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