Sacrosanct
C L Werner

 	Chapter one


 	Thunder rolled above the vast forest, shaking needles from the ancient pines. Birds took wing, screeching in fright as they rose into the clouds. They wheeled away from the great stream of lightning that crackled through the air. With the storm to spawn it, a bolt struck earthwards and crashed amongst the trees with a deafening roar. A great pillar of smoke and dust was thrown into the sky, rocks and splinters pelting the ground miles from where the lightning struck.
 	A vast swathe had been gouged from the forest, the ground blackened and the trees knocked flat for a hundred yards in every direction, as though a titan’s paw had pressed down upon them. Thick and dark with earth, the pall caused by the impact billowed outwards, throwing a gritty fog across the woods.
 	Figures moved in that fog, striding from the very midst of the devastation. In such daylight as pierced the smoke, they became more than indistinct shadows. Hulking men clad in armour of gold and blue. Their countenances were hidden behind crested helms with glowering masks. Upon their shields they bore an emblem: a twin-tailed comet, the divine symbol of the God-King, an announcement to all who beheld them that here were Sigmar’s mightiest warriors – the Stormcast Eternals.
 	Reaching to his helm, one of the Stormcasts removed the mask he wore. The countenance locked behind the sigmarite metal was revealed as handsome and cultured. His black beard had a rakish cut and his dark hair was tied back in a plaited braid. There was a severity about the set of his jaw and a troubled cast to his pale grey eyes. With a flourish, the warrior swept his sapphire-hued cloak across his back and knelt upon the ground. His mailed fist reached to the earth, seized a handful of soil and brought it up to his nose. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
 	A tall Stormcast approached the warrior smelling his handful of earth. ‘Something is amiss, Knight-Incantor?’ 
 	Knight-Incantor Arnhault of the Hammers of Sigmar opened his eyes and stared at his interrogator. ‘No, Penthius,’ he replied. ‘We have indeed descended upon the realm of Ghur. The earth carries the smell of its magic.’
 	The Sequitor-Prime, Penthius, merely bowed his head. Arnhault was far more versed in the strange laws that governed the storm of magic and its disparate winds. Each of the Mortal Realms was governed by those winds, drawing more heavily from one than all the others combined to define its shape. ‘Have you any way of knowing how far we might be from our objective?’ 
 	Arnhault let the soil sift through his fingers. There was a faint suggestion of a smile on his face. ‘There is a familiar quality to its aura. Something that tells me we are not so very far from where we need to be.’
 	‘Then I shall call your command together,’ Penthius said. ‘The sooner they are assembled and organised the more–’ He cut his words short and stifled a colourful oath. Through the dissi­pating fog, gold-and-blue-armoured warriors bearing hefty greatbows dispersed between the trees. ‘Nerio,’ he grumbled. ‘Already he breaks with protocol and indulges his whims.’
 	‘The Castigator-Prime would call it instinct,’ Arnhault reminded Penthius. ‘There is more to strategy than the strictures laid down in tome and treatise. There are times when it is prudent to attend to what one feels rather than what one knows.’
 	Penthius shook his head. ‘Instinct attends to but one possibility while doctrine seeks a plan flexible enough to confront many possibilities. Nerio’s Castigators will be exposed the way he has deployed them. They will not have my Sequitors to guard them. We should adopt a block formation with the–’
 	Penthius’ speech fell into an abrupt silence. Through the forest, a great rumbling could be heard. It took some moments before the noise became distinct enough to be discerned: the cracking of tree trunks and the crash of mighty boles against the earth. There were great pounding impacts as well, as though an avalanche were rolling through the woods. 
 	One of the Castigators, his helm adorned with a great spiked halo, shouted from the periphery of the clearing. ‘Knight-Incantor! Something approaches our position!’
 	‘Pull your warriors back, Nerio!’ Penthius shouted. ‘If there is an enemy come to oppose us, my Sequitors will unleash Sigmar’s storm with hammer and shield while your Castigators put a volley into them.’
 	‘Keep your warriors where they are, Nerio,’ Arnhault countermanded. ‘There is no time to redeploy. We must face the foe from the ground on which we stand.’
 	The rumbling in the forest was growing louder and seemed to have gathered impetus. The crack and crash of trees was ever more rapid. Now there could be felt tremors that shivered through the ground each time the pounding impacts slammed home. Arnhault knew what it meant, the terrible regularity of those impacts. They were the footfalls of some horrendously immense creature.
 	‘Hammers of Sigmar! Brothers! Whatever comes, it will not stand between us and our duty to the God-King!’ Arnhault raised his staff of office, letting its runes catch the fitful light drifting through the fog. At the sight of the Knight-Incantor’s staff, a thundering war cry issued forth from the Stormcasts. ‘Glory to the Heldenhammer!’
 	The defiant shouts of the Stormcasts enraged whatever moved through the forest. The violent charge picked up yet more speed. The tremors shaking the ground became a steady shudder. Trees leapt upwards as they were ripped from their roots and thrown into the sky. A heavy, musky stink spilled down into the clearing and caused such small animals as remained in their holes after the stormstrike to flee deeper into the forest.
 	Trees bordering the clearing were knocked asunder, crashing groundwards and forcing several of the Castigators to scramble from their path. In a spray of splinters and pine needles, a colossal shape emerged from the forest.
 	Towering over the Stormcasts and even many of the trees, the creature was covered in thick, shaggy black fur that was matted into twisted tangles and clotted with dried gore. Each of its four pillar-like legs was covered in a pebbly crimson skin, and its feet were broad pads with thick, plate-like toes. It had a large hump behind its short, thick neck – a slab of fatty tissue that was almost bald at its very top. The head of the creature was long and broad, with a wide mouth and enormous ebony tusks that curled back upon themselves. Its eyes were small and sharp, clouded with a scarlet sheen of frenzied fury. From the front of its face, a long snake-like trunk sagged and swayed – at least until its beady eyes sighted Knight-Incantor Arnhault. Then the creature reared up on its hind legs and raised its trunk to the sky. A deafening trumpet sounded from the mammoth, and when its tremendous bulk slammed back down onto all four legs, the tremor was such that Arnhault could feel it pulse through his bones.
 	He could also sense the malign energies that exuded from the creature. It was at once more and less than a mere beast of Ghur. The corrupt touch of Chaos was upon it, twisting it in both body and spirit. Arnhault felt its pain – the mammoth was wracked by the torment of isolation and consumed by a fratricidal madness that had caused it to slaughter its own herd. The bloodlust of Khorne ran through its gigantic frame, mani­festing outwardly in spiky knobs of bone that protruded from its shaggy pelt. When the beast trumpeted a second time he detected a belligerence beyond that of a simple animal, rather the fury of a thing lost and damned.
 	Anger pulsed through Arnhault’s veins – not the blind fury of Chaos but the righteous indignation of Sigmar. In his mind’s eye he saw an image of what the mammoth should have been, a vision of the magnificent creature before it had been corrupted. Memories flickered before him of great herds of shaggy giants striding across autumnal plains, lending their mighty strength to the last harvest of the inhabitants in return for bushels of fruits and bundles of spring sweet grass. Those mammoths had been wise and gentle, far removed from the crazed beast that now opposed the Stormcasts.
 	‘I will end this torment,’ Arnhault vowed, staring into the beast’s red eyes. He raised his staff, drawing upon the magic of the storm.
 	The mammoth bellowed once more and charged towards the Knight-Incantor. The instant it started to move, the Castigators arrayed around it began to shoot. The bulky thunderhead greatbows roared as they loosed a deadly barrage into the immense beast. Mace-like quarrels slammed into the shaggy hide, their crystalline heads exploding in bursts of celestial energy. The condensed breath of Stardrakes was sent crackling across the mammoth’s body, searing its fur and scalding its skin. In a heartbeat, the bulky feeder atop each greatbow set another mace into place and the Castigators sent another volley into the raging beast.
 	A nimbus of light flared from Arnhault’s staff as he swept it towards the mammoth. Flung from its head, the light expanded to become a withering wind, hot as the stars and cold as the void. The stellar storm swept across the charging beast, and in that arcane gale its shaggy pelt was peeled back, ripped from its hide in ragged clumps and gory strips. The denuded skin beneath was scarred and wet with blood, pockmarked with the malignant mutations of Chaos. Obscene growths quivered and writhed with loathsome animation as the divine wind ravaged the beast.
 	The wind Arnhault had drawn down into his staff was enough to bring a gargant to its knees, but the ferocity of the mammoth was such that it thundered onwards, refusing to be bowed despite the magnitude of its injuries. The very gore that bubbled from its wounds gave the beast renewed strength, for the Blood God did not care overmuch from whence the blood flowed.
 	‘Sequitors! Shield and hammer!’ Penthius’ commanding tone rang out across the clearing. At a run, a dozen warriors stood between the mammoth and Arnhault. Swinging their broad shields before them as the beast pounded forwards, the Sequitors raised their stormsmite mauls. Blue energy crackled about the head of each weapon, an aura of power drawn from the very essence of Azyr, the God-King’s realm. Before the mammoth reached their line, that blue glow was drawn away from the hammers, passing instead into the gilded faces of their soulshields.
 	When the mammoth struck the line of Sequitors, a titanic shudder swept across the clearing and knocked branches from the outlying trees. Coruscant energies flittered through the air, crackling away in a dazzling display of power. Incredibly, the Sequitors held their ground, their line unbroken. Before them, the giant beast stood swaying from side to side, stunned by the calamitous impact of its charging bulk upon the nigh-impenetrable bulwark of the soulshields. 
 	‘Castigators! Loose!’ Nerio raised his own greatbow and sent thunderhead maces exploding against the mammoth’s flanks. Again the condensed Stardrake’s breath was sent searing across the beast’s mutated frame.
 	‘Hammer and shield!’ Penthius shouted to his own warriors. With the command, the glow left the soulshields and once more infused the heavy mauls the Sequitors bore. As arcane energy crackled about their weapons, the Stormcasts brought them crashing against the mammoth’s pillar-like legs and tusked head. Flesh sizzled under their blows. Teeth were shattered in the beast’s jaw. Blood turned to steam as it spurted across the glowing hammers.
 	Yet still the mammoth did not fall. Trumpeting its rage, its trunk coiled around one of the Sequitors. With acute awareness, the beast chose Penthius for its victim, pulling the Sequitor-Prime from the very midst of his Stormcasts. It lifted him into the air, his sigmarite armour creaking as the creature’s trunk curled itself into a crushing grip.
 	Before the mammoth could destroy its captive, a thunderhead mace exploded against its trunk. Nerio, alerted to Penthius’ danger, sent the shot slamming into the base of the extremity with unerring accuracy, the missile streaking past the curl of the tusks to detonate against the beast’s face. A great mass of flesh and sinew was blasted away by the concentrated Stardrake’s breath. All animation fled from the mammoth’s trunk as it sagged limply against the ground. Penthius rolled clear of the lifeless coils and brought his maul cracking against one of the tusks. A jagged crack rippled through the ivory, and the mammoth reared back in shock.
 	‘It is time to end your torture,’ Arnhault intoned. For all that the mammoth was a crazed and corrupt beast of Chaos, he could not feel anything but regret for the pain his retinue had inflicted upon it. The most merciful thing that could be extended to the beast was the oblivion of a swift death. His voice dipped into a low cadence, invoking the spells of the Sacro­sanct Chamber and the lore of High Azyr. A different light gathered about the staff he bore, a pearlescent glow that rippled with celestial power. 
 	‘Spirits of storm and sky, let your wrath flow through me.’ Arnhault gestured with his staff and the glow leapt from its length, stretching out to become a flash of lightning. The unleashed energy struck against the mammoth’s forehead, searing a black hole into its skull. The beast reared up, one foreleg kicking at the air, and then it came crashing down. The impact of its fall sent a shudder through the forest.
 	Smoke rose from the hole Arnhault’s magic had burned into the mammoth’s head, yet still the beast clung stubbornly to life. Its eyes retained a berserk fury as they focused upon the Knight-Incantor. Arnhault shook his head. He could not hate this beast any more than he could hate a rabid dog. It was a sick and maddened thing, a creature that had to be destroyed out of necessity. It was pity, not ire, that caused him to turn towards the Sequitors. ‘Orthan,’ he called out. ‘Deliver Sigmar’s rest.’
 	From amidst the ranks of the Sequitors a lone warrior marched forwards. Though armoured in the gold and blue of his brothers, Orthan had forsaken the maul and shield they bore. Instead he carried an immense mace, a weapon with a haft as long as the Stormcast was tall. The head of the weapon was a black bludgeon of enchanted sigmarite through which flickers of divine power flashed. Runes and sigils extolling the might of the God-King were etched across the dark surface and about its neck was a band of purest gold adorned with the emblem of the Hammer, holy Ghal Maraz itself.
 	Orthan advanced upon the fallen mammoth and halted beside the beast’s smouldering head. ‘For Sigmar!’ the Sequitor howled as he lifted the stormsmite greatmace upwards. The flickers of divine power became a halo of might, suffusing the weapon and the warrior who held it. In a single stroke, Orthan brought the bludgeon crashing downwards. As its smashed into the mammoth’s skull, pebbly flesh thick as a man’s palm evaporated, inches of skull reduced to crackling cinders. An instant only, and the mammoth’s head was reduced to ash. The beast’s enormous frame quivered in a final spasm of pain and then was still.
 	While Orthan visited death upon the mammoth, Arnhault drew a silver vial from a pouch on his belt. An arcane song of eternity whispered across his lips as he held the vessel towards the beast. The instant the creature’s life was driven from it, the magic he evoked reached out to the fleeing spirit. He could feel the Chaos contamination drifting apart from the core of the beast’s essence, and it was this essence that his spell ensnared. With fingers of aetheric force, Arnhault’s magic drew the mammoth’s spirit down into the vial, pouring it into the tiny vessel until it was filled with the boiling energies of the vanquished giant. Only when he was certain he had drawn all that remained uncorrupted did Arnhault bring his song to an end. For a moment he could actually see the dark belligerence of Chaos lingering above the mammoth’s carcass. Then it began to fade, seeping back into the cursed regions from whence it had come.
 	Arnhault stared at the vial for a moment and then quickly pressed a sigmarite stopper into the neck of the vessel. A powerful rune fashioned by duardin demi-gods adorned the underside of the stopper, forming a barrier no spirit could penetrate. 
 	Castigator-Prime Nerio approached Arnhault as he returned the vial to the pouch on his belt. ‘Forgive my impertinence, Knight-Incantor, but is it wise to try to trap such a spirit?’
 	Arnhault tapped his fingers against the pouch. ‘For all the enormity of its flesh, the beast’s spirit is a simple thing. Were it otherwise the taint of Chaos would have befouled it as completely as it defiled its body.’ He shook his head. ‘No, it is no reckless testing of my arts which you have beheld, merely a practical application of knowledge you too may prove worthy to learn.’
 	‘Nerio would first need to learn how to confine himself to the structure of his lessons.’ Penthius walked around the dead bulk of the mammoth to join his brothers. ‘I do not think it would be prudent to train an acolyte who insists on learning how to conjure magic before he knows how to safely dispel it.’
 	The Castigator-Prime rounded on Penthius. ‘A versatile mind understands the difference between recklessness and initiative.’
 	‘Yes,’ Penthius agreed. ‘A versatile mind does.’
 	Nerio patted the thunderhead greatbow slung over his shoulder. ‘If I were not versatile that beast would have twisted your armour into such a state that you would now pass for a marsh crab.’
 	‘If you had kept your archers in formation, we could have settled with the brute before it got to grips with anyone,’ Penthius growled back at him. ‘It is not for nothing that established procedures are observed. At least by a disciplined warrior.’
 	Arnhault interjected himself into what he knew would swell into bitter argument if allowed to escalate. Many times he had undertaken missions with Penthius and Nerio in his retinue, but never had he seen them agree upon anything when it came to tactics. Penthius was too hidebound and rigid, doggedly adhering to martial tradition. Nerio, by contrast, was impulsive and headstrong.
 	‘We will save the tactical discussion for a later time,’ Arnhault decreed. It was all he needed to say. If there was one thing Penthius and Nerio could agree upon, it was the depth of their loyalty to the Knight-Incantor. When Arnhault gave an order, it was obeyed instantly. The disagreement was forgotten until fresh provocation caused it to return.
 	Penthius turned towards the Knight-Incantor and bowed his head in deference to Arnhault’s rank. ‘Your knowledge of Ghur is formidable. Have you any awareness of this place? Do you know how near we may be to where our duty would take us?’
 	Arnhault’s eyes closed as he considered the questions posed to him. ‘We stand now in what was once the Wood of Gyr.’ He looked to the trees from whence the mammoth had emerged. ‘There is a crispness to the air in that direction, a trace of ice on the breeze. If we were to travel that way, we should find Frostmoor and its screaming glaciers. Long ago, it would have been a journey of many days’ march.’ Arnhault gestured to the pines that dominated the forest around them. ‘But I speak of when the Wood of Gyr was home to willow and palm. The land has changed. As the screaming glaciers crawl further from Frostmoor, they drive the beasts and plants of the taiga before them.’ He pointed his sigmarite staff at the mammoth’s carcass. ‘There was a time when these beasts were unknown in Gyr and rare in the Kingdom of Kharza.’
 	‘Kharza is near then?’ Nerio asked.
 	‘It is near enough,’ Arnhault supplied. ‘The royal house of Kharza would ride to the Wood of Gyr to honour the Rites of Taal and hunt the golden boar with jade-tipped spears and sacred leopards trained to hunt no other prey. Their entourages would spend a fortnight travelling to the hunt and back.’ He swung around and nodded towards the trees to his right. ‘The journey will take us less time,’ he stated. ‘We are not encumbered by the regalia of royalty and the baggage of the hunt.’
 	‘For all that, we too are hunters,’ Nerio said. He reached to the quiver of crystal-headed maces that hung at his side.
 	‘We are not hunters,’ Penthius corrected him. ‘We are protectors. Our duty is not to simply track some wild brute to its lair. An appeal has been made and that prayer has been heard. We are come to save the faithful of Wyrmditt from the evil that besets them.’ He looked back to the mutated mammoth. ‘Evil far different to the beasts of Chaos, but no less deadly.’
 	Nerio shook his head. ‘It will not be enough to defend these people. We will have to root out this menace and destroy it utterly if we would bring them a lasting peace. Make no mistake, brother, we are hunters.’
 	‘We are neither protectors nor hunters,’ Arnhault said. He donned his helm, locking his face once more behind the stern metal mask. ‘We are avengers,’ he told his warriors. ‘We come not simply to bring relief to the people of Wyrmditt. We will confront the darkness that threatens them and we will make it answer for its manifold outrages.’
 	Arnhault gestured to his brothers. ‘Get our warriors into formation. Nerio, you will abide by whatever deployment Penthius deems advisable. Penthius, you will allow the Castigators flexibility of action should we encounter any unexpected obstacles.’ He indicated the mammoth. ‘Even before the scourge of Chaos threatened to overwhelm it utterly, Ghur was a place of fearsome beasts. With monsters twisted by the Dark Gods roaming the land, we must be doubly vigilant.
 	‘Wyrmditt lies beyond the Wood of Gyr, across the veldt of the Fangfields and the hill country of Takrahn.’ Arnhault nodded to himself as he envisioned the maps he had consulted when this duty had been entrusted to him, matching the place names to his more exacting knowledge. ‘The town is deep within one of the border marches of Kharza, at the very edge of the old fiefdoms.’
 	‘That is why the people are imperilled,’ Penthius stated. ‘They are too near the fallen kingdom. Too close to the shadows of the past.’
 	Arnhault gave the Sequitor-Prime a reproachful look. ‘The shadows of the past hang over us all, brother.’ He swept his gaze across the clearing, studying the forest around them. ‘Perhaps the past is never a heavier burden than when we do not recognise its weight upon us.’
 	Mouldering darkness filled the silent hall. The pomp and pageantry of the court was absent now, and in their place there was only an oppressive gloom. 
 	Sabrodt leaned back into the diamond-headed throne. Golden wings cast to echo the leathery pinions of dragons formed a magnificent canopy overhead. The heavy arms of the throne were like scaly coils; the broad feet were clawed talons. If he raised his eyes he could see the fanged visage of the dragon, the huge diamond lodged in its throat. In the right light, an eerie flicker shimmered within the diamond, as though the beast’s flame were about to spill forth and immolate those who bowed before the throne.
 	Since his early childhood, Sabrodt had been enthralled by the Dragonseat. He was captivated by its wondrous beauty, the richness of its settings and the craftsmanship that infused every curve and line, each scale and claw, with masterful artistry. Nowhere, he was convinced, was there anything so grand as this throne. Not in the palaces of the gods themselves could such magnificence possibly be found.
 	The royal court’s splendour was as nothing when compared to the Dragonseat. Artisans from lands beyond a hundred horizons had laboured to create a hall that could complement the throne at its centre. No feat of man or duardin had been equal to the task. Sabrodt had watched them fail, one after another, led away in disgrace to the priest-king’s dungeons. As a boy, he had gone down to those benighted vaults to listen to the artists bewailing their fate, begging their guards for even one more glimpse of the masterpiece they had failed to match.
 	How he had longed to sit upon the Dragonseat and to possess it. Being so near to it year upon year had been a kind of torture to Sabrodt. Always so close, always within reach. Yet he could not dare to reach, for only the priest-king was allowed to touch the throne.
 	A grisly laugh rose from Sabrodt. Now. Now he was priest-king.
 	His gaze pierced the darkness of the hall, for there was no shadow that could hide its secrets from him any more. He could see the cracked pillars of malachite and obsidian that ringed the chamber, the archways of black marble that stretched between them and helped support the ceiling. Mouldy tatters of tapestry yet clung to the archways, hanging like dusty cobwebs. The lavish rugs that stretched across the floor were faded and frayed, clotted with dirt and grime. The tile frescoes adorning the walls were cracked and crumbling, exposing the grey earth behind them.
 	The grisly laugh took on a bitter note as Sabrodt stared at the jumbled bones piled about the chamber. It was many years since the court of Kharza had been as he remembered it. The morbid stamp of death was upon it now.
 	Sabrodt leaned back in the Dragonseat, the throne he had coveted for so very long, and his insubstantial spirit shifted through the ancient chair. He was priest-king, lord of Kharza and the only one with the authority to sit upon the throne, yet it was the one thing he could not do. Only by the greatest exertion of willpower could he impel some semblance of solidity to his being. But to touch the Dragonseat was a thing too keenly desired, too dearly cherished. The moment he tried, his focus would be lost and his phantom hand would pass right through the throne.
 	A spiteful snarl hissed its way through Sabrodt’s fleshless face. He rose from the throne and drew his ragged burial shroud closer around his spectral form. The Dragonseat was a foolishness of his youth, the idle dream of a child. It was not the throne he had coveted. It was the power it represented. The power he now commanded. He, he was priest-king!
 	Ghostly lights blazed within the hollows of the wraith’s skull. Kharza belonged to Sabrodt. It was his dominion and would be forever. That was the promise Black Nagash made to him when he had sworn his soul to the Great Necromancer.
 	That was the curse that would not allow Sabrodt to rest quiet in his grave.
 	Sabrodt, priest-king of Kharza. 
 	Sabrodt, the Shrouded King.
 
 
 	Chapter two


 	 
 

 	The steam of countless geysers billowed up into the morning sky and created a hot rain that pelted the sigmarite mail of the Sacrosanct retinue as they marched across what had once been the frontier of a powerful kingdom. Sometimes the gnarled remains of a watchtower would protrude from the damp earth, its ancient masonry hidden beneath thick growths of crimson moss. The fallen debris of shattered keeps created jagged knolls and stumpy hills on which stubborn thorn bushes sank their roots. Once the empty hulk of an abandoned temple loomed into view, flocks of jackal-bats roosting beneath the empty arches and shattered windows. 
 	‘The Kingdom of Kharza must have been rich indeed to lavish such constructions upon its borderlands,’ Penthius observed as they moved past the decayed temple.
 	Arnhault stared at the rubble between the temple’s empty walls. ‘The margraves drew a generous largesse from their king so that they might better defend his domain from invaders.’ He turned and gazed across the rolling landscape, its vast expanse of sharp-leaved tall-grass broken by clusters of bushes and the occasional stand of trees. ‘Many were the grot and orruk hordes that were crushed in the veldt without ever despoiling the heartlands of Kharza. For ten generations, no foreign hand laid siege upon the Koeningshoff or threatened the Dragonseat.’
 	The Knight-Incantor shook his head. ‘But there is no greater enemy of legacy and tradition than Chaos. The legions of the Dark Gods came into Ghur, as they did all the Mortal Realms except sacred Azyr. The chronicles say that the armies of Kharza fought nobly, but against the tide of darkness they could not prevail.’
 	‘Only the might of Sigmar is powerful enough to prevail against Chaos,’ Nerio stated and clasped his fingers tight around the holy talisman hanging from his neck.
 	Arnhault gave Nerio a solemn look. ‘Such is true, but the host of Kharza was denied even the choice to perish in battle. Swords raised high. Defiance in their hearts.’ His hand closed tighter about the sigmarite staff he carried. ‘The chronicles relate that before the battle could be fought, the warriors of Kharza were brought low. Betrayed from within.
 	‘A traitor delivered these lands to the Dark Gods and left them to languish under their vile oppression until Sigmar’s might at last forced Chaos into retreat.’ Arnhault reached down and knocked over a stone lying atop the loamy earth. An assortment of insects scurried away as he upended their refuge. Deftly he snatched up one of the creatures before it could escape. ‘The blight of Chaos lingers on,’ he said, holding out to his companions the creature he held. It was a long, worm-like thing with huge mandibles and spiny projections along its sides. Dark burgundy in hue, there were bold white markings across its back, markings that were too vivid and regular to be entirely natural. The white splotches each depicted the skull rune of Khorne.
 	‘Blood-maggot.’ Penthius made no effort to disguise his loathing. ‘I know this vermin. They feed on the carrion left by Khorne’s hordes.’
 	‘How can they exist when the Blood God’s murderers have been driven from these lands?’ Nerio wondered.
 	Arnhault dropped the grotesque creature and smashed it with the butt of his staff. ‘Like the Blood God, this filth cares not what feeds their malicious hunger. It is enough that their fodder has perished by violence, and in the Realm of Beasts there is a surfeit of violence to sustain them.’ He wiped his staff clean on the swaying grass. ‘A reminder that even when the hosts of Chaos have been forced into retreat, the corruption they carry with them will remain.’
 	Arnhault looked back to the desolate temple. ‘But it is not Chaos which now seeks to control these lands. A different breed of evil is at work here.’ The Knight-Incantor walked towards the crumbling edifice. At his approach, clusters of jackal-bats left their perches and went soaring over the veldt, their eerie laugh-like chirps echoing across the plain.
 	Penthius called the rest of the Stormcasts to a halt. The armoured warriors broke ranks, using the respite to inspect their weapons. Three of Nerio’s Castigators spread out to form a circuit around their brothers, their bulky thunderhead greatbows held at the ready, their eyes roving across the veldt, watching for any threatening sign.
 	Penthius, however, had his attention fixed in one direction. He watched the old temple and the lone Stormcast who moved steadily towards its crumbling mass.
 	‘A strange humour has come upon Arnhault,’ Nerio said, following the direction of Penthius’ gaze.
 	Penthius nodded and watched Arnhault pass through the empty doorway of the temple. ‘Maintain command here,’ he told Nerio. ‘Stay vigilant. I will see if the Knight-Incantor requires help. He is a greater aether-mage than any of us, more attuned to the harmonies of magic. It may be he has sensed something here that none of us can feel.’
 	‘We should make haste to Wyrmditt,’ Nerio said, his voice lowered. ‘It is there our duty calls us.’
 	‘It is not for us to remind Arnhault of our duty,’ Penthius chastised his brother, matching the low tone of Nerio. He did not want the other Stormcasts to overhear the exchange. ‘He has served the Sacrosanct Chamber through many reforgings and won for Sigmar many victories. Neither of us are fit to question his decisions.’
 	‘I stand humbled,’ Nerio said. ‘I can only blame eagerness for putting such thoughts on my tongue. I meant no disrespect to Arnhault.’
 	‘I did not think you did,’ Penthius assured him. ‘I know your devotion to the Knight-Incantor is as solid as my own.’ He clapped his armoured hand against Nerio’s pauldron. ‘Keep our brothers ready to move on. I will see if I can render Arnhault assistance.’
 	Penthius moved through the long grass towards the old ruin. Jackal-bats continued to fly up from the temple’s darkened interior, their agitated cries sharp in the misty air. The Sequitor-Prime kept a tight grip about the haft of his maul. He was tense with foreboding and uneasy with this departure from the martial strictures of the chamber. He trusted that Arnhault had good reason for this diversion, even if he could not conceive the Knight-Incantor’s intention.
 	The broad archway that stretched above the temple entrance loomed over Penthius as he made his way into the ruin. As soon as his foot crossed the threshold, a feeling of malevolence impressed itself upon him. So strong was the impression that it gave him pause, kept him standing in the shadow of the empty gate. He had imagined the temple had once been devoted to the God-King, or at least Taal or another of the nature divinities honoured by the people of Ghur. Yet there was no hint of holiness about the place, no suggestion of Azyr’s light about it. Even if the temple had been destroyed and despoiled by the slaves of Chaos, there should have been some trace of its original sanctification that a Sacrosanct Stormcast could sense. 
 	But there was nothing. Only that nebulous impression of hostility that felt to Penthius like hungry eyes watching him from the dark.
 	The sound of movement further back in the temple drew Penthius deeper into the ruin. As he moved through the crumbling rubble, around the heaps of debris where the structure’s roof had fallen in, the sounds became more distinct. Not simply the flutter of bat-wings or the creep of vermin. There was a stolid regularity about them, a rhythm that might almost have been a low cadence.
 	Penthius quickened his pace, soulshield held before him and maul at the ready. As he rounded a pile of rubble he came upon a section of the temple where a few remnants of the roof had managed to defy the ravages of time. Beneath it was a patch of ground from which the rubble had been cleared. A simple altar fashioned from a piece of slate stood there, a feeble echo of that which must once have graced such a big sanctuary. He noted with alacrity the morbid offerings resting on the crude table, the fleshless skulls of crows and dogs.
 	Crouched down beside the altar was a young girl clad in a deerskin dress and with a serpent-hide belt about her waist. Her ashen blonde hair was tied back in a row of three braids, one hanging across each shoulder while the third dangled down her back. It was from the girl that the sounds Penthius heard came. In her lap rested a small copper drum and she was striking it with a carved leg bone at regular intervals. 
 	‘Let her finish the ritual.’ Arnhault’s voice suddenly broke into Penthius’ observations. The Sequitor-Prime spun around, surprised to find the Knight-Incantor standing in the darkness.
 	‘What is all this about?’ Penthius asked, slowly lowering his weapon.
 	There was a sombre quality to Arnhault’s words when he answered. ‘An old ceremony, something that has been passed down from the days when Kharza was a great kingdom and not merely a wilderness with scattered settlements.’ He gestured with his staff at the girl. ‘She is rendering prayers to the God of Death, asking that the spirit of her brother be allowed to pass safely into the Underworld.’ 
 	‘God of Death,’ Penthius repeated. He glanced around the crumbling temple. The malevolence he had felt, the lack of even the merest flicker of Azyr’s light, was explained. This temple had no part in Azyr. Its energies were those of Shyish and its god was not Sigmar but a far darker entity. ‘She prays to Nagash,’ he whispered.
 	‘Yes,’ Arnhault said. ‘Though it was long ago, Nagash was once part of Sigmar’s pantheon and permitted dominion over the souls of the dead. It is a dominion he still commands. Only those spirits most precious to the other gods are capable of escaping the Lord of Undeath.’
 	‘We must stop her,’ Penthius swore. He started towards the altar, but Arnhault held his staff before him and blocked his path.
 	‘We must wait,’ Arnhault said. ‘To disrupt the ritual now might prove unwise. It was believed that these prayers would open a channel between the realms. If we interrupt we may cause that channel to remain open and allow the shades of Shyish entry into this world. Moreover, should we silence her prayers we will give warning of our presence here. I would rather know the nature of my enemy before it is aware that I am here to bring its evil to an end.’
 	Penthius watched the girl as she set the skull of a cat on the altar. With a needle she pricked her finger and drew a single hieroglyph upon the skull in her own blood. He started forwards, instinctively repulsed by the macabre ritual. ‘This is indecent,’ he growled.
 	‘There are laws to every kind of magic,’ Arnhault declared. ‘Not all of them are pleasant to behold. The ritual you are watching was old when the Kingdom of Kharza was young, handed down from shaman to mystic and from mystic to priest.’ He glanced up at the remaining ceiling, where the faintest remnant of a painted fresco could be found. He drew Penthius’ attention to it.
 	Still vivid upon the fresco was the shining figure of a bearded man in golden armour, a crown of stars upon his head and a mighty warhammer in his hand. Beside him, veiled in darkness, was a shape in black robes and wearing a tall helm that cast the face beneath into shadow. One hand was outstretched, holding in its bony fingers a great book. The other gripped the gnarled haft of a scythe.
 	‘Sigmar and Nagash,’ Arnhault named the painted figures. ‘There was a time when the Great Necromancer lent his powers to the God-King’s design. He was honoured alongside the rest of the pantheon and the people venerated him as the King of the Underworld.’
 	‘That was long ago,’ Penthius stated. ‘Before the betrayal at the All-Gates, before Nagash raised undead legions across the Mortal Realms to extend his rule beyond the boundaries of Shyish. If ever Nagash’s fellowship with the God-King was more than pretence, that time is long past.’
 	Arnhault nodded. ‘These things we know, but they will not help this child. They will not allay her fears for her brother’s spirit and the peace it will find beyond the grave.’
 	The Knight-Incantor’s words had a sobering effect upon Penthius. Endowed with the many gifts of the Stormcasts, his body and mind raised beyond the threshold of mortality, it was easy to forget the frailties of mundane humanity. It was a quality that Penthius had always despised when he’d encountered it in other Stormcasts, that self-righteous arrogance and unspoken contempt for common people and their weaknesses. He had always been watchful lest that kind of hubris should find purchase in his own mind. Even then, his vigilance had not been absolute.
 	‘You are correct, of course,’ Penthius said. ‘Zeal is a poor brother to understanding.’
 	‘Zeal is a powerful tool,’ Arnhault told him, ‘but you must never allow it to be the only weapon in your arsenal.’ A distant look came into his eyes. To Penthius, it seemed Arnhault was no longer even looking at him, or at the temple in which they stood. ‘Even so, it is a wise man who knows when to be zealous. Who recognises when the time for compassion and understanding is over and all that is left is the necessity of what must be done.’
 	‘Necessity, brother?’ Penthius could not follow the trend of Arnhault’s speech.
 	Arnhault shook his head, the distant look vanishing from his eyes. ‘The girl’s prayers will be over soon,’ he said, ignoring the question Penthius had posed. ‘When she is finished, I will speak to her. From her prayers, I have gleaned that she comes from Wyrmditt.’
 	Penthius looked towards the child with a different appreciation for why Arnhault had taken interest in her. ‘She can guide us back to her town,’ he said.
 	‘More importantly, she can tell us something of her home,’ Arnhault explained. ‘She can tell us the nature of this evil that preys on her community. When we know that, we will have a better appreciation for the ordeal ahead of us.’ He glanced at Penthius. ‘The augurs could divine only so much from the prayers the people of Wyrmditt rendered up to Sigmar. We know only that the evil that hangs over their community is more than the mundane hazard of beast or brigand. The enemy here is such that falls under the auspices of the Sacrosanct Chamber.’
 	‘That could mean the daemons of Chaos,’ Penthius nodded to the faded fresco. ‘Or it could mean the spectres of Nagash.’
 	‘All the more reason to let her finish her prayers,’ Arnhault said, ‘and avoid warning those spectres that we are here.’ He nodded at the cat skull resting on the altar. Penthius looked at the morbid object with keen interest. Though he’d watched the girl mark the thing with her blood, now there was only the faintest hint of the hieroglyph she had drawn. Before his eyes he watched as even that dim residue began to vanish.
 	‘It will not be long now,’ Arnhault assured Penthius. 
 	The two Stormcasts watched while the last traces of blood vanished from the cat skull. The girl bowed her head towards the altar then rose to her feet, her little hands smoothing the folds of her dress. As she turned around, she saw for the first time the armoured giants who had joined her in the ruin. Her eyes wide with amazement, she backed away, almost tripping over the crude altar. Penthius could see the shiver of dread that gripped her as she opened her mouth and tried to scream. All that emerged was a terrified gasp.
 	Arnhault made a placating gesture with his hands. ‘Do not be afraid. We are not here to do you harm.’
 	The girl kept backing away, her already pale complexion turning still more ashen. She reached to the serpent-hide belt and drew a small knife. In her panic she was oblivious to the absurdity of the action.
 	‘I am Penthius,’ the Sequitor-Prime said, tapping his hand against his breastplate. ‘This is Knight-Incantor Arnhault.’ He paused as he noticed the girl responding to his voice. ‘We are on a quest and have come from very far away…’
 	The girl looked at Arnhault. ‘Are you really a knight?’ she asked with a quiver in her voice.
 	‘I am,’ Arnhault answered. ‘I am a knight in the service of the God-King.’ He pointed to Penthius. ‘We both are. We are sworn to honour Sigmar’s justice and protect those who keep the spirit of Sigmar’s laws.’
 	‘Tell us, little one, by what name are you called?’ Penthius asked.
 	The question caused colour to rush into the child’s cheeks and an embarrassed smile to tug at her mouth. ‘My name is Hilda,’ she said. ‘My grandma used to tell me stories,’ she added as she lowered her knife. ‘She talked about knights who walked inside the lightning and would sometimes come down to fight monsters.’ She pointed at the crow skull lying on the altar. ‘Grandma died.’
 	‘And now you have lost your brother,’ Penthius said, indicating the cat skull the girl had added to the macabre collection.
 	‘Oh no,’ Hilda hurried to correct him. ‘He did not get lost. Everybody knows where he is.’
 	‘We mean that he is gone from this realm,’ Penthius explained. 
 	‘No, they won’t let him go anywhere,’ Hilda said. ‘It isn’t allowed. He has to stay where they put him.’
 	Penthius shook his head. ‘Your brother is dead. Of course he must stay where they buried him.’
 	A puzzled expression fell across the girl’s face. She gazed up at the Stormcasts in confusion. ‘Berndt isn’t dead – he is just where they put him.’
 	Arnhault stepped forwards and leaned down to look Hilda in the eyes. ‘You were sitting here saying prayers for your brother’s spirit,’ he reminded her. ‘Why would you do that if he is not dead?’
 	Hilda drew away from Arnhault, fear creeping back into her eyes. Penthius walked over to Arnhault and laid his hand on the aether-mage’s shoulder. ‘Let me talk to her,’ he suggested. He reached up and undid the straps holding his helmet. When he removed the sigmarite mask and revealed his own features, Hilda smiled at him and even took a step closer.
 	‘I apologise if we frightened you,’ Penthius said, ‘but it is important that we know why you were saying prayers if your brother isn’t dead.’
 	‘Because Mamma and Pappa said he was going to go away like grandma did. I don’t want Berndt to go away, so I came here to ask the god to not take him.’ Hilda cast her gaze to the floor, trying to hide from Penthius the tears that now filled her eyes. ‘When grandma was sick I came here to ask the god not to take her, but he didn’t listen.’ She stamped her foot on the floor. ‘I did everything just like Pater Mathias does in his chapel, but the god wouldn’t listen to me.’ She looked up, instinctively turning towards Arnhault when she asked her question. ‘Why didn’t the god listen? Was it because I was bad?’
 	Arnhault shook his head. ‘There is no easy answer for why. Sometimes even the kindest gods won’t do everything that is asked of them.’ He darted a look at Penthius, then returned his gaze to Hilda. ‘You say they are keeping Berndt somewhere? Is it somewhere in Wyrmditt?’
 	Hilda nodded and stifled a sob. ‘Yes. We all live in Wyrmditt. They took Berndt and locked him in the chapel.’
 	‘Who did? The other people in the town?’ Arnhault waited while the girl slowly nodded. ‘Why would they do that?’
 	Hilda looked at Arnhault, then swung her gaze back to Penthius. ‘They have to give him to the king,’ she said.
 	Arnhault rose to his feet. When he spoke, it was in a sombre whisper. ‘What king, child?’
 	‘The Shrouded King,’ Hilda said. ‘The priest-king of Kharza.’
 	Thick clouds of mist hung above Wyrmditt, pelting the town with warm rain. Brief glimpses of the settlement could be seen from the hills above it, but for the most part it was simply an indistinct mass. Situated on the periphery of the vast geyser fields, Wyrmditt was veiled in the steam exhaled by the boiling pools. The atmosphere was damp and heavy, notably hotter than the veldt and the area around the abandoned Shrine of Nagash.
 	Arnhault studied the town from atop one of the hills, or at least as much as the heavy mists allowed him to. There were spells he might have evoked that would have dissipated the clouds and afforded him an unobstructed view, but he dismissed the temptation to draw on his magic. From what he had learned from Hilda, he was concerned that the enemy would sense such an aetheric disturbance. If it could be helped, he intended to deny their foe such warning.
 	‘It never fails to be a cause for wonder, the places men will make their own.’ Castigator-Prime Nerio touched his fingers to the talisman he wore. He and three of his bowmen had accompanied Arnhault as a bodyguard while the Knight-Incantor scouted Wyrmditt. The armour of all four Castigators was damp with the warm rain, but only Nerio had the habit of cradling his greatbow against his side to protect it from the moisture – a precaution that was unnecessary for the thunderhead greatbow, but perhaps not so eccentric for whatever weapon he’d carried before he was first reforged.
 	Arnhault rolled that thought over in his mind. A little echo of the past still impressing itself on Nerio. It was one of the terrible riddles of reforging, which parts of the Stormcast remained and which were lost upon the Anvil of the Apotheosis. An old habit devoid of conscious volition endured while the face of a cherished son was obliterated from the mind. There seemed to be no pattern to what was retained and what was lost, yet Arnhault was convinced there had to be some kind of method­ology behind it all. Except for the profane magic of Chaos, all enchantments and conjurations obeyed certain laws. Even if an aether-mage didn’t know what they were, that didn’t mean they were not there.
 	‘Would it be impudent to suggest that these people should move?’ Nerio jested. ‘Certainly there must be places they could settle where they wouldn’t have to drink the air.’
 	Arnhault pointed to the dirty brown ribbon that snaked its way past the dark mass that was Wyrmditt and its streets. ‘That is the Wyrm River, born from the blood of the demi-dragon Zhaan. Men have always plied its waters to trade with their neighbours. In the days of Kharza there were many towns like Wyrmditt on its shores, some even larger. The mist you despise is the price these people pay for their prosperity.’ He gestured away from the town and the river to the geyser fields and the plumes of water vapour rising from the boiling pools. ‘The geysers throw up more than steam and mist. Rare salts and exotic minerals are cast up as well, dredged from the very roots of the world. In old times there were duardin lords who would pay their weight in gold for the treasures yielded by this land.’
 	Nerio wiped the condensation from the mask of his helm. ‘Greed,’ he hissed. ‘I could forgive that motivation if it simply asked these people to endure this cloying atmosphere, but this town has sunk far beneath such considerations.’ He waved back down the hill to where Penthius and the other Stormcasts waited along with the girl. ‘What that child has told us makes me think we should leave this whole place to its fate.’
 	Arnhault glared at Nerio. ‘The mission entrusted to us calls us to this place,’ he reminded him. ‘Our duty is here. We will defend it.’
 	‘Forgive me, Knight-Incantor,’ Nerio said, ‘but was it not you who said that we were not hunters or protectors, but avengers? Who is worthy of vengeance if not those who would sacrifice their own people to save themselves?’
 	‘The fiends that have forced them to such an abominable choice,’ Arnhault replied. ‘The undead creature that has crowned itself king of Kharza.’ He cast his gaze out over Wyrm­ditt, but it was not the town he was looking at. It was the land beyond it, the old kingdom hidden by the low-hanging clouds. ‘Do not think this evil will be content with one town. It will seek to expand its dominion, to bring even more of Ghur under the shroud of Nagash.’ He turned back to Nerio. ‘What we fight here is but a skirmish in a far wider war.
 	‘We will avenge the innocent who have been lost here,’ Arnhault vowed. ‘But we will visit that vengeance upon those truly deserving of it.’ He looked once more upon the sprawl of Wyrm­ditt. His focus was drawn to one structure that was taller than the others, its slate roof poking through the mist. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘I have seen all I need to see. It is time we returned the child to her home.
 	‘And proclaimed to the people of Wyrmditt that their deliverance is at hand.’
 	Arnhault led the procession of Stormcasts as they marched into Wyrmditt. The buildings were tall and narrow, their lower walls built from heavy stones while the upper floors were fashioned from wooden beams and panels of lacquered paper. Each structure had an angled roof with slate tiles and leering gargoyles that did their best to spit out the omnipresent rain collecting on them. A few of the buildings sported little workshops that faced the street while others had ornate gateways that led into tiny gardens of rock and sand. Sometimes a larger structure would appear, signs stretching out from their facades to proclaim the trade conducted within. Brewer and cooper, stonesmith and tanner, glass-blower and steelmonger. 
 	The armoured tread of the Stormcasts upon the cobblestones sent a dull roar rolling through the streets ahead of them. There was no question that the inhabitants were aware of their visitors, yet not one could be seen. Arnhault could imagine them hiding inside their homes, peering anxiously through shuttered windows and cracked doors. Perhaps none of them recognised the Stormcast Eternals for what they were, or perhaps they did and hid themselves from a sense of shame over what their fear had driven them to do.
 	‘Do they not know who we are?’ Orthan wondered. ‘Can they not guess why we have come here?’ 
 	Penthius shot the Sequitor a stern look. ‘We came here to fulfil our mission and execute our duty, not for accolades and glory, brother.’ 
 	From his tone, Arnhault could guess that Penthius shared some of Orthan’s disappointment. It was only natural. They had come to Wyrmditt in part to deliver it from its enemy. Instead they found the inhabitants seeking to placate that enemy and hiding from the warriors who would rescue them from the darkness.
 	‘Honour is a seed which everyone nurtures within their own heart,’ Arnhault declared, casting his voice so that each member of his retinue would hear him. ‘Only your own deeds will make it grow, not the cheers of the crowd.’
 	He raised his staff, gesturing to the mist-cloaked street before them. ‘We turn at the next corner,’ Arnhault commanded. ‘From there we will be where we need to be.’ He thought of the tall building he had seen poking up through the fog. ‘Where we belong.’
 	The Stormcasts marched onwards, still unchallenged by the townsfolk. Occasionally they would hear a door slam shut somewhere in the distance, but otherwise the only sound was their boots upon the cobbles. Except for a few prowling cats and wandering chickens, nothing moved through the streets.
 	The change came when Arnhault led them towards the tower-like structure. The Stormcasts bowed their heads in reverence when they saw the carved hammer that stood above the building’s entrance and the banners that hung to either side of it, the twin-tailed comet stitched across their blue fields. A temple not to Nagash but to Sigmar. Here, if anywhere in the town, they would be recognised and welcomed.
 	‘It seems deserted,’ Penthius said to Arnhault. He indicated the tattered nature of the banners, the faded state of the hammer. Thick clumps of moss clung to the stonework, the wooden supports were splintered and warped, and the paper panels were torn in many spots. Everything about the temple screamed of neglect.
 	Arnhault kept his gaze fastened upon the building. More attuned to the aetheric harmonies, he could sense the difference between a sanctuary that had been abandoned and one in which a sincerity of faith persisted. ‘All is not always as it seems,’ he advised Penthius.
 	A moment after Arnhault spoke, the temple door slid open. An aged man in a ragged robe stumbled forwards. His skin was almost white in its pallor and the few strands of hair that clung to his scalp had a silvery sheen. Around his neck he wore a heavy chain from which a tiny golden hammer hung. When he turned his wizened face towards the Stormcasts, the eyes that regarded them were white with blindness. 
 	Just the same, a look of ecstatic joy seized the old man’s features. Clasping the hammer in both hands, he fell to his knees and began to weep. ‘Sigmar, mighty God-King, receive my unworthy gratitude! Hear my praise, oh Sigmar, for in your unmatched benevolence you have sent your divine warriors to aid us in our direst need!’
 	‘How can he know who we are?’ Nerio asked. ‘He cannot see us.’
 	‘He does not need to see us,’ Arnhault declared. He stepped forwards and gently lifted the old man onto his feet. The man’s thin arms clutched adoringly at his gauntlet. 
 	‘I have prayed,’ the old man said. ‘How I have prayed that this day would come!’
 	‘I am Knight-Incantor Arnhault of the Hammers of Sigmar. How are you named?’
 	The old man held the hammer icon to his lips before answering. ‘I am Friar Mueller, the keeper of Sigmar’s faith in Wyrmditt.’ Emotion welled up within him, almost choking his words. ‘When all others lost faith, I would not lose hope that Sigmar would deliver our town.’
 	Hilda stepped out from among the Stormcasts and took hold of Mueller’s hand. She turned towards the armoured giants. ‘Friar Mueller lives here,’ she said, ‘but nobody else has come here in a long time. Not since the Shrouded King.’ She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘He used to see, but every­one was afraid he would make the Shrouded King angry…’
 	‘The scum,’ Nerio snarled, his hands tightening around his greatbow. He glared at the buildings around them, as though he wouldn’t leave anything for the undead to lay claim to.
 	‘Do not blame them,’ Friar Mueller begged the Stormcasts. ‘They were afraid and it was naive of me to think I alone could match the Shrouded King’s evil.’ A smile pulled at his face as he nodded his bald head. ‘But now, now you are here. Now this evil will end!’
 	Friar Mueller turned and began shouting into the streets. ‘Cowards! Wretches! Why do you hide? How can the blind man see and you cannot! Sigmar has heard my prayers! In his divine mercy he has sent his holy warriors to fight for us! Come out! Come out and greet those who will deliver you from the Shrouded King’s horrors!’
 	One by one, across the town, the sound of doors opening could be heard. Gradually figures appeared on the streets, men and women who slowly moved towards the Temple of Sigmar and the armoured warriors arrayed around it. As they came nearer, the suspicion Arnhault saw on their faces changed into wonder. Their pace quickened and soon a large crowd was gathered around the Stormcasts. An excited babble rose from the assembled townsfolk. They gazed in open admiration at the huge warriors and the massive weapons they bore. 
 	Arnhault turned and addressed the crowd. ‘We are come in answer to the prayers of your Friar Mueller,’ he announced. ‘His unwavering faith has brought us down from Azyr to vanquish the darkness that threatens you.’ He shook the sigmarite staff at the gathered villagers. ‘A darkness that you have too long sought to appease.’ The crowd fell silent at the reproach in his voice. ‘You did what you did out of fear. The weight of those deeds is a burden each of you must bear alone. But know this – there will be no more appeasement. The Shrouded King will take no more of your people.’
 	Arnhault pointed to Hilda. ‘This child has told me that her brother is being held as an offering to the Shrouded King. He is to be released. At once.’
 	A man and woman emerged from the crowd and hurried to Hilda. Gathering her in their arms, they bowed at Arnhault’s feet and sobbed in gratitude to the Knight-Incantor. Arnhault’s attention, however, was fixated upon another pair who had come creeping out from among the townsfolk. One was a fat, elderly man arrayed in a fur-trimmed coat and wearing a jewelled pectoral. The other was a lean slip of a creature, only his thin face poking out from the hooded cloak that enfolded him.
 	‘Burghermeister Vanholf,’ Arnhault addressed the man in the coat. ‘I have heard much about you.’
 	The man in the hooded cloak shook his head. ‘Surely you will not lend too much credence to a child’s stories.’
 	Arnhault spun around and pointed an accusing finger at the cloaked man. ‘I have heard even more about you, Pater Mathias.’
 	The thin priest threw his head back and tried to assume a haughty posture. ‘I did what was needful to save this town. How could we trust that Sigmar would answer our prayers?’
 	‘So you started feeding people to the undead,’ Nerio snarled.
 	‘Better that the few die in order that the many should live,’ Mathias said, trying to defend himself. 
 	‘Spoken like a true acolyte of Nagash,’ the Castigator-Prime retorted.
 	Mathias winced when he noted that Nerio’s greatbow was aimed towards him. ‘The rituals of the dead must be observed,’ he protested. ‘If the spirit is not received by Nagash and allowed passage into the Underworlds then it will wander endlessly, without form or purpose.’
 	Arnhault stepped forwards. Before Mathias could react, his hand had seized the front of the priest’s cloak and he lifted the man off the ground. ‘It was you who communed with the Shrouded King and made this obscene arrangement.’
 	The priest’s eyes were wide with fright as he saw the disgust in Arnhault’s gaze. ‘He demanded tribute! Tribute! The Shrouded King claims all the lands of Kharza as his own and will have tribute from all who dwell there.’ He cast an appealing look to Vanholf and the other villagers. ‘The Shrouded King did not want gold or riches. He demanded lives, vassals to serve in his domain.’
 	‘And you gave them to him,’ Arnhault hissed. Contemptuously he flung the priest from him. Mathias crashed down upon the cobbles amid the stunned crowd. ‘Leave here, priest! Leave before I think better of my mercy.’
 	Pater Mathias did not need to be warned twice. Picking himself up from the ground, he shoved his way through the crowd and ran off into the mist.
 	Arnhault turned back towards Vanholf. The burghermeister’s face was beaded with sweat, his eyes bulging in fright. ‘You have been led astray, Vanholf. You have attended ill counsel for too long. Now you will listen to me.’
 	‘Of course,’ Vanholf gasped. ‘Whatever you say, my lord. Whatever you need, Wyrmditt will provide it.’
 	‘Good,’ Arnhault told him. ‘First we will discuss the layout of your town and what happens when the Shrouded King comes to claim his tribute. Then we will make our plans and decide how Wyrmditt will be redeemed from this evil.’
 	Within the silent depths of his throne room, the dark essence of Sabrodt stirred. The Shrouded King looked across the mouldering finery of his funereal palace. The splendour he had coveted for so long was hollow to him now, as empty as an open grave. It would take more, much more, to satisfy him.
 	In a rush of shadow and malice, Sabrodt swept through the desolate corridors of his cairn, past the sepulchres of ancient knights and legendary heroes, past the urns that held the ashes of princes and barons. 
 	Arise, the malignant spectre thought as he passed. Wisps of shadow crawled out from the tombs in his wake. Gradually they took on the merest semblance of shape, the faint echo of form – wraiths called into being by the decree of their sovereign. 
 	When Sabrodt emerged from the hulking barrow mound that held his throne, a seething morass of darkness followed him into the moonlight. Phantasmal skulls leered from the folds of ghostly robes, bony hands grasped spectral blades. Sabrodt turned his crowned head towards the aethereal throng. Among them he could recognise the most powerful warriors of his father’s reign and the most renowned heroes of Kharza’s long history. 
 	His! All his! Sabrodt whipped around, staring across the barren plain on which his barrow had been raised. It was a place soaked in the blood of battle and the stink of death. How many had died here in that final battle? Thousands? And all of them his to command. Conquered and conqueror alike, all forced to recognise his dominion over them! It needed but a single word, a single command, and they would rise from where they’d fallen, a host of the dead whose only purpose would be to obey!
 	What other priest-king of Kharza had been so mighty? 
 	Even as Sabrodt exulted in his power, his gaze fastened upon a discongruous patch of green upon the desolate plain. The Shrouded King gnashed his bony jaws in rage as he looked on this defiance of his rule. He knew it would be useless to try to destroy it by force or spell. The grass would always come back, as vibrant and alive as before. More than the sight of this stubborn life in his domain of death, it was what the greenery represented that fed Sabrodt’s anger.
 	Yes, all the souls that had perished in that final battle belonged to Sabrodt, were his to command. All except one – the spirit of the warrior who had fallen where that grass now grew.
 	Hate welled up inside Sabrodt, a hate that had been with him from the very cradle. A hate, he realised, that had become even stronger than his desire for the Dragonseat. 
 	Somehow, some way, Sabrodt would yet slake his hate. 
 	The Shrouded King turned back towards his shadowy followers. ‘It is time to claim my kingly tribute,’ he told them. ‘It is time to add another vassal to my domain.’
 	Sabrodt closed one skeletal fist. In response, the earth before him split open and an aethereal steed pawed its way out of the ground. Corroded barding and a tattered caparison covered the phantom stallion, leaving only its fleshless legs and skull exposed. The light that glowed in the recesses of the creature’s head echoed the gibbous glow that blazed in Sabrodt’s.
 	With a thought Sabrodt was mounted upon the grisly charger he had conjured from the earth, the Shrouded King’s shadowy essence blending with that of his mount. The wraith reached to his side and drew a pitted sword from its rotten sheath. As his bony fingers tightened around it, the corroded blade was transformed, restored into a sharp-edged weapon aglow with a grave-sent power. 
 	Sabrodt held the ghostly sword aloft and called to his spectral warriors. ‘To Wyrmditt,’ he commanded them. ‘To Wyrmditt and the tribute that is my due.’
 
 
 	Chapter three


 	 
 

 	The elders of Wyrmditt had a hard time meeting the gaze of Arnhault and his warriors. The burghermeister and his council kept looking around them, frowning in embarrassment as their eyes chanced upon a splintered panel or a faded wall hanging. There was no need for the Stormcasts to accuse them of anything. The cobwebs and dust that lay everywhere already did that far more forcefully than any words could.
 	The Temple of Sigmar was in a wretched state, maintained for far too long by only its blind priest. Friar Mueller had tried, but the care of the temple was beyond his abilities alone. Decay had set in, as sorely within as without. A few more years and the structure would be a dilapidated ruin.
 	Arnhault stood with Mueller at his side, beneath the icon of the Hammer behind the altar. He wanted to impress on the elders the depth of their faithlessness and to remind them that it had been the priest’s devotions that had brought deliverance to Wyrmditt. Guilt was the quickest way to subdue any opposition that might have presented itself to Arnhault’s plans. It was a pragmatic solution to the problem, if not exactly a sympathetic one. The Knight-Incantor was not without an appreciation for the townspeople, but he would not allow such considerations to influence him. To do so would cost Wyrmditt the thing it could least afford. 
 	Time.
 	‘The tribute you intended to render this Shrouded King.’ Arnhault’s solemn tone rolled across the town leaders. ‘I understand it was to be claimed in the Shrine of Nagash upon the rising of the new moon.’
 	The elders looked uneasily amongst themselves, no man wishing to be the one who confirmed the Stormcast’s statement. Finally, in a faltering voice, Vanholf addressed Arnhault. ‘The Shrouded King has always taken his… tribute… from the Shrine of Nagash. It… he… rides through the middle of town. His very presence causes the flowers to wilt and milk to sour. None sleeps when he makes his midnight ride, and all await the… the scream when he claims his due.’
 	‘There will be no scream tonight,’ Nerio stated. His hand patted the quiver of crystal-tipped maces at his side. ‘Unless the Shrouded King finds his voice when he does not find his victim.’
 	Arnhault nodded and pointed his staff at Vanholf and the elders. ‘I can see the doubt you feel. I can smell the fear that hammers inside your hearts. You have lived in horror of this monster for too long. You have almost convinced yourselves that he is invincible, that there is nothing which can be done except to appease him.’ His voice dropped to a low whisper of wizardry, drawing magic to him. He let the power flow down to the end of the staff. A nimbus of lightning crackled and flashed about the head of the staff in a display of arcane power. The elders backed away, their eyes wide with awe, their tongues muttering in fright.
 	‘This time, the monster will not be appeased,’ Arnhault told them. ‘This time he will be challenged. This time he will be vanquished.’ He laid his huge armoured hand on Mueller’s shoulder. ‘By the might and glory of Sigmar God-King, this darkness will be banished from Wyrmditt.’
 	‘But… but the Shrouded King is…’ Vanholf held up his hands in a hopeless gesture. ‘When first he came upon us and made his demands, there… there were men who stood against him. They tried to kill him with swords and with spears and with arrows. Nothing could harm the Shrouded King. He is not a thing of flesh and bone as we are.’ The burghermeister closed his fingers into a fist and shook it in despair. ‘He is more ghost than anything else, as intangible as the steam from the geysers.’
 	Mueller smiled at Vanholf. ‘Have faith, friends. Great Sigmar knows all and would not send his warriors to us if they could not prevail against our enemy.’
 	Arnhault held the crackling staff higher. ‘There is a dark magic which empowers your tormentor, but we too have magic. We have the magic of Sigmar’s storm, the essence of sacred Azyr, to pit against the fell undead.’ He let the power gradually ebb from his staff. ‘I have fought for Sigmar’s justice in more battles than I can remember and against enemies too horrible for you to imagine. Always the power of Sigmar has sustained me and never have I seen daemon or spectre that could deny the God-King’s might.’ He nodded towards Mueller. ‘Be guided by your priest. Have faith. I do not expect any of you to face the enemy. All I ask is for your faith and conviction. Sigmar will deliver Wyrmditt.’
 	‘You will lay a trap for the Shrouded King?’ Vanholf asked. ‘When he comes to receive his tribute, then you will confront him?’
 	Penthius stepped forwards, sweeping the elders with a stern look. Of all the Stormcasts, the Sequitor-Prime had the least forgiveness for the obscene bargain they had struck with the Shrouded King. ‘The wraith will answer for its evil,’ he stated coldly. ‘We do not want any of you near when we depose your undead king.’ He tapped his golden breastplate. ‘We have the armour and weapons to confront this monster. We have the resolve and discipline to defy its evil.’ He waved his hand towards the doorway. ‘Go and take your people from Wyrmditt. Stay away from your homes this night. When you return in the morning, you will be free.’
 	Vanholf kept his eyes downcast but shook his head emphatically. ‘But the Shrouded King may expect a trap,’ he said. ‘Always Pater Mathias has acted as… as a mediator between the town and the wraith.’ He looked up at Arnhault. ‘Pater Mathias is gone! No one can find him. He has left us!’
 	‘In a time of crisis, men display their true quality,’ Penthius scowled.
 	‘We will carry out the plan with or without Mathias,’ Arnhault declared. ‘The wraith may be so certain of its power over you that even without Mathias’ welcome, the monster will not be suspicious.’
 	Vanholf was still uneasy. ‘If… if the Shrouded King does suspect…’ Suddenly the burghermeister looked up, excitement on his face. ‘If we took one of Mathias’ cassocks…’ The excitement faded as he looked up at the huge warriors. ‘No, the Shrouded King would never mistake one of you for Pater Mathias.’
 	‘Then we will need one of your people to play the part,’ Penthius stated. Again his uncompromising eyes moved across the elders. ‘Who among you will do it? Or are there no heroes left in Wyrmditt?’
 	A long moment of shameful silence dominated the temple. It was broken at last by a quiet voice from beside Arnhault.
 	‘I will do it,’ Mueller declared. ‘I feel it is my duty, for I was the one who begged Sigmar to send you to us.’
 	The Stormcasts looked at the blind priest in astonishment. Even Penthius was impressed by the man’s determination. 
 	‘Are you not afraid?’ Arnhault asked.
 	‘Of course, my lord,’ Mueller said. ‘But I can control my fear.’ He raised his hand to his sightless eyes. ‘Now I understand that this affliction is a blessing. Because I cannot see him, my fear will grow no worse when the Shrouded King comes. I can stand outside the shrine and wait for him, just as Pater Mathias did.’
 	Arnhault was pensive. The risk to the blind priest would be great. Mueller would be standing in the very path of the storm. Yet there was something in what he said about his blindness being an asset now rather than a hindrance. Anything that increased the chance of luring the Shrouded King into their trap had to be considered. Moreover, he thought about the terrible humiliation Mueller would feel if his offer were rejected outright.
 	‘It will be dangerous,’ Arnhault advised Mueller. ‘Search your heart and if you are certain this is the path Sigmar has called you to follow, then we, the Gilded Sphere of the Sacrosanct Chamber, will accept your help.’ He gazed over the elders and saw that, somehow, their dejection was even more pronounced than before. Truly these men had been humbled. Arnhault marvelled at the wisdom of Sigmar. 
 	To be humbled in the presence of the Sacrosanct Stormcasts was something a man could rationalise to himself. To be humbled by the courage of a blind man… That was a lesson none of the elders would ever forget.
 	The Shrine of Nagash was an imposing pagoda near the centre of Wyrmditt. The morbid tower was not pressed upon too closely by its neighbours. Instead a great expanse of open ground surrounded it, ground that was uncharacteristically barren by the standards of Ghur. A few withered trees and the husks of yellowed bushes were the only evidence life had ever intruded upon this place. The dirt around the dead plants was parched and grey, as though some vampiric scourge had drawn all the vibrancy from it. 
 	The pagoda itself was equally barren, but in a different way to the neglect that afflicted the Temple of Sigmar. Here the walls were in good repair, the wooden beams and doors fastidiously maintained. It was not the rot of abandonment that hung over the Shrine of Nagash, but rather an aura of total decay, a repulsion of life itself. The place made no pretensions about its macabre nature. Every doorway was framed by the fleshless grins of leering skulls. Skeletal gargoyles gripped the edges of the roof, condensation drooling from between their fangs. Around the walls were grim funerary niches where placards bearing prayers to the dead were exhibited for all to see. 
 	Everything about the place was steeped in the darkest of magic, the heavy aether in which the realm of Shyish itself was immersed. Arnhault could feel its essence the moment he approached the pagoda and walked across the desolate earth. It was like a clammy film pressing against his skin.
 	‘Is something wrong, Knight-Incantor?’ Orthan asked Arnhault. The very best of Penthius’ Sequitors, he had been tasked with being Arnhault’s guardian when the trap was sprung. A powerful warrior, he was less attuned to the threads of magic they walked through than the aether-mage.
 	‘This is a vile place,’ Arnhault declared. ‘It has been abominably used.’ He let a ripple of magic course through his staff and back through his body. The aetheric wind dissipated the clammy sensation, but more than that it lent a certain quality to the inimical energy. A quality that was at once unspeakably vile yet strangely familiar to him. ‘Long before the first bricks were laid down, this site was blighted.’
 	‘They built the shrine to Nagash here because Pater Mathias said it was sacred to the Lord of Death,’ Mueller told Arnhault. The blind priest looked strange in the heavy black robes that now shrouded him. Vanholf and the elders were too afraid of the Shrouded King to fight, but they did lead Nerio’s Castigators to the shrine and bring back one of the cassocks to complete Mueller’s disguise.
 	Arnhault gripped the priest’s shoulder. ‘In that much he told your people the truth. This place is saturated in dark magic.’ The Knight-Incantor hesitated, strangely troubled by his own words. He stared at the pagoda, at the town outside the patch of barren earth. In his mind he tried to imagine the place as it might have looked before Wyrmditt had been built.
 	‘Something happened here,’ Arnhault continued. ‘Something that drew the attention of Nagash to this place.’ 
 	Mueller nodded his head. ‘Death,’ he said. ‘Only that would interest Nagash. Many small deaths or one death of greater consequence. Perhaps Pater Mathias knew which, but if he did he never said.’
 	Arnhault let the spell he’d evoked fade. Gradually the clammy sensation returned and with it came a sense of frustration. He felt he knew the answer to this riddle. Yes, he felt it, but he did not know.
 	‘A last chance to turn back,’ Arnhault reminded Mueller. He stared up at the darkening sky. The day was fast fading. Soon the new moon would rise and with its ascension, the Shrouded King would come to claim his tribute.
 	‘I know,’ the priest said. ‘It grows cold now, despite the dew from the geysers. That means the sun is gone, or nearly so.’ Mueller shrugged his shoulders. ‘I can be of use to you here. Let me stay. Let me show you the measure of my faith in Sigmar.’
 	Arnhault grabbed the hood of the cassock and drew it over the top of Mueller’s head. ‘This will lend itself to your disguise. From a distance, even the wraith might mistake you for Mathias. When he draws near… then he will sense the light of your soul and know he has been tricked.’ His grip tightened about the haft of his staff. ‘Orthan and I will be within the shrine, ready to strike before that can happen. I have three Castigators on the upper floor of the pagoda. Nerio and the rest are in the buildings around the tower along with Penthius’ Sequitors.’ 
 	‘Sigmar willing, the enemy will not escape,’ Mueller said.
 	A grim laugh rose from Arnhault. ‘It is the duty of all Stormcast Eternals to be the instruments of Sigmar’s will.’
 	Arnhault peered through the slats to either side of the shrine’s doorway. From his vantage point, he could see the disguised Mueller standing out in the middle of the barren ground. His head was bowed as though he were reciting prayers to Nagash as Mathias would have had he been waiting for the Shrouded King.
 	Past the priest and the blighted expanse, Arnhault watched the streets of Wyrmditt. Though its own light was dim, the new moon appeared magnified by the mist. A silvery glow spilled down onto the land, illuminating the town and the hill above it. The streets were a patchwork of shadows and emptiness. The buildings were dark, brooding bulks, their doors locked and their shutters fastened. From memory Arnhault could have declared which of the structures harboured a hidden Sequitor or Castigator, where Nerio and Penthius stood by, waiting for his signal.
 	The crucial moment, giving the signal. Arnhault had taken that task onto himself. A flash of arcane lightning from his staff and the Stormcasts would spring into action, closing a circle of righteousness around the infernal Shrouded King. Only when he was certain the fiend was in their trap, that escape was impossible, would he give that signal. Their mission in Ghur depended upon it.
 	So too did the lives, perhaps the very souls, of everyone in Wyrmditt. If the Shrouded King got away there was no telling the sort of vengeance he might wreak. Even as civilisation began to spread across the war-ravaged Mortal Realms once more, so too did the malefic dominion of Nagash. The ghastly necroquake that sent its shock waves from Shyish had loosed legions of the unquiet dead upon the living. The Shrouded King was part of that terrible scourge and even Arnhault could not say how much of its power might be at the wraith’s beck and call. Cheated of its tribute, the spectre might dispense with its pretension of kingly rule and simply annihilate the entire town, each death swelling the numbers of Nagash’s slaves.
 	Such would not be! By Sigmar, Arnhault would not permit it! He had spoken truth to the elders of Wyrmditt. He had fought against the enemies of mankind many times and in all their horrific forms. The Shrouded King was simply the latest of those enemies to cross him, another foe upon which to bring justice and judgement.
 	Why then, he wondered, did he feel so strange? The longer he spent in Wyrmditt, in the old lands of Kharza, the more Arnhault felt a growing unease. His studies of the chronicles and history of the vanquished kingdom lent themselves to an eerie familiarity, or was it something more? What was this hinterland between feeling and knowing?
 	A shadow fell across Arnhault’s awareness, drawing his gaze to the hill above Wyrmditt. There, upon the summit, a lone rider had appeared. Manifested might have been the more fitting word, for the Knight-Incantor swore the horseman had not been there an instant before and there had not been time for his steed to reach the summit unobserved. Illuminated by the lunar glow that suffused the mist, the rider remained a thing of shadows. A dark caparison clothed his mount, rendering it a black smudge upon the hill. The figure astride its back was similarly arrayed, a nebulous blot that exhibited only the vaguest hints of shape within his voluminous robes. Only the head seemed to have substance, a bare skull that rose above the shrouded body.
 	‘The enemy is here,’ Orthan stated, peering through the slats and following Arnhault’s gaze. ‘Look at the crown it wears.’
 	Arnhault had already seen it. Indeed, his eyes could not leave the sight of that jewelled circlet. An unaccountable fury suddenly welled up within him, an emotion as fierce as it was unexplainable. This wasn’t the righteous indignation of Sigmar’s warriors towards the infernal foes of mankind. It was something deeper than that. More base and primal. More selfish.
 	‘By my own hands will this atrocity be destroyed,’ Arnhault swore.
 	Orthan gazed at Arnhault, shocked by the passion in the Knight-Incantor’s voice. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Just as you command. The honour of vanquishing the wraith belongs to you.’
 	Arnhault stifled a bitter laugh at Orthan’s choice of words. Honour? There would be no honour here! There was no honour in crushing vermin under heel. To find honour in battle the enemy had to possess at least some semblance of worthiness. To be more than a thing of contempt.
 	The Knight-Incantor shook his head, stunned by the emotion that gripped him. It was unseemly, this arrogant loathing for which he could not account. By an effort of will, he fought to suppress the feeling. ‘We do not fight for ourselves and our own glory,’ Arnhault said. ‘We fight to fulfil the duty Sigmar has entrusted to us.’ His words were more a chastisement of himself than Orthan, an injunction against the wrath that had so suddenly filled him.
 	The rider began to descend the hill. The ghostly horse trotted towards Wyrmditt at a confident and unhurried pace. There was a sneering disdain about its progress, bespeaking the mocking contempt with which the Shrouded King regarded the living men he had claimed as his subjects. The display evoked disgust in Arnhault.
 	Orthan expressed his own revulsion. ‘Arrogant villain, isn’t he?’ the Sequitor remarked.
 	‘His arrogance serves us,’ Arnhault said. ‘It will lead the wraith into our trap and see him destroyed before he is even aware of his peril.’ 
 	Even as he spoke, Arnhault’s attention remained riveted upon the crown the creature wore about its fleshless head. He recognised it from his studies as that which had been worn by the priest-kings of Kharza before the hordes of Chaos devastated their land. Together with the Dragonseat throne, it was a part of the regalia that signified their dominion. To see that noble legacy debased by this grave-filth was too much to bear. As Sigmar willed it, Arnhault would end this profanation!
 	‘My lord,’ Orthan pointed up at the deserted streets through which the Shrouded King rode. He drew Arnhault’s attention away from the wraith’s crown and to the lone figure who came creeping out from hiding. It was Pater Mathias, the priest of Nagash.
 	‘I should have seized him as Penthius advised,’ Arnhault grumbled as Mathias hurried through the streets. ‘I left him free because I thought his capture would upset the people of Wyrmditt and cause them to resent us. I should have anticipated the possibility of this betrayal and taken pains to prevent it regardless of the consequences.’
 	There could be no question of Mathias’ purpose. The black-robed priest was outside the cordon of hidden Stormcasts, beyond their reach unless they stirred from their concealment and exposed their presence. He was set upon a course that would intercept the slow, imperious ride of the Shrouded King.
 	‘What is done is done,’ Arnhault hissed. He shook his head. ‘Sigmar grant that my mercy has not undone our plans.’ 
 	The Shrouded King drew back upon the reins of his phantom steed as Mathias emerged from an alleyway and stood before him in the street. The priest genuflected towards the wraith in an exhibition of obscene deference.
 	‘Sire,’ Mathias spoke, his thin voice loud in the brooding silence that hung over Wyrmditt. ‘I am your loyal subject, a brother in the service of Nagash.’ He stared up at the Shrouded King. ‘Attend my words, master, for I am your friend.’ He waved his arm towards the pagoda. ‘They are waiting for you. Sigmar’s knights would deny you your tribute and have laid a trap for you! Like slinking jackals, they wait to pounce on you, sire. But I remain true to you. I bring you warning. Ride from Wyrmditt and escape their trap!’
 	The Shrouded King looked down upon Mathias, ghostly lights glowing in the pits of his skull. Seconds stretched into an eternity for Arnhault as he watched to see what the wraith would do. Would he believe Mathias or think the warning itself to be a ruse to trap him? The Knight-Incantor prayed it would be the latter.
 	Arnhault’s prayers seemed to be answered. Answered in savage and brutal fashion. A hiss of contempt boiled off the Shrouded King. The wraith’s bony arm lashed out and in its skeletal claw a smouldering sword appeared. Mathias had time to shriek once before the blade swept across him. As the sword passed through his flesh, a weird double-image of the priest became visible. The solid, physical form of Mathias fell to the street whole and unmarked. At the same time, a translucent reflection staggered where he had been standing, a welter of blood spurting from the half-severed neck. The ghostly shade stumbled as it clutched at its gashed throat, then evaporated in a burst of phantasmal sparks.
 	The Shrouded King urged his aethereal steed onwards, its spectral hooves trampling the physical carcass of the fallen priest. The wraith glared at the pagoda and Arnhault could feel its malignant gaze sweep through him. An electrical shock shivered through his body, a reaction unlike anything he had ever experienced before. With half the town between them, with the walls of the shrine concealing him, Arnhault felt as though the spectre had just reached inside his armour and closed its skeletal fingers around the very core of his soul.
 	‘He knows I am here,’ Arnhault told Orthan, and there was a quiver in his voice when he said it. Because there was something more to it than that. Something he could not express to the Sequitor. Something he tried to deny even to himself. He knows me, Arnhault’s mind raced.
 	The steed reared back, its hooves pawing the air. From the Shrouded King there issued a ghastly howl. A single word, a word that cracked across Wyrmditt like the snarl of a lash. 
 	‘Arise!’
 	In response to the command, shadows surged up around the Shrouded King. In a matter of heartbeats there was a broiling mass of darkness flowing through the street around the wraith, a black cloud that billowed towards the Shrine of Nagash. As the cloud spilled further and further away from the Shrouded King, it began to break apart. Distinct shapes could be discerned, blobs of shadow that became wispy forms draped in dark robes and tattered shrouds. Fleshless faces grinned from beneath decayed hoods. Bony claws clutched rusty chains and gleaming scythes. Embers of grisly grave-light flickered in the sockets of leering skulls.
 	A matter of heartbeats, but in that time Arnhault realised that the trap had been turned against the Stormcasts. The Shrouded King had summoned his phantom vassals, conjuring a tide of wraiths to come crashing down upon the foes who dared to defy his dominion.
 	There was just one chance, a desperate hope that Arnhault seized upon. Just as his own attention had been riveted upon the Shrouded King, if the fiend’s own focus was concentrated upon a single point, perhaps the situation could be salvaged. Perhaps he could give Penthius and Nerio a chance to salvage this disaster. He looked at the disguised Mueller standing on the barren earth, shaking from the fury of the wraith’s cry but unaware of the infernal host rushing straight towards the pagoda. At the very least, Arnhault would not abandon the brave mortal to the undead legion.
 	‘We will draw them to us,’ Arnhault declared. ‘If we can keep them fixated on us, then our brothers may yet surprise this fiend.’
 	Orthan’s hands tightened around the haft of his stormsmite greatmace. ‘Sigmar smiles upon the bold,’ he said. He put action to words, swinging the weapon and obliterating the wooden wall. A hulking figure in golden armour, he pushed through the breached pagoda and strode out onto the open ground. ‘Night-haunting wretches!’ his bellow rang out. ‘Here stands Orthan of the Hammers of Sigmar! Here stands he who will send you back to your empty tombs!’
 	Arnhault followed Orthan out onto the blighted ground. The undead had displayed no especial attention to the Sequitor’s challenge, but the moment the Knight-Incantor appeared in the open, there was a pronounced change. The air itself seemed to crackle with hate. The ghoulish glow in the Shrouded King’s skull took on a livid hue. The intensity of the creature’s focus felt like a blade piercing Arnhault’s breast.
 	‘Volkhard,’ the Shrouded King’s snarl echoed above the silent tide of wraiths. The name, as it rang out, was filled with venom, spat into the air as though it were poison.
 	To Arnhault, the effect was poisonous. He felt a searing shock burn through his veins. He would have sworn he had never encountered the name ‘Volkhard’ before, yet when he heard it uttered by the Shrouded King it felt… familiar. More than familiar – at some deep level, some depth of being beyond conscious awareness, he recognised it. Recognised it as belonging to him. As a part of him.
 	Orthan cried out in alarm when he saw Arnhault stagger. He shifted his hold upon the greatmace and reached out to steady the aether-mage. Even as he did, the enemy came rushing towards them. No longer a silent wave of shadows but a howling gale of undead fury, impelled by the rage that swirled within the spirit of their master.
 	‘Loose!’ Nerio shouted down from the roof of the pagoda. The Castigator-Prime and two of his brothers stood up, their greatbows trained upon the wave of wraiths. Crystal-tipped maces shot down into the ghostly throng. Attuned to the necromantic forces that gave the nighthaunts shape, the flasks fitted to the maces exploded as soon as they connected with the ghostly creatures. The draconic breath trapped within burst forth in blazing balls of blinding light. The dark forms of the wraiths were seared by the holy energy, torn into wispy tatters that dissipated in the mist, their tortured souls banished from the realm of Ghur.
 	A dozen of the wraiths were vanquished by Nerio’s volley, yet the destruction of their companions did nothing to slacken the charge of those that remained. The shadowy host spilled across the barren ground, rushing towards Arnhault and Orthan. Castigators in the surrounding buildings now sent their own shots into the undead legion, obliterating dozens more of the spectral creatures. Penthius and his Sequitors emerged from concealment and ambushed the flanks of the spirit army, their mauls shattering the ghosts in brilliant flashes of Azyrian light.
 	Still the horde continued to pour towards one fixed point, converging upon the pagoda and Arnhault. The Knight-Incantor had prayed he could focus the attention of the nighthaunts, but now that prayer was being answered with a vengeance. Desperately he tried to rouse himself from the shock that had stunned him, but it was like trying to swim against a raging river. His innermost being rebelled against the effort and refused to obey.
 	Orthan turned and raised his greatmace, ready to defend Arnhault to the last. But there was another who moved to defy the oncoming horde. Blind though he was, Friar Mueller could sense the malign evil of the wraiths. He turned towards Orthan and gestured at Arnhault. ‘Take his lordship somewhere safe until his affliction passes! I will delay these fiends for you.’
 	Before Orthan could react, Mueller was moving towards the undead. As he stepped into their path, a nimbus of divine light surrounded the friar. He raised his arms and cried out. ‘Sigmar’s will be done!’
 	The spectral horde faltered for an instant, repelled by the holy aura in its midst. But then an inarticulate shriek of rage rose from the Shrouded King, a command that would brook no denial. The army charged onwards and rolled across the friar in a black wave of death. The priest and the divine light around him were crushed under the phantoms, smothered in the cloying swirl of undead.
 	The sight of Mueller’s self-sacrifice snapped Arnhault from the paralysis that held him. Orthan was already swinging his greatmace to meet the foremost of the shadowy wraiths when Arnhault raised his staff and drew upon the magic of Sigmar’s storm.
 	A gale of aetheric force roared through the undead, crackling with arcane energies. The least of the wraiths were blasted apart by Arnhault’s spell; others were hurled back and forced to draw their scattered essence back into a concentrated shape. The cohesion of the horde was shattered. From a single unstoppable tide, the nighthaunts broke into a litter of disparate bands. Into this bedlam of disorder, Penthius and his Sequitors surged forwards. Arnhault could see them, employing their soulshields to further divide the wraiths and push them into pockets where their stormstrike mauls would complete their dissolution. 
 	Orthan’s greatmace struck down the leering, chain-wrapped spectres that came shrieking towards Arnhault. With every blow of the huge weapon, a wraith was obliterated, the cohesion of its shadowy form shattered in a spray of spectral ribbons. Continued shots from Nerio and his warriors kept the wraiths from bringing any great numbers to bear upon the Sequitor.
 	Arnhault employed his staff to aid Orthan in the defence. Crackling with magic, the sigmarite weapon ravaged the undead horrors. A fiend with the fanged skull of a beast, brandishing a glaive, charged at the aether-mage, only to be struck by the electrified staff and boil away in a cloud of smoke. A dark ghost draped in chains was immolated by the arcane force Arnhault sent into it, a brief flash of spirit fire that quickly vanished.
 	‘Volkhard!’ The Shrouded King’s cry pierced the night, ringing out over the sounds of battle.
 	Again the name struck Arnhault. His awareness seemed to expand, a cascade of images racing through his brain – confusing flashes of places and things, events he could see but not remember. When he looked at the charging wraiths, faces began to appear, filling out the fleshless skulls. Familiar faces, though distorted by the necrotic powers that had resurrected them as grave-cheating ghosts. He could almost put names to some of those faces. If he concentrated, Arnhault thought he might…
 	The Knight-Incantor strove to retain his focus. The song of a spell quivered upon his lips and unleashed a bolt of lightning through the oncoming wraiths. Seven of the fiends were banished in an instant while many others were thrown back in tatters, their dark essence only gradually seeping back to reform into grisly apparitions.
 	If there were names that belonged to the faces Arnhault saw, then they had little connection to the phantoms. These were but the distorted, twisted echoes of the people they had been in life. Whoever they had been, it had no bearing upon what they were now.
 	This conviction made it easier for Arnhault to vanquish the wraiths that surged around him, but when a gap in their shadowy ranks afforded him a view of the Shrouded King he found cause for doubt. The master of the undead army had kept clear of the battle, marshalling his spectral forces from the streets beyond the Shrine of Nagash. Now when Arnhault looked at the monster, he saw a pale face clothing the leering skull, an almost transparent skein of skin about the bones. As with the others, it was a face that was familiar to him.
 	Only this face had a name. For the third time, turmoil seared through Arnhault’s mind and shock sizzled through his veins. He knew the Shrouded King, or at least the man he had been in life…
 	‘Sabrodt,’ Arnhault hissed. Then he added a sobriquet to that name. A title that the villain might not have carried in life but which he had certainly earned in death. ‘Sabrodt the Usurper.’
 	Across the distance, the rider appeared to hear Arnhault. The wraith responded with a bitter peal of laughter, an audible sneer of withering mockery. The Shrouded King fixed his malignant gaze on Arnhault.
 	‘Sabrodt!’ Arnhault raged. He could see the nighthaunts surging towards him again, refocused by their master to destroy the aether-mage. Orthan stumbled back as the tide of chainrasps and glaivewraiths threatened to overwhelm him.
 	A sense of righteous fury blazed through Arnhault’s mind. He drew upon that emotion, feeding it into the arcane song that fell from his lips. A tempest of magic swirled through the geyser-born clouds above Wyrmditt. At his direction, that energy came pelting down in a cascade of burning rain. Against the sigmarite armour of the Stormcasts, the searing deluge was harmless. The undead, however, were not invulnerable. Like wax candles melting beneath a flame, the creatures wilted in the rain, clumps of their essence dripping away. Where a seething mass of shadows had filled the cursed ground around the pagoda, soon there was only a stagnant slime of smouldering ectoplasm.
 	One wraith alone had the force of will to defy the storm Arnhault had summoned. Away in the streets, the Shrouded King glared at the aether-mage. The semblance of a face vanished, leaving the creature’s leering skull.
 	‘Sabrodt!’ Arnhault cried out again. Before he could muster the energy for another spell, the Shrouded King whipped his steed around and galloped off into the deserted town. ‘Sabrodt!’ he shouted and started to run towards the streets. As he charged after the retreating rider, Arnhault found he was not alone. First Orthan, then other Stormcasts joined him in pursuing the wraith. 
 	When he reached the spot from where Sabrodt had watched the battle and directed his forces, Arnhault paused. There was a scum of darkness spattered across the cobblestones, residue from the wraith that had melted off in the deluge. A little further on, he could see more drops of ectoplasm.
 	‘We must hasten, my lord,’ Nerio advised. The Castigator-Prime gestured with his greatbow towards the hill above the town. Just visible from where they stood was the dark shape of the undead rider. ‘He has been hurt by your magic. We can still catch him if we hurry.’
 	Penthius nodded, taking up his brother’s call to action. ‘Wyrm­ditt will not be safe and our mission not fulfilled until we have destroyed the Shrouded King.’
 	Arnhault gazed up at the fleeing wraith as its aethereal steed carried it over the top of the hill. He looked back at the spatters of ectoplasm. But more than that, he reflected upon the things he had experienced during the battle. 
 	There were questions here. Questions that might prove even more important than pushing back the grasping hand of Nagash and his undead slaves.
 	‘No,’ Arnhault commanded. ‘Let him go.’ He could see the confusion in their eyes. They did not doubt his abilities but that did not mean they understood his intentions.
 	Arnhault wanted to keep it that way. At least for now. Instead he placated his brothers with a half-truth. ‘It is vital we end this scourge not simply for today, but for good. To do so, we need to do more than just destroy the Shrouded King. We must track him back to his lair and purge it of whatever infernal power has concentrated there. We must find the source of this undead plague and ensure it has been disposed of.
 	‘Only then can we say we have honoured our obligations to Sigmar and our Stormhost,’ Arnhault told them. ‘Only then can we go home,’ he added, but there was a strange light in his eyes when he said it. Because somewhere deep inside him, he could not shake the uncanny sensation that he already was home.
 
 
 	Chapter four


 	 
 

 	Cold pain crawled through the spectral essence of Sabrodt as his steed galloped away from Wyrmditt. The searing deluge that had been conjured from the misty sky had inflicted a measure of harm upon the wraith. But it was an injury from which the Shrouded King was already recovered, his black powers drawing from the deathly vibrations left by the necro­quake Nagash had unleashed upon the realms to replenish his phantasmal shape.
 	No, it was the other wound he had taken that wracked Sabrodt’s being with a numb, gnawing agony. An old wound, festered and rotten, so long a part of him he had deluded himself that it was gone. Sight of the aether-mage who led the warriors of Sigmar ripped open the scab and let the poison of hate swell through his soul. 
 	He knew that one. There was no mistaking the flavour of that spirit, the presence that motivated the reforged body. Through a thousand generations and all the manifold realities of the Underworlds, Sabrodt would have recognised the being of King Volkhard.
 	The fires in the pits of the wraith’s skull flared into a ghastly crimson incandescence. Sabrodt no longer saw the mist-veiled hills above Wyrmditt or the plumes of steam streaking up from the fields of geysers. It was a different kind of land through which he now rode, a land richer and more vibrant than that he had claimed as part of his domain. He could see great fields of wheat and corn, vast orchards of peach and almond, hills green with grapevines. There were tall manors with ivy-covered walls and roofs tiled in white slate. The villages of tenant farmers with their huts of wattle and daub, each with its little garden and chicken coop. 
 	A bitter hiss rasped across the wraith’s teeth. This was the land he’d coveted, the land he’d fought so hard to possess. The memory of it was etched onto his spirit, branded there by the fire of his passion. It was his by right! Kharza and the Dragonseat and all that fell within its dominion.
 	Even as he stretched forth his fleshless claw, Sabrodt saw the landscape fade and change, shifting back into mist and wilderness. A mirage of the past. All that remained of the kingdom that should have belonged to him.
 	The Shrouded King looked back over his shoulder, towards Wyrmditt. He would return. He would bring forth all the ghostly legions at his command and he would raze the place. Not one brick would be left standing, no two beams of wood left nailed together. Every soul in the place would be wrested from its mortal flesh and drawn into Sabrodt’s undead army. The Stormcasts…
 	A cruel laugh rose from Sabrodt as he considered the sigmarite-clad knights. He had made a mistake before, allowed his kingly outrage to cloud his judgement. Revenge upon Volkhard made him oblivious to the might of his foes. The retinue he brought with him from his graveyard court was unequal to the feat of destroying the Stormcasts. More, much more, was needed to overwhelm them. And he knew just where he would bring such a horde to bear upon Sigmar’s knights.
 	Volkhard would not be content to remain in Wyrmditt. Sabrodt had seen him, so too had he seen Sabrodt. Volkhard would pursue the wraith now, hunt for the Shrouded King across the entire realm if need be. Were their positions reversed, had Volkhard done to Sabrodt what Sabrodt had done to him, there would be nowhere the wraith would not follow. The aether-mage would lead the rest of the Stormcasts after the Shrouded King.
 	Sabrodt raked his talons through his spectral essence, willing his recent wounds to reopen. He watched with abominable satisfaction as splashes of black ectoplasm dribbled onto the ground. A trail for his foes to follow. He would make it easy on Volkhard.
 	It would be unbrotherly to let him be late for his own funeral.
 	‘There is more of the wraith’s ichor up here, my lord!’ Nerio called down to Arnhault. The Castigator-Prime gestured with his greatbow at the spectral splotches that marred the ground beside him.
 	Arnhault felt a sense of relief that Nerio had recovered the trail. Twice since leaving Wyrmditt, the Stormcasts had lost the Shrouded King’s track. The spectral steed he rode left only infrequent marks behind – a wilted stem where its flanks had brushed across a bush or a patch of yellowed grass where a hoof had touched the ground. The stains left by the wraith himself were far easier to find, ugly black blemishes that looked like painted shadows and carried with them the rank stench of the grave. Keeping them in sight, the Hammers of Sigmar could be certain of following their quarry back to his lair.
 	‘I do not like this,’ Penthius confessed, drawing close to Arnhault so that the other Stormcasts would not hear. They were marching through a system of narrow valleys that wended their way between the hills beyond Wyrmditt. It was terrain to make any soldier uneasy. If an enemy should appear on the hills and spring an ambush, the Hammers of Sigmar would be trapped.
 	‘You have dispatched scouts to warn us of any lurking foe,’ Arnhault reminded Penthius. He gestured with his staff at the hills around them. Carefully making their way along each flank were a pair of Castigators with a Sequitor to support them. ‘In perfect keeping with the doctrines of Lycaeon. We use the valley to hide our presence, we keep scouts on our flanks to ensure we have remained hidden.’
 	Penthius shook his head. ‘It is not a question of procedure,’ he said. He tapped his hand against his chest-plate. ‘This feels wrong. I feel it down inside.’ He pointed at the black stains left by the Shrouded King. ‘This trail strikes me as too deliberate, too easy to follow. I think Nerio would agree with me. Even when he loses it for a moment, it is never too hard for him to find again.’
 	‘The Shrouded King was wounded when I summoned the storm’s power,’ Arnhault declared. ‘Only the most powerful among the undead could recover from that magnitude of divine magic.’
 	‘Then this one should have already faded away,’ Penthius said. ‘We have followed this trail for several miles now and the wraith still leaves its essence behind like a slug’s slime. Surely it has lost enough to lose its ability to manifest and been compelled to fade back into its grave?’
 	‘Perhaps he can draw upon the energies of the necroquake,’ Arnhault suggested. ‘I am more attuned to the aetheric vibrations than you, brother, and I can sense the fell energies left by Nagash’s ritual. How much more connected to those vibrations would a creature formed from the same energies be? We have already seen that the Shrouded King can call upon the black art of necromancy. Perhaps he can also draw on the necro­quake’s vibrations to replenish the ectoplasm he is losing.’
 	‘Or perhaps the wraith is baiting us,’ Penthius warned, his tone severe.
 	Arnhault closed his eyes. The Sequitor-Prime had given voice to the worry that nagged at his own mind. Was the Shrouded King leading them all into a trap?
 	‘Some bait is worth taking,’ Arnhault told Penthius. ‘Employ what precautions you feel are necessary, but we will not abandon this trail. Wherever it leads, the Hammers of Sigmar will follow.’
 	Arnhault said no more. He did not dare to. It was enough that following the Shrouded King would lead them to the wraith’s stronghold and allow the Stormcasts to complete their mission: to liberate Wyrmditt from its undead oppressor and reclaim the region from Nagash’s power. This much was the duty that had been entrusted to the Hammers of Sigmar.
 	There was another reason that drove Arnhault onwards despite the danger. A possibility that was so profound in its potential that he trembled to consider what it might mean.
 	The process of reforging was flawed. Wresting the spirits of the valiant from the grasp of death at the very moment of their passing gave Sigmar the power to build an army of eternal heroes. But there was a price to such power, a toll that was paid by each Stormcast when their soul was set upon the Anvil of the Apotheosis. An insidious sort of degradation set in, stripping away the memories of what had come before. The Stormcast who fell in battle was reborn in Sigmaron, but each time he left something of himself behind. There were some who had undergone the process so often that only their sense of duty and their devotion to Sigmar remained. In rare instances even this spiritual anchor was lost and the spirit broke free to become a rampaging lightning-gheist, a near-mindless ghost of awful strength.
 	Reforging wore down the memories of each Stormcast. What they were remained, but who they were was increasingly lost. Arnhault himself had no memory of who he had been before his first reforging. The spells, the esoteric lore, even the history he’d drawn from the libraries of his Sacrosanct Chamber, these were all at his immediate recall. The life that had come before then, however, was a blur – mere impressions rather than memories. Seldom had he even given the lost past much thought. It was enough that he had his duty and his devotion to Sigmar.
 	At least it had been so until now. Arnhault had felt the Shrouded King’s recognition like a sword piercing his breast. ‘Volkhard’, the wraith had named him, and he knew the name was his own. Just as he knew the undead fiend was Sabrodt and that the creature was a usurper with no right to the crown he claimed.
 	Arnhault did not know how he knew these things; he only felt them to be true, as true as anything he had ever learned – scraps from a forgotten past rising from some buried part of his being. That they could be conjured forth by Sabrodt was a mystery, one that Arnhault was determined to unravel. The Shrouded King had transcended death, just like the Stormcasts, but he had not lost his memories. Further, he had somehow been able to provoke them in Arnhault’s psyche, stirring them up from whatever secret place they had been buried during his reforging. 
 	Even more than freeing Wyrmditt and ending the terror of the nighthaunts, Arnhault had to discover how Sabrodt had done this to him. How had the wraith made him remember he had once been named Volkhard? The key to unlock that mystery had implications far beyond simply Arnhault’s own lost memories. It could bring about a new age for the Stormhosts and serve to correct the terrible flaw in the reforging process.
 	If Arnhault could discover Sabrodt’s secret, he and all his fellow Stormcasts need never fear losing their humanity when their spirits were set against the Anvil. They would fully become the heroic warriors Sigmar intended them to be.
 	The spectral trail led across what had been the frontier and deep into the Kingdom of Kharza. Great stands of blackened trees, their branches scratching at the sky like the claws of skeletons, had risen to reclaim the pastures and fields of more civilised centuries. Black buzzards cried out as they flew through the grey sky, their eyes roving the earth below for the merest scrap of carrion. Lean jackals crept through thorny brush, their noses sniffing the air for any hint of rotten meat on the wind. Emaciated hogs, their hides hanging loose over their bones, pawed at the desiccated soil, greedily devouring the few grubs and beetles their efforts exposed.
 	Through this wild desolation, the golden armour of the Stormcasts made a stark contrast as they marched onwards. Scouts preceded the main column while strings of pickets watched the flanks. In the midst of his retinue, Knight-Incantor Arnhault maintained a stoic silence, marching with the almost mechanistic step that told his companions he had entered a semi-meditative trance. Left to their own company, Penthius and Nerio took position at the head of the column where they could monitor both the main body and the scouts ahead of them.
 	‘Another village,’ Penthius pointed out, waving his maul towards a stretch of wilderness where the weeds and brambles exhibited a certain uniformity in the way they had grown. ‘The walls are gone, but you can still see how the plants mark where the buildings stood.’
 	Nerio smiled at the Sequitor-Prime’s observation. ‘Anything that needs to sink its roots deep can’t do it where there’s a stone foundation to contend with.’ He clapped his brother on the back. ‘I explained as much to you three villages ago. You are so vexed by the possibility of ambush that you are becoming forgetful.’ 
 	Penthius uttered an annoyed grunt. ‘I still say we are being led by the nose. The Knight-Incantor suspects as much himself, but he feels it is a risk worth taking.’
 	‘Do you question Arnhault’s judgement?’ Nerio asked, both surprised and offended by Penthius’ words.
 	‘I am not so arrogant that I would be so impertinent,’ Penthius replied. ‘But it may be that Arnhault is… Well, to me he seems distracted. And I think that has caused him to lose his sense of perspective.’
 	Nerio gave Penthius a reproving look. ‘You are questioning the Knight-Incantor’s judgement,’ he accused. He glanced around, noticing that his raised voice had drawn the attention of the Sequitors and Castigators following them. ‘Arnhault has served the Hammers of Sigmar through many reforgings. He is a veteran campaigner who knows his duty.’ Nerio’s tone became almost derisive. ‘What could possibly distract a warrior of his calibre from fulfilling his mission?’
 	The severity in Penthius’ eyes when he looked at Nerio made the Castigator-Prime stop in his tracks. He did not argue when his brother drew him away from the column and towards the ruined village.
 	‘I do not know what it is that has disturbed Arnhault,’ Penthius told Nerio, ‘but something happened to change him back in Wyrmditt. There is a shadow hanging over his mind. He has not spoken of it, but sometimes, for just a moment, you can see it if you are watching him closely enough.’
 	Nerio shook his head and pointed back to the column and at Arnhault’s trance-like march. ‘The Knight-Incantor meditates to bring his powers to their peak. His mind is on the battle ahead of us…’
 	‘That is just the problem,’ Penthius interjected. ‘Arnhault isn’t thinking about the battle. Not the way he normally would.’
 	‘What is wrong, Penthius?’ Nerio’s tone was curt. ‘Is he deviating from protocol too much for your hidebound sensibilities?’
 	Penthius let the jab go unanswered. Instead, he simply gestured to the ruins around them. ‘This is the third village we’ve seen. The deeper we march into what was Kharza, the more evidence we see of how prosperous this land once was.’ He pointed a finger at Nerio’s chest. ‘Consider how populous this land was before Chaos despoiled it. Now ask yourself how many of those people, how many of their spirits, have been drawn into the Shrouded King’s legions?’
 	Nerio shook his head, rejecting the idea. ‘The Shrouded King was not so mighty when we fought him in Wyrmditt.’
 	‘But now we will fight it on ground of its choosing,’ Penthius pointed out. He waved his maul at the blackened forests with their skeletal branches. ‘Remember when we first descended upon Ghur and how Arnhault showed us the lingering taint of Chaos? Have you seen any sign of that corruption here? Or is it all suffering from a different blight, a blight from Shyish and the black power of Nagash?’
 	Nerio was silent as he weighed the questions put to him. He had done a fair amount of scouting after they’d left Wyrmditt, rotating the duty between all his Castigators. ‘No,’ he confessed. ‘I have seen no evidence of Chaos, only the decay of death.’
 	‘This is the Shrouded King’s domain,’ Penthius stated. ‘The wraith has led us here on purpose because it is here that it thinks it can destroy us. Among the strictures of combat there is the admonishment to always beware of letting the enemy decide when and where to fight.’
 	‘If all you say is true, then we have no choice but to fight the wraith here,’ Nerio said. ‘Place our trust in Sigmar that our pursuit of the Shrouded King has been swift enough for us to catch him before he is ready. If we do not vanquish him, then we will fail in our duty here.’
 	Penthius nodded slowly. ‘We will answer the demands of duty and none shall look upon us and say our honour was in question. But when battle is joined, we must be vigilant. This thing that distracts Arnhault…’
 	‘You think the Knight-Incantor would do anything…’
 	‘No,’ Penthius interjected. ‘Arnhault would do nothing to put the rest of us at deliberate risk. But I would not say he would disdain to take such a risk onto himself. If he thought the gain to be had was worth it, he would not spare himself.’ There was a grim look in Penthius’ eyes. ‘That is what we must look for. I worry that Arnhault will underestimate this enemy and take chances with himself that he should forego.’ He looked back to the column and stared at the Knight-Incantor. ‘I think there is some connection between him and this wraith. And I fear that connection may bring Arnhault’s doom.’
 	Into what had been a land of fertility but was now a haunted domain of lingering shadows, Sabrodt’s spectral trail led the Hammers of Sigmar. Arnhault could feel the change in the air, could sense the macabre atmosphere into which they marched. Throughout the long chase, the landscape had grown steadily more decadent, the unburied corpse of Kharza left to rot under a grey sky. Now, however, that sense of things dead and forsaken intensified to such a degree that he could feel it down inside his lungs every time he drew a breath. Nor was he the only one to be afflicted by that uncanny impression. The Sacrosanct Stormcasts were all attuned to the aether to lesser and greater degrees. He could see the most sensitive among the Castigators and Sequitors pause from time to time in their steps, hesitating as they tried to shake the ghoulish influence pressing upon them.
 	For Arnhault it was something more than just sensitivity to the necrotic aura of the Shrouded King’s land. From the corners of his eyes he kept catching fleeting images of the Kharza of old. He saw the peach trees with their furry fruit, watched the wind sigh through a field of golden wheat. A sun-bronzed ploughman working the soil. A big white cow idly chewing her cud. Children playing around the walls of a well, their yellow hair flaring in the breeze. All of these scenes called to him, crying out to some part of his being that was impotent to respond. He felt a sense of regret that he did not recognise these phantasms, for he knew they had once been precious to him. When he turned his head, when he would have focused more directly upon these images, they invariably disappeared, consumed by the grimness of Sabrodt’s kingdom.
 	Sabrodt’s kingdom. Merely thinking of it as such made Arnhault’s body cold with rage. The wraith had done this. Whatever destruction the hordes of Chaos wrought, it was the blight of necromancy that now assailed these lands. Or perhaps the rot was even older than that. The idea suggested itself to Arnhault and would not go away, nagging at the edges of his anger and trying to fan it into a consuming hate.
 	Kharza had been remade into the decayed semblance of the Shrouded King. Nowhere was this in greater evidence than when the Stormcasts ascended the narrow pass and stood upon the barren plateau. The morbid influence became stronger still as Arnhault gazed across the plain. Here, he knew, was the very root of the nighthaunts, the font from which the undead scourge drew its hideous strength.
 	Arnhault knew this because he found that he knew this place. Not with an understanding conjured from books and scrolls, but with the wisdom engendered only by experience. He looked across the plain, at the surrounding heights of jumbled stone, the deathly bulks of barrow mounds and ancient cairns – but he did not see these things.
 	Instead, he saw a great army assembled. Arnhault could hear the snap of banners flying in the wind, could smell the husky scent of war dogs as they were led from their wheeled kennels. He saw cavalry, a great company of high-born sons astride coal-black destriers, their lamellar armour painted with the glyphs of their household gods. The mounted knights were arrayed on the flanks, screened by a phalanx of common pikemen, freeholders drawn from across the kingdom, each responsible for his own weapons and armour. Beside the pikemen were row upon row of archers, professional soldiers maintained by the nobles and the great temples, each company bearing the colours of their sponsor. At the centre, terrible in their blackened mail, were the royal guards of the priest-king himself, warriors chosen from across the domain and from every caste, selected not for the blood of their breeding but for the blood they were prepared to shed in battle. Among them, fighting afoot as was the royal custom, would be the priest-king himself.
 	Arnhault shook himself, shuddering as he felt a part of himself being drawn into the mirage. Quickly he looked around, fighting to orientate himself in the present. The battlefield of yesterday was washed away, receding into the corridors of his memory.
 	‘What is it, my lord?’ Penthius asked. There was not only concern in his tone, but also a touch of uneasiness.
 	‘This is the place,’ Arnhault declared. ‘This is where the necro­quake cast its most malignant energies. The Shrouded King will fly from us no longer. Here is where he will fight.’
 	‘It is a trap,’ Penthius said, looking across the ancient graves. 
 	‘Yes,’ Arnhault agreed. ‘Our advantage is that the Shrouded King does not expect us to know it is a trap. Bold is the dragon who enters the snare knowingly and fierce is his wrath when the hunter comes to claim him.’
 	Penthius smiled as he lifted the sigmarite mask to his helm and fastened it tight. ‘What are your orders, my lord?’
 	Arnhault gazed across his retinue. At Nerio and his Castigators with their thunderhead greatbows, at the Sequitors with their stormstrike mauls and soulshields. He looked again at the echoes of the past, at the army of Kharza arrayed for its final battle. He could see now the priest-king, adorned in the jewelled armour of his estate, the clawed crown of his kingdom circling his helm. He felt those royal eyes upon him and he knew the monarch’s name was Volkhard.
 	‘We advance,’ Arnhault said. He pointed his staff at a small patch of green amidst the morbid waste. ‘That will be our rally­ing point.’
 	Penthius nodded and motioned Nerio to join them. ‘It is too much to think we will get that far without being challenged.’ He glanced at the rocky slopes that descended from the sides of the plateau, and to the rocky slopes that bordered its further edge. ‘The nighthaunts are spectres without substance. Difficult ground will be no impediment to them.’ He gave Arnhault a severe look. ‘When they come at us, they will come from every side.’
 	‘We march in turtle formation?’ Nerio asked. ‘My Castigators at the centre with your Sequitors locking shields?’
 	‘No,’ Arnhault told them. ‘Not a turtle. A dragon.’ He pointed to Penthius. ‘Divide your warriors into four groups, fore and aft, left and right. At your command, any one section drops down and allows the dragon to expel its flames.’ He turned to Nerio. ‘Your warriors will provide those flames. Each of your maces can break the arcane cord that maintains the undead. As we advance, the Castigators will maintain a steady barrage. The Sequitors will hold the enemy back with shield and maul – you will finish them with your volleys.’
 	‘As you command,’ Nerio replied, excitement in his tone. 
 	‘The plan is a sound one,’ Penthius said. ‘A similar tactic was employed by Lord-Celestant Kadir Lingh at the Battle of the Cursed Fountain and he was able to successfully fend off three thousand beastkin with less than a hundred warriors.’ He shook his head. ‘Of course, our foes are more formidable than beastkin and–’
 	‘And there is the fact we will be advancing while we are in formation instead of just holding our ground,’ Nerio added. He saw the surprise in Penthius’ eyes. ‘I am familiar with procedure – it is just I seldom find it applicable.’
 	Arnhault gestured with his staff at the plateau. ‘Your Castigators must move and fire,’ he told Nerio. ‘How quickly they do so will set the pace of our advance.’
 	Nerio saluted the Knight-Incantor. ‘We will not fail you, my lord.’
 	Arnhault nodded and dismissed his brothers. They had their warriors to make ready and he, he had his mind to prepare. The battlefield was of Sabrodt’s choosing, a place steeped in the blood and death of Kharza’s last stand against Chaos. The Shrouded King had chosen this site because it was here that his dominion was strongest.
 	His eyes drawn again to that small spot of green, Arnhault considered that it was also here that Sabrodt’s dominion was not complete.
 	A chill wind whipped across the plateau as the Stormcasts began their advance. Nerio could feel the clammy clutch of the grave pawing at him, reaching down inside him with cold fingers that scratched across his very soul. He closed his hand tighter about the hammer talisman he bore and whispered prayers until the profaning energies abated. Around him he could hear other Stormcasts following his example; many of his Castigators and even a few of the Sequitors were trying to drive away the defiling emanations.
 	The Hammers of Sigmar maintained a loose formation. Penthius would give the command to close ranks and become the dragon of Arnhault’s plan. The intention was to lull the Shrouded King into complacency, to make the wraith believe that they were haplessly following him into his trap. To alert the their foe early would be to fight for every inch of ground. This way they would be able to gain some distance unchallenged.
 	Nerio wondered about the point Arnhault had chosen as their objective. He was no aether-mage, but even he could sense the strangeness of the spot. A lone patch of life amidst the Shrouded King’s stronghold. Whatever secret was bound into the plot’s defiance of the wraith’s death magic, it was clear Arnhault thought the Stormcasts could make use of it against the nighthaunts.
 	‘Steady,’ Nerio cautioned his Castigators as they moved across the desolate plain. Each step they took brought a magnification of the sense of menace he felt pressing down on him. He could feel a thousand baleful eyes watching him, despising every breath he drew into his body, envious of each pulse that sent blood coursing through his veins. It was something he had felt before when the Hammers of Sigmar were called upon to oppose the undying legions of Nagash. That strange and hideous hate of the dead towards the living, a remorseless need to destroy what they could no longer possess.
 	Nerio and the Castigators gradually moved further onto the ancient battlefield. All around them, in a loose posture that was deceptively relaxed, Penthius and his Sequitors marched with shields on their backs and mauls at their sides. Arnhault kept pace with the Sequitors, his robes fluttering about him in the clammy breeze. 
 	The change came with such abruptness that Nerio had to blink to be certain that what he saw was not merely a trick of the light. A dark smudge upon the ground, a stain that gradually elongated, slowly expanding before them. From a mere mark on the barren earth, it grew into a wispy shape, definite in form but as intangible as a shadow. What it resembled was a jumble of bones and bits of rusted armour, a decayed sword and a grinning skull. From the skeletal heap, a sense of misery and loss struck Nerio, such that he was forced to stop to shake the impression from his mind.
 	As he cleared the cobwebs inside his skull, Nerio saw that the phantom remains that had captured his attention were not the only ones upon the plain. Everywhere there were other shadows seeping up from the earth and taking shape. The ground was becoming black with the skeletal images. The carrion of a great battle boiling up from their forgotten graves.
 	‘Sacrosancts!’ Penthius called out. ‘Close ranks!’ At the Sequitor-Prime’s command his warriors pulled the shields from their backs and unlimbered the mauls hanging from their belts. Nerio’s Castigators formed a compact square while the Sequitors converged on their position, ringing them with a wall of soulshields. Orthan prowled the inner edges of the square with his greatmace, smashing the phantom corpses before they could get underfoot.
 	‘They will attack soon,’ Nerio advised his archers. ‘Be ready to loose the instant I give the order.’ Around him, the Castigators raised their thunderhead greatbows and fitted the crystal-headed maces into their carriages.
 	What had been simply jumbles of bone a moment before now began to stir. Like fungi, each shadow rapidly shot upwards, taking on the grisly vestige of a fleshless skeleton wrapped in its own shroud. Great lengths of chain bound some of the apparitions while the bony talons of others clenched phantasmal scythes and mouldy swords. From every eye socket, a green glow shone, a spectral malevolence that glared hungrily at the Stormcasts.
 	‘What are they waiting for?’ one of the Castigators cried out as their formation marched past the unmoving masses of nighthaunts. 
 	It was a question for which Nerio had no answer. Each step, each yard, brought more of the spectres boiling up from the ground. Now he could see the malformed muzzles of gors and skaven protruding from some of the shadowy figures. The Shrouded King was calling up not only the vanquished of Kharza but also the restless spirits of the Chaos horde that had conquered their land.
 	‘Sabrodt is here.’ Arnhault did not say the words in a loud voice, but they cracked across the tense silence like a peal of thunder just the same. Ahead of Nerio, the Knight-Incantor stared at the great cairn that dominated the macabre site. 
 	There was a patch of darkness between the Stormcasts and the tomb, a darkness that became steadily more substantial until it had assumed the same grisly likeness they had observed in Wyrmditt. A skeletal rider wearing a crown and bearing a sword, his steed draped in black.
 	The Shrouded King raised his sword overhead. He swung it through the air three times then from his fleshless jaws a single word issued. ‘Arise!’ And at the wraith’s command, the jumbled bones swelled into spectral warriors with even greater rapidity while more dark stains seeped up from the ground. ‘Arise!’ the monster repeated, and again the ranks of its army grew.
 	‘The judgement of Sigmar be upon you!’ Arnhault shouted. He raised his staff aloft, its tip far above the heads of the other Sacrosancts. From above, a crackle of lightning swept down from the sky. The bolt flashed into the aether-mage’s staff and then burst forth in a rolling wave of sparks and flashes. The arcane energy flew towards Sabrodt, immolating those spectres caught in its path, reducing them to puffs of ash and cinder. The Shrouded King himself was caught in the blast, the magic crackling through his essence. The wraith sank to the ground as the steed beneath him evaporated. 
 	Protected from Arnhault’s spell by his own black magic, Sabrodt pointed his sword at the Knight-Incantor. ‘There!’ he snarled. ‘There stands Volkhard, the faithless king who led you to defeat! There stands Volkhard, the foolish king who thought to defy your conquest!’
 	At the Shrouded King’s shriek, the gathering spectres raised their own howls of rage and despair. A black wave of hate, the nighthaunts came sweeping towards the Stormcasts from every side.
 	‘Stand fast!’ Penthius shouted as he locked shields with his troops. The Sequitors’ soulshields formed a wall against which the oncoming wraiths crashed. The undead were stunned by the divine energy that emanated from the shields, fed into them by the esoteric discipline of Penthius and his warriors. Scorched and singed, the creatures drew back. As they did, the glow from the shields passed over into the spiked mauls the Stormcasts bore. Before the wraiths could recover, the Sequitors lashed out, striking them with their enchanted weapons. Dozens of the spectres burst apart under the assault, their essence unable to endure the holy aura that infused the mauls.
 	‘Falcon!’ Nerio shouted, and at his call the Castigators swung around to the right and raised their greatbows. At the same instant, the Sequitors there dropped to one knee, leaving a gap through which the archers could shoot. Loosing the crystal-headed maces, the Castigators sent an explosive barrage into the horde of wraiths. As each mace struck, whether connecting with the phantasmal essence of a nighthaunt or smacking against the unclean ground, it exploded in a blast of draconic flame. The unleashed breath of Stardrakes consumed the wraiths, extinguishing their deathly energies in an instant, leaving behind only splotches of rancid ectoplasm.
 	‘Eagle!’ Nerio cried out, and this time it was the Sequitors at the head of the formation who dropped down and made way for the missiles the Castigators sent into the undead horde. Again the wraiths were consumed by the exploding maces, scores felled in the blink of an eye. Yet still more of them came, surging upwards from the barren earth, determined to claim the lives of the warriors who dared trespass in their domain.
 	‘Our advance is too slow!’ Penthius cried out. ‘They are too many to keep back!’ A second wave of wraiths came sweeping in, crashing against the soulshields. This time, mixed amongst the chainrasps were some of the skaven-skulled apparitions. Baring their chisel-like fangs in grotesque snarls, they brought long glaives to bear, stabbing past the guarding shields to pierce the warriors behind them. Three Sequitors collapsed, spilling into the mass of Castigators behind them. Orthan lunged to plug one of the gaps, his greatmace obliterating the scythe-wielding ghost that came sweeping through the breached shield wall. Arnhault rushed to another gap, his staff crackling with arcane power as he drove it through the ghostly head of another wraith that tried to exploit the lapsed defence.
 	Nerio ran to plug the final hole. ‘Hawk!’ he shouted to his men as he hurried to confront the beast-headed phantom that flew into the middle of their formation. While the Castigators turned to loose their maces into the mass of wraiths converging on the left flank, Nerio moved against the glaive-wielding ghost. The thing slashed at him with its weapon, missing him by such slight measure that he could feel the chill of its necrotic blade rush through him. In response he brought his greatbow up and shot a mace through its chest and up into its skull. The bestial ghost disintegrated in a flash of crackling energy and burning shadows.
 	‘Sigmar protect and defend!’ Arnhault’s voice sang out. ‘Sigmar smite and avenge!’ The Knight-Incantor’s body briefly glowed with aetheric energies as he tapped into the arcane storm and focused his will upon it. An instant later, a tremendous gale descended upon the plateau, lashing across the plain with tempestuous force. Entire clutches of wraiths were buffeted by the punishing winds, shredded by the elemental force unleashed upon them. Phantasmal tatters writhed through the dark sky as the wraiths lost cohesion.
 	‘Quickly!’ Arnhault shouted to the Sacrosancts. He gestured with his staff towards the patch of greenery.
 	‘Forwards!’ Nerio ordered his troops, urging them to haste. Penthius, too, spurred his Sequitors onwards, seizing the advantage that had been gained. 
 	A momentary advantage. Nerio could see a grey phantom flitting about the plain, a ghoulish lantern clenched in its hands. Wherever its cadaverous light shone, the tattered wraiths began to coalesce while more of their number came bubbling up from the cursed earth. It would not be long before a revivified undead legion came sweeping down upon them once more.
 	Nerio had served with Arnhault before and knew something of the toll the Knight-Incantor’s spells took on him. He would not easily be able to conjure another gale to batter the nighthaunts a second time. Moreover, as he looked ahead, he could see the Shrouded King moving his own forces to intercept them.
 	The wraith had conjured another steed for himself, this time an assemblage of equine bones that exuded a gibbous glow. Around him, a cadre of spectres wielding long scythes and with blindfolds lashed about their faces came shrieking and howling towards the Stormcasts.
 	‘Eagle!’ Nerio shouted, but this time when the Castigators loosed their missiles the wraiths were hardly disturbed by the explosive detonations. Instead an eerie green light enveloped them and absorbed the very worst of the blast. Sabrodt laughed as his undead soldiers came surging onwards.
 	‘Return to the graves which are your rest!’ Arnhault shouted. Standing behind the Sequitors, he aimed his staff at the charging mass of nighthaunts. A deafening thunderclap boomed across the plateau, its force hurling the wraiths back with hurricane force. Sabrodt alone defied the power of Arnhault’s spell, his steed digging in its hooves and sliding back across the lifeless earth for several feet before the intensity of the storm was expended.
 	By then it was too late. Only a few yards separated the Hammers of Sigmar from the patch of greenery they had been striving to reach. ‘For the Heldenhammer!’ Arnhault cried as he dashed through the ranks of the Sequitors and made for the one spot on all the plateau that had resisted the malignity of the necroquake and the spells of Sabrodt.
 	Nerio was not sure what he had expected to happen when they actually reached that spot. Some infusion of divine energies perhaps, some aura of holy protection that would render them immune to the ravages of the undead.
 	None of that happened. Instead, Arnhault just stood there for a moment. There was a strange look in his eyes, an expression Nerio had never seen there before. But whatever strange spell held him, it quickly abated. When it was gone, Arnhault did not rejoin the Stormcasts. Instead, he turned towards the Shrouded King.
 	‘I know who you are,’ Arnhault hissed, and in his voice there was a measure of hate and rage that chilled even Nerio’s heart.
 	The Shrouded King whipped his steed around and galloped into the huge cairn. Arnhault howled in fury and charged after the wraith, pursuing him towards the tomb.
 	‘Arnhault! My lord! Come back!’ Nerio shouted after the Knight-Incantor.
 	‘Castigator-Prime Nerio!’ Penthius snapped. He swung around to see the other Stormcast glowering at him. ‘The undead are regathering their strength. They will attack soon. I task you with holding them back.’
 	Nerio shook his head. ‘Me? But you are senior in rank! You should be in command.’
 	Penthius had already broken ranks and was hurrying after Arnhault. ‘You are in command,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘I have to help Arnhault!’
 	Nerio watched him go, then glanced at the patch of greenery. What was that place? And what had it done to the Knight-Incantor?
 	He set aside those questions as the spectral horde came sweeping towards them once more. ‘Close ranks!’ he commanded. ‘Sequitors, hold the line! Castigators be ready to loose on my mark!’
 
 
 	Chapter five


 	 
 

 	A fury such as Arnhault had never known roared through his heart. Standing upon the small plot of grassy earth had opened him to something. He could not say if the images that seared through his mind were drawn into him from outside or borne to his awareness by some deep, forgotten fragment of his psyche. Whatever their source the effect was like being struck by a thunderbolt. He no longer merely felt the name Volkhard belonged to him; he knew he was Volkhard.
 	Arnhault could see the barren plain around him as it had been long ago, on that day when he’d led his army at the head of his household guard against the hordes of Chaos. He saw again the horde of marauders and monsters as they came charging up onto the plateau. He braced his forces. It was here and here alone they had any chance of stopping the invaders and protecting the heartland of Kharza. Here the awesome numbers of the Chaos horde could not be brought to bear. Here it would be the quality of the warriors and the righteousness of their cause that would prevail.
 	So it might have been. But Arnhault knew the strategy was doomed from the first, doomed by treachery. Before battle was joined, a dark shadow appeared atop the stony rise and cast his foul spells upon the field. Magics steeped in the deathly energies of Shyish. A moment of terror and pain, the strangled cries of thousands of warriors… And then nothing. The battle lost, for none were left to fight it.
 	The dark shadow had a name, one that spurred the fire in Arnhault’s soul. Sabrodt the Usurper. The undead filth that dared now proclaim itself the Shrouded King.
 	Arnhault pursued as Sabrodt retreated into his mouldering tomb. Before it had been duty and necessity that drove him to confront the wraith, his obligations to the people of Wyrmditt and his devotion to Sigmar. Now he pursued Sabrodt for far different reasons. He knew what this creature had done and what his fell deed had cost the people of Kharza. These were crimes that Arnhault would see avenged!
 	The scythe-wielding spectres came flying towards Arnhault, seeking to intercept him before he could overtake Sabrodt. The Knight-Incantor pointed his staff at the one of the skull-faced haunts, a pulse of lightning snaking away from its glowing head to rip through the shadowy creature and reduce it to a foul-smelling smoke. Another of the fiends rushed for him, slashing its scythe for his helm. Arnhault whispered one of the arcane songs he had been taught and sent a punishing gale of wind tearing across the ghost, scattering its essence across the battlefield.
 	The Knight-Incantor dealt with the other ghostly reapers in similar fashion, destroying or rebuffing them with his magic. Such was the anger driving him onwards that he gave no thought to conserving his energies, or what the toll taken by so hurried and rapid a string of conjurations might be. Once, he thought he heard Penthius calling after him, warning him against so reckless a course, but Arnhault ignored the cries. None of that mattered now. All that mattered was Sabrodt and meting out upon the wraith the justice he had escaped for so many centuries.
 	Baleful wards guarded the Shrouded King’s tomb. Arnhault could see a red haze flickering before the entrance. He paused for only an instant, then he clenched his staff and pointed it at the virulent light. His head reeled at the terrible strain as he willed his arcane powers to pierce the eldritch barrier. The prudent action would be to slowly unwind the enchantments that shaped the ward, unravelling them gradually until they were harmless. Such caution would mean time, however, and Arnhault would spare none for Sabrodt’s reckoning.
 	The barrow mound was a great heap of jumbled stone, its entrance a gash in its face framed by heavy blocks of marble carved into macabre figures. As Arnhault strove to penetrate the warding haze, he could see the eyes of stone ghouls and gheists smouldering with profane energies. Feeding more power into the wards, the carved guardians began to shiver, trembling as though an earthquake shook the plateau. 
 	Arnhault poured more of his own magic into the effort to break the guarding spell. Liquid dripped down his forehead and only when he tasted it on his lips did he realise it was not mere perspiration but blood sheening his skin, such was the strain. His ears rang with a maddening cadence, his vision became awash with the red haze of the ward so that he was all but blind. A mortal wizard would have been crippled by the stresses Arnhault was allowing his body to endure, much less the fantastic exertion necessary to maintain the ordeal.
 	Bit by bit, Arnhault pushed through the haze. Each step he felt the hostility of the ward increase. Through the red blur, he could see chips of stone cracking away from the carvings as their quaking became more and more violent.
 	Finally, he was through. It occurred with such abruptness that Arnhault found himself lunging into the darkness of Sabrodt’s barrow. Behind him, the chipped residue of the carvings clattered to the ground, shaken into fragments by their struggle to defy the Knight-Incantor’s determination.
 	‘Praise Sigmar,’ Arnhault intoned, thanking the God-King for granting him the power to break through the wards. Only for a moment did he pause within the entrance. Then, conjuring a golden glow to surround the head of his sigmarite staff and illuminate his way, Arnhault hastened into the tomb’s murky halls.
 	The inside of Sabrodt’s barrow had a musty, decayed stench. The reek of old bones was omnipresent, as was the stink of soil from which all vitality had been drained. Even with Arnhault’s spell to light his way, the corridor was cloaked in gloom and shadow. He would almost be upon some niche in the wall before he was able to discern the sarcophagus of an ancient king or valiant knight. There were places where faded murals and tattered tapestries ran along the hallway, their artistry now wasted almost to the point of oblivion. 
 	The hall angled sharply downwards, plunging ever deeper into the cursed earth beneath the mound. The further he penetrated the tomb, the more Arnhault felt a crushing weight pressing upon him. Not the mass of stone above, but rather an emotional pollution that perverted the atmosphere. A miasma of misery and bitterness that dragged at him with almost physical force. The contagion left behind by the Shrouded King’s festering thoughts.
 	Arnhault hesitated when a dust-veiled mural caught his notice. Singing a minor cantrip, he sent a blast of wind across the wall, driving away the dirt and revealing the image hidden beneath the patina. What stood exposed was a scene of the heroine Sofira with her obsidian spear embedded in the primary head of the hydra Rhasst. A shiver coursed through Arnhault, a tremor that magnified the fury he already knew. It was not the memory of the ancient legend that upset him, but rather the memory of where he had seen this mural before. It had adorned the royal palace of Kharza.
 	The Knight-Incantor quickened his pace, no longer caring that he might trigger some trap left behind by Sabrodt to guard his tomb. Aware now that the Shrouded King had violated the royal palace to decorate his grave, Arnhault began to see other pieces that should have been in the home of the priest-kings. With each discovery, his outrage at the Usurper’s effrontery was redoubled.
 	By the time Arnhault reached the centre of the tomb, to that great hall where Sabrodt had built his morbid imitation of Kharza’s throne room, he was ready to tear the barrow mound apart stone by stone. When he saw this ultimate profanation of the royal house he was overwhelmed, sickened by the macabre scene. The Dragonseat, from which the monarchs of Kharza had ruled the land, now dragged down into a cobwebbed crypt deep beneath the earth.
 	The shadow that reposed on the Dragonseat stirred, turning the smouldering fires in its skull towards Arnhault. There was scorn in that gaze, the smug defiance of a thief confronted with his crime.
 	Arnhault glared back at Sabrodt.
 	‘You are in my chair.’
 	Cold malice flowed through the essence of Sabrodt, permeating every corner of his spectral being. The purity that Arnhault exuded, the taint of Azyr that emanated from his golden armour, stung the wraith’s senses, an irritation that at once both vexed and provoked.
 	And the Shrouded King was already provoked. His ire had been roused the moment he had recognised Volkhard in Wyrmditt. 
 	‘I looked for you among the dead, Volkhard,’ Sabrodt hissed. ‘How long and earnestly I probed the Underworlds seeking your spirit.’ He raised a fleshless hand and pointed at the Knight-Incantor. ‘Now I understand why you were not there. Sigmar stole you from Great Nagash and made you one of his mindless puppets.’
 	Arnhault raised the sigmarite staff he bore and shook it at the sneering apparition. ‘You will not profane the name of the God-King, usurper!’ At his gesture, a bolt of lightning flared through the gloomy hall. 
 	Sabrodt did not stir from the throne. There was no need. The lightning fizzled before it could come near to him, shattering into a cascade of flickering sparks. ‘How much the God-King has taken from you, wretch!’ he snarled, his hands sliding across the arms of the throne. ‘This is the Dragonseat, enchanted by the Magi of Yordo to defend the royal blood against all spells that would render him harm. You should know these things, Volkhard. It is useless to turn your magic against the priest-king of Kharza.’
 	‘Then I will pull you down from your stolen throne with my bare hands,’ Arnhault growled. He rushed towards the Dragonseat.
 	A burst of deathly power threw the Stormcast back, repelling him as completely as the arcane lightning he had conjured. Arnhault staggered, his golden armour singed by the repulsing force. 
 	‘The Dragonseat protects the king from assassins,’ Sabrodt’s ghoulish tone descended into a hateful snarl. ‘Even those assassins who were once kings.’ The last word was poison in Sabrodt’s mouth, forcing him to concede that there had been a time when Volkhard ruled Kharza. It was a memory hateful to him, so he decided to evoke one he sensed would be just as unsettling to the Stormcast. He leered at Arnhault, willing his spectral essence to rebuild for a moment the face that had once rested upon his skull. 
 	‘Have you forgotten even this?’ Sabrodt asked, at once shocked and disgusted by Arnhault’s response, his lack of agitation at gazing on the wraith’s mortal visage. ‘Can so much of who you were have been taken from you?’
 	Sabrodt could see the Stormcast’s confidence falter. He saw the glimmer of confusion in Arnhault’s eyes. Just as the name of Volkhard had drawn together the scattered fragments of memory, so now did the Knight-Incantor react to the Dragonseat.
 	‘I was furious when your spirit escaped from me,’ Sabrodt said. ‘When the power of Nagash raised me from my grave, I sought you, but you were not to be found. Even the spot where you died has defied my influence.’ A scornful hiss rattled up from the wraith’s essence. ‘Now I see there was no reason to be angry. Sigmar has done far worse to you than I should ever have imagined. He has stripped your identity and left you naught but a hollowed shell. A zombie that deludes itself into believing it is still a man.’
 	Arnhault shook his head, revulsion in his eyes. ‘Brother,’ was the word that dripped from his tongue.
 	Sabrodt rose up from the throne. ‘Yes. Brothers.’ He pointed to his phantasmal face. ‘A visage the very mirror of your own. But for the accident of a few heartbeats, I would have been king! But it was you who was drawn from mother’s flesh first. I was but a contingency, trained only as successor in case you should perish. Mine was a shadow existence of observing all that could have been mine, yet knowing that it would never be.’ He clenched his bony fists, the loathing he felt causing his phantom features to vanish and leave only the fleshless skull. ‘So long as you were alive, I was nothing!’
 	The Stormcast glared at Sabrodt. ‘You are still nothing,’ he jeered. ‘You don’t even have a body, a twisted spirit too wretched to rest in its tomb.’
 	‘No!’ Sabrodt’s roar boomed through the hall. He stretched his arms wide and exerted his hideous will. From the darkness, shadows gathered. ‘I rule here now! Kharza is mine! Everything is mine!’ He glanced from side to side as the nighthaunts took shape and began to surround the Stormcast. 
 	‘I am the Shrouded King! It is you, Volkhard, who are nothing!’ Sabrodt gestured to one of the wraiths, a thin apparition draped in black with the crossbeam of a gallows lashed to its back. At his gesture, a billowing mass of darkness spread across the ghost’s hands, hardening until it had taken the appearance of a gleaming double-axe. ‘You will die, Stormcast. My executioner will cut the gilded head from your shoulders, and this time we will see if Sigmar can cheat Nagash of your soul.’
 	‘By volley! Loose!’ Nerio shouted as the black cloud of wraiths came rushing against the Stormcasts once more. The explosive maces detonated only a few feet from the crouching Sequitors, sending crystalline shards clattering against their soulshields. Dozens of the shadowy ghosts were ripped apart in the impact. Those at the centre of the blast were banished entirely, their essence consumed by the Stardrake’s breath within. The wraiths on the periphery of the explosions, however, were not completely destroyed. 
 	Scattered by the maces, Nerio did not believe the chain-draped phantoms could have reunited their essence on their own. Certainly not as quickly as they did. It was the ghastly corpse-light held by one of the spectres that was infusing the wraiths with such power. Almost as soon as the sound of the explosions was fading, the disincorporated ghosts were taking shape once more and converging upon the Hammers of Sigmar.
 	‘We could beat them back, brother, if it were not for that accursed lantern!’ Orthan snarled to Nerio as he hastened to the latest breach in the shield wall. His greatmace came cracking down upon the phantasmal skull of a scythe-bearing wraith, shattering the creature in a burst of necrotic vapour. The Sequitor the undead had sliced with its ghostly blade struggled for a moment to rise and then collapsed. An instant later he vanished in a bright flash of light, his spirit drawn back into the keeping of Sigmar.
 	Nerio aimed his thunderhead greatbow and sent an explosive shot crashing through the wraiths that came rushing towards Orthan. The apparitions vanished in a cloud of celestial energy. Before any others could charge the breach, the remaining Sequitors repositioned themselves to repair the shield wall.
 	Several of the Sacrosanct Stormcasts had been dragged down by the nighthaunts and with each loss, the space within the formation became ever tighter. Orthan was having difficulty manoeuvring and reaching the gaps. Soon there would not be room enough for all of Nerio’s Castigators to remain behind the protection of the Sequitors.
 	‘They will wear us down if we continue to fight them this way.’ Nerio looked past Orthan to where the pale wraith and its ghoulish lantern continued to draw spirits from the dead earth and reshape the ones the struck down by the Stormcasts. Arnhault had pursued the Shrouded King; perhaps without their undead lord the rest of the nighthaunts would lose their foothold in Ghur and fade back to the Underworlds. But for such an event to help the Hammers of Sigmar, they would have to keep from being overwhelmed.
 	‘By Sigmar, we will hold,’ Nerio vowed. He gestured towards the lantern-bearing spectre. ‘Either we will be the doom of that fiend or it will be the doom of us!’ He looked across the Sequitors and Castigators, proud that these warriors would accept his command even if it was far from anything to be found in the martial strictures Penthius knew by heart. ‘It does no good to hold position here. On my mark, we will make a drive for that corpse-calling wretch! I want ten Castigators to alternate with the Sequitors in the vanguard. As you shoot, fall back and allow one of your brothers to take your place. Sequitors will defend you as best they can. It will need speed and boldness to prevail. If the lampbearer flees before us, we must catch it or we gain nothing.’
 	Holding his thunderhead greatbow high, Nerio shouted to the Stormcasts. ‘For Sigmar! For the Heldenhammer! To glory and victory!’ On his command the Stormcasts shifted positions. A wave of oncoming wraiths were surprised by the reformation, extinguished by the concentrated volley of crystal-headed maces that shot out at them the instant they came near the shield wall. The first Castigators fell back, letting warriors with loaded greatbows take their place. The redeployment happened even as the armoured warriors marched across the plateau, none of them missing a step.
 	The nighthaunts came at the Stormcasts from all sides. The Sequitors on the flanks and rear were especially hard-pressed to hold off the undead assault, for this time there was no withering volley from the Castigators to break the attack. There was no alternating glow of maul and shield as the Sequitors made their reprisals upon the nighthaunts. Now the soulshields maintained a steady illumination as the Stormcasts focused their energies entirely upon defence. Trying to present an unbroken front against which the wraiths would crash, they lost the versatility that had served them before. One by one, Sequitors were pulled down, stabbed by glaives and scythes that managed to slip past the warding shields.
 	Nerio felt the fall of each Stormcast like a knife twisting in his guts. He knew they were being brought down because of his change in tactics, but he also knew that if they didn’t change tactics then they would not be victorious. The lampbearer had to be vanquished if they were to prevail. 
 	‘Castigator-Prime!’ one of the Sequitors in the vanguard cried out. ‘The ghostmaster knows our plan! It is sending even more wraiths to intercept us!’
 	Nerio looked to Orthan. ‘I think it will need something even more unexpected and reckless to carry the day,’ he said. ‘I should appreciate your aid.’
 	Orthan nodded and hefted the bulk of his greatmace. ‘Show me where you want violence.’
 	Nerio gathered a group of ten Castigators. ‘Hold back and do not rotate with the others,’ he told them. To the rest of the Stormcasts, he gave different instructions. ‘We will rotate archers three more times. On the fourth rotation, the front rank will drop down as they loose. Then the reserves will open up. You are going to cut a tunnel through the wraiths for myself and Orthan to reach the lampbearer.’
 	Nerio and Orthan kept in the centre of the formation as the Gilded Sphere advanced towards the spectre. The wraiths came rushing the Stormcasts from each direction, attacking with a vengeance. More Sequitors were dragged from the line and even a few of the Castigators in the van were brought down. Then came the moment for the double-volley Nerio had arranged. The front rank dropped to one knee once the fourth rotation was in place. Two lines of Castigators sent a withering hail of thunderhead maces into the tide of undead. Those in the fore were extinguished in flashes of brilliant light. Behind them, scores more were immolated by the draconic energy, the shreds of those blown apart in the first volley evaporated completely by the explosions from the second.
 	A gap ten paces wide had been opened in the wave of nighthaunts. Into this fissure, Nerio and Orthan plunged. The Sequitor led the way, sweeping his greatmace through the few wraiths that moved to block their charge. The apparitions were battered by the heavy weapon, their aethereal substance ripped apart. There was no chance to make certain of their dissolution as the two Stormcasts hastened onwards, leaving their undead foes to reform behind them as the necromantic light summoned them back to battle.
 	There was no going back for Nerio and Orthan. A spectral mass of ghosts now separated them from their brothers. Only by pressing on could they gain anything at all. Both could see the lampbearer ahead. The spectre appeared to recognise their threat. It raised its skeletal arms and beckoned to a clutch of glaive-armed wraiths. The apparitions came howling towards the two Stormcasts, determined to keep them from reaching the corpse-caller.
 	‘Do not tarry,’ Orthan told Nerio. Without explaining himself, he intercepted the stalking wraiths. His greatmace came cracking down on the skull of one, extinguishing it in a blaze of dark vapour and divine light. A second stalker was subdued by Orthan’s fury, its essence bludgeoned by the glowing weapon. Such was the havoc unleashed by Orthan that the other stalkers deviated away from Nerio and converged upon the Sequitor. From all sides, the piercing glaives came slashing for him.
 	As the doomed Orthan had warned, Nerio did not tarry. Accepting the Sequitor’s sacrifice, he hurried onwards towards the fleeing lampbearer. At the very limit of effective range, Nerio raised his greatbow and took aim.
 	The spectre glared back at him with the graveyard glow that shone from the shadows of its hooded face. It raised the grisly lamp higher, beckoning, commanding the restless dead of the plateau to rally to its aid. Nerio felt all the creature’s undying hate smash down on him in a surge of wrath.
 	Then the Castigator-Prime shot the mace from his greatbow. The missile spun across the haunted field, narrowly flying over the cowled heads of the undead as they rose from the earth. The crystal tip of the mace whistled past the heavy lantern, causing its light to flicker. Then it slammed into the shadow-veiled head of the corpse-caller. The unleashed stormbreath billowed out in a nimbus of purifying power. The spectre gave voice to a piercing wail of despair as the celestial energy devoured it, collapsing its tenuous bond with the corporeal world. Like a puff of smoke, the phantom vanished, its extinguished lamp crashing to the earth alongside its empty cloak.
 	As the lamp’s light faded, so too did the ghosts that had been rising from the earth. Like mist before a strong wind, they drifted apart, seeping back down into the cursed soil. Nerio was comforted by the knowledge that there would be no unending tide of reinforcements for the nighthaunts now.
 	That only left the multitudes of enraged undead already upon the battlefield. Nerio turned from the residue left by the lampbearer to see the rat-skulled stalkers finish Orthan. Pierced by the ghostly glaives many times, the Sequitor lost his hold upon the greatmace. Even as the weapon crashed to the ground, the Stormcast’s life ebbed away. In a blinding flare of light, his spirit was drawn back to Azyr.
 	Their prey gone, the stalking wraiths remembered the other foe they were supposed to destroy. Too late to help the lampbearer, they now came rushing to avenge the spectre by dealing with Nerio as they had with Orthan.
 	Nerio fitted another thunderhead mace to his greatbow. How many of the undead horrors would he vanquish before they could reach him?
 	Arnhault watched as the spectral headsman emerged from the circle of nighthaunts. The murderous axe glistened in the wraith’s grip, its edge alight with fell enchantments. Sabrodt had spoken true; there was death in that blade. Perhaps even death for a Stormcast.
 	‘There was a moment when you, too, knew the menace of this axe,’ Arnhault told Sabrodt. A thrust in the dark, an informed guess based upon what he had learned of the spectre. For him, as a Stormcast, the past was only hazy fragments. For the Shrouded King, the past was an obsession, a pattern from which he could not extricate himself.
 	The thrust struck home. Furious light glowed in the sockets of Sabrodt’s skull. The wraith shook a bony talon at Arnhault.
 	‘I spit on your pity,’ Sabrodt hissed. ‘I rejected it when it was offered! I warned you of what would happen… brother. I warned you that the Dragonseat would be mine!’
 	Sabrodt’s tirade stirred some of the disjointed fragments buried within Arnhault’s memory. He saw again the scene as it had unfolded long ago. He recalled the reasons he had spared Sabrodt the first time he had tried to seize the throne. ‘It was not for your sake I did not send you to the headsman. Your wife and my nephews pleaded for your life. They begged me to spare you and I was too selfish to risk earning their scorn, to see hate for me in their eyes.’
 	‘You were weak,’ Sabrodt scoffed. ‘Too weak to rule.’
 	‘You were the weak one,’ Arnhault countered. ‘Always letting others take the risks. You could not even do your own fighting. You had to let the hordes of Chaos do that for you. A conqueror? A usurper? You are nothing but a scavenger, afraid to fight for what you want.’
 	Sabrodt’s laugh was a steely growl that echoed through the tomb. ‘You will not goad me into leaving the Dragonseat, however much you try to shame me. I will sit here and be content to watch you die.’
 	The ghastly executioner rushed Arnhault. The Stormcast lifted his staff to block the descending axe. In a blur of eerie speed, the ghost’s weapon swept past his defence and crashed against his shoulder. There was an icy shock as the spectral blade struck him. His arm dropped, numbed down to his wrist. It was all he could do to retain his grip upon the staff. In another fit of uncanny speed the ghostly headsman pulled away and brought his double-axe up to deliver another blow.
 	Before the stroke could fall, a golden shape charged out from the darkness. Penthius swept his soulshield between the executioner’s descending axe and Arnhault. The weapon cracked against the enchanted barrier, the impact throwing the headsman back. Penthius retaliated with a crushing swing of his maul that disrupted the shadowy essence of the murderous wraith. The undead creature flickered backwards, ectoplasm dripping from its tattered shape.
 	‘Next time I wish you would listen when I call you,’ Penthius quipped.
 	Arnhault slapped his hand against his numbed shoulder, letting arcane heat drive down against the graveyard chill. ‘Next time I will,’ he promised.
 	Sabrodt pointed his bony fist at the two Stormcasts. A blackened blade manifested in his grip, conjured from the cairn where it had physically reposed. ‘Destroy them,’ he roared at his undead court. ‘Your king commands it!’
 	The wraiths responded to the Shrouded King’s decree, flying at the Stormcasts in a ghostly swarm. Penthius brought his maul flashing through the first few creatures, shattering their phantasmal shapes. His conquests were too few to stem the tide. The chain-wrapped nighthaunts forced him to raise his shield and try to hold them back with its magic.
 	‘Sigmar’s will,’ Arnhault intoned as he drew the vial from his belt and cast it at the undead swarm. As the vial struck the wraiths, it shattered, unleashing the energies of the mammoth’s spirit. The crackling power raged through the ghosts, whipping across their aethereal shapes to scatter them about the hall in wispy tatters.
 	The executioner alone from Sabrodt’s court defied the tempest Arnhault unleashed upon them. The creature came charging for the aether-mage, its axe raised to cut him down. This time Penthius was too far away to intercede. 
 	There was no need for the Sequitor-Prime to do so. Arnhault responded to the threat by whipping his staff across the wraith’s arm. The glowing head seared through the spectral limb like a flash of lightning. The executioner reared back, the severed arm disintegrating in a flurry of ebon motes. He retained his grip upon the axe, but the weapon had too much solidity to be easily wielded single-handed. Before the wraith could compensate, Arnhault’s magic again scorched the cloaked figure. This time the staff raked upwards, flaring through his chest and up through his skull. Bisected from rib to cranium, the executioner struggled for an instant to retain such substance as he possessed, then exploded in a spray of blackened fragments.
 	Sabrodt shook his sword at the Stormcasts. ‘You have won nothing! I conjured my retainers from their graves once – I will do so again!’
 	Penthius hefted his maul and would have rushed the throne, but Arnhault warned him back. It would need a different strategy to unseat the Usurper.
 	Arnhault glowered at the Shrouded King. ‘You have won nothing,’ he accused. ‘Look at this kingdom you have claimed. A dead place filled with dead things. Echoes and shadows, that is all you hold! Is this the kingdom you coveted, brother? Or is this just a mockery of that dream?’
 	A howl of anguish wracked the Shrouded King. ‘Do not presume to speak to me of dreams, slave of Sigmar! What do you remember of your dreams, Volkhard? You mention my wife and sons, but what of your own? Do you remember them?’ The skull-face leered at Arnhault. ‘Do you even recall their names, or has Sigmar taken even that from you?’
 	Arnhault felt Sabrodt’s words cutting into him, opening all the uncertainties. The haze of his own past refused to be swept away. But when he looked at Sabrodt, he thought he understood why. ‘You remember everything, brother. You remember what happened long ago. You remember what you did and what was done to you. You remember what you wanted.’
 	Sabrodt leaned back upon the Dragonseat. ‘And you wish to know the secret of why I remember these things when you do not?’
 	The wraith’s words gave Arnhault pause. Try as he might, he could not recall Volkhard’s own family. That memory had been lost, pounded from him upon the Anvil of the Apotheosis. How much had been lost there? And what would he be willing to pay to get it back?
 	‘Yes, monster, I would know that secret,’ Arnhault confessed.
 	The Shrouded King glared down at him. ‘Hate, brother. That is the key! That is the force that is stronger than death and the grave!’
 	‘Hate makes you remember everything,’ Arnhault conceded. ‘All except one thing – who you were. Where is the man who was Sabrodt? I see only his shadow.’ He slapped his hand against his armoured chest. ‘I have forgotten much, but I have not forgotten who I am. I remain the defender of the innocent, the champion of the good. I remain true to my purpose. All you do is clutch at a past that is gone and bitterly tell yourself it is enough.’
 	‘It is more than you have, Volkhard. More than you will ever have. You curse my dominion because you are too weak to claim it for yourself.’
 	Arnhault shook his head. ‘Is that what you want, Sabrodt? You want me to be jealous of this charnel house you call a palace and this graveyard you call a kingdom? They are nothing, brother. Empty. A fitting dominion for a weak traitor.
 	‘We were twins,’ he reminded Sabrodt. ‘It did not matter which of us was born first. We were both taught the same things, instructed in the same ways. We were both watched and judged. Either of us might have become priest-king of Kharza. They chose me not because I was first… but because I was better.’
 	Sabrodt leapt down from the Dragonseat, his frenzied wail thundering through the crypt. A blur of hate and shadow, the Shrouded King lunged at Arnhault.
 	The instant Sabrodt was away from the throne, Arnhault raised his staff and sent a crackling spear of lightning stabbing into the wraith. The Shrouded King was transfixed upon the magical beam, but even impalement was not enough to dull his ancient hate. Sabrodt forced himself down the shocking lance, his ectoplasm steaming away as the aetheric power seared his undead essence. His jaws opened in a scream of fury, as he slashed his infernal sword into Arnhault’s armoured shoulder.
 	Against another blow, the sigmarite mail might have lessened the impact, but the blade Sabrodt bore was imbued with a fragment of the merciless ire of Nagash himself. To the spectral weapon’s innate power was added the rage of the creature that bore it, the centuries of brooding hate that had given the Shrouded King his kingdom. The blade tore through the armoured pauldron, down into the flesh beneath, through muscle and bone to cut a phantom path through the heart within. Ghostly as a cobweb, the wound did not bleed, flesh did not part, bone did not snap. The only evidence of the cut was the blemished mark on Arnhault’s armour and the spectral cold that shivered through his soul.
 	Sabrodt leaned close to Arnhault, his skull briefly assuming once more the features he had worn in life. ‘You were never better than me,’ he snarled. ‘You will never be better than me.’
 	‘Sigmar found me worthy,’ Arnhault told the fading phantom. ‘Nagash simply found you… useful.’ He watched as Sabrodt’s essence collapsed into a black mist that sank down into the cursed earth of his tomb.
 	‘Penthius!’ Arnhault called to the Sequitor-Prime. ‘Attend me!’ The Knight-Incantor stumbled and fell, the uncanny wound visited on him by Sabrodt rapidly taxing his strength.
 	‘I am here, my lord,’ Penthius assured Arnhault. He took hold of the aether-mage’s arm and lifted him up from the floor.
 	Arnhault looked into his brother’s eyes. ‘Quickly,’ he said. ‘The wraith’s cut is a mortal one. I can feel my life being drained. Only my magic sustains me now.’
 	‘What can I do?’ Penthius had a desperate quality to his voice.
 	‘Get me outside,’ Arnhault commanded. ‘I must die, but I will not die in this place. Not where he has fallen. Get me outside, where I can feel the presence of the God-King looking down on me.’
 	The battle had ended by the time Penthius emerged from the barrow mound helping the stricken Arnhault out from the tomb. The stains of blood and ectoplasm were the only evidence of the conflict. The forms of the fallen had vanished soon after being struck down, drawn back into the cursed earth or else borne aloft to the Celestial Realm. Only the victors remained to meet the two Stormcasts.
 	Less than forty warriors remained of the Gilded Sphere. The rest of Arnhault’s retinue had fallen to the nighthaunts. Castigator-Prime Nerio was not among the vanquished. Penthius felt relieved to see the impulsive warrior come marching towards him. Nerio hesitated when he saw the condition Arnhault was in.
 	‘The Shrouded King,’ Penthius explained. ‘Arnhault vanquished it, but not before the wraith cut him with its sword.’
 	Nerio wrapped his arm around the Knight-Incantor’s other side and helped Penthius bear him away from the tomb. ‘We knew something had happened when the nighthaunts lost interest in the battle. One moment they were all around us, the next they began to sink back into the ground.’
 	‘That must have been when Arnhault defeated their master,’ Penthius said. He glanced down at the insensible aether-mage. The Knight-Incantor was scarcely breathing now, his body carrying with it a clammy chill.
 	‘Is there anything we can do?’ Nerio asked, taking stock of Arnhault’s state. Other Stormcasts joined them now, taking hold of the dying Knight-Incantor and helping carry him.
 	‘Only what he asked of me,’ Penthius said. He nodded towards the lonely green plot. ‘We will lay him down there, where King Volkhard fell.’
 	Nerio gave Penthius a questioning look. ‘Volkhard? Is he not the one who wrote the history of Kharza that Arnhault was always studying?’
 	Penthius did not answer. He was not sure what he could answer. From what he had overheard, Volkhard and Arnhault were one and the same, but until Sabrodt had named him such, Arnhault did not remember being the last priest-king of Kharza. Yet for Volkhard to have written the history resting in the Gilded Sphere’s archives, he must have known much more when first he was reforged as a Stormcast.
 	As they laid Arnhault down on the grass, Penthius considered something else the Knight-Incantor had said. Something about remembering who he was rather than what he was. Perhaps, in some way, Arnhault had allowed those memories to be consumed by his reforging while retaining other ones – memories that would serve his duty to Sigmar, the rites and rituals he had learned as an aether-mage.
 	Penthius and the other Stormcasts backed away as a brilliant blue light engulfed Arnhault. The light shot upwards, vanishing in the grey sky. It left behind it only an empty patch of grass.
 	Penthius closed his eyes and thought about what was happening even now in Sigmaron. Arnhault was being reforged, made ready to fight again. What would he remember of this strange homecoming, of this encounter with his treacherous brother? Would the name Volkhard mean anything to him, or would that too be lost?
 	‘Nerio,’ Penthius said, turning back towards the barrow mound and pointing his maul at the dark entrance. ‘Before we march from this place, I want that tomb sealed. And we will raise a marker here for King Volkhard.
 	‘So that any who chance to pass this way again may remember.’