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