CHAPTER SIX

The Eternal Glade, Athel Loren

Jerrod, the last Duke of Quenelles, hunched in his saddle and steeled his mind against the creeping quiet of the Forest of Loren. Since childhood, he had feared the forest which clung to the south-eastern border of Quenelles. Over the years, it had been responsible for the deaths and disappearances of more friends and subjects than he cared to count. More than once, as a young lord, he had ridden to its edge on the trail of a missing peasant child, only to be forced to turn back in failure. It was a place of pale shapes and bad dreams. Then, the world itself had become a nightmare of late.

He closed his eyes, and wished yet again that the burden he now bore had not passed to him. That his cousin Anthelme had not perished in Altdorf, victim of a plague-stained blade. That Tancred, Anthelme’s predecessor, had not fallen to the black axe of Krell. That he, Jerrod, was not the last of the line of Quenelles. But mostly, he wished that he was not here now, riding into the belly of the beast rather than fighting alongside his people in their hour of need – whatever remained of them.

Jerrod could still recall the smoke that lay thick on the horizon as he’d ridden hard through the pine crags, seeking aid for his beleaguered companions. The smoke that rose over the pyre that had been his homeland, and more besides. For there to be so much smoke, the whole of Bretonnia would need to be aflame, he knew.

What had happened, in the months since he and the Companions of Quenelles had ridden out alongside Louen Leoncoeur’s crusade into the heart of the Empire, to bend their lances in aid of their oldest rivals, greatest enemies and occasional allies? What had befallen Bretonnia in that time? He opened his eyes and reached beneath his helmet to scratch at the week-old growth of beard covering his cheeks and jaw. Since his manservant had been brained at the Battle of Bolgen, he’d had no one to make him presentable.

If what was occurring in Bretonnia was anything like what was happening in the Empire, he feared to learn of it. The Empire had always seemed an unconquerable behemoth to him, a vast dragon with many heads, belching fire and ruin against its foes. To test oneself against that dragon had been the dream of many a young knight, himself included. But now the dragon had fallen, slain by a death of a thousand cuts, each more inglorious than the last. Then, when your enemy wielded plague, storm and fire as easily as a peasant wielded a cudgel, glory was the first casualty, as he and his Companions had discovered to their cost.

Barely a third of the men who had ridden beside him, first in the civil war against Mallobaude’s wretches, and then later at La Maisontaal Abbey, and finally to Altdorf at the command of the Lion-Heart, still lived. Gioffre of Anglaron had died beneath Krell’s axe at La Maisontaal Abbey. The cousins Raynor and Hernald had fallen beside Anthelme at Altdorf. Old Calard of Garamont had died on the walls of Averheim, sword in hand and a curse on his lips. Those who remained, however, were the cream of what Bretonnia had stood for – driven by duty and their oaths to the Lady to stand against evil wherever it might be found. And there was evil aplenty in the Empire.

First Altdorf, then Averheim, had become victims of the foulness seeping down from the north. The other cities of the Empire had fallen besides, but he had been at both Altdorf and Averheim, and had led the Companions in battle against the enemy alongside the Emperor Karl Franz himself, as well as the wild-haired Slayer King of the mountain folk, Ungrim Ironfist.

The thought of the latter only made the weight on his soul all the heavier. The Slayer King had died so that they might live, and escape the trap Averheim had become. While Jerrod knew little of dwarfs, he knew from the weeks they’d spent fighting beside one another that such a death had long been Ironfist’s desire. That made it no less sorrowful, and he felt a moment of pity for the remains of the once-mighty throng which had followed Ironfist out of the Worlds Edge Mountains and into defeat. Like the Bretonnians, they too were the last gasp of a shattered people. And like the Bretonnians, they had no way of knowing the fate of those they had left behind.

He turned slightly in his saddle, to glance down at the heavy form of Gotri Hammerson as the dwarf runesmith stomped alongside Jerrod’s horse. He was old, older perhaps than many a storied Bretonnian keep, Jerrod thought, and as hard as the stones of the mountains they now travelled through. He and the dwarf had not become friends – not quite – but they had fallen into a companionable routine. Their outlooks were not entirely dissimilar, for all that the dwarf mind was a thing utterly alien to Jerrod.

It was Hammerson who had seen them safely away from Averland, after the magics of Balthasar Gelt had plucked the battered remnants of their forces from the clutches of the Everchosen. Hammerson had led the Emperor and his motley assemblage of humans and dwarfs through the Grey Mountains by hidden dwarf roads. Indeed, it was only thanks to Hammerson that they had been able to proceed at all. Unguided, the army would have foundered, burdened as it was by the number of wounded.

Even with Hammerson’s aid, the going had been difficult. Mindless dead clustered in the high crags, their only purpose to kill the living. Pools of suppurating wild magic had given birth to monsters and daemons. Too, the mountains were home to hundreds of orc and goblin tribes. Even the hidden dwarf paths had not been entirely safe. More than once, the battered group of men and dwarfs had been forced to defend themselves against greenskins which swept howling out of the crags. There, only Zhufbarak guns and Gelt’s spellcraft had carried the day, a fact which proved no small frustration to Jerrod and his remaining knights.

While he respected Hammerson, his feelings for the wizard, Gelt, were mixed. The man, clad in filthy robes and a tarnished golden mask, made Jerrod’s skin crawl. He stank of hot metal, and there was something… other­worldly about him. Jerrod had felt similarly when in the presence of the Emperor, who had wielded lightning at the Battle of Bolgen.

Unfortunately, whatever power had infused the Emperor now seemed to be gone, ripped from him by the hands of the Ever­chosen himself. He was nothing but a man now, in a time when men were all but helpless.

Jerrod sighed. He had seen two great nations consumed in fire and blood, and he longed to do something, anything, to achieve some small measure of retribution, no matter how futile. Nonetheless, even with guns and sorcery, it was invariably a close thing. The greenskins had ever frenzied forth in great numbers, but now, as the world came undone, they seemed particularly driven to madness. It was as if some unseen power had caught hold of them and set their brute minds aflame.

But even battle-maddened greenskins had been as nothing compared to what had come after. Even as the column of refugees had reached the pine crags that marked the northern boundary of Athel Loren, the wind had carried the sound of berserk howls. They had been pursued all the way from Averheim by an army of the Blood God’s worshippers, and it was at the infamous Chasm of Echoes that they had been forced to make their stand. While Gelt and Hammerson’s dwarfs had held the pass, Jerrod and the Emperor had ridden hard, braving the forest’s dangers in an effort to make contact with Athel Loren’s defenders.

Jerrod looked up towards the head of the column, where the Emperor walked alongside his griffon, Deathclaw. The animal was limping, but even so, it looked as dangerous as ever. It was a rare man who could ride such a beast without fear. Rarer still was the man who actually felt some form of affection for his monstrous mount. That Deathclaw seemed to reciprocate this affection was merely proof of Karl Franz’s worthiness, and the rightness of Leoncoeur’s decision to bring aid to the embattled Empire.

Jerrod had fought alongside the man for months. While at times Karl Franz seemed aloof and otherworldly, Jerrod had come to admire him, foreign sovereign or not. The Emperor inspired the same sort of loyalty in his men as the resurrected and re-crowned Gilles le Breton had in Jerrod’s own countrymen. Especially his Reiksguard, the knights who acted as his personal bodyguard. Jerrod had got to know one of them quite well – Wendel Volker.

It was Volker who had brought the sad tidings of Midden­heim’s fall to the Emperor at Averheim. Volker was young, but his hair was white and his face worn like that of a man twice his age. His armour was battered and scorched, and he moved at times like one who was trapped in a dream. He was, like many men in these sad times, broken. He had seen too much, and endured more pain than any man ought.

Volker was walking beside the Emperor, one hand on the hilt of his sword. He had not left Karl Franz’s side since arriving at Averheim’s gates, leading a tiny, exhausted band of riders – the only survivors of Middenheim. How Volker had got them out, he’d never said, and Jerrod hadn’t asked. They had arrived only days before Archaon’s forces, and had ridden their horses to death to reach the dubious safety of the city walls. As if he’d heard Jerrod’s thoughts, Volker slowed, turned and soon fell into step beside Jerrod’s horse.

‘Hail and well met,’ Jerrod said, leaning down. He extended his hand. Volker took it.

‘Never thought I’d see this place,’ Volker murmured, without preamble.

Jerrod looked around. ‘Nor did I.’ He shivered. ‘I wish there had been some other way.’

‘You and me both, manling,’ Hammerson grumbled. He looked up at Volker. ‘It’s no place for men nor dwarfs.’

‘Few places are these days,’ Volker said. He ran a hand through his frost-coloured hair. ‘And fewer by the day.’ He blinked and looked up at Jerrod. ‘I’m sorry, Jerrod, I spoke without thinking.’

Jerrod smiled sadly and sat back in his saddle. ‘We’ve all lost our homes, Wendel,’ he said. He swept an arm out. ‘We are all that remains of three mighty empires, my friends. The last gasp of a saner world. I would that it were not so, but if it must be, at least we die as the Lady wills, with courage and honour.’

‘I’m sure Sigmar is of a similar mind,’ Volker said, with a grim smile. He looked at Hammerson. ‘And Grungni as well, eh?’

‘I doubt a manling knows anything of the mind of a dwarf god,’ Hammerson said sourly. He sniffed. Then, ‘But aye… if death comes, let it come hot.’

‘No danger of it being otherwise, given our rescuers,’ Volker said. He pointed upwards, towards the sky, where the fiery shapes of phoenixes swooped and cut through the air. They were ridden by elves, Jerrod knew.

It had been by purest chance that he had found himself on the path to Ystin Asuryan, as their rescuers had called it. Fiery birds, white lions, and tall, proud elven warriors clad in shimmering armour had marched along its length, and gone to the aid of Hammerson and Gelt against the followers of Chaos. Now, the remains of that host escorted them deeper and deeper into the winding heart of Athel Loren.

All at once, Jerrod was reminded of where he was. Around them the trees seemed to press close, and strange shapes stalked through the gloom, watching them. This forest was no place for men. And there was no telling what awaited them within its depths.

Gotri Hammerson ignored the shadows and the trees and the whispers and concentrated on the path ahead, as Jerrod and Volker continued to speak. Let the forest talk all it wanted. He didn’t have to listen. That was where the manlings always went wrong… they listened. They couldn’t help it. They were curious by nature, like beardlings, only they never grew out of it. Always poking and prodding and writing things down. And on pulped wood or animal skins at that, he thought. They trust their knowledge to things that rot… That tells you all you need to know.

Still, they weren’t all bad. He glanced at Volker, and at Jerrod, who sat slumped in his saddle. The Bretonnians were a hardy folk, and they knew the value of an oath. It was a shame that they had the stink of elves on them, but that was humans for you. Naive, the lot of them. You couldn’t trust an elf, everybody knew that. Common knowledge in Zhufbar, that was. Couldn’t trust elves, halflings or ogres. Not an honourable bone in any of that lot.

And you certainly couldn’t trust a forest. That much wood in one place was unnatural. It did odd things to the air, and the light. And this particular forest was a wellspring of grudges, stretching from the time of Grugni Goldfinder to the present day. Many a dwarf’s bones were lost beneath the green loam of the deep forest, their spirits trapped by the roots, never able to journey to the halls of their ancestors.

It was a bad place, full of bad things, like a pocket of old darkness in an abandoned mine. At least we’ve got the ancestor gods on our side, Hammerson thought. He felt a moment of shame, but pushed it aside. It wasn’t the manling’s fault, no matter what some among his dwindling throng might grumble. Still, there wasn’t a dwarf alive who wouldn’t be discomfited by the thought of one of their ancestor gods – and Grungni no less! – blessing a human so.

And there was no other explanation for it. Balthasar Gelt was blessed. How else to explain how runes flared to vigorous life in his presence? In the wizard’s vicinity, gromril armour became harder than ever before and weapons gained a killing edge that no whetstone could replicate. Hammerson sniffed the air.

He didn’t even have to look around to know that Gelt was near. The wizard glowed with an inner fire, like a freshly stoked forge. The air around him stank like smelted iron, and when he spoke, the runes that were Hammerson’s to shape and bestow shimmered with the light of Grungni. Hammerson could feel the human’s presence in his gut, and it bothered him to no end to admit that, even to himself.

Why had the gods gifted a manling with their power? And a wizard at that – a blasted elf-taught sorcerer, without an ounce of muscle on his lean frame and no proper axe to speak of. And he rides a horse. With feathers, Hammerson thought sourly. Couldn’t trust a horse, especially one that could fly. A horse was just an elf with hooves.

And speaking of elves, and their lack of trustworthiness… Hammerson stumped ahead, one hand on the head of the hammer stuffed through his belt, to join Caradryan at the head of the column. The elf looked as tired as Jerrod, for all that he sat erect on his horse. His overgrown chicken was somewhere above them, turning the night sky as bright as day. Only an elf would ride a bird that burst into flame if you gave it a hard look. Caradryan, like Gelt, smelt of magic. He stank of wildfire and burning stones. It was a familiar odour to Hammerson.

‘So you’ve got it then, have you?’ he said, without preamble. He’d heard the Phoenix Guard weren’t allowed to talk, so he was anticipating a short conversation. Or maybe just a nod, or grunt of acknowledgement. ‘Ungrim’s fire?’

Caradryan blinked and looked down. ‘What?’ he said, and his voice crackled like a rising flame. His eyes shone strangely, but Hammerson wasn’t afraid to meet them. He’d got used to eyes like that, on the march from Zhufbar to Averheim. Ungrim had been like a flame caged in metal, sparking and snarling, aching to unleash its power.

‘I thought you lot couldn’t talk,’ he said.

‘We can speak. We simply did not. Asuryan commanded it,’ Caradryan said. The elf’s face twisted, and what might have been sadness filled his eyes.

‘Nice of him to let you talk now,’ Hammerson grunted.

‘Asuryan is dead. And silence is no longer an indulgence we can afford,’ Caradryan said.

‘Just like an elf. Wouldn’t catch a dwarf breaking a vow just because he misplaced his god,’ Hammerson said, bluntly.

Caradryan’s expression became mask-like. ‘What do you want, dwarf?’

Hammerson looked up at him. ‘Got a bit of godfire in you, elf. Don’t deny it. Ungrim Ironfist had it, before he fulfilled his oath. I can feel it from here. Worse than that bird of yours. I’m surprised that horse hasn’t died of heatstroke.’ Hammerson looked away. ‘Godfire or no, if you’re leading us into a trap, I’ll crack your skull.’ He patted his hammer affectionately.

‘Why would I rescue you, only to lead you into a trap?’ Caradryan murmured. Hammerson frowned. He didn’t like being reminded of that. He was no prideful beardling, and he knew that the presence of the elves had been instrumental in turning back the tide of blood-worshippers who had caught up with the dwarfs and their mannish allies in the pine crags. But it was impolite to mention it, and even an elf ought to know better.

‘Who knows why elves do anything? You’re all crooked in the skull,’ Hammer­son said, twirling his finger about alongside his head. ‘And you didn’t rescue us. Maybe you helped the manlings, but the Zhufbarak need no aid from your sort.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘We didn’t have to offer you our help, you know,’ Caradryan said, frowning.

‘Elves never offer help freely. There’s always a price.’

‘And your people would know all about that, eh, dwarf?’ Caradryan said.

Hammerson looked up at him, and made to retort. But before he could, someone said, ‘There is a price, and it is obvious, Master Hammerson. For we have all asked it, and paid it, in these past few months.’

Hammerson glanced over his shoulder, and saw the human Emperor striding along beside his griffon. Karl Franz had one hand on the beast’s neck, and its striped tail lashed in pleasure as he scratched beneath its feathers. ‘We fight for each other. That is the price and the paying of it, in these times. To fight alongside one another, and for one another, in defence of all that we knew and loved.’

Hammerson grimaced and turned back to the trail ahead. ‘Aye,’ he grunted. ‘Doesn’t mean we have to like it, though.’

The Emperor laughed. ‘No, nor would I ask it of you. Irritable dwarfs fight better than content ones, I have learned.’

Hammerson opened his mouth, ready to deny it. Then he snorted, shook his head and looked up at Caradryan. ‘And what about elves, then?’ he asked.

‘We fight better than dwarfs, whatever their disposition,’ Caradryan said. The elf turned in his saddle and looked at the Emperor. ‘We are drawing near. When we arrive, you will accompany me into the Eternal Glade alone.’

‘Not if I have anything to say about it,’ Hammerson growled.

‘You do not.’ Caradryan didn’t look at him. He spoke disdainfully, as if Hammerson were no more important than a pebble lodged in his horse’s hoof. Then, that was elves for you. They thought the world danced to their tune. Even now, with everything that had happened, elves were still elves. But dwarfs were still dwarfs.

Hammerson stumped around in front of Caradryan’s horse and extended a hand. As the horse drew close, the dwarf reached out and gave the animal a hard flick on the snout with one thick finger. The horse reared and snorted. Caradryan cursed and fought to control his steed. The whole column crashed to a halt behind him. White lions roared in consternation as horses whinnied and men shouted questions. Elves pelted forwards, bleeding out of the forest like ghosts. Hammerson ignored them, and the arrows that were soon pointed at him.

The runesmith crossed his brawny arms and smiled. ‘Seems like I do, lad. Now, before we go a step further, I think we ought to decide who’s going where, and who’s invited to what.’

‘Move aside, dwarf,’ Caradryan said. The air grew hazy around his head and shoulders, and Hammerson could see the faint outline of flames. Hammerson shook his head.

‘No.’ Behind Caradryan, he could see the Emperor watching the confrontation, and Gelt as well. The latter looked as if he intended to intervene, but the Emperor stopped him with a gesture. Hammerson felt his smile widen. Aye, leave it to the dwarfs, manling, he thought.

‘Move aside, or be moved,’ Caradryan growled. He slid from the saddle and approached Hammerson. Flames crawled across his armour and his flesh was growing translucent, his every pore shining with reddish light. Hammerson held his ground, though every instinct he had was screaming for him to run. The elf wasn’t really an elf any more, even as Gelt wasn’t human. There was a power there he didn’t understand, and didn’t want to. But that power was as nothing compared to the weight of the responsibility on Hammerson’s shoulders.

‘No. Whatever happens, from here on out, my people will be heard and will hear all that is said. We’ve earned that right, in blood and iron.’

‘You’ve earned nothing, dwarf,’ Caradryan said, in a voice like the hiss of flame across stone. ‘That you still live, after being allowed so far into the last, most sacred place of my people, should be enough, even for your greedy kind.’

‘If you think that, then you really don’t know much about us. Whatever is said, it likely concerns us, and I would hear it.’ The Zhufbarak, his warriors, his kin, were all that remained of Zhufbar. As far as he knew, they might be all that remained of the dwarf race. He had a responsibility to them, to see that their sacrifice wasn’t in vain. To see that their enemies, at least, remembered them. To see that, whatever else happened, they had a say in how they met their end.

‘I should have left you to die,’ Caradryan growled. Hammerson wondered how much of the anger in his voice was him, and how much was the power that now resided in him. Ungrim had been much the same, in those final days. Angry at everything, and nothing.

‘Would have been convenient for you, aye,’ Hammerson said. He cut his eyes to Gelt, and then added, ‘Without us to caution them, the manlings would fall right into whatever trap you’ve laid out for them. That’s why you don’t want us to hear it, eh?’

Caradryan frowned. ‘You know nothing,’ he snapped. Flames blazed to life around his clenched fists and crawled up his forearms. In their light Hammerson saw strange figures, part wood and part woman, slink through the trees, their bark claws flexing eagerly. More elves had arrived as well, these clad in the colours of the woods, and he felt a chill as he recognised the wild elves and dryads of the forest.

‘Well that’s why I want to hear all about it,’ Hammerson said. He thought of home, of the Black Water, and of the huge waterfall that cascaded down the side of the chasm in which the hold was nestled. If he were to be burned here, he wanted that to be his last thought.

‘Wait,’ someone said, from behind him. Hammerson turned.

Several figures stood behind him, suffused by a soft light which threw back the darkness that clung to the trees. Three elves – a woman and two men, both of the latter armoured, one in black iron, the other in gold and silver. The woman stepped forwards, her forest green robes rustling softly. She wore a crown of gold, and her face was so beautiful as to be painful, even to Hammerson. Caradryan sank to one knee, head bowed. His flames flickered and died.

The Emperor moved then to stand beside Hammerson. He sank down slowly, arms spread, head lowered. ‘Greetings, Alarielle the Radiant, Everqueen, Handmaiden of Isha. We come before you to humbly beg sanctuary and to offer our aid in these troubled times,’ Karl Franz said. His voice carried easily through the trees. He looked up. ‘Will you welcome us to Athel Loren?’

Hammerson lifted his chin in defiance as the woman’s gaze passed over him. He knew of the Everqueen, and knew that she could incinerate him on the spot with the barest word. The runes branded into his flesh ached, and he could feel the power of her through them. But he was a dwarf of the Black Water, and he would not kneel before an elf.

Her eyes met his, and, after a moment, what might have been the ghost of a smile passed across her lovely features. She inclined her head. ‘Be welcome, travellers,’ she said. She raised her hand, and the elves lowered their weapons. The dryads retreated, slinking back into the forest. ‘The world has changed, and old distrusts and grudges must be abandoned. You have done well, Caradryan.’ Alarielle gestured for the Emperor to rise. ‘Come. There is much to be discussed, before the end of all things.’

The Eternal Glade

Teclis, once-Loremaster of the now-shattered Tower of Hoeth, blood of Aenarion and Astarielle, sat beneath an ancient tree in the Eternal Glade, eyes closed, his head pressed against the staff he held upright before him.

To his mystically attuned senses, the heartbeat of the primordial forest of Athel Loren was almost deafening. The forest, and the Eternal Glade in particular, was a place of immense, incomprehensible power. It would have taken him an eternity to learn its secrets, if he had been so inclined. And then only if the forest itself had let him.

The murmur of voices rose and fell around him, beyond the barrier of his eyelids. Not just the voices of elves, more was the pity. There were men as well, and dwarfs. Athel Loren had become the final redoubt for the mortal races as well as the immortal.

When Caradryan, captain of the Phoenix Guard, had led a column of weary survivors into the Eternal Grove that morning, he had paid no notice to the furore it elicited in the inhabitants of the woodland realm. Instead, his mind had turned inwards, hunting, seeking, probing, trying to root out some clue as to the source of his failure.

Where did I go wrong?

He was not used to asking such questions. In him was personified both the capability and the arrogance of his people, and it was not without cause that some – including himself – thought he was the greatest adept produced by the folk of Ulthuan since the breaking of the world in those far, dim days when daemons had poured through the wounds in the world’s poles. He was the first to admit it, and wore it as a badge of pride. Like his brother, Teclis was the best and the worst of his folk made flesh.

I made a mistake. Somewhere, somehow… What did I miss? What factor did I overlook? The thoughts spiralled around and around, like leaves caught in a stiff breeze. Where did I go wrong? He examined the moment again and again, from every angle and facet.

He could still feel the frustration of that moment – the winds of magic raging within the Vortex, even as Ulthuan crumbled beneath him, his ancient home sinking into the raging sea. He could feel the winds escaping, one by one, slipping through his grasp as quick as eels, and the mounting sense of loss. He had wagered everything on a single throw of the dice, and while he had not lost, he hadn’t won either.

His hands tightened on his staff. He knew every groove and contour of it by touch, and he had worked magics into it since he had first taken a knife to the length of wood in which it had hidden. The staff was as much a part of him as one of his limbs. It was warm to the touch, and the pale wood shone with a soft light. The residual power of the lore of Light, the one wind until recently within his grasp, coiled within the core of his staff, where it had slumbered until he’d found the one on whom he would bestow it. The one whom he had resurrected and transformed into the Incarnate of Light, a living embodiment of Hysh, the White Wind of magic.

Oh my brother, what have I made of you? What have I done to you? What have I done for you? The latter question was easier to answer than the former. His sins in that regard were ever at the foreground of his thoughts. Tyrion, his brother, had died, consumed by the curse of their mutual bloodline, his body and soul twisted by the madness of Khaine. And it had happened by Teclis’s design.

It had always been Tyrion’s destiny to become the Incarnate of Light. But if he had done so while still bearing the curse of Aenarion, that power – the power necessary to redeem the world – would have become corrupted, and bent to the will of Khaine… or worse things. Thus Teclis had been forced to manipulate his own brother, to set the one he loved best on a path that would inevitably lead to his death. That such an outcome had been the only way of ensuring that the curse exhausted itself did not ease Teclis’s guilt. Nor did the knowledge that Tyrion’s resurrection as the Incarnate of Light was the lynchpin of his plan to throw back the Rhana Dandra – to win the unwinnable war. All that mattered was that he had killed his brother and doomed the world.

But Teclis had brought Tyrion back from death’s bower; he had transported the frail, mummified remains of his twin across the world, from the shattered remnants of Ulthuan, leaving his people in the hands of Malekith.

He had come to Athel Loren, and watered the seeds of Tyrion-as-he-had-been within the Heart of Avelorn. When Tyrion had awoken from the slumber of death, Teclis had filled the emptiness left behind by Khaine’s passing with the Flame of Ulric, filling Tyrion’s still-weak limbs with new strength. He had damned a city and all of the innocents within its walls in order to give his brother a chance of survival, and he knew, in his heart, that he would make the same choice again. Tyrion had endured too much, and all of it at his brother’s hands, for Teclis not to. And then, when he was sure that Tyrion could stand it, he had given him the power of Hysh, and stirred the ashes of destiny to life once more.

He had given his brother back his life, and in return Tyrion had fought alongside his fellow Incarnates, Malekith and Alarielle, to save the Oak of Ages from the depredations of Chaos’s firstborn son, Be’lakor, and those dark spirits he had twisted to his foul cause. Now, in the aftermath of that desperate battle, the few survivors of another, equally terrible conflict had come seeking sanctuary under the boughs of Athel Loren. And with them had come two more Incarnates.

Through the staff, he could sense the presence of the five Incarnates, their power grounded in frail flesh and bone, and the briefest trace of a sixth. The world hummed with the weight of them. Their every word sent shockwaves through his senses, and he could taste the raw power that seeped from their pores.

Slowly, his eyes still closed, he turned his staff, the gem set in its tip moving like a serpent’s tongue, tasting the scent of each wind in turn. The gemstone was almost as old as the world itself, and it had taken him decades to work it and carve its facets to the proper shape. In his mind’s eye, he saw the radiance of each – the blinding aura of Hysh, the constantly-shifting morass of Ulgu, the throbbing heat of Ghyran, the roaring hunger of Aqshy, the dense power of Chamon and, last and least, the faint thrum of Azyr, the Blue Wind of magic. Light, Shadow, Life, Fire, Metal and the faintest traces of the Wind of the Heavens. Only two were missing… Shyish, the Wind of Death, and Ghur, the Wind of Beasts.

Of the two, he suspected he knew where the former had ended up – indeed, where else could it have gone? – but he had lost all hope of learning the location of the Wind of Beasts, or of the identity of its chosen host. The others, however, were here, right where they were supposed to be, and his regret was tempered by some small relief.

Nonetheless, he had failed. He had failed to control the Incarnates, failed to bestow the winds of magic on his chosen soldiers, and failed to bring them together in time. He had failed Ulthuan, he had failed his people, and now the world teetered on the knife-edge of oblivion. What remains of it, at any rate, he thought. The island-realm of the high elves was gone, lost to the swirling waters of the Great Ocean; the blood-slicked stones of Naggaroth were now little more than a haunt for cannibals and monsters; and Athel Loren was an inhospitable refuge for what remained of the elven peoples.

The elves were not alone in their doom, however. The ancient temple-cities of Lustria were no more, consumed in fires from the sky, the fate of their inhabitants unknown. The dwarfs had fared no better; their greatest holds had been all but overrun by skaven and worse, and those that remained had barred their gates in a futile effort to wait out the end of all things.

The realms of men had suffered as well. Bretonnia was a haunted wasteland, overrun by daemons and monsters despite the best efforts of its defenders. The lands of the south were gone, erased by the rampaging hordes of the ratmen. Kislev had been stripped to the bone by the hordes of Chaos, its people slaughtered or driven into the frozen wilderness to die. And the Empire, the last hope of the human race, was all but gone, its greatest cities taken by the enemy or reduced to plague-haunted ruins.

The enormity of it all threatened to overcome him, and would have, had events not conspired to bring the Incarnates together at last. He had doomed the world by his actions, his carelessness, but there was still a chance to salvage something. There was still a chance to weather the storm of Chaos, and throw back the Everchosen. And while there was a chance, Teclis would not surrender to despair. He could not.

‘Teclis.’

Teclis opened his eyes. A ring of expectant faces met his sight. He took note of some of them – the newcomers had only been allowed a few representatives. The Emperor, Karl Franz. Duke Jerrod of Quenelles. Gotri Hammerson, runesmith of Zhufbar. Balthasar Gelt, wizard and Incarnate. And a white-haired knight, who was the Emperor’s bodyguard. Something about the latter drew his attention. The man looked cold, as if he had been doused in ice-water, and when he caught Teclis looking at him, his face twisted, just for a moment, into a snarl. Teclis blinked, and the expression was gone. He hesitated, suddenly uncertain. ‘What would you wish of me, Everqueen?’ he asked, looking at Alarielle.

The Everqueen had been a living symbol of Isha, the mother-goddess of the elves, in better times. But her beauty had been transfigured into something terrifying since she had become the host for the Wind of Life. No more the nurturer, Alarielle had become instead the incarnation of creation and destruction, of life’s beginnings and endings. The trees of the Eternal Glade shuddered and twitched in time to her heartbeat, her breath was in the wind, and in her voice was the rush and crash of the brooks and rivers.

‘What I wish, Loremaster, and what I require are two separate things,’ Alarielle said. Teclis knew she meant no insult, but even so, the coldness of her tone was almost too much for him to bear. Ever since she had given up the Heart of Avelorn to help resurrect Tyrion she had become withdrawn, as if the love she had once borne for his brother had become as dust.

‘Not Loremaster,’ he said. ‘Not any more. Ulthuan is gone, and the Tower of Hoeth with it.’ He spat the words with more bitterness than he’d intended. You have no right to bitterness, he thought, not when your actions are the cause.

‘But you still live, brother,’ Tyrion said, softly. ‘We still live. Our people survive, thanks to you. Ulthuan is gone, but while one asur lives, its spirit persists.’

‘Oh yes, very pretty. And while one asur lives, or druchii or asrai for that matter, I am still their king, as much good as it does any of us,’ Malekith interjected, his voice a harsh, metallic rasp. Like Alarielle, he had been bound to one of the winds of magic. In his case, it had been Ulgu, and the coiling, cunning lore of Shadows suited Malekith to his core. He was less a being of flesh than of darkness now, stinking of burned iron and radiating cold. ‘And as king, I would have answers. Why do you come to us, human?’ Malekith asked. ‘Why do you dare to come to Athel Loren?’

‘Where else is there to go?’ Karl Franz said. ‘The world has grown hostile, and sanctuary is hard to come by. Old allies find themselves equally hard-pressed.’ He indicated Hammerson and Jerrod. ‘Our greatest cities are in ruins, and our people are in disarray. Our last redoubt, Averheim, is dust beneath the boots of the world’s enemy. I am an emperor without an empire, as are you,’ Karl Franz said, looking at Malekith.

‘Look around you, human… my empire still stands,’ Malekith said. He stood and spread his arms. ‘The enemy have broken themselves on it again and again. But we still stand.’

Karl Franz smiled. ‘If this is what you call an empire, I begin to wonder why Finubar feared you.’

Shadows coiled and writhed around Malekith’s form as he went rigid with anger. ‘You dare…?’ he hissed. ‘I will pluck the flesh from your bones, king of nothing.’

‘Yes, for that has ever been the way of your folk. The world burns, and you can think of nothing better to do than to squabble in the ashes.’ Karl Franz gestured sharply. ‘You would rather kill the messenger than hear the message. You would turn away allies, because in your arrogance you mistake strength for weakness and support for burden.’

‘What would you know of us, human?’ Alarielle said. Teclis glanced at her. Her features were perfectly composed, but he thought he detected the trace of a smile on her face.

‘I know enough,’ Karl Franz said. He turned, his eyes scanning the Eternal Glade. ‘I know that what your folk call the “Rhana Dandra” has begun – indeed, it began several years ago. I know that Ulthuan is gone, and that the Great Vortex is no more.’ His eyes sought out Teclis. Teclis twitched. The Emperor’s gaze revealed nothing, but the elf felt a glimmer of suspicion.

Why had Azyr sought out Karl Franz? The winds were drawn to their hosts as like was drawn to like, but the Emperor had, to the best of his knowledge, never displayed the least affinity for the lore of the Heavens. Teclis forced the thought aside. It mattered little now, in any event. The power was gone, torn from him. Teclis shook himself and said, ‘And do you know why?’

Karl Franz looked at him. ‘No,’ he said, and Teclis knew it was a lie.

‘Oh, well, let Teclis illuminate you, eh?’ Malekith said. He had sunk back onto his throne, his anger already but a memory. Teclis looked at him, and Malekith gestured sharply. ‘As your king, I command you to tell the savages of your crimes, schemer.’ Malekith laughed. ‘Tell our guests how you gambled the world, and lost.’

Teclis looked at the thin, dark shape of the creature once known as the Witch-King, sitting on his throne of roots and branches beside the Everqueen. The creature he had helped crown Eternity King, and had gifted with more power than he deserved. Malekith met his glare, and Teclis knew that the former ruler of the dark elves was smiling behind his metal mask.

Teclis used his staff to help himself to his feet, and he pulled the tattered remnants of his authority about him. He looked at the newcomers. Despite being bedraggled and bloodstained, they did not look beaten, and for that, Teclis thanked the fallen gods of his people. They would need every ounce of strength that they could muster for what was coming. He cleared his throat, and made ready to speak.

Before he could, however, a snarl ripped through the glade. A snarl that was achingly familiar, and utterly terrifying. He turned, and his searching gaze was met by a yellow, furious one. Beast eyes those, and blazing with intent. The temperature in the glade began to drop.

‘Thief!’ the white-haired knight roared, in a voice not his own. The Reiksguard shoved past the Emperor, and hurled himself towards Teclis, fingers hooked like claws.

‘Volker – no!’ the Emperor bellowed, reaching for his guard. The man slithered out of his grip.

With a curse, the dwarf, Hammerson made a grab for Volker. ‘Hold him back, lad, or it’s an arrow to the giblets for the lot of us,’ the dwarf roared at the Bretonnian as he wrapped his brawny arms around Volker’s legs. The Reiksguard fell sprawling and Jerrod sprang on top of him, armour rattling. Volker thrashed beneath them, howling like a wolf. Teclis stumbled back, one hand pressed to his throat, his face pale with shock.

Volker was cold; colder than Teclis thought it was possible for a man to become and survive. The air around the struggling figures became silvered with frost, and the grass beneath them turned stiff and shattered. Jerrod’s teeth were chattering, and Hammerson was cursing. Volker glared at Teclis, his eyes yellow and bestial. ‘Thief,’ he snarled again, and Teclis shuddered, pulling his cloak about himself. He had expected this, though he’d hoped it would be otherwise. Ulric was not the sort of god to pass quietly into oblivion, even if it would be better for all concerned.

‘Yes,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Yes, I am a thief. And your moment has passed, old wolf. You are dead, and I will not let you sacrifice a life merely to take mine.’ He lifted his staff, and the words to an incantation rose in his mind. But before he could speak, Karl Franz stepped between them. Though the Wind of the Heavens had been stripped from him, there was still something yet in him that made Teclis wary. A lurking strength, as unlike his own as Tyrion’s was. He lowered his hands. ‘I did what I had to do,’ he said, without quite knowing why, as he met the Emperor’s gaze. ‘I did what was necessary.’

‘And would you do it again?’ Karl Franz said, his voice a quiet rumble.

Teclis hesitated. He glanced towards Tyrion. ‘In a heartbeat,’ he said.

The Emperor nodded slowly, as if he had expected no other answer. He turned and looked down at his bodyguard. The man thrashed and howled, fighting to be free of his captors. Veins bulged on his neck, and froth coated his lips. Karl Franz looked back at Teclis. ‘Can you help him?’ he asked.

Instead of replying, Teclis knelt. Volker’s body twitched and his face seemed to elongate, becoming monstrous and unformed. Teclis stretched out his hand and plunged his fingers into the wet chill that obscured the man’s face. He tried to grasp the shard of Ulric’s essence that had made its home in the man, even as he had grasped the Flame in Middenheim. But this was different. It was no mindless flux of power, but rather a desperate consciousness, savage and determined. It struggled against him, and he heard Volker wail in agony.

Images flooded his mind. He saw Middenheim burn, felt the heat of the flames, and the blistering cold as the sliver of Ulric’s might was pressed into Volker’s soul. Fear, weakness, fatigue, all were buried beneath the cold, so that Volker might survive the sack of the city and escape to bring warning to Averheim. Even in death, the wolf-god had been determined to watch over his chosen people. Sigmar might have been their greatest god, but Ulric had been their first.

But now, with warnings delivered, there was one last task. Ulric had known that somehow, someway, Teclis would cross paths with the men of the Empire once more, before the end of all things. And he was determined to have his revenge. Teclis felt a sudden, stabbing pain, as if teeth were tearing into his flesh, and he jerked his hand back with a hiss. Steam rose from his blue-tinged flesh as he cradled the wounded limb to his chest. Alarielle and Malekith’s guards started forward, but the Eternity King slammed a fist down on his throne. ‘Be still,’ he grated. ‘No more of our people’s blood shall be spent in payment of his schemes. Let him survive or fall on his own.’

Volker flung off his captors. ‘You killed them, thief,’ Volker snarled, lunging for him again. His voice echoed strangely amongst the trees, with a sound like ice-clad branches snapping. As he fell back, Teclis saw Tyrion start forwards, one hand on his blade. He waved a hand, stopping his brother before he could interfere. This is my fight, brother, my burden, Teclis thought. ‘You killed my city – my people – you killed the world. For what?’ Volker growled, in a dead god’s voice.

‘For him,’ Teclis said, indicating his brother. ‘For them. I sacrificed your people for my own, and I would do it again, a thousand times over, if I had to.’ He extended his staff to hold Volker at bay. ‘Malekith was right. I gambled the world. But I did not lose, for here you all stand… Incarnates, gods in all but name, ready to throw back the end of all things.’ He made a fist. ‘I tore apart the Great Vortex, and sought to ground the winds of magic in living champions, who would become mighty enough, as a group, to defy the Chaos Gods themselves.’

He saw Balthasar Gelt nod, as if a question had suddenly been answered. The wizard said, ‘But not all of the winds are accounted for – what of the Winds of Beasts, and of Death?’

Volker threw back his head and howled, before Teclis could even attempt to reply. The air quivered with the sound. He ripped his sword from its sheath and swung a wild blow at Teclis. The sound of steel on steel followed the echoes of the howl, as the Emperor interposed himself, and his runefang, between the maddened knight and his prey. ‘No,’ Karl Franz said. ‘No, the time for vengeance is done.’

‘Who are you to gainsay me?’ Volker roared. His eyes bulged from their sockets, and froth dotted his patchy beard. He strained against Karl Franz, trying to untangle their blades.

‘I am your Emperor, Wendel Volker. And that should be all that needs to be said.’ The Emperor spoke quietly as he leaned into the locked swords. ‘Now sheathe your blade.’ The two men locked eyes, and for a moment, Teclis wondered which would win out. Then Volker staggered back and slumped, his sword falling to the grass. He sank down, and the frost that coated his armour began to melt. The Emperor dropped to one knee and placed a hand on Volker’s shoulder. Teclis could still feel the wrath of the wolf-god, or whatever was left of him, retreating, slinking back into hiding. It was not gone, but its fury was abated, for now.

Before anyone could speak to break the silence that followed, the trees gave out a sudden rattle, and a wind rose up, causing the leaves to make a sound like murmuring voices. Teclis stiffened. While he was no native of the forest, he knew well what that sound meant. It was a warning.

A moment later, a member of the Eternal Guard moved out of the trees to Alarielle’s side and whispered something into her ear. Her eyes widened and she stood quickly. She looked around. ‘It seems that you are not the only refugees seeking sanctuary within the forest,’ she said. Her voice was strained, and her skin pale. ‘An army approaches the edge of the Wyrdrioth.’

Teclis’s grip on his staff tightened. He could feel the presence of another Incarnate – and one far more powerful than any of those now standing in the Eternal Glade. Together, they might equal him, but separately, they stood no chance. Even here, in the living heart of Athel Loren, he could feel the malignant, suffocating pulse of Shyish – the Wind of Death – and the one who had become its host.

‘An army?’ Malekith snarled. ‘Who would dare?’

‘The Wind of Death,’ Teclis said, before Alarielle could speak. He bowed his head. ‘It is the Incarnate of Death.’ He looked up, meeting the gaze of each Incarnate in turn.

‘The Undying King has come to Athel Loren.’