Contents

Cover

Five Candles – Lora Gray

About the Author

An Extract from ‘The Reverie’

A Black Library Imprint

eBook license

Five Candles

Lora Gray

In Havisa’s dream, her fire was not fading. She was young and strong again, blazing bright as she always should have, an unstoppable force, spear in hand. A beautiful, terrible Aqshian warrior…

Havisa coughed herself awake, jerking upright where she’d fallen asleep on the stool beside her narrow bed. Smoke stabbed her lungs and eyes, acrid and stinking of scorched rushes and burning timber. Haze. She couldn’t see. Fire. She could barely breathe. Hacking and swearing, pain lancing through her arthritic hip, Havisa limped to the door and shouldered it open.

Smoke chased her outside, choking out the sunlight, the whole world dim and sallow. Or perhaps the sun had never brightened fully that day. It was why she had lit her candles that morning, after all. Dawn had seemed too feeble to chase away the death magic. It did no good to tempt fate when she was all alone and so far from the village. Havisa had lit her candles and had fallen asleep, leaving them unattended…

A timber popped and Havisa backpedalled, shielding her face. Flames licked up and out of the narrow window. Everything was burning…

Havisa smacked herself. ‘You fool.’ Ignoring the grinding protests of her hip and back, she grabbed the empty bucket beside the door. ‘You stupid, old fool.’ Gaping at that fire wouldn’t extinguish it.

Hobbling and huffing, Havisa hurried to the withered stand of trees and into the scrub-strangled gully beyond. Her eyes stung – from the embers, she told herself, not tears – and her lungs clenched, but she ran as fast as her body could carry her, until her knee finally buckled. She skidded down the bank of the gully, a flail of arms and ragged skirts, into the ruddy muck at the bottom. The bucket splashed into the water beside her. Havisa reached for it.

On the opposite bank, a dark shape rose from all fours.

He stood, a young man, tall, thin, dressed in black and backlit against the sallow sky. His cheeks were unshaven and patchy, jaw jutting from beneath the scruff. His hair was a mangy tangle that sprouted a pair of flies when he lifted his head.

Any other time, Havisa would have demanded to know who he was, why he was here on her land, but she didn’t have time to wonder. Her whole world was going up in flames.

Havisa plunged her bucket into the shallow water.

‘You stink of smoke, old woman,’ the stranger said, his voice a deep, uneven timbre.

‘Of course I “stink of smoke!”’ Havisa lost her grip on the bucket, coughed, and cursed. ‘The house on the hill there, my house, is burning!’

‘And you’re going to extinguish it all by yourself?’

‘It’s not going to put itself out!’ Havisa hiked her muddy skirts to her knees and turned to amble up the embankment towards her house. Had she been younger, she could have carried twice as much water. Had she been younger, maybe she could have asked this stranger for help without fearing judgement or pity. But she wasn’t young any more, was she? She was old, too weak to do anything properly…

Havisa didn’t anticipate the stranger’s hands when he grabbed her by the scruff and shoulder and hefted her up and over the lip of the gully. Havisa stumbled, water sloshing onto her feet, and sputtered, but the stranger was already loping past her, carrying his cloak, knotted into a makeshift water bladder, over his shoulder.

Havisa’s pride stung, but she was far too frantic and winded to protest. By the time she reached her house and tossed her meagre bucket of water onto the flames, the stranger was already sprinting towards the river again, a trough in his arms, for whatever good it would do. A single room didn’t take very long to burn.

She did her best to quash the fire, throwing armfuls of dirt onto the flames when they licked their way out of the narrow window, trying to smother rogue embers with her cloak, but finally, she resigned herself to save what she could. She darted inside, through the crackling flames and haze. She had only just retrieved a small sack of silver and her precious spear from its place beside the door, when the roof shuddered and collapsed inward.

Havisa careened from the rush of searing air, cinders biting into the exposed flesh of her arms and face as she fell, panting and coughing so violently she felt as if her lungs might lurch up and out of her throat, wet and blackened. She closed her eyes, struggling for oxygen, her skin prickling, her entire body throbbing from the running, the falling, too much smoke, exhaustion.

Heartbreak.

She concentrated on the pain. Not the loss. Not the horrible, gnawing grief of seeing the last remains of her sad little life burning to nothing. What did she have now? She had no friends; they’d all died as Aqshians should, gloriously, the heat of battle consuming them when they were young. Her fire had never been as fierce as theirs and she’d committed the cardinal sin of surviving, of growing old. She was a coward. Useless. Where would she go? Who would have her now?

Gritting her teeth, Havisa sat up, resolutely grinding an ember into the back of her hand to keep her focused. A shadow fell over her. Havisa started, but it was only the stranger, stepping past her and grunting as he heaved the water from the feed trough onto the smouldering ruins, though the fire was already dying. The crumbled roof had smothered the worst of it, and the dead earth surrounding her home wasn’t going to feed it further.

Hands on his knees, the stranger panted, tongue lolling from his mouth a moment before he turned to Havisa and asked, ‘Do you live here all by yourself?’

Havisa scowled. It was easier to embrace anger and pride than sadness. Gripping her spear, she grunted and pulled herself to her feet. ‘What business is that of yours?’

The stranger shrugged and sniffed, scratching absently at his matted hair as he straightened. ‘If there are bodies to bury, now would be the time to do it – while there’s still daylight.’

Havisa snorted. ‘There is no one else.’ Nobody in the village would have her. She narrowed her eyes. ‘Why did you help me? Who are you?’

‘I’m Eudon.’ He smiled, a small tick of his lips that was more amused than friendly. ‘And you’re welcome.’

‘I didn’t ask for your help.’ Havisa turned her head and spat. ‘What do you want?’

‘Is it a crime to help an old woman?’

Havisa laughed bitterly. Her lungs pinched a warning. ‘That depends on the old woman. I don’t recognise your accent. Why are you here?’

Eudon turned to peer past the smoking heap of her hovel towards the foothills swelling to the east. ‘I bring news of what they’re calling the necroquake. The death magic. You’ve heard of Shyish’s curse, haven’t you, old woman?’

‘Havisa!’

Eudon cocked his head as if weighing her reaction before smoothing the air with his fingers. ‘My apologies. Havisa.’

Havisa prickled a moment longer before grumbling, ‘Of course I’ve heard of the death magic.’ She had seen the unnatural mists that scattered dead field mice and birds in its wake instead of dew, bloody footprints on the riverbank from animals with too many toes. She had heard the far-off shrieking in the night and the voices moaning in languages she’d never heard before.

‘That is why I am here,’ Eudon said. ‘I must find the nearest village and warn them of the threat. The danger coming is worse than any of you could possibly imagine.’

Havisa considered Eudon. He could be lying, but his boots were worn and scuffed, his clothes a shamble, dusty from weeks of Aqshian roads. He looked well travelled, at least. ‘Well,’ she said, rolling her shoulders, wincing at a crick deep in her neck, ‘if you were looking for the village, you were going the wrong way.’

‘It’s fortunate I found you, then, isn’t it? Perhaps we could travel together. After all, you’ll need to go to the village yourself now, won’t you? There’s nothing for you here.’

Havisa puckered her mouth, a lingering cough wracking her aching chest. The thought of facing that village full of young warriors, who did nothing but scoff and sneer every time she ventured anywhere near them, made her gut sour. If they ever discovered she’d burned down her own house because she’d fallen asleep… Perhaps she should stay there, among the charred remains of her life, and accept the fate she’d made. Maybe she could somehow redeem herself by dying nobly in the night, battling the evil death magic when it came to feast on her old bones, a final burst of courage.

But how could she simply throw her life away?

The shame she felt was so heavy, her voice trembled when she finally said, ‘I don’t need your company or your protection.’ She turned and swallowed past a knot in her throat. ‘But I owe you for your help.’ She tightened her hand on her spear and began to amble down the narrow path, away from what had once been her home. ‘Come on then. What are you waiting for? An invitation?’

Havisa was trying to remember the name of her nephew – her late sister’s son who lived in the next village over, beyond the foothills to the east, the only family she could think of that might be obligated to take her in – when Eudon asked, ‘Have you heard of the Black Dog of Mhurghast?’

‘A dog? No. I haven’t heard of it.’ Havisa reaffirmed her grip on her spear, leaning heavily into it as she walked. The afternoon was already fading, and though Havisa was fairly certain they would reach the village by sundown, they didn’t have much time, especially if she was going to send word to her nephew.

‘The Black Dog of Mhurghast is no ordinary animal,’ Eudon said, falling into step beside her. She still couldn’t decide if she was grateful or irritated that he hadn’t once complained about the pace she’d set. ‘It is a huge beast. Terrible. Cursed by Shyish. It moves silently in the darkness, waiting for hapless travellers to feast upon. Its eyes are red as blood, its appetite ferocious. They say if you happen upon it at a crossroads at midnight, it will devour you.’

Havisa laughed a little too loudly before coughing. Damn that fire and its smoke. Damn her ancient, crippled lungs. ‘Is this what you’re going to tell the village council? A story meant to frighten old women and children?’

Eudon stepped in front of her, his long jaw tense and set. He smelled sour as he leaned close. ‘It’s no story,’ he said, his breath rotten. There was a strange, excited light in his eyes, as if he was waiting for her reaction. As if he was playing a horrible trick, telling a joke only he understood. ‘The Black Dog is very real. You should never underestimate the powers of Shyish.’

Havisa squinted up at him. ‘And you shouldn’t underestimate Aqshian women. Even the old ones.’ Havisa lifted her spear, of half a mind to crack Eudon across the shins, but she only huffed and shoved her way past him to continue down the path.

Was he laughing at her? Mocking her? She wouldn’t play the old fool for this young stranger. She wouldn’t be the butt of his joke. She’d get enough of that in the village. Squaring her shoulders as much as her stooped back would allow, she lifted her chin and quickened her pace.

She didn’t tell Eudon what she saw from the corner of her eye. As the sun began its descent, she did not mention the strange, four-legged shadow that disappeared when she turned to look at it directly. A glimpse of a dark muzzle bursting with teeth. A curved, bristling back. Long legs trotting, keeping pace with her.

Waiting.

By the time the council gathered in the village hall, night had fallen. Tapers flickered on every sill and tabletop, a hundred wax pillars, their flames straining upward and chasing the shadows from the corners of the long, narrow room. A hearth blazed on the back wall, well stoked and crackling steadily. The council sat before it, their backs stiff and proud as they listened to Eudon.

From her place in the far corner, Havisa shifted and begged her bad hip to finally pop. The stool they’d given her was squat and full of splinters. If it hadn’t been for Eudon insisting that she be there, they wouldn’t have given her a seat at all. She was the oldest by at least thirty years and she hadn’t missed the sneers, the snickering whispers. Feeble, they muttered. A coward. Weak. Havisa passed her fingertip through a nearby flame, letting the snap of pain remind her: she was Aqshian, whether they liked it or not.

‘I have seen entire villages destroyed by mist,’ Eudon was saying. ‘Dead children, their corpses floating above their beds, drained of blood and still clutching their mothers’ cold hands. There are plagues of locusts and vermin, beetles with the faces of skulls. Entire crops wither overnight. Cows give blood instead of milk. Starvation claims those the death magic doesn’t consume completely. The curse of Shyish is intensifying. The death magic is unstoppable. And it’s coming this way.’

Tension thickened and Havisa watched as Damiel finally shifted in his tall council chair. Leaning forward, he propped his hand on his knee. ‘Do you think we’ve been spared Shyish’s curse?’ he said, and there was a forced grit to his voice that Havisa suspected had more to do with the fact he’d only just grown a full beard this past winter than any earned gruffness. ‘We’ve seen the effects of the death magic.’

‘Then you know why you must come with me,’ Eudon said. ‘If you travel east, to the crossroads, you might buy yourselves a little more time. If you hurry, you might be able to ferry your families to safety. The passage through the mountains shouldn’t be too difficult from there.’

‘Difficult.’ Ruka, her long braids swinging, snorted a laugh. ‘And why should we trust you? How do we know you aren’t an agent of Shyish yourself?’

Eudon paused, his shoulders coiling dangerously. ‘If I wanted to harm you here, in your village, I would have done so. The death magic you’ve seen here is only the beginning of the storm. It’s sweeping over the land so quickly you’ll never be able to defend yourselves. I’ve seen it happen time and again.’

Ruka stood slowly, her eyes glittering in the firelight, livid scar a puckered slash on her left cheek as she stepped toe to toe with Eudon. She was a full head shorter, but her voice was fierce when she said, ‘Do you really think we can’t defend ourselves? We are Aqshian. We aren’t all as feeble as this old woman you’ve chosen as your travel companion. We are not cowards.’

Indignation sparked deep in Havisa’s breast and she stood, one hand braced against the wall to keep her arthritic hip from buckling. ‘I’ve seen the death magic myself! That is, I’ve heard it. At night. And there are tales of a black dog!’

One by one, the council scoffed and turned away from her. Havisa was left sputtering, torn between fury and shame, her gnarled fingers curling against the wall. She met Eudon’s eyes, expecting scorn, but his expression was curious, perhaps even kind, the firelight flickering warm and red in his eyes. He only looked away from her when Damiel stood.

‘As Ruka said, we are well defended here.’ Damiel smiled. The expression was strained. ‘We are far from helpless.’

‘No.’ Eudon turned to him. ‘No, I suppose you aren’t. And I fully understand why you would want to stay here. Travelling is dangerous. Naturally, you’d want to remain where you feel safe.’

‘And what is that supposed to mean?’ Ruka’s voice smouldered and Havisa did not miss the subtle shift in the council, the way their hands drifted towards knives and spears and other, less obvious, weapons.

‘Only that I don’t blame you for wanting to stay.’ Eudon shrugged. ‘After all, it’s sensible, and if you’re all too frightened to leave the safety of your village…’

Chairs clattering, the council rose, young and furious, and Havisa couldn’t quite help the small swell of satisfaction she felt watching them juggle the insult, even as she edged towards the door.

‘Enough,’ Damiel finally spoke. He glowered at Eudon. ‘We will not be insulted. You may fill your water skins, let nobody say we are not generous. But you will leave our village tonight. You are not welcome here.’

Eudon’s eyes darted over the council. He licked his lips. ‘I’ll require a guide to see me to the crossroads at least. I don’t know this country well enough to travel it after dark.’

‘And this from the one who thinks he can save us from death magic? Are you too frightened to travel all alone then, little man?’ Ruka laughed and the others joined her, the same, cruel cawing Havisa had endured for so many years. The same voices that snickered when her back was turned, that forced her to live all alone, that made the shame well up inside her until she felt as though she might burst with it.

‘I’ll go with you.’ Havisa pressed herself away from the wall and willed her trembling leg to remain firm. ‘I’m no coward.’

Some of the council snickered. Some of them seethed. She smiled at Eudon as if they were old friends. And why not? Eudon had tried to help her, after all, and he wasn’t laughing at her now, was he? He simply smiled back at her, the expression slow and measured, as if he’d known all along she would volunteer.

The moon was already high, distant and milky as a cataract, when Havisa and Eudon began their journey. Havisa’s silver had been enough to buy a snick of salted pork, a small bag of dried fruit, a heel of bread.

And five candles.

She wore them in the old style, strapped to her wrists and hanging from her neck in delicately balanced pendants, the flames surrounded by glass chimneys, perforated to let the wax drip. The longer those candles burned, the hotter the wax became so that when it fell, it would sear her skin. The pain would keep her focused. The flames would keep her safe.

There was a moment, when she lit the wicks, that her grief and fear swelled, the acrid smell of her burning home mingling with the clean wax. But there would be no chance of falling asleep while walking, and though she tried to convince herself she believed what she had told the council, she was not brave enough to venture into the dark – where death magic lurked and strange shadows waited – without those sacred flames to protect her.

Taking a deep breath, Havisa threw a final glance over her shoulder. Two of the council were backlit in the hall’s open doorway. Ruka? Damiel? At this distance she could not tell, but their laughter was bright as it popped through the night-time air.

‘Fools,’ Eudon muttered.

Havisa turned to look up at him. He hulked beside her, swathed in black and stinking still, his face a pale, gaunt slash in the darkness. Perhaps he would have been handsome to her had she been younger. Perhaps she shouldn’t have assumed he was trying to trick her earlier.

Havisa gathered herself upright as much as her hunched spine would allow. ‘They’re young.’

Eudon sighed and shook his head. ‘The pace is yours to set, Havisa. If you need to slow down, just say the word. These paths must be treacherous in the dark. We wouldn’t want you to lose your footing.’

‘Worry about your own footing.’ Havisa shrugged deeper into her cloak and adjusted the candles on her wrists. ‘I grew up in these hills.’

Still, Havisa stepped closer to him as they began the long journey into the dark. It had been years since she had willingly travelled anywhere at night, and even when she was younger, she hadn’t relished doing it. Since the curse of Shyish had descended, she had barely ventured from her house. The night seemed thicker than she remembered. She told herself it was her imagination, an old woman’s worry, but it felt as though a damp blanket had been pressed over the world, making it difficult to breathe, making every movement feel sodden and heavy. The clear dryness of Aqshian night was gone. The moonlight barely reached the path as they ascended the foothills, the narrow way winding like an inky snake. A distant wind moaned. The air around them was still, and Havisa thought she heard the same low voices that once crept into her home at night, whispers she couldn’t understand. Only here, in the open, they seemed rounder, fuller and infinitely more dangerous.

What business did she really have being there, after all, in the wide dark? To prove she wasn’t a coward? To whom? Herself? Eudon? The council would never know one way or the other, and they’d already made their minds up about her years ago. Maybe they were right after all. She was old, her lungs still smoke-bruised. The day had been long, filled with tragedy and a long walk and fear.

Still, whether out of stubbornness or foolishness – she herself wasn’t sure which – Havisa dug her spear into the earth and pressed on, Eudon beside her. Not once did he complain about her slowness. Not once did he mock her. He only followed patiently up the low, steady incline. Havisa told herself she was grateful for it.

Midnight had begun to ease over the foothills in slow, velvety shadows when Eudon finally asked, ‘Why do you wear them?’

‘What?’ Havisa grunted as she navigated a skitter of loose gravel. They were nearly to the crossroads, which meant a chance to rest and catch her breath, a place to sit and ease the weight on her hip. From there, they could decide which path would be best to her nephew’s village.

‘The candles. I should think fire would be the last thing you’d want near you, after what happened today.’

She huffed and took another grinding step. Still, beneath the pain, Havisa felt a small swell of pride. ‘I’m Aqshian,’ she said. ‘What else would I be wearing? The flames keep me focused.’

‘But what if you burn yourself?’

‘I’m not afraid of pain.’

Eudon jogged easily over a small rise, his eyes on the path ahead, the crossroads opening up to a wide, flat mesa before them. ‘And to think the council called you a coward. They probably assumed you’d be easy prey here on the open road.’

‘Easy prey? For what? That black dog you tried to frighten me with?’ Havisa snorted a laugh and tried to ignore the way her heart quivered. What good would fear do now? Eudon had been the only one in that council meeting who hadn’t laughed at her and called her a coward, after all. Even if she knew the truth, she wasn’t about to act the part. She forced indignance into her voice when she said, ‘I was on the battlefield before the oldest of them was in their father’s ball sack. I’m twice the–’

There, again, from the corner of her eye, she saw it. That low shadow, black, hunched and canine. Havisa turned so quickly the candles on her wrists guttered out, the lanterns around her neck swinging wildly as she fixed her eyes on the darkness where that shadow had been and struggled to focus.

‘You should be more careful.’ Eudon was suddenly at her shoulder, too close, his breath sour and hot as he bent forward as if to examine the snuffed candle on her right wrist. ‘You’ve already had one accident today. It would be a shame if you had another.’

Havisa twitched away from him, embarrassment and fear hurrying her over the uneven ground towards the brighter, moonlit intersection of the crossroad. Fumbling open one of the glass chimneys, she moved to relight the smoking wick. ‘I know what I’m doing. I don’t need you to–’

The shadow darted again across the pale earth, and Havisa dropped the chimney. The candle flickered and died. The two flames hanging around her neck suddenly seemed too small and weak. They weren’t nearly enough to protect her from that shadow following her. They would never be strong enough to ward off the death magic.

Eudon crouched to pick up the glass, but his arm swung wide, catching one of the remaining chimneys. It clattered onto the earth beside him. The candle went out. And he was on all fours at her feet, the light from her sole remaining candle glancing across his long, pale face, the flames glittering crimson in his eyes.

Havisa backpedalled, the last of her flames wavering at her breast. ‘What are you looking at? What do you think you’re doing?’

The low moaning of the wind deepened, howling, and all around the edges of the crossroads shadows shifted, mercurial and menacing. Eudon didn’t move. He remained crouched, his head cocked, his eyes bright even though her candlelight no longer reached him. Behind him it surged, that canine shadow, those four legs, that tail, the muzzle full of long, terrible teeth.

‘Eudon!’ Havisa clutched her spear. ‘Behind you!’

And then he was moving, loping from all fours to two legs, one arm outstretched as he rushed forward, the shadow at his heels. Havisa braced herself, certain he was going to push her out of the way, to try to save her from that impossible, monstrous shadow bounding towards them both. But then the shadow swelled, bending around Eudon’s long legs, writhing and snapping over his body, overtaking him until he had become a writhing mass of tarry fur, of teeth and wild, blood-red eyes.

Havisa had only just raised her spear when he slammed into her. The lantern around her neck shattered on impact, the flame a sudden, unbearable spurt of heat against her skin. Havisa fell to the ground, her arms braced between them, a shield against the growling, gnashing thing, the impossibly sharp teeth snapping at her eyes, lips and throat. Eudon’s hands were claws, ripping into Havisa’s shoulder and side. Her heart thundered. Blood soaked her tunic. Beyond the growling, the slobber of wet teeth and claws and her own shrieks of pain, she could hear the wind cackling wildly through the foothills. Fool. Coward. Even now, even at the end, mocking her.

Even in death, mocking her.

Fury blazed into Havisa. She would not die here. She kicked. Clawed. Screamed. She would not die like this. She bit him back, teeth sinking into the black shadow writhing around her. She elbowed his throat. She thrust her fingers into those red eyes.

Eudon yowled, and for one, precious moment he staggered up and off her. Havisa heaved herself upright, her hands closing around the shaft of her spear. Half blind and furious, Eudon lunged, his monstrous mouth slung wide enough to devour her whole. Havisa grit her teeth. She levelled her gaze. She slammed her spear home, driving the tip deep into Eudon’s maw with a jolt and a wet squelch.

Eudon groaned, whimpered, convulsed, and crumpled to the ground.

Panting, Havisa jerked her spear from Eudon’s throat. She looked down at the young man who had seemed so kind to her, the beast he had become, and she laughed, the sound giddy and desperate, before collapsing among blood and broken candles.

Her world faded to black.

This time, when Havisa woke, the sun was brighter and clearer than she remembered, the crossroads quiet and still. A thin breeze combed its fingers through her hair and along the crusted wounds on her face and throat. Havisa sat up with a groan. Her clothes were stiff with blood. Her shoulder ached and her arm hung limp at her side, a cold, deep pain in the socket. Everything, absolutely everything, hurt. She spat a mouthful of blood and wriggled a loose tooth with her tongue.

Wrapping a gnarled, stained hand around her spear, Havisa stood.

There, beside her in the centre of the crossroads, was Eudon, his mouth slung wide where she’d stabbed him, his eyes open and still glazed with red. Flies had already alighted on his corpse as if he’d been rotting for days instead of hours, but otherwise he was as she’d first seen him, a young man, long and lean – though still, now, his limbs splayed, his neck wrenched at an unnatural angle. His blood had spread outward from his skull, seeping into the pale soil until the darkness surrounded him completely.

It had flowed into the shape of a massive, black dog.

For a long while, Havisa stood there, feeling every one of her long years deep in her bones. But for once she wasn’t ashamed. She had fought the Black Dog of Mhurghast and lived to tell the tale.

And that was something, wasn’t it?

Slowly, Havisa gathered the remains of her shattered lanterns, her severed wicks and candle wax. It was a long way to the next village, and she would need every ounce of protection she could get. Maybe, when she arrived, her nephew would see her new wounds and the blood on her spear, and ask to hear her story. Maybe he would understand that though she hadn’t burned bright when she was young, her fire was still smouldering.

About the Author

Lora Gray lives and works in Northeast Ohio. Their fiction has appeared in various publications including Shimmer, The Dark and Flash Fiction Online. When they aren’t writing, Lora works as an illustrator, dance instructor and wrangler of a very smart cat named Cecil. Lora’s short stories ‘Crimson Snow’ and ‘He Feasts Forever’ feature in the Warhammer Horror anthologies Maledictions and Invocations respectively.

An extract from The Reverie.

‘We have to go,’ the ghost boy whispered into the darkness. The survivors huddled in the grain pit were vague shadows, their forms dusted by desultory strands of moonlight leaking through the wooden boards overhead, but he didn’t need to see their faces to know their fear. They reeked of it, just as the bodies littering the world above would reek of decay when the winter passed, assuming the wolves and carrion birds left anything for the Golden Season to thaw. Or maybe their killer would devour the dead first. Maybe that was why it had come to the village.

‘We must go,’ he urged. ‘Now.’

‘No,’ Padraig hissed. ‘It’s still up there.’

‘It’s sleeping,’ the boy said. Sleeping wasn’t quite the right word for what he sensed, but it was something his companions would understand, and the best approximation he could find for the sluggish emanations wafting from the destroyer above.

‘You can’t know that,’ Padraig protested.

But I do, the boy thought. Like Padraig’s fear, he sensed the beast’s fury somewhere deep inside himself, grasping it with an intimacy he couldn’t explain. It stank of charred meat and sour wine – a heady, sickening sludge of malice, yet only a vestige of the fury that had gone before.

The rage will return. He felt certain of it. The beast’s hunger for carnage was too fierce to be sated for long, no matter how much blood it spilled.

‘It will find us if we stay,’ he warned.

‘Ain’t found us yet,’ Padraig sneered, recovering a measure of his old belligerence. ‘Won’t find us now.’

The ironsmith’s son was twice the ghost boy’s age and many times his size, with a vicious streak that made them natural enemies, but he was only one of many tormentors and far from the worst. The boy had lived alongside these folk for more seasons than he cared to count, but they’d never shown him any kindness, least of all the red-haired trapper who’d taken him in.

Dead or alive, I’ll always be a ghost to them, he thought, weighing up the shadows clustered around him. He’d led them to this hideaway – saved them from the horror that had torn their village apart – but it made no difference. Nothing had changed.

He’d been no more than seven or eight years old when ‘Red’ Novak had found him in the woods beyond the village – a pale-eyed waif wearing the tatters of finery, half-starved and spattered with blood that wasn’t his own. Nobody had come looking for him so the trapper had claimed him as an apprentice, though a slave was closer to the truth. His master hadn’t even given him a name, though he’d lost his own, along with everything else from his old life except the Blade, which he’d been clutching so tightly it had to be prised from his grip. The dagger was an unusual weapon, its long silver blade set into a bone hilt carved with a corkscrewing pattern. Novak had taken it of course, but the boy had filched it back during one of his master’s drunken stupors. He’d kept it hidden under a loose floorboard in their hovel ever since, but this morning some instinct had compelled him to carry it. Perhaps the weapon had called to him. After all, they were both phantoms from another life. If this one ended today they would pass into the next together.

And into all that comes after, until there’s no more living or dying left in the world.

He ran a hand over the Blade’s hilt, drawing courage from its familiar whorled texture. Courage and something darker…

Novak is dead, he thought fiercely. The beast got him!

He hadn’t seen it happen, but he’d sensed the old monster’s death at the hands of the new. Tasted the bastard’s pain when it wrenched out his spine the way the fisherfolk boned their catch. It had felt good. Right.

‘Just,’ he breathed, savouring the fine word.

None of that mattered now, and yet… The cruelties had never felt so raw, as if all the misery and mockery of his life had been honed to a killing edge. Novak’s death wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. He wanted to lash out at the dullards around him and–

It’s the beast, he realised, unclenching his fists. I’m drinking its dreams. Falling into them.

‘We’re safe here,’ Padraig was telling the others. ‘If we stay quiet it’ll move on. Leave us be.’

‘You’re wrong,’ the ghost boy said, rising to his feet. The joints in his cramped legs cracked and he almost stumbled. How long had they been down here, crouched in the darkness while the beast rampaged above? Six hours? Seven? Ten?

‘You’ll get us killed, ghost,’ Padraig growled, grabbing his wrist.

‘Can’t kill a ghost,’ the boy whispered. The urge to strike back was almost overwhelming – not with his fists, but with the purer, sharper force of his will. His spirit burned with it, kindled by the beast’s fury. It would be so easy to reach out with a barbed thought and pop this thug’s mind like a stray bug. So joyful!

Hide your taint.

The cold command froze him, as it had done so often over the years. Whenever he’d reached for his secret strength, that soul-deep imperative had been waiting. It was his only memory of his lost life, which made it both precious and terrible. Time and time again it had forced him to withdraw into meek silence while the dirty tide of abuse washed over him – the insults and the beatings and worse. He’d never once pushed back or tried to reshape the crude clay of the villagers’ spirits into something gentler. Never let himself become more than a ghost.

I’m done with hiding, he decided. Done with them.

‘I’m going,’ he said, twisting free of Padraig’s grip. In the same instant he jabbed out with his mind. Though he only used a sliver of the power sheathed in his soul the thug recoiled with a yelp, as if he’d been struck.

‘You stay, you die,’ the boy warned the others. They couldn’t see what had happened, but he knew they’d felt it. The air had turned frigid, yet there was a bright tang to it, as though it was riddled with invisible energy. Agnieszka, the wizened seamstress, was moaning and he suspected Tivoli, the headman’s scribe, had soiled himself again.

‘Witch,’ Padraig croaked. ‘He’s a witch.’

Yes, the boy agreed, accepting the truth he’d always known. To his surprise he felt no shame, only exhilaration. He wasn’t a ghost any more.

Witch.

‘Yes,’ he confirmed aloud. ‘And I’ve seen what’s coming if you don’t listen to me.’

Dismissing them, he climbed the ladder at the pit’s centre then pressed against the trapdoor overhead, nudging it open a crack to peer outside. Moonlight spilled through, shockingly bright after the gloom, accompanied by the bitter cold of midwinter. While his eyes adjusted he tested the night with his subtler senses, ignoring the shivers coursing through his body. The psychic susurration of the beast continued its brooding, stentorian rhythm. It was still lost in whatever passed for slumber in its jagged soul.

But not for long, the boy gauged. The anger won’t let it be.

Blinking, he realised the cylindrical silo that once covered the pit had been wrenched from its moorings and hurled aside. It lay nearby, its planks splintered. The beast had come very close to their refuge, but something must have drawn it away before it spotted the trapdoor. Next time they wouldn’t be so lucky.

You know we’re hiding, don’t you? You’ve smelled us.

Down below Padraig was still muttering his accusation, but none of the others had taken it up. Once they would have turned on the ghost boy, maybe even tried to burn him alive, but the old order of things was broken. Even Padraig understood something worse than a witch had come among them.

‘Quiet,’ the boy hissed into the pit. He wasn’t surprised when the thug obeyed.

Gently he pushed himself through the trapdoor and crouched low, surveying the area. The grain pit was at the southern edge of the village, beside the looming bulk of the mill. Four sweeping wind-vanes jutted from the conical building’s face, motionless and unlikely ever to resume their rotations. No matter how things turned out, this place was done for.

The boy froze as the scene sank in. He’d known things would be bad, but seeing the horror made it real. Tonight was a triple-moon and the combined radiance of the Night’s Trinity was merciless in its clarity.

Truth is the sharpest knife. He didn’t know where the thought came from, which was often the way with his intuitions, but like all of them, its message was undeniable. There was truth here and it cut deep.

At least a dozen bodies were strewn about the mill’s yard, like blood-filled dolls savaged by a vicious child. Many were missing limbs or heads, while others had been torn into ragged, unrecognisable hunks of flesh. Frost had crept over the corpses, freezing twisted forms and spilt blood into white-dusted abstractions of butchery. One man had been pinned to the mill’s door with a fence post, the makeshift stake rammed through his chest like a giant’s nail. Another was draped over a wind-vane, viscera and crimson icicles dangling from his body in a petrified snarl that hung so low it almost touched the ground.

Yet despite the violence, the moonlit scene had a strange serenity about it. The chill air was perfectly still, as though the world had frozen alongside the dead, holding its breath.

Is this war? the boy wondered, staring at the carnage. The village elders had spoken the word in hushed tones, hinting at battles where thousands died in a single day to hold back the horrors that crawled from between the stars. But surely that couldn’t be true, could it? How could there be enough folk in all the worlds to pay such a price? And how could anything live between the stars, even monsters?

‘Why?’ Agnieszka had asked during their first hours in hiding. ‘Why?’

The old woman had mumbled the question over and over, though nobody had an answer. Things like this didn’t happen in the Hinterwylds. Bad things, yes – ugly, spiteful things were common, as the boy knew all too well – but nothing like this. Not monsters.

Why?

But maybe he had the answer now. Maybe the war had been lost and the God-Emperor’s grand armies had fallen. Maybe that’s why the monsters had found them.

‘No,’ he breathed, breaking the terrible train of thought. The Shining Ones who watched over their world wouldn’t let that happen. Even if the great war had been lost, their protectors would endure. They were eternal, Father Fairfield, the village pastor had promised. The Shining Ones had beaten death.

Maybe they’re tired of us, the boy thought suddenly. Maybe they’ve abandoned us. Then something even worse occurred to him. Maybe they were never there at all.

Nobody alive had actually seen the protector knights or travelled to their fabled fastness in the Fjordlands beyond the valley. All the villagers had to go on were the parables of the Saga Scintillant – wonderful, epic stories to stir the soul, but what if they were only stories? What if the God-Emperor Himself was a lie? Could there really be worlds beyond this one, let alone a glorious empire that spanned them? Surely–

No! He wouldn’t – couldn’t – accept the possibility. Throughout the squalor and suffering of his life, he’d clung to the legends and the hope of something better. Nobler. Yes, that was the word Father Fairfield always used when he preached about the Imperium. It was a wonderful word, filled with the promise of great deeds and more to life than drudgery. Sometimes the boy felt sure his memories would come creeping back and that remembering would reveal the truth he yearned for – that he belonged with the Shining Ones.

‘It’s not real,’ Agnieszka muttered beside him. Lost in thought, he hadn’t noticed her joining him. ‘A dream,’ she assured herself dully. She was a bitter, narrow-minded crone, but shock had drawn her poison. ‘Only a dream.’

Turning, the boy saw the others had emerged from the pit, even Padraig. They stood staring at the massacre in slack-jawed shock.

You’re afraid of me, the boy thought, but you followed anyway. Because I’m all you’ve got left.

Unexpectedly his contempt faded. These folk had no answer to this nightmare – no strength or cunning or secret gift to shield them, only a small measure of faith and a wealth of ignorance. Little wonder they were drawn to his power now. Did that make them fools? Worthless?

‘We burn bright so others may live,’ the boy whispered. It was the credo of the Shining Ones, taught to every child of the Hinterwylds and carved beneath the holy aquila in the village temple. It felt good to say the words aloud. Even better to feel their truth.

‘You said we should… leave,’ Agnieszka said hesitantly.

‘It’s near on two days to Vartan,’ Jaktens estimated, pointing at the treeline beyond the mill. The stocky woodsman knew the forest paths better than anyone else among them. ‘More if the snow keeps up.’

‘I won’t make that,’ Tivoli protested, shivering.

‘Follow me,’ the boy said, coming to a decision. ‘Stay quiet,’ he called over his shoulder as he crept away.

‘Wait, lad,’ Jaktens cautioned. ‘That way’s back into town.’

Yes, it is, but you’ll follow me anyway.

There’s no choice, the boy told himself yet again, but with every step he took the argument felt weaker and the urge to turn and run stronger. The ravaged dwellings and corpse-strewn roads of the village mocked his decision. What he’d seen at the mill hadn’t fully prepared him for the carnage that lay ahead.

Everyone’s gone, he judged. The beast got them all.

It looked like the destroyer had swept from house to house, battering down doors or entire walls, then hurled its victims outside, as if to desecrate the streets. The cobblestones were threaded with frozen blood and more of it covered the buildings, mostly in frenzied splatters, but occasionally worked into symbols or fragments of what might have been words, their characters daubed with startling finesse. It confirmed what he’d sensed all along – despite its savagery the beast was more than an animal.

You can think, but you’re forgetting how, he guessed, brushing against the killer’s dreams. It hurts you to remember.

Yet despite his connection to the beast he still had no idea what it actually was. None of the survivors had even glimpsed it. They’d all been on the other side of the village when the screaming started. Moments later a torrent of raw impressions had rushed over the boy – jagged white teeth gnarled and snarling and framed with flames that scorched black to red then back to blacker rage roaring soaring falling feeding falling further faster brighter darker…

The hellish tide had felt physical in its force. Screaming, he’d buckled under its weight and dropped to his knees, clutching his head as it tried to wrench itself from its own neck and hurl itself into the storm. Through the pain he’d glimpsed that it was actually his soul that was being torn away and drawn into the destroyer’s madness. That insight had saved him.

Falling back on the discipline of the cold command, he’d reined in his gift and muted the clamour of impressions to a murmur. Then he’d hauled himself to his feet and begun yelling at the gawping folk around him, urging them to run. Run!

Perhaps it was the terror in his voice or the chorus of screams – still distant, but getting closer – or perhaps he’d unknowingly thrown his gift behind the warning, but a pitiful, random few had heeded him. They were all he could save from the foe.

The foe? He wasn’t sure when he’d started thinking of their tormentor that way. Not so long ago it had simply been a force of nature to hide or flee from. Maybe the change had come when he’d realised both those courses would end badly. The creature had their scent. If they hid it would find them. If they fled it would run them down. That left just one choice – to act as the Shining Ones would and face their foe.

My foe. The clarity felt good. It gave him strength.

‘You’re sure about this?’ Jaktens whispered.

‘Yes,’ the boy replied, tightening his grip on the Blade. He’d told the others to scavenge weapons along the way and they’d obeyed with the same dull hope that compelled them to follow him. Now they brandished scythes, hoes or spades like holy relics. Jaktens had recovered his crossbow and Agnieszka was clutching the wooden darning needles she’d been carrying in her bag. They were nothing like the dashing Imperial soldiers who marched beside the Shining Ones in the stories, but he was proud of them.

I’ll make them heroes, he vowed, channelling his foe’s fury into something pure. The beast was very close now, but his fear was gone. I’ll make them Astra Militarum!

He waved his party to a halt as they entered the village square. There were surprisingly few human bodies here, though scores of animal carcasses were scattered among the overturned stalls and wagons, slaughtered with the same glee as their owners. The boy guessed they’d been abandoned when the folk fled for their homes. Or to the temple…

His gaze swept to the tall, steeple-topped building across the square. Built from coarsely hewn granite blocks, the God-Emperor’s temple was the oldest and sturdiest place in the village. Four columns fronted it, formed from thick tree trunks and arranged into a roofless portico. Each was carved into the likeness of an armoured warrior with a two-handed sword held before it, blade to the ground, and painted in the bright orange colours of the Shining Ones. The workmanship was crude, the knights rendered as blocky caricatures of the elegant woodcuts in the Saga Scintillant, yet there was an honest strength about them. They were noble. At least, they had been.

‘Heretic,’ the boy growled, seizing on another of Father Fairfield’s favourite words. The knights’ visors had been slashed and spattered with blood.

The beast couldn’t bear to look at you, he thought, staring at the claw marks. You shamed it.

Yes, he was sure of that, though it was an odd insight. No matter, the Shining Ones were the enemy of his enemy, which meant they would stand with him in the battle to come, even if only in spirit. The prospect thrilled him, filling him with renewed conviction. It made his hatred righteous. And with that blessing came another: he knew exactly where his quarry was.

Without a word he headed for the temple, no longer creeping but striding with his head held high. He didn’t need to look back to know his army would follow.

This is why I’m here. This was always why.

The heavy temple doors lay before the entrance, smashed into kindling. They had offered no protection for the souls that took refuge here. Doubtless the sacred aquila hanging over the altar had proved equally ineffective. Without faith to empower it, the symbol was just shaped wood.

‘What are we doing here?’ Jaktens asked as the boy stopped before the portico.

‘What we must, brother.’ It was a strange thing to call this man, who’d only ever been a stranger at best, but it was the right thing to say. ‘What we’re meant to do.’

That was when he heard the music for the first time. It was a gossamer crystal threnody, elusive yet insistent, alienating yet captivating, but above all, achingly distant. He’d never learnt the fancy words and notions it evoked in him, yet he grasped them instantly, as if the music had woven them into his mind. None of the others could hear it. It was for him alone, too refined for common senses. But when he reached for the chords with his gift they fell silent, leaving him with a terrible longing.

It is a song of futures yet to pass. Of paths undreamt that dream of being…

As he scoured the void he felt the beast rising through the fitful strata of its torpor, seeking him in turn – eager to wreak ruin again until all hope of beauty was snuffed out. The impossible music would have to wait. Perhaps it would be his reward for fulfilling this quest. Perhaps it belonged to them. The anthem of the Shining Ones…

‘We burn bright so others may live,’ the aspirant knight declared, raising his dagger to salute the desecrated statues. In the moonlight its blade shone pure white.

Then he led his army into the darkness.

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Warhammer horror

A Black Library Imprint

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Rachel Williams.

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ISBN: 978-1-80026-422-9

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