded slowly, recognising the truth of the reiksgraf’s words. If the town continued spinning loose, it would eventually shed every one of its inhabitants, but if he could fix it to one of the scenes hurling past, they might even stand a chance of victory. Half of the beastmen had been left behind when Schwarzbach was torn from reality. And those that remained were consumed by madness – attacking their own kind as ferociously as the knights.

Gabriel closed his eyes and delved deep into his consciousness. As he muttered the first few syllables of a spell, he felt a huge wave of azyr wrench through his limbs. The magic was so overwhelming that he almost dropped his staff. Wherever they were now, the air was pure magic. The astrolabe at the end of his staff lit up like a beacon and began to spin. The celestial discs whirred around the orb at such speed that they blurred into a silver sphere. He stretched his thoughts beyond the rings, out into the vague regions beyond Schwarzbach. Lakes and cities tumbled through his mind in a delirious mess and he laughed at the impossibility of his task. ‘Where?’ he wondered aloud.

‘Land us somewhere!’ cried the reiksgraf again, his voice shrill with madness.

Gabriel took a deep breath and poured every ounce of his power into the town’s shattered foundations, slamming Schwarzbach down onto the ground.

He did not have the faintest idea where he had taken them.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Caspar lay still for a while with his eyes closed, savouring the peace of his dreams. It must still be very early, he thought, so there was no harm in sleeping a little longer. Soon, the halls of the Celestial College would be full of noise and bustle as his fellow magisters began their work. His whole body ached with exhaustion and he realised he must have studied well into the night. Then a vague, unnamed dread began to gnaw at the edges of his mind. There was something essential he needed to do – some crucial task he had left unfinished. As his mind began to clear, his anguish grew. Why did he feel so hot? His skin was throbbing and tiny needles of pain were prickling his face. There was also an unpleasant sound, a banshee howl that tore through his dreams, forcing him back into the world. A face filled his thoughts. Caspar groaned as he saw Razumov’s necrotic grin. He remembered everything in a sickening flood.

He opened his eyes and saw a raging sandstorm. He was slumped at the top of the drifting tower, his scorched robes snapping in the wind like a pennant. Below him was Schwarzbach – or at least, some of it. The square and its surrounding streets were carpeted in sand and, half a mile away, the cobbles and flagstones vanished completely, giving way to a fierce, swirling desert.

Caspar groaned as he tried to sit up. Beyond the ruined buildings there was nothing but sand – endless, wind-lashed dunes, undulating into the distance beneath a bottomless azure sky. The hills and forests that should have surrounded the town had vanished. The Empire had vanished. A blazing southern sun now shone over the town, its light mingled with the sordid glow of Morrslieb.

The wizard tried to speak, but his throat was so scorched that all he could manage was a hoarse croak.

All around the square, dazed figures were picking themselves up from the ground and staggering through the spiralling clouds of sand. Monsters and knights stared out at the desert in equal confusion.

The reiksgraf began herding his knights together, handing out weapons and shoving them back towards the steps of the town hall.

Caspar shook his head at the man’s indomitable will. Even after being torn from reality and hurled to gods knew where, he was still trying to lead his knights to victory. He seemed unable to hold his head up properly and his arm was drenched in blood but, as he saw how few of the beastmen had made the journey with them, he let out a furious howl and raised his sword.

‘None of this matters!’ he cried, his voice knifing through the sandstorm. He waved his sword at the desert. ‘Wherever we are, we are still sons of Sigmar! If this is where we make our stand, then so be it.’

There was such passion in the reiksgraf’s voice that, despite everything they had been through, the knights began shuffling dutifully to his side, grabbing weapons from the ground, dusting sand from their armour and raising their weary heads.

As the knights rallied to their general, the beastmen faltered. It quickly dawned on them that they were now outnumbered but, rather than grouping together, they flew at the knights in ones and twos, hurtling through the storm like daemons.

As the noise of battle filled the streets once more, Caspar placed a hand on the ruined tower and smiled. The stones were still pulsing with magic and as it rushed through his fingers, he recalled how wonderful it had felt when he embraced it. He closed his eyes, allowing his thoughts to slip free and dissolve into the storm. His mind spiralled up into the sky and, almost immediately, he felt the fury of the wind increase. As the tower began to rotate again, Caspar’s heart started to pound and the broad grin returned to his face. He climbed to his feet more easily than he had done for decades and stretched his limbs, relishing his newfound virility. He peered through the whirling sand, searching for his enemy. There was no sign of Razumov, so he leaned out into the storm, watching the knights as they hacked the beastmen to the ground.

As Caspar admired the soldiers’ bravery, he did not notice a figure emerging from the storm. Razumov’s eyes gleamed as he lifted his staff over Caspar’s head and brought it down to crush his throat.

Gabriel crawled towards the tower, trailing blood and muttering gibberish, his mind as fractured as his leg. As the storm howled around him, he felt it tearing him apart. His consciousness flickered from one place to the next, unable to settle. For a few seconds, he looked through the eyes of an exhausted wizard, dragging himself through a storm, but then he was miles above, surveying the scene through the powerful gaze of a vulture, circling overhead. ‘I’m not a bird,’ he said, shaking his head and passing into another mind. This time he saw the sand from ground level. He was a tiny, iridescent beetle, scuttling over the dunes. ‘Nor that,’ he croaked, reaching out again. As his thoughts drifted down through the sand, they brushed against a consciousness of such rancour and antiquity that he let out a pitiful groan. Somewhere, deep below the desert, a monster was slumbering, a cold, metal behemoth of such vast proportions that it dwarfed anything they had yet faced. ‘By the comets,’ he hissed, withdrawing his mind like a hand snatched away from a flame. The shock of the encounter finally allowed him to focus and look out through his own eyes.

He fixed his thoughts in his own head and looked around at the ruins of Schwarzbach. ‘Where?’ he whispered. The glittering figures of knights were dashing by, filled with renewed vigour as the reiksgraf led them against a vastly diminished foe. The beastmen were on the verge of defeat, but beyond that, Gabriel could see very little. The tower was a howling cyclone of sand, surrounded by shifting hoops of light, but there was no sign of the Grand Astromancer.

Gabriel peered into the whirling column, his skeletal face showing a brief hint of emotion. ‘Caspar, what have I done?’ He closed his eyes and hung his head. Even if his master was still alive, they were all now stranded in another world, with no way of knowing where or when. As the ringing of swords surrounded him, he realised that the bravery of the reiksgraf was pointless. He might slay the beastmen, but then what? Where would they go?

Gabriel lay there for a few moments, unsure what to do. He dragged himself into a sitting position and leaned back against a ruined wall. As he did so, he noticed something flashing through the storm, a glimmer of white and gold to the south of the square. He thought for a minute that it might be more hallucinations – more glimpses of impossible places – but as the shapes moved closer, he realised that they were as real as Schwarzbach’s tattered awnings.

The pain in his leg was incredible, but he tried to ignore it for a moment to discern the nature of this latest madness. Like Caspar, he was draped in the arcane equipment of his profession and one of the objects was a long, jointed telescope. He snapped the thing together and squinted through the lens. At first he could see nothing but heaving banks of sand, whipped up by the storm, but then, as he scoured the horizon, a face swam into view. Gabriel flinched. The figure was dressed in beautiful armour of gold, amber and turquoise, but its grinning face was completely devoid of flesh. The wizard grimaced as he turned the lens on the other shapes emerging from the storm. They were all the same – jerking puppets of bleached bone, clad in ornate armour and carrying spears and bows. At the head of the army was a great chariot, led by four skeletal horses and carrying a figure dressed in even more finery than the others. His golden headdress was designed to resemble the hood of a cobra and he fixed his gaze on Gabriel, a cold fire burning in his eye sockets.

Gabriel shook his head in disbelief. The desert was empty and desolate. There was no sign of life for miles around them. How could this army have discovered them so quickly? He looked again and had his answer. Behind the skeletons, he saw rows of wagons and tents. The undead army must have been expecting them. He turned the lens back towards the chariot and saw that the leader of the skeletons carried a selection of objects not so different from his own – lenses, sextants and crumbling, ancient texts. ‘He’s a sorcerer,’ muttered Gabriel. ‘He’s been waiting.’

As he studied the skeleton king, Gabriel realised that the blazing eyes were not looking at him at all, but something further into the ruins of Schwarzbach. Gabriel looked back over his shoulder and let out a curse. The skeletons were making directly for Razumov’s tower.

He must have known we would arrive here at this time, thought Gabriel. All of this must have been prophesised. As he watched them approaching, Gabriel noticed other shapes rearing up over the heads of the skeletons – enormous snakes, as skeletal and heavily armoured as the rest of the army. Perched on their heads were skeleton riders, nocking arrows to bows as their bizarre mounts hurled them towards the stranded town square.

‘Reiksgraf,’ cried Gabriel, looking back at the knights. The noise of the storm was too great; the wind snatched his words away and the general fought on, oblivious to the animated charnel house that was hurtling towards him.

Gabriel clutched his head in his hands and tried to think. He could see no way that any of them could survive in this alien desert, but he could not bear to watch the knights die at the hands of such hideous beings. He scoured his memory for an idea, examining every shred of prophecy he could recall. He pictured himself back at the Celestial College, in his featureless cell, poring over his moondial. Everything that he had pictured had come to pass. He gasped. Not quite everything. He suddenly remembered the part of the prophecy that he had been unable to explain. ‘A mountain of gold.’ His pulse raced as he remembered the vast presence beneath the sand. Its ancient malice had been contained within a huge mass of metal – gold, perhaps.

Gabriel closed his eyes and allowed his thoughts to reach out into the storm once more. His leg was bleeding heavily, staining the sand a dark red, and he found the dizziness that was overtaking him quite liberating – he easily sent his mind burrowing down through the dark, cool sand beneath Schwarzbach. As he approached the enormous presence, he felt a thrill of terror. Whatever the thing was, it was burning with hate, a hate that had lain festering for countless ages. Gabriel moaned as he allowed his thoughts to mingle with such bitter sentience.

He was so consumed by fear and dismay that he barely noticed the ranks of skeletons clattering onto the cobbled streets and launching themselves at the knights. Even as towering, armoured cobras smashed through the ruins, swinging their heads from side to side as they chose their prey, Caspar paid no attention. His eyes had rolled back in their sockets and he was twitching in agony. As the undead legions waded into battle, blowing long, gilded horns and drawing their weapons, Caspar groaned in fear and regret, oblivious to anything but the vast evil he was summoning from beneath the sand. As he lay there, muttering half-remembered spells, the stones around him began to rattle and shake.

Caspar plunged from the tower, Razumov’s staff still crushing his windpipe. The two men rolled as they fell, locked together by a furious lust for power. Spinning rocks broke their fall and even the storm itself seemed unwilling to let them die, buffeting and spinning them with such force that when they finally hit the ground, it was with a wheezing thud, rather than a fatal crunch.

Caspar rolled free of Razumov’s grip, gasping for breath and lurching to his feet. He realised that his staff had flown from his grip and was lying on the far side of the tower, wedged between two shattered rocks.

Razumov’s head was scorched and misshapen, but as he clambered to his feet he looked at Caspar and laughed. ‘What are you doing here, old man? You don’t have the strength for this.’

Caspar saw that the Kislevite had also lost his staff in the fall, but it was lying near a broken pillar, just a few feet away from the sorcerer.

Razumov followed the direction of his gaze and laughed even harder, strolling over to his staff. ‘Prepare yourself, old man. You’ll soon be one with the stars.’

Caspar raced towards his own staff. His decrepitude had completely evaporated – he sprinted around the drifting tower like a teenager – but he could see that it was hopeless. There was no way he could reach the staff before Razumov reached his.

He stumbled to a halt, deciding to look for shelter instead, but there was nothing. He was standing on the mosaic that had once marked the centre of the town hall. He was completely exposed. Caspar looked back at the sorcerer with a terrible sense of dread.

Razumov’s laughter evaporated as his staff was snatched from the ground and levelled at his chest. He stumbled to a halt and held up his hands. ‘Wait, my love, what are you–’

Natalya was sobbing bitterly as she closed her eyes and poured crimson fire from the crescent of horns, pinning Razumov against the broken column and enveloping him in a pummelling blast of magic. ‘All those years, I waited,’ she said, her voice desolate. ‘All those centuries.’

Razumov shook his head furiously, reaching out through the flames, but it was no use. As the red light washed over him, it tore away his layers of rotten flesh, quickly revealing the bones beneath. Even then, he continued struggling. His exposed jawbone continued to work, snapping open and shut as the muscles around it shrivelled and smoked.

Natalya’s grief increased as she destroyed her lover, but her grip remained firm and the column of fire continued to slam into him. Finally, his bones began pulsing with a light of their own, before detonating with a series of dry crunching sounds and dropping to the ground in a smouldering heap. Even then, Natalya did not extinguish the fire. She simply lowered her aim, pouring it over Razumov’s remains until nothing was left but a blackened smudge. She let out a final sob and lowered the staff so that its head clunked on the ground. The crescent of horns pulsed once more, then grew dim.

Caspar remained frozen to the spot, his heart pounding as watched to see her next move.

The broken old woman stood there motionless, staring at the embers of her dead love.

Caspar looked over at his staff. It was just a few feet away. If he could tread carefully, she might not even hear him. The Grand Astromancer of the Celestial College crept through the rubble like a common footpad, desperate not to draw attention to himself, but as he approached the staff, a charred piece of window frame snapped beneath his foot.

The sound rang out through the storm and Natalya whirled around, fixing her tear-filled eyes on the wizard. She raised Razumov’s staff and a furious snarl contorted her rotten flesh.

Caspar shrank away, raising his hands and shaking his head in terror.

Before she had chance to unleash her fire, Natalya noticed something on Caspar’s chest that caused her to pause and frown. As she looked closer, her snarl became a mocking grin and she began to laugh. She shook her head and threw down the staff in disgust, turning on her heel and striding off into the storm, heading for the endless desert.

Caspar gasped in shock, unable to believe his luck. He dashed over to his staff and grabbed it, but when he looked up, the woman had vanished into the writhing dust clouds. He shook his head in disbelief. Why had she let him live, he wondered, scouring the sands for a sign of her. Then he remembered the cause of her amusement and looked down at his chest. In the fall, his robes had been tugged open, revealing a ragged scar where Razumov’s staff had struck him. The wound was surrounded by a mass of angry-looking sores. They were oddly swollen and Caspar felt a surge of panic as he gently prodded one of them. It burst open, revealing a row of tiny, gleaming, needle-like fangs.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Gabriel dragged himself clear as the stone floor began to ripple and bulge. Flagstones cracked and flew into the air and the ground let out a rolling, subterranean groan. The knights were too busy defending themselves against the skeletons to notice, but Gabriel’s eyes widened as he realised the scale of the thing that was rising from beneath the town – a new hill was forming right in the centre of Schwarzbach, a hundred feet wide and growing larger every second. Even with all the magic that was singing through his palms, Gabriel found it almost impossible to bend the thing to his will. He clutched his staff tighter and reached out again into the storm of magic, grasping at the spiralling gusts of azyr.

As the hill rose higher, the summit fell away, revealing an enormous statue constructed from the same materials as the skeletons’ armour – it was a hulking mass of polished gold, ribbed with lines of jade and as it emerged from a tower of sand, Gabriel saw that it had been designed to resemble a colossal leonine creature, with an ornate cobra hood surrounding a gleaming, elongated death mask. The golden behemoth looked down over the battle like a vengeful god, a pair of gilded wings folded along its back and a scorpion’s tail rising from its hindquarters.

As the statue turned towards him, Gabriel baulked, letting slip all the strands of azyr he had been gathering and shielding his eyes from the thing’s terrible gaze.

Down in the square, the battle ground to a halt as the combatants saw the metal giant rising over them. The gold-clad king on the chariot slumped its shoulders in dismay and even the armoured cobras ceased their swaying as they saw what Gabriel had summoned.

As the giant statue surveyed the town, the skeletons began dropping to their knees in genuflection, forgetting all about the ranks of knights arrayed against them. The king, enraged by this, began lashing out at those nearby with a curved sword, berating them in booming, sepulchral tones.

Free of Gabriel’s command, the statue rose up on its hind legs and roared into the storm. The noise was like the end of the world. It rang through the air with centuries-old bitterness and caused all who heard it to clamp their hands over their ears and wail in despair. Even the skeleton king collapsed to its knees, shaking its head as the awful sound echoed through the ruins.

The statue turned to face the dazzling tower, fixing its lifeless gaze on the source of the storm.

Gabriel groaned in dismay and thrust his mind back into the statue’s head, melding his thoughts with the alien sentience within. The statue railed against him with unbelievable malevolence, but Gabriel was undeterred. He felt as though his whole life had been leading to this point. For decades he had been bending animalistic minds to his will and now, as he faced his greatest challenge, his body trilled with magic. The storm was howling around him more fiercely than ever and, as the statue tried to wrench itself free, he lashed great, invisible bonds around its thoughts, harnessing them to his unbending will.

Gabriel looked down over the square from behind the enormous death mask, feeling the incredible power at his command. He turned the ancient, metal skull until it was facing the skeleton king and its serpentine honour guard. The king cowered and shook its head, unable to hold the gaze of such a being.

Gabriel’s statue reared up on its hind legs again and slammed down onto the army below. The few buildings in Schwarzbach that were still standing collapsed, adding to the clouds of dust and scattering rocks though the air. The clouds that erupted from beneath the statue’s paws were tinged with crimson. As well as crushing the undead king and his skeletons, its great weight had also come down on some of the Empire knights who did not manage to scramble clear.

As Gabriel looked down from behind the death mask, he saw that the craters he had made were lined with human as well as skeletal remains. He felt a pang of remorse, but it was quickly washed away by a tide of vengeful bloodlust. He realised that his mind was merging dangerously with the centuries-old statue, but he was powerless to resist, carried along by a heady mixture of azyr and long-suppressed hatred.

The reiksgraf howled at his men to flee as the statue reared again, but not all of them managed to stagger clear before the great paws slammed down for a second time.

Gabriel felt his mind slipping as he abandoned himself to the pleasure of killing. Ancient grudges filled his mind with a wonderful ecstasy of rage as he smashed through the rubble in the guise of the golden statue. All thoughts of home or victory were forgotten as he butchered the tiny figures scattering before him. Skeletal wraiths and armour-clad knights blurred into one pathetic prey. As he killed, the winds joined him in a deafening, lusty roar, blasting through the dead and the dying and feeding Morrslieb’s vile glow. The serpent riders attempted to flee. The gleaming cobras swooped and lunged through the rolling clouds, making for the desert with incredible speed, but Gabriel and the statue bore down on them before they could escape, grinding them into dust and shattered amber.

The butchery was almost complete when Gabriel and the statue paused. The skeletons had all been returned to the dust that spawned them and the last few knights had gathered at the foot of the floating tower, with the battered reiksgraf at their head, defiant to the last. Gabriel’s hesitation came from jealousy rather than pity. A third presence had emerged behind the death mask and was vying for control of the statue. A weak, desperate scream echoed through the metal skull. ‘Gabriel!’ it cried, ‘you’ve won! Let them live!’

As the voice grew louder and closer, Gabriel felt a terrible thrill of recognition, followed by an equally awful sense of shame. The voice belonged to his master, the Grand Astromancer. The old man’s panicked tones wrenched Gabriel back from the terrible fury that had consumed him. At the last minute he steered the statue away from the huddled ranks of knights and crashed down onto a rubble-strewn road. Visions of butchered men suddenly filled his mind, tormenting him with their grasping, broken limbs. As Caspar’s voice continued to batter at his consciousness, Gabriel’s shame turned to anger – not the alien anger of the statue, but his own mortal fury at being so easily manipulated. He turned all the fury of the storm on the ancient sentience riding beside him. The thing fought back with shocking vehemence – it clearly had powers of its own – and Gabriel found himself locked in a desperate struggle. After so many centuries trapped beneath the desert, the statue had no intention of giving up easily and, to Gabriel’s horror, he realised that even now, fully aware of his danger, he could not shake off the statue’s grip.

The golden monster lurched and smashed through the ruins as the wizard fought for control of its body, but as its determination grew, it stumbled to a halt, straddling a section of the shattered town wall and forcing Gabriel from its thoughts.

Gabriel’s own body lay twitching in an ever-increasing pool of blood. As he felt his grip on the statue slipping, his heart raced, pumping his life away through the ragged hole in his thigh.

Just as Gabriel felt his last ounce of control being prized away from him, he sensed the other presence – Caspar – filling him with renewed power.

The wizards combined their strength in one last desperate bolt of azyr, fashioning all the majesty of the storm into a single lethal hammer-blow, crashing its power down against the mind of the statue.

At first, the statue remained upright, swaying slightly, but then the light vanished from its eye sockets and its wings clanged down onto the road. After a few seconds, the whole structure toppled onto its side, slamming to the ground with the force of a landslide.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Caspar strode through the rubble, batting stones away with his staff and looking far younger than when he left Altdorf. There was a fierce vitality in his eyes and he stood straight-backed and tall. He looked around at the ruined streets and saw that the fury of the storm was finally beginning to wane. Even the green light of Morrslieb was growing less offensive.

As he headed away from the drifting tower, the surviving knights caught sight of him.

‘Grand Astromancer!’ cried the reiksgraf, limping towards him through the dust clouds.

The old man winced at the knight’s terrible injuries and took his arm, helping him to a seat on a broken pediment.

‘Have you seen Gabriel?’ asked Caspar, once the reiksgraf had caught his breath.

The knight shook his head and immediately winced in pain. ‘No,’ he gasped, closing his eyes for a second and massaging his neck. ‘I haven’t seen him since we arrived…’ he looked out at the desert. ‘Since we arrived here. I wonder if he was left behind somewhere?’

Caspar shook his head. ‘He’s here. It was his will that summoned the golden monster from its grave. He turned it on your opponents.’

‘His will?’ the reiksgraf frowned and looked over at the mountainous gold carcass, sprawled across the ground on the far side of the square. ‘But that thing attacked me, and my men. Why would Gabriel have driven it to do such a thing?’

Caspar turned away to hide his discomfort. ‘The statue was more alive than he anticipated. It had some ideas of its own.’

‘I see,’ muttered the reiksgraf, but the frown remained on his face. ‘Your chest, Grand Astromancer…’

Caspar blanched and looked down at his robes. Razumov’s staff had scorched the cloth but, to his relief, the diseased skin beneath was not visible. He shook his head. ‘It’s nothing.’

The reiksgraf looked unconvinced, but did not press the wizard further. ‘If Gabriel’s here, we should find him.’ He waved a knight over. ‘Order the men into search parties. Track down anyone who might be left alive under the rubble.’ He waved his shattered sword at the desert. ‘Or in the dunes beyond. Keep your wits about you, though. Not all of the survivors will be human.’

The knight gave a quick bow and hurried away.

The reiksgraf’s men uncovered a pitiful collection of wounded militiamen and terrified townspeople. Some were too badly injured to be saved and could be offered nothing more kind than a quick blade to the throat. Others were physically unharmed, but had lost their minds in the face of the horrendous visions they had seen. The knights herded up the distracted and the wounded and escorted them to the foot of the steps that had once led to the town hall. Periodically, the sound of clanging swords rang out through the ruins as the knights uncovered something more dangerous. The few surviving beastmen were quickly dispatched, however, and finally, after ten minutes of digging and scrabbling though the rocks, one of the knights cried out, announcing the presence of the fallen wizard.

Caspar hurried over to his apprentice, with the general stumbling and gasping after him.

The sand around Gabriel was black with blood and his face looked even more skull-like than usual, but his eyes were bright and he nodded in greeting as his master approached.

The knights applied a tourniquet to his leg and helped him up into a sitting position, but as Caspar dropped to his side, Gabriel shook his head in confusion. ‘Have you harnessed Razumov’s power? Did the spells work?’

The older wizard laughed nervously, but did not acknowledge the question. ‘We’ve outlived the storm,’ he said, grasping Gabriel’s shoulder. ‘Can you believe it? We’ve survived everything it could throw at us.’

‘But to what end?’ Gabriel looked Caspar up and down. ‘You look well. Is that all we achieved? What did the fulcrum do? What kind of power did we summon?’

Caspar looked back over his shoulder and seemed on the verge of saying something, then he thought better of it and shook his head. He placed a nervous hand over his chest, ensuring that his skin was not exposed. ‘There was nothing, Gabriel. We summoned nothing.’

Gabriel stared in horror. ‘That cannot be.’ He looked up at the sky. The storm clouds were starting to break apart and there could no longer be any doubt – Morrslieb was on the wane. ‘I saw it. How could all my auguries have been so wrong? How can I have brought all this death down upon us for no good reason?’ His eyes glittered as he looked at the flattened remains of the town square, filled with corpses and stranded in the blazing heart of a desert.

Caspar shrugged apologetically. ‘We’ve all been confused, Gabriel. The plagues have warped everything out of shape.’

Gabriel shook his head furiously. Then, remembering something, he grabbed his master’s arm. ‘What about Groot?’

Caspar frowned. ‘Groot?’ He looked hopefully at the circle of soldiers gathered around them, but they shook their heads. ‘He must have perished with the others,’ said Caspar. ‘Or maybe he was left behind in the Empire when we were torn free.’

Gabriel shook his head. ‘No. He died. That’s my point. I spoke to him.’ The wizard lowered his voice to an urgent whisper, so that only Caspar could hear. ‘He was raving. Talking about Natalya. But it was worse than that. He was corrupted.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Caspar, with a terrible sense of foreboding.

Gabriel kept his voice low and pulled Caspar closer. ‘His flesh had been transformed. He had a terrible disease.’

Caspar pulled back and ensured that his robes were still in place. ‘Disease is not necessarily the same as corruption, old friend. We’re not witch hunters.’

Gabriel’s eyes bulged with fear. ‘This was contagion. Unnatural contagion. The kind that comes from the Great Unclean One.’

‘Are you saying that the bürgermeister of Schwarzbach was a Chaos cultist? How can you know such a thing?’

Gabriel stared deep into Caspar’s eyes. ‘He was covered in boils. They weren’t natural boils. They had–’

‘Spare yourself!’ interrupted Caspar, placing a finger over his apprentice’s mouth. ‘You could think for a hundred years and never make sense of the things we’ve seen today.’

Gabriel was undeterred. ‘He was marked by Chaos.’ His eyes widened. ‘Imagine if he had lived.’ He stared at Caspar in dismay. ‘When the plagues ended, he could have travelled. His corruption would have spread. Who knows how many people he could have infected? The whole of Altdorf, perhaps.’

The colour drained from Caspar’s face and he drew back from Gabriel, shaking his head in fear.

Reiksgraf von Südenhorst interrupted the wizards with a gentle cough. ‘Magisters, do you think there’s any way we can return home?’

Caspar and Gabriel looked up in shock. It was clear that neither of them had considered such mundane matters.

Gabriel nodded at the sky. ‘The storm’s fading.’ He closed his eyes for a second and gripped his staff. ‘But the air is still busy with azyr.’ He frowned at his master. ‘Perhaps? There are two of us. We could both use the fulcrum.’

Caspar did not answer. He still had his hand pressed across his chest and his eyes were wild with fear. He was muttering something under his breath, oblivious to the question being directed at him.

The reiksgraf stepped to his side. ‘My lord?’

‘What?’ snapped Caspar, lurching to his feet and backing away from the soldier.

The reiksgraf waved back at the tower of stones, still drifting behind them. ‘Do you think you could send us home?’

Caspar shook his head without even seeming to consider the question. ‘Home?’ The word obviously caused him pain.

‘Master?’ asked Gabriel, confused by his odd behaviour.

Caspar jumped again and shook his head. ‘What? Oh, yes. Sending us home…’ He lifted his skullcap and scratched furiously at his scalp. ‘Well…’ he frowned at Gabriel. ‘Who would perform the spell? Only one of us can direct the tower.’

Gabriel shrugged. ‘True.’

Caspar sighed. ‘Without the full power of the storm, neither of us would have the strength to complete the journey alone. I suppose there could be a way though – if we moved fast.’ His words sounded oddly disinterested, but he waved his staff at the clouds that were still circling the tower. ‘One of us could harness the last vestiges of the storm and attempt to sever the tower from reality. The effort would be immense. If the spell caster were successful, the effort would leave him utterly exhausted.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe worse than exhausted. But then the second one of us could take over and attempt to land the tower back in its rightful place. It might be that…’ his words trailed off as he lost his train of thought, distracted by something on the back of his hand. His face grew even more ashen as he thrust his hand into his robes.

Gabriel nodded. ‘I could learn from my mistake. I could fix us to a more specific point.’ He looked up at Caspar. ‘I could guide us home. Could you set us free?’

Caspar was not paying attention and had begun muttering under his breath again. He flinched at Gabriel’s question, but nodded without even seeming to consider what was being asked. ‘Of course. Whatever you think best.’

Two of the knights lifted Gabriel from the ground and they all headed back towards the floating column of stones.

‘You must all climb inside the tower,’ Caspar called out. ‘There isn’t enough magic left in the storm for me to move the whole town square, but these rocks are soaked with the Kislevite’s power.’ He waved at the dazed-looking townspeople huddled below. ‘Find something to hang on to. Lash yourselves to the stones.’

The survivors, and some of the knights, hesitated as they looked up at the tower. It was still shimmering with unnatural light and, in the gaps between the drifting stones, they saw glimpses of other places and times – windows onto other worlds, caught between the ancient rocks. The thought of touching such an accursed vision was too much for most of them and they muttered fearfully to each other as Caspar began to climb.

‘Look around you!’ cried the reiksgraf, waving his sword at the brutal, featureless desert. ‘It’s either this or death. At least with the tower you have a chance of surviving.’ As he turned to face the tower, he paused, seeming unable to take his own advice, but then he clenched his jaw and grabbed the nearest rock, hauling himself up onto it.

After waiting for a few more moments, to see if the general erupted into flames or did anything else unnatural, the people of Schwarzbach shuffled forwards and slowly began to climb.

The knights carried Gabriel all the way to the top of the tower, and placed him down beside Caspar. Then they backed away, putting as much distance as they could between them and the wizards.

Caspar did not acknowledge his apprentice. His newfound vitality seemed to have already abandoned him. His face was grey with worry and he was covered in sweat. He had grasped the comet-shaped medallion that hung around his neck and was staring at it intently.

‘Master?’ said Gabriel, dragging himself closer.

Caspar flinched and looked at the younger wizard with a pained expression.

‘Do not worry yourself,’ said Gabriel, trying to inject a little humanity into his voice. ‘I believe that we can do this. These stones are seamed with azyr. I’m sure you can free us. I can guide us home.’

Caspar shook his head and looked up at the star-filled heavens. ‘I’ve been so blind.’

Gabriel shook his head.

‘But maybe I can still fix it,’ continued Caspar, speaking as though he were alone and looking back at the gold comet in his hand. He snapped the medallion from around his throat and hurled it at Gabriel.

Gabriel had to stretch out from the stone to catch it and when he looked back at his master for an explanation, the old man had jabbed his staff up into the storm and his robes were already shimmering with light.

‘Master?’ gasped Gabriel, holding up the medallion in confusion, but as the winds of magic funnelled up through the tower, they snatched his words away and he could do nothing but cling desperately to the rocks as they lurched into motion, spinning around Caspar, as weightless as the clouds of sand.

Caspar’s eyes flashed green, then red, then white as he howled the words of his spell. Brittle forks of lightning flashed down onto the head of his staff and filled the air with thick, tangible currents of magic.

The soldiers and townsfolk screamed in terror as the rocks spun faster, and some of them flew free, spinning out through across the ruins and falling to their deaths. Most managed to cling on though, their grip made sure by their terror. As the stones rotated, the desert became a yellow blur and a hideous wailing sound sliced through the storm.

Gabriel realised that the wailing was coming from his master. The old wizard was crying out in grief as he wrenched the tower from reality and hurled it into the ether.

As before, a stream of bizarre landscapes flickered in and out of view, but as they appeared and vanished, Gabriel nodded in satisfaction. As in everything, there was a pattern. His mind filled with equations and calculations as he tried to predict the next glimpse of the Empire. ‘I have it!’ he said, as the Howling Hills flashed briefly into view. He looked up at his master with a tentative smile, but then he remembered the medallion in his hand. He held it up in confusion. ‘Master,’ he cried, straining to be heard over the torrents of magic, ‘your badge of office.’

Caspar’s face was still locked in a grimace as he shook his head. ‘Mine no longer,’ he mouthed, his eyes full of tears, then he hurled himself from the tower, vanishing immediately in a single pulse of green fire.

Gabriel cried out in horror and attempted to stand, but his leg folded beneath him and he collapsed with a groan, almost losing the medallion in the process. ‘Master!’ he wailed, pounding his fist on the spinning rock.

‘Gabriel!’ cried a voice.

The wizard’s face lit up with hope and he peered out into the shifting cyclone. ‘Master?’

‘It’s me, Niclas!’ cried the reiksgraf from his perch on the rock below. His hair was lashing around his face and his voice was shrill with desperation. ‘Can you do it? Can you return us home?’

Gabriel shook his head, and peered out into the blur of images, horrified at the thought of returning without Caspar.

‘We’re dying!’ cried Niclas.

Gabriel looked down and saw that the reiksgraf was right. As the storm rotated the tower at ever-greater speeds, knights and townsfolk were being hurled from the rocks. He pressed the medallion to his chest and howled in pain at the thought of what he had to do. Leaning on his staff, he climbed awkwardly to his feet. Ice-cold pain knifed through his leg and gave him the focus he needed. He looked out at the worlds rushing by and nodded in time to the changing scenes, muttering the words of a spell. After several minutes of waiting, motionless, he slammed his staff down onto the rock and cried out a final, doom-laden syllable.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

‘There’s no sign of him,’ said the reiksgraf, limping across mounds of dark, loamy soil. The ground where the square had once been was churned like a freshly ploughed field and drenched in moonlight, but it was a pure, silver moonlight and the air was finally still. The storm had passed, and the quiet of the early morning made the carcass of Schwarzbach seem all the more shocking. The centre of the town had been torn out, leaving a dark, crumbling scar at its heart. The buildings that remained – those nearest to the walls – had mostly been flattened, leaving just the odd broken timber or crooked gable to show where homes had once stood. The knight struggled up one of the mounds, heading towards the slight, hooded figure of Gabriel. The wizard was sitting on a rock and staring at the broken earth. He was holding his staff in one hand and had clenched his other hand into a fist.

‘My men have searched the surrounding hills too,’ said the knight as he approached. ‘They found nothing.’

Gabriel lifted his head and his hood tumbled back, revealing his skeletal face. ‘He’s gone.’

The knight clenched his jaw. ‘Begging your pardon, magister, but I do not see why he would desert us when we were so close to home. Why would he abandon the order? Why would he leave the Celestial College without a Grand Astromancer?’

Gabriel turned towards the reiksgraf, his face as blank as ever. He held out his hand and opened his fist, revealing the gold medallion. ‘He has not.’

‘His comet? How did you–?’

‘He gave it to me,’ interrupted Gabriel, hearing the suspicion in the knight’s tone.

There was such pain and confusion in Gabriel’s voice that the reiksgraf shook his head. ‘Sorry, magister, I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything.’ He ran a trembling hand over his crooked, bruised neck.

Gabriel peered at him through the early morning gloom. ‘You need to see a chirurgeon. You’re wounded.’

The reiksgraf looked down at his ruined body and laughed, despite the obvious pain it caused him. ‘That I am, magister. That I am.’

He waved his sword at the medallion dangling from Gabriel’s fingers. ‘Will you wear it?’

Gabriel studied the gold comet in silence for a few seconds. Then he looked around at the butchered remains of Schwarzbach. After a while, he shrugged. ‘It’s not for me to decide.’

‘Reiksgraf!’ cried a voice.

The general turned to see that one of his men was stumbling away from the ruined tower. It looked like any other ruin now, a broken stump of history rising up from a muddy field. Most of the stones had disintegrated as it crashed to earth and the rest had collapsed into a pitiful heap. Several of the knights who made it back to the Empire only lived long enough to realise that they had been crushed by the force of their return.

The man struggling across the crater was clutching something in his hands.

‘What is it?’ snapped the reiksgraf as the knight approached.

The knight held the object up into the moonlight. ‘Some kind of staff.’

Gabriel frowned at the sight of the object. It was gnarled, covered in spines and topped with a crescent of black horns.

‘Is it Caspar’s?’ asked the reiksgraf, taking it from the soldier and peering at it.

Gabriel shook his head. ‘I do not recognise it.’

The reiksgraf ran his fingers over the horns then snatched his hand back with a curse. ‘It’s sharp,’ he laughed, sucking a bead of blood from his fingertip. He handed the staff back to the soldier. ‘I suggest you keep it safe until we get back to Altdorf.’

As spring crept towards summer, the skies cleared, the winds dropped and the plagues finally ceased. The foul humours began to disperse and the swarms of beetles fell silent. As Morrslieb waned, the sun reasserted its dominance, scorching away the shrivelled remains of cuttlefish and allowing the Empire’s weary citizens back to their ruined homes.

In the weeks that followed, strange tales continued to circulate. A pretty young woman in Ostland claimed that some of the local cats never fully lost their ability to speak, and formed themselves into a society, terrorising the local people with strange, lilting songs about blackbirds. Her tales were disregarded by most, and attributed to the vast quantities of malmsey wine she had consumed during the plagues, but a local wizard by the name of Tylo Sulzer moved in with the confused girl, donating several months of his own time in an effort to prove or disprove her story. In Reikland, there was a persistent rumour concerning the spectre of a Kislevite princess. She was seen on several occasions, stricken with grief and calling out for her lost love. Her pitiful cries are said to haunt the hills north of Altdorf to this day.

When the Emperor heard of the strange events in Schwarzbach, he realised immediately that such heroics must be rewarded. He decreed that one of the survivors, a wizard by the name of Gabriel Bloch, be inducted as head of the Celestial College. He also decided that one of the knights who was present, Reiksgraf Niclas von Südenhorst, should be rewarded with a place in his own royal honour guard. Unfortunately, the reiksgraf was never able to enjoy his new position. Within a few weeks of his return to the capital, he was struck down by a mysterious illness and died soon after. Some claim that the terrible epidemics that ravaged the province that summer were connected in some way to his death, but the Grand Astromancer has always vehemently denied this.

– Wolfgang Spitteler’s Plagues and Portents – A History of Celestial Magic

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

After a music career so disastrous it landed him in court, Darius Hinks decided a job in publishing might be safer. Since joining the Black Library he’s worked on such legendary titles as Inquis Exterminatus and Liber Chaotica as well as writing The Witch Hunter’s Handbook and short stories for several of the Black Library’s anthologies. Rumours that he still has a banjo hidden in his loft are fiercely refuted by his lawyers.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2011 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by David Gallagher

Map by Nuala Kinrade.

© Games Workshop Limited 2011. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-0-85787-210-4

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