From the maelstrom of a sundered world, the Eight Realms were born. The formless and the divine exploded into life.

The dead thing stumbled slowly across the eternal desert of Shyish. Its bones were baked the colour of a dull bruise by the amethyst sun overhead, and what few pathetic tatters of flesh it retained had become leathery and fragile. Yet the lack of muscle and sinew had proved to be of little impediment in all the slow, countless centuries of its task.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Across burning sands, to the very edge of the Realm of Death, and then back, ten thousand leagues or more. Slowly, but surely.

As sure as death. As certain as the stars.

There was a soul of sorts, in those brown bones. It was a small thing, akin to the last ember of a diminished fire. It had no hopes, no fears, no dreams, no desires. Only purpose. Not a purpose it recognised or understood, for such concepts were beyond such a diminished thing. The directive that provided motive force to its cracked bones had been applied externally, by a will and a mind such as the dead thing could not conceive – and yet recognised all the same.

The master commanded, and it obeyed. The master’s voice, like a great, black bell tolling endlessly in the deep, was the limit of its existence. The reverberation of that awful sound shook its bones to their dusty marrow and dragged them on. The master had sheared away all that the dead thing had been and made it into an engine of singular purpose.

The only purpose.

Cracked finger bones clutched tight about a single grain of pale, purple sand. The mote rested within a cage of bone and was incalculably heavy despite its size, weighed down with potential. Moments unlived, songs unsung. The dead thing knew none of this, and perhaps would not have cared even if it had.

Instead, it simply trudged on, over dunes and swells of windswept sands. It was not alone in this, for it was merely a single link in a great chain, stretching over distance and through time. A thousand similar husks trudged in its wake, and a thousand more stumbled ahead of it. Twice that number lurched past, going in the opposite direction. Their fleshless feet had worn runnels in the stone beneath the sand, and carved strange new formations in what was once a ­featureless waste. The silent migration had changed the course of rivers and worn down mountains.

Jackals hunted the chain, having grown used to the sport provided by the unresisting dead. They streaked out of the dunes, yipping and howling, to pluck away some morsel of dangling ligament. The dead thing paid them no mind. It could but dimly perceive them, as brief, bright sparks of soul fire, dancing across the dunes. By the time its sluggish attentions had fixed upon them, they were gone, and new fires beckoned elsewhere.

A carrion bird, one of many, circled overhead. Once, twice, and then it alighted on a sand-scoured clavicle. The bird twitched its narrow head, digging its beak into the hollows and crevices of the dead thing’s skull, as generations of its kind had done before it. For wherever the dead went, so too came the birds. Finding nothing of interest, it fluttered away with a skirl in a flurry of loose feathers, leaving the dead thing to its purpose.

On the horizon, a second sun – a black sun – shone. Its corona squirmed like a thing alive, alert to the attentions of the master. As that great voice tolled out, the sun blazed bright with a hazy, bruise-coloured light. When the voice fell silent, the sun shrank, as if receding into some vast distance. But always, its dark light was visible to the dead thing. And always the dead thing followed the light.

It could do nothing else.

All of this its master saw, through its empty eyes and the eyes of the carrion birds and the jackals, as well. All of this, its master knew, for he had willed it so, in dim eternities come and gone. And because he had willed it, it would be done.

For all that lived belonged ultimately to the Undying King.

In every realm, wherever the living met their end, some aspect of Nagash was there. Once, such a menial task would have been undertaken by other, lesser gods. Now, there was only one. Where once there had been many, now there was only Nagash. All were Nagash, and Nagash was all. As it should be, as it must be.

The dead were his. But there were those who sought to deny him his due. Sigmar, God-King of Azyr, was the worst offender. Sigmar the betrayer. Sigmar the deceiver. He had snatched souls on the cusp of death to provide fodder for his celestial armies, imbuing them with a measure of his might and reforging them into new, more powerful beings – the Stormcast Eternals.

Worse still, he had not been content with the nearly dead, and had scoured the pits of antiquity, gathering the spirits of the long forgotten to forge anew into warriors for his cause. Every soul lost in such a fashion was one less soul that might march in defence of Shyish.

Nagash saw the ploy for what it was, and a part of him admired the efficiency of its execution. Sigmar sought to beggar him and leave him broken and defenceless, easy prey for the howlers in the wastes. But it would not work. Could not work.

His servants had been despatched to the edge of Shyish, where the raw energies of the magics that formed the realm coalesced into granules of amethyst and black grave-sand, heaped in grain by grain. Over the course of aeons, he had gathered the necessary components for his design.

Even when the forces of the Ruinous Powers had invaded the Mortal Realms, he had continued. Even when he had been betrayed by one he called ally, and the armies of Azyr had assaulted his demesnes, he had persevered. Unrelenting. Untiring. Inevitable.

Such was the will of Nagash. As hard as iron, and as eternal as the sands.

At the heart of the Realm of Death, the Undying King waited on his basalt throne.

He sat in silence, counting the moments with a patience that had worn down mountains and dried out seas. Spiders wove their webs across his eyes, and worms burrowed in his bones, but he paid them no mind. Such little lives were beneath the notice of Nagash. His awareness was elsewhere, bent towards the Great Work.

Then, Nagash stiffened, alert. Purple light flared deep in the black sockets of his eyes. The scattered facets of his perceptions contracted. The disparate realms slid away, as all his attentions focused on Shyish and the lands he claimed for his own.

Something was wrong. A flaw in the formulas. Something unforeseen. The air pulsed with raw, primal life. It beat upon the edges of his perceptions like a hot wind. He shrank down further still, peering through the eyes of his servants – the skeletal guardians that patrolled the streets endlessly. He saw… green. Not the green of vegetation, but dark green, the solid green musculature of things that should not be in Nagashizzar. He heard the thunder of rawhide drums and tasted a hot, animal stink on the air.

Something was amiss. Inconceivable. And yet it was happening.

Nagash shook off the dust of centuries and forced himself to his feet. The creaking of his bones was like the toppling of trees. Bats and spirits spun in a shrieking typhoon about him as he strode from his silent throne room, shaking the chamber with every step. He was trailed, as ever, by nine heavy tomes, chained to his form. The flabby, fleshy covers of the grimoires writhed and snapped like wild beasts at nearby spirits.

He cast open the great black iron doors, startling those of his servants in the pillared forecourt beyond. That the fleshless lords of his deathrattle legions were gathered here before the doors of his throne room, rather than seeing to their duties, only stoked the fires of his growing anger. ‘Arkhan,’ he rasped, in a voice like a tomb-wind. ‘Attend me.’

‘I am here, my king.’

Arkhan the Black, Mortarch of Sacrament and vizier to the Undying­ King, stepped forwards, surrounded by a gaggle of lesser liches. The wizened, long-dead sorcerers huddled in Arkhan’s shadow, as if seeking protection from the god they had served briefly in life and now forever in death. Unlike his subordinates, Arkhan was no withered husk, for all that he lacked any flesh on his dark bones. Clad in robes of rich purple and gold, and wearing war-plate of the same hue, he radiated a power second only to that of his master.

Nagash knew this to be so, for he had made a gift of that power, in days long gone by. Arkhan was the Hand of Death and the castellan of Nagashizzar. He was the vessel through which the will of Nagash was enacted. He had no purpose, save that which Nagash gifted him. ‘Speak, my servant. What transpires at the edges of my awareness?’

‘Best you see for yourself, my lord. Words cannot do it justice.’

Though Arkhan lacked any expression except a black-toothed rictus, Nagash thought his servant was amused. Arkhan turned and swept out his staff of office, scattering liches and spirits from their path as he led his master to one of the massive balconies that clustered along the tower’s length. At his gesture, deathrattle guards, clad in the panoply of long-extinct kingdoms, fell into a protective formation around Nagash. While the Undying King had no particular fear of assassins, he was content to indulge Arkhan’s paranoia.

‘We appear to have an infestation of vermin, my lord,’ Arkhan said, as they stepped onto the balcony. ‘Quite persistent vermin, in fact.’ Razarak, Arkhan’s dread abyssal mount, lay sprawled upon the stones, feasting on a keening spirit. The beast, made from bone and black iron, its body a cage for the skulls of traitors and cowards, gave an interrogative grunt as its master strode past. It fell silent as it caught sight of Nagash, and returned to its repast.

Many-pillared Nagashizzar, the Silent City, spread out before him. It was a thing of cold, beautiful calculus, laid out according to the ancient formulas of the Corpse Geometries. A machine of stone and shadow, intricate in its solidity, comfortable in its predictability.

It was a place of lightless avenues of black stone veined with purple, and empty squares, where dark structures rose in grim reverence to his will. These cyclopean monuments were made from bricks of shadeglass, the vitrified form of the collected grave-sands. Harder than steel and polished smooth, the towering edifices resonated with the winds of death.

Nagashizzar had been made from the first mountain to rise from the eternal seas. There had been another city like it, once, in another time, in another world, and Nagash had ruled it as well. Now all that was left of that grand kingdom were threadbare memories, which fluttered like moths at the edges of his consciousness.

Those memories had taken root here and grown into a silent memorial. Or perhaps a mockery. Even Nagash did not know which it was. Regardless, Nagashizzar was his, as it had always been and always would be. Such was the constancy of his vision.

But now, that vision was being tested.

Nagash detected a familiar scent. The air throbbed with the beat of savage drums and bellowing cries. Muscular, simian shapes, clad in ill-fitting and crudely wrought armour, loped through the dusty streets of Nagashizzar. Orruks. The bestial, primitive children of Gorkamorka.

Below, phalanxes of skeletal warriors assembled in the plazas and wide avenues, seeking to stem the green tide, but to no avail. The orruks shook the ground with the joyful fury of their charge. A roaring Maw-krusha slammed through a pillar, sending chunks of stone hurtling across the plaza. It trampled the dead as it loped through their ranks, and the orruk crouched on its back whooped in satisfaction.

The orruks were the antithesis of the disciplined armies facing them. For them, warfare and play were one and the same, and they approached both with brutal gusto. They brawled with the dead, bellowing nonsensical challenges to the unheeding tomb-legions. There was no objective here, save destruction. Unless…

Nagash turned towards the centre of the city, where the flat expanse of the Black Pyramid towered over the skyline. It was the greatest and grandest of the monuments he’d ordered constructed. Unlike its smaller kin, hundreds of which dotted Shyish, the Black Pyramid was the fulcrum of his efforts. Its apex stretched down into Nekroheim, the underworld below Nagashizzar, while its base sprawled across the city – a colossal structure built upside down at Shyish’s heart.

A flicker of unease passed through him as he considered the implications of the sudden assault. It was not a coincidence. It could not be. He looked at Arkhan. ‘Where did they come from?’

The Mortarch motioned southwards with his staff. ‘Through the Jackal’s Eye,’ he said. Nagash’s gaze sharpened as he followed Arkhan’s gesture. The Jackal’s Eye was a realmgate, leading to the Ghurish Hinterlands. There were many such dimensional apertures scattered across this region – pathways between Shyish and the other Mortal Realms. They were guarded at all times by his most trusted warriors. Or so he had commanded, a century or more ago. As if privy to his master’s thoughts, Arkhan said, ‘Whoever let them pass through will be punished, my lord. I will see to it personally.’

‘If the orruks are here, then whoever was guarding the gate is no more. The reasons for their failure are of no interest to me.’ Nagash considered the problem before him. Then, as was his right as god and king, he passed it to another, one whose entire purpose was to deal with such trivialities.

‘Arkhan, see to the disposal of these creatures.’ Nagash looked down at his Mortarch. Arkhan met his gaze without flinching. Fear, along with almost everything else, had been burned out of the liche in his millennia of servitude. ‘I go to bring the Great Work to its conclusion, before it is undone by this interruption.’

‘As you command, my lord.’ Arkhan struck the black stones of the balcony with the ferrule of his staff. Razarak heaved itself to its feet with a rustling hiss. The dread abyssal stalked forwards, and Arkhan hauled himself smoothly into the saddle. He caught up the reins and glanced at Nagash. ‘I am your servant. As ever.’

Nagash detected something that might have been disdain in Arkhan’s flat tones. Of course, such was impossible. The Mortarch was no more capable of defying Nagash than the skeletons trudging through the wastes. And yet, he seemed to, in innumerable small ways. As if there were a flaw in him – or in Nagash himself.

For a moment, the facets of Nagash’s being hesitated. Then, as ever, the black machinery that passed for his soul righted itself and continued on. He had been mistaken. There was no defiance. Only loyalty. All were one, in Nagash, and Nagash was all. ‘Go,’ he said, the stentorian echo of his command causing the air itself to shudder and crack.

With a sharp cry, the Mortarch urged his steed into a loping run. The skeletal monstrosity galloped across the balcony and flung itself into the air. The winds of death wrapped protectively about both rider and steed, carrying them towards the battle.

A moment later, a cyclone of howling, tortured spirits streamed past Nagash and spiralled into the air in pursuit of the Mortarch. He watched as they hurtled upwards and away, a cacophonous fog of murderous spectres, twisted and broken by his will into a shape suited to their task. They had been criminals, murderers and traitors in life, and now, in death, they were bound in stocks and chains, afflicted with terrible hungers that could never be sated. Nagash knew himself to be a just god, whatever else.

He turned away, satisfied. Arkhan would see it done, or be destroyed in the attempt. The Mortarch had been destroyed before and would be again. Always, Nagash resurrected him. His term of service had no end, for so long as the Undying King required his services.

He cast his gaze back towards the Black Pyramid and let his body crumble to dust and bone. Even as it came apart, his mind was ­racing through the confines of the pyramid like an ill wind. Its interior was a labyrinth of impeccably placed tunnels and passageways, all polished to a mirror-sheen. These pathways resonated with the energies of the aetheric void that encompassed and permeated the Mortal Realms, invisible and inescapable.

Construction had begun in the depths below Nagashizzar, in the underworld of Nekroheim, the wells from which all other underworlds had sprung. The dead of entire civilisations had surrendered their bones to form the walls and ceiling of the cavernous reaches of the underworld. The vast expanse was lit by a dead sun, the flickering wraith of an ancient orb long since snuffed, stretched upwards from the deepest pit in the underworld. Its sickly radiance cast shrouds of frost and fog wherever it stretched, and an eternal corona of wailing souls orbited it.

Now, that sun churned malignantly, its incandescent heart pierced by a capstone crafted from purest grave-sand. He had placed that capstone himself, with his own hands. Only through his magics, and the fluid nature of Nekroheim, had such a feat of engineering been possible. The Black Pyramid had blossomed from that point, spreading outwards and upwards with glacial certainty.

Once, the black pyramids had been the wellsprings of his power, designed to draw in the souls of the dead, like fish in a net. Most were gone now, reduced to rubble by the rampaging armies of the Ruinous Powers.

But this one eclipsed them all, in both size and purpose. Every element of its construction was bent towards drawing the raw stuff of magic itself, from the edges of Shyish, to its heart. The greatest concentration of those magics which sustained the Realm of Death would be refracted and reflected through the pyramid. Thus would the raw magics be refined into a more useful form. It had been constructed over the course of aeons, assembled by generations of artisans, both alive and dead. And now, it was complete, awaiting only his presence to fulfil its function.

His spirit raced through the passageways, and where he passed, the skeletal servitors scattered throughout them twitched into motion, following their master into the hollow heart of the pyramid. This central chamber spread outwards from the structure’s core, from capstone to base, banded by pillared tiers, one for each level of the pyramid.

As Nagash’s spirit billowed into the immense chamber like a black cloud, silent overseers, stationed among the pillars, stirred for the first time in centuries. They directed the new arrivals onto the assemblage of walkways and ledges that extended from the tiers towards the hundreds of platforms that clung to the central core of the pyramid.

The core stood in stark contrast to the orderly nature of the rest of the structure. It was a contorted spine of jagged shadeglass, reaching from the interior of the capstone up to a glittering field of amethyst stalactites that spread across the pyramid’s base. A web of shimmering strands stretched out from the core in quaquaversal spillage. The core and its calcified web were covered in innumerable facets of varying sizes and shapes, all of which shone with a malevolent energy.

To Nagash, that light was almost blinding. It throbbed with morbid potential, and he felt the Black Pyramid’s monstrous hunger almost as keenly as his own. It clawed greedily at his essence, but he resisted its pull with an ease born of long exposure. It feasted on the strength of the realm, battening on the winds of death, as he would feast on it, in his turn.

His deathrattle slaves entered the chamber, and many of the skeletal labourers were ripped from their feet and drawn into a sudden crackling storm of amethyst energies, as Nagash drew their essences into his own. With brisk efficiency, he disassembled the unliving slaves and reassembled them into a new body for himself.

The God of Death flexed a newly fashioned hand, feeling the weight of new bones. Satisfied, he stepped onto the largest of the walkways. Ancient warriors, clad in rusty, age-blackened armour, knelt as he passed through their ranks. Deathrattle champions and lords, the kings and queens of a hundred fleshless fiefdoms, ­humbled themselves before the one they acknowledged as their god and emperor both. The diminished husks of slaves and artisans abased themselves, grovelling before the master of their destinies. Nagash surveyed the silent ranks and was pleased.

At the urging of the overseers, skeletons trooped across the walkways to the great platforms clinging to the core. Occupying each platform was a millstone-like ring of shadeglass, dotted with turning spokes of bone. These lined the core’s length, from top to bottom, one atop the next, rising upwards along the spine. Strange sigils marked the crudely carved circumference of each ring, and these glowed with a pallid radiance.

‘The time has come,’ Nagash said, as the last of the skeletons assumed its position. The walls of the shaft hummed in time to his words. As one, his servants stiffened, their witch-light gazes fixed upon him. ‘Go to your prepared places, and bend yourself against the wheel of progress. Let it turn and time itself be ground between the stones of my will.’

The fleshless shoulders of princes and slaves alike bent to the spokes of each wheel. As the skeletons pushed against the spokes, the stone rings began to move. A thunderous, grinding growl filled the air. Violet lightning flashed across the facets of the web and sprang outwards, striking the polished walls of the shaft.

A rumble began, far below. It shuddered upwards through the pyra­mid, shaking it to its upside-down foundations. Loose grave-sand sifted down like dry rain. Nagash, still standing atop the largest walkway, stretched out a talon, gathering together the strands of crackling energy that seared the air. With precise, calculated movements, he looped the shimmering skeins of magic about his forearms, as if they were chains. The skeins flared, burning as he pulled them taut, but he ignored the pain. After all, what was pain to a god?

Facing the core, Nagash gathered more and more of the skeins, and his titanic form became a conductor. Amethyst lightning crawled across him, winnowing into the hollow places and filling him with strength enough to crack the vaults of the heavens. This was not the raw magic that soured the edges of his realm, but a purified form.

He hauled back on the strands of magic he held, lending his strength to that of his servants. As they pushed, he pulled, forcing the great machinery into motion. Around him, the faceted walls began to shift and scrape as slowly, surely, the Black Pyramid began to revolve on its capstone, as he had designed it to do.

The structure rotated faster and faster. The dead sun beneath it flared brightly, as if in panic, and then burst with a cataclysmic scream that shook Nekroheim to its intangible roots. Rivers of cold fire streaked up the sides of the pyramid, flowing towards the base, or else washed across the cavern walls. Nekroheim itself shuddered, as if wounded.

The cavern floor began to churn and shift. Millions of bones clattered as the rotation of the pyramid drew them in its wake. Like some vast, calcified whirlpool, the entirety of the underworld was soon in motion. A storm of bones and tattered spirits, spinning about the ever-turning pyramid.

Within the pyramid’s heart, Nagash felt and saw all of this in the polished walls of shadeglass. He saw the streaks of purple light stretching out, flowering into storms of raging elemental fire as they broke through the borders that separated Nekroheim from the other underworlds. The purple light dug into the metaphysical substance of these other realms, hooking them the way a meat-hook might sink into a side of beef. Steadily, they were drawn towards Nekroheim, becoming part of the growing maelstrom.

Nagash threw back his head and bellowed. He felt as if he was on the cusp of dissolution, as if the monstrous energies he sought to manipulate now threatened to rip him asunder. Only his will prevented him from succumbing to the forces he’d unleashed. A lesser god would have dissolved into howling oblivion. He clawed at the storm of magic, drawing more of it into himself, pulling the world-spanning chains tight.

Outside the pyramid, Nekroheim was crumbling. Changing shape. The underworld bent beneath the oscillating structure, bowing up around it. Becoming something new.

The reverberations rippled outwards across Shyish. Through the eyes of his servants, Nagash saw the skies above Nagashizzar turn purple-black. Orruks wailed as their green flesh sloughed from their bones, and they collapsed in on themselves. Billions of skull-faced beetles poured down from the swirling clouds, devouring those greenskins that were still in one piece. Nagash laughed, low, loud and long as the ground beneath Nagashizzar began to buckle and sink. Soon, every realm would feel the echoes of what he did here. Reality would shape itself to accommodate his will.

His laughter ceased as shadeglass cracked and splintered all around him. Something moved within the polished depths. They came slowly, drifting through the dark: vast impressions with no definable shape or form. The air of the chamber stank of hot iron and spoiled blood, of sour meat and strange incenses. He heard the rasp of sharp-edged feathers and the clank of great chains. He felt the flutter of unseen flies, clustering about his skull, and their hum filled the hollows of his form.

Something that might have been a face slipped across the cracked facets. It gibbered soundlessly, but Nagash heard its words nonetheless. It spoke in a voice that only gods could discern, spewing curses. He turned as something that might have been a blade, wreathed in fire, struck another facet. More cracks shivered outwards from the point of impact. Nagash did not flinch. To his left, enormous talons, as of some great bird, scratched at the shadeglass, while opposite them, a flabby paw-shape, filthy and sore-ridden, left streaks of ­bubbling excrescence along the facets.

Eyes like dying stars fixed him with a glare, and a howl shook Nekroheim to its roots. Great fangs, made from thousands of splintered swords and molten rock, gnashed in elemental fury. Nagash lifted a hand in mocking greeting. ‘Hail, old horrors – I see that I have your attention.’

The Ruinous Powers had come like sharks, stirred from the deep places by a storm, as he’d known they would. They came roaring, thrusting the barest edges of their inhuman perceptions into his realm. Was it curiosity that had drawn them so – or fear?

He felt their awareness as a sudden pressure upon him, as if a great weight had fallen on him from all angles. The immensities ­circled him through the facets of the walls, prowling like beasts held at bay by firelight. ‘But you are too late. It is begun.’

Something bellowed, and great claws of brass and fire pressed against the reverse of the shadeglass, cracking it. An avian shadow peered down through the facets of the ceiling, whispering in many voices. The stink of rot and putrification choked the air. Had any of his servants been alive, they might have suffocated from the stench. Voices like the groaning of the earth or the death-screams of stars cursed him and demanded he cease.

He cast his defiance into their teeth. ‘Who are you to demand anything of me? I am Nagash. I am eternal. I have walked in the deep places for long enough and have gathered my strength. I will shatter mountains and dry the seas.’

He turned as they circled him, keeping them in sight. ‘I shall pull down the sun and cast the earth into the sky. All of time will be set aflame and all impurities in the blood of existence burnt away, by my will and mine alone. There shall be no gods before me, and none after.’ He gestured sharply. ‘All will be Nagash. Nagash will be all.’

As the echo of his words faded, something laughed. A ghost of a sound, no more substantial than the wind. Nagash paused. Something was wrong. Belatedly, he realised that the Ruinous Powers would not have come, unless there was some amusement to be had. Not the orruks, but something else. Some other flaw in his design.

‘What mischief have you wrought?’ he intoned. He found it a moment later. Familiar soul-scents, bitter and tarry, wafted on the currents of power flowing through the edifice. Tiny souls, these. Like bits of broken glass. The skaven spoke in hissing, squealing tones as they scuttled through the pyramid, wrapped in cloaks of purest shadow. He did not know by what magics the ratkin had avoided the guardians of this place. Nor did he care. That they were here, now, was the only important thing.

It seemed the orruks were not the only ones who had come seeking the treasures of Nagashizzar. He looked up, into the insubstantial faces of his foes. ‘Is this, then, the best you can do? You send vermin to stop me?’ The laughter of the Dark Gods continued, growing in volume. Incensed, a part of his consciousness sheared off and slipped into the depths of the pyramid, seeking the origin of the disturbance while the rest of him concentrated on completing the ritual he’d begun.

His penumbral facet swept through the passages and pathways like a cold wind, but moving far more swiftly than any natural gust. He found them in the labyrinthine depths, chipping away at the very foundation stones of the pyramid. Their desire for the vitrified magics was palpable. The skaven had ever been a greedy race.

How long had they been here, pilfering the fruits of his labours? How had they gone unnoticed, until now? As their tools scraped at the bricks of shadeglass, crackles of purple lightning flowed through the walls. The more they collected, the greater the destabilisation became. Nagash watched the arcs of lightning, tracing their routes and calculating the destruction they would wreak.

Somewhere, at the bottom of the deep well of his memories, something stirred, and he had the vaguest impression that all of this had happened before. The pyramid, his triumph, the skaven, it all felt suddenly – awfully – familiar. God though he was, he could not well recall his existence before Sigmar had freed him, though he knew that he had existed. He had always existed. But he could recall only a few scattered moments, frozen in his recollections like insects in amber – instances of pain and frustration, of triumph and treachery. Was that what this was? Had he lived through this moment – or something like it – before? Was that why the dark gods laughed so? He paused, considering. The black clockwork of his mind calculating.

The Mortal Realms were something new, built on the bones of the old. They were merely the latest iteration of the universal cycle and would one day shatter and reform, as had countless realities before them. As sure as the scythe reaped the grain, all things ended. Nagash knew this and understood, for he was death, and death was the only constant. But what if there had been a time that he had not been as he was?

And what if that time might come again?

What if this was the first step towards that unthinkable moment? And what if he had walked this path before, always with the same beginning and same ending?

Driven by this thought, Nagash let his essence fill the corridor like a graveyard mist, though his body remained in the core, wracked by amethyst lightning. He felt a bite of pain as the rite continued, and he rose up over the ratkin, crackling with wrath. He crushed the closest, snaring it in a foggy talon.

At its demise, he pushed all doubt aside. If this moment had happened before, so be it. The outcome would change. Must change. He would hold fast to his course, whatever the consequences. He would not – could not – be denied. Time itself would buckle before him.

Skaven squealed and scuttled away, fleeing the damp coils of fog. The slowest perished first, bits of shadeglass clattering to the floor as they convulsed and died. The mist filled their contorted forms, dragging them upright and sending them in pursuit of their fellows. The dead ratkin clawed at those they caught, ripping gobbets of fur and meat from their cringing forms. The skaven descended into an orgy of violence, hacking and stabbing at one another in their panic, unable to tell friend from foe.

If this was the first step, he had taken it, and there was nothing to be done. If not, then he still had a chance to see his design through. As the last of the intruders perished, in fear and madness, Nagash dismissed them from his thoughts. Their remains would join the rest of his chattel. There were more important matters to attend to now.

The presence of the intruders had thrown off the delicate balance of the pyramid’s function. He could feel it, in the curdled marrow of his bones. They had polluted it somehow, tainted his Great Work. That had been their purpose all along. He could see it now – an antithetical formula, let loose among the Corpse Geometries, to gnaw at the roots of his perfect order. An artificial miscalculation, meant to break him.

Always, they sought to despoil the order he brought. Always, they made sport of his determination. They sent their servants to cast down his temples, and inflicted a hundred indignities upon his person. Again and again, they drove him to the earth, chaining him in one grave after another. They set stones upon him and sought to bury him where he might be forgotten forevermore. The laughter of the Ruinous Powers shook the pyramid, and shadeglass fissured all about him.

They thought him beaten. They thought that once more he would be cast down into a cairn of their making, to be safely ignored until the next turn of the wheel. Anger pulsed through him, and amethyst light flared from the cracks in his bones.

He was not beaten. And he would never be buried again.

‘Stand not between the Undying King and his chosen course, little gods,’ Nagash said. ‘Nagash is death, and death cannot be defeated.’ As he spoke, his thoughts raced through the structure, seeking a way to compensate for the damage. He was too close to fail now. There must be a way. There was a way. He merely had to divine it.

Skeletons were caught up in a grave-wind, disassembled and reconstructed as Nagash took shape at the points of greatest stress – many Undying Kings rose up, a hundred eyes and a hundred hands, driven by one will. These aspects of him set their shoulders against collapsing archways, or braced sagging walls. ‘I will not be undone. Not again.’ The words echoed from the mouths of each of his selves, as they fought against the pyramid’s dissolution. A chorus of denials.

Shadeglass cracked and splintered as the oscillation sped up. Blocks of vitrified sand shifted and split, sliding from position to crash down around him. But still, the Black Pyramid revolved. Nagash reached out with mind and form, seeking to hold the edifice together through sheer determination. Despite his efforts, sections peeled away and crumbled to dust. Passages collapsed, pulverising thousands of servitors.

The core twisted as if in pain. Cracks raced along its length, leaking tarry magic. The mechanisms of rotation ruptured and burst, hurled aside by the core’s convulsions. Skeletons were dashed against the walls, or sent tumbling into the depths of the pyramid. Nagash ignored all of this, focused on containing the magics that now surged all but unchecked and unfiltered through the structure. The power burned through him, threatening to consume him. But he held tight to it. His Great Work would not be undone. Not like this.

‘I will not be defeated by vermin. I will not be humbled by lesser gods. I am Nagash. I am supreme.’ His denial boomed out, echoing through the pyramid. Through the eyes of innumerable servants, he saw Shyish fold and bend like a burial shroud caught in a cold wind. Wild magic raced outwards, across the amethyst sands.

Across the realms, a rain of black light wept down from the convulsing sky. A million forgotten graves burst open. In vaulted tombs, the honoured dead awoke. Spirits stirred in shadowed bowers and hidden places. Nagash roared wordlessly and drew the power to him, refusing to let it escape. It was his. And he would not let it go. Let the realms crack asunder, let the stars burn out, let silence reign. Nagash would endure.

He could feel the realm buckling around him, changing shape, even as the dark gods laughed mockingly. Reality itself shook, like a tree caught in a hurricane wind.

Until, all at once, their laughter ceased.

And in the long silence that followed… Death smiled.

The sun set over the city of Glymmsforge.

The sky darkened, turning a deeper purple than Elya had ever seen before. Something about it chilled her, and she looked back to the heaps of refuse she’d been sorting through. She had to be quick, else the nightsoil men would catch and beat her. It had taken her days to recover last time.

Elya was small, thin and dark. Ten winters, or maybe eleven, but looked eight. Her clothes were loose and oft-mended. She went through the refuse with an experienced eye, picking through what had been dumped by vegetable sellers and butchers. She found a lump of fish meat and tossed it to one of the cats that hunted alongside her.

There were a dozen cats in the alleyway, eating scraps or hunting the vermin attracted by it. Most were the small, black cats native to Shyish, but some were strays from other realms – large, spotted hunters from Ghur, and sleek, almost hairless mousers from the sandy wastes of Aqshy, the Realm of Fire.

Wherever humans went, so did cats. They were as deadly an escort as ever padding through the dim streets. They loved Elya and had since the cradle. She knew this as well as she knew the sun would rise and the dead would walk. As she knew that the sky should not be purple. She glanced up again, chewing on something that was only a bit mushy. It wouldn’t be enough, but it was something. A cat meowed, and she stroked it. The big, brindle tom flashed a scarred lip as it rubbed against her.

The cats were worried. She could feel it. It was as if they sensed something on the wind. ‘Is it a storm?’ she asked, softly. Sometimes sandstorms whipped through the streets. If she was caught away from home by one, she’d have to seek shelter wherever she could find it. ‘I could go down to the catacombs. Pharus would understand.’

The tomcat meowed again, as if in agreement, then abruptly stiffened and hissed. Elya heard the clatter of a nightsoil cart approaching and darted from the alleyway, followed by the cats. She heard a shout behind her but didn’t stop.

Elya ran through the concentric streets, trying not to think of the sky or how hungry she was. She followed the cats, trusting them to lead her along safe routes. She ran barefoot, her soles toughened by days at play on walls and rooftops of the Gloaming. The cobblestones were warm underfoot, for the moment. As night fell, however, they would become like ice.

Around her, the city woke up for the evening. Sprigs of icethorn and mistletoe were hung upon doorframes and silvered mirrors set in windows. Lamplighters, clad all in black and wearing protective posies of strong-smelling herbs, lit the lanterns that hung above every archway and lintel. Her father, Duvak, would be among them, she hoped, earning money they desperately needed. If he hadn’t crawled into a jug of wine and forgotten his duties.

She caught sight of Freeguild soldiers, in the mauve-and-black uniforms of the Glymmsmen, on their evensong patrol. Some carried long, sharpened stakes of Aqshian flamewood, just in case, while others carried mirrored shields or handguns loaded with salt-and-silver shot. The people of Glymmsforge knew well the dangers of the night and had long since made them routine and ritual both.

The cats led her through one of the twelve great market squares around which life in the city often seemed to revolve. She sprang over a nightsoil cart, eliciting a shout from the collector, and ducked through a vegetable stall, snatching a pallid carrot as she went. She was hungry, and stealing food wasn’t really thievery.

Munching on the carrot, she leapt up onto the display board of a spice stall and danced through the bowls of spices without tipping over a single one. The cats ran alongside or ahead of her, streaking through the evening crowd.

While a few stones were tossed in her direction by angry market-goers, no one dared bother the cats. Not for no reason was a proud mouser a part of the city’s amethyst-and-sable heraldry. Cats were among the most powerful of the city’s defences. Besides keeping out vermin, they could detect the things that were not there. Many a haunting shade or alleyghast had been revealed by the warning hiss of a cat.

Elya followed the cats into a cul-de-sac, one of thousands in this district. Above her, windows clattered shut for the evening, and the smells of holy herbs and braziers of gloomweed filled the air. Somewhere, she could hear the clangour of iron funerary bells, and she knew that the Black Walkers were about and on patrol.

She scrambled behind an abandoned cask as the noise grew louder. A line of shuffling figures came into sight, passing the mouth of the cul-de-sac. The Black Walkers wore dark sackcloth and heavy hoods of the same, hiding their features. Strange sigils had been chalked onto their robes and hoods, and the heavy chains they wore clattered and clanked as they brushed across the cobbles. The funerary bells they rang made the air tremble, as they sang a slow dirge in some language she didn’t recognise. She didn’t emerge from hiding until the last of them had vanished, heading west towards the mausoleum gate.

Her father called them priests, but she didn’t know what god they served. Azyrites seemed to detest them. Elya, born in Shyish, was wary of them. In better days, her father had often told her stories of how the ghosts of dead gods haunted their ruined temples, and how some men still worshipped them, in secret places. Elya shivered. The ghosts of men were dangerous enough. She looked down at the brindle tomcat crouched beside her. ‘We need to go down,’ she said, as the sound of bells faded.

The cul-de-sac sloped downwards. The buildings to either side grew higher, as if trying to escape the shadows of the streets around them. They almost blocked out the sky, which had turned the colour of a bruise. The cats led her to the back wall, where dark thorn brambles and gloomweed grew wild, creeping across the cracked stones. She followed them through the brambles and into a crack in a wall, squeezing slightly, scraping her shins and banging her head. Behind the crack was a tunnel of sorts, a place where the stones leaned against one another in haphazard fashion.

Water collected here, running in chill rivulets between the stones. The dark swallowed her. It was cool and damp. The sounds of the marketplace and the clangour of the bells were muted. All she could hear was the constant drip of the water and the purring of her four-legged companions.

They led her around and down, through dark passages and cramped stairwells, into the deep catacombs. Elya scampered through the maze of forgotten rooms, through flooded cellars and beggar-warrens. She had made the journey a thousand times before, and felt none of the fear one might expect as she descended into the dark.

Elya liked the catacombs. They were far away from the bustle of the city. She liked the long, silent avenues that stretched for miles on end. She could wander for hours among the great mausoleums that had been carved into the sides of the curving tunnels and among the hills of crypts, one set atop the next, stretched up, up and up. Or down, down and down, depending on your perspective. She passed freely through the mirrored passages and the webs of silver chain that kept the unquiet dead at bay.

But most of the dead were at peace here, in the dark. Even so, mortals weren’t allowed down here. Pharus said so. He lived down here, in the dark. He had only come up to the light once, that she could remember.

But she didn’t like to think about that day. Her mind shied away from it, away from a red memory, full of sound and fury.

The cats stopped. So did she. She dropped to her haunches, watching the dark ahead. The walls moved, down here. Things were never the same way twice. Sometimes, she’d scared herself by walking into her own reflection, or found herself trapped in a tunnel that was no tunnel at all, but instead a construct of canvas and clever angles. The guardians of the catacombs liked to play tricks. But the cats always knew where they were and warned her.

The big, brindle mouser with the scarred lip hissed softly. Elya flattened herself and scuttled off the path. A moment later, the tromp of heavy feet sounded in the dark. Armour rang against the stone, as clear as the bells of the Black Walkers. But these warriors served a living god, rather than a dead one.

From her hiding spot, she watched the giant warriors, clad in black war-plate and bearing weapons such as a mortal man might struggle to lift, stride down the path. Stormcast Eternals were a common enough sight in Glymmsforge. They guarded the city from danger – both above and below. These wore heavier armour than the ones she usually saw, decorated with morbid totems that made her skin crawl, and they carried heavy, two-handed hammers.

She felt a thrill of fear. The Stormcasts were frightening, though not in the same way as the Black Walkers. They were like statues come to life, too big and too strong not to evoke nervousness. But they meant no harm, she knew. Not to her, at least.

The two warriors stopped, just opposite her hiding place. They spoke to one another in low tones that set her bones to vibrating. Then, one turned and stared at her hiding spot. She held her breath.

‘I see you, child,’ he said, in a voice like crashing rock. He sounded disapproving.

‘I wasn’t hiding,’ she called out.

‘That is good to hear, given how poor a job you made of it.’ He sank to his haunches, reaching one enormous hand out to a cat that rubbed itself against his greave. The animal accepted the touch with dignified grace and then ambled away, tail flicking. ‘There are more of them today.’

Elya stepped into the open, holding the brindle tom in her arms. The cat glared at the Stormcasts as if they were rivals, rather than giants. ‘They’re keeping me company,’ she said, with a hint of pride. ‘They’re my carters.’

‘Your…?’ the crouching Stormcast said, in confusion.

‘She means courtiers, Briaeus,’ the other interjected. ‘She thinks she is their queen.’

The brindle tom snarled. Briaeus ignored the animal. ‘Pharus told us you were not allowed down here, girl. Come, I will escort you to the entrance.’ Briaeus reached for her. Elya flinched back, clutching her cat to her chest. The tom snarled again, and other nearby cats wailed in warning. The Stormcast paused.

‘Perhaps you should let her go, Briaeus,’ his companion murmured.

Briaeus glanced back. ‘Our orders…’

Elya seized her chance. She dropped the cat and darted past Briaeus’ outstretched hand, as swift as her limbs could carry her. He rose to his feet and made as if to lurch after her, but his companion stopped him. His words rumbled after her as she ran.

‘Let her go. Pharus will deal with her.’

In the scented pavilions of Thurn, daemons were screaming. Mortal slaves and warriors, swaddled in silks and silver chains, fled the inhuman wailing, their hands pressed to newly burst ears and their bloody eyes clamped shut. Vainly they sought respite in the far pavilions, sprawled across the rocky convolutions of the Felstone Plains, or in the wilds, staggering into the smouldering darkness of the Aqshian night. But nowhere was free of the daemonic shrieks.

In the Pavilion of Roses, Havocwild, Headsman of Thurn and Lord of the Six Pavilions, winced as the screams grew in volume and poured himself another goblet of wine. He was a tall man, bronzed by the sun and clad in black silks and golden war-plate, engraved with the sixty-six verses of Slaanesh. He had been handsome once, but more than a century of warfare could wear the lustre off almost anything.

He stood on a basalt dais, festooned with thick cushions and closed off by curtains of tattered silk. Various weapons and pieces of armour were scattered around the dais and on its slabbed steps. Empty jugs of wine, and trays covered in rotting meats and fruits, lay among them, discarded where his slaves had dropped them before they’d fled.

Behind him, the screams of the daemons rose in pitch, and the jug in his hand vibrated, cracked and burst, spattering his armour with the dregs of the wine. He sighed and sniffed the contents of his goblet. It was an exquisite vintage, made from grapes grown in the volcanic soil of the Tephra Crater. He tasted it and frowned. The screaming of the daemons had turned it sour. He tossed the goblet aside and turned.

On the great rugs of magmadroth hide that covered the ground, dozens of daemonettes twisted and writhed. But not with their usual sense of elation. Normally, the Handmaidens of Slaanesh were poetry in motion, graceful and hypnotic. At the moment, however, they lacked all grace, twisting and twitching as if afflicted with ague. Their screams became even shriller, and his eardrums ached in a most unique fashion.

But like all new sensations, it quickly became tiresome. ‘Enough,’ he snarled, groping for the haft of his headsman’s blade. The massive, two-handed sword had earned him his sobriquet as well as mastery of the Six Pavilions. ‘Either cease screaming, or cease being – but do so swiftly.’ He snatched the sword from its sheath of tanned human flesh and swung it up over his head as he advanced on the closest of the daemons. ‘Whatever game this is, it has become tedious. Stop. Stop!’

The daemonette continued to howl, tearing at its own androgy­nous features with crustacean-like claws. It had gouged out its own eyes, as if it had seen something beyond its ability to bear. One moment, the creatures had been cavorting for his amusement as usual. The next, they had succumbed to these strange convulsions. He had never seen the like before, but rather than exciting him with its novelty, the sight made him uneasy.

He held his blow, uncertain. Then, the ground shook. He was nearly knocked from his feet by the force of the tremor. The ground cracked and split, spewing volcanic gases. The shaking increased, as did the screams of the daemons. They began to tear at each other and the ground in a growing frenzy. It was as if they had been driven mad – or madder.

A daemonette lurched to its hooves and stumbled towards him, squalling. It slashed blindly at him, gibbering something that might have been a name over and over again. Disgusted, Havocwild beheaded the creature with a looping blow. He staggered towards the entrance as the ground buckled.

As he stepped into the open, he heard the creak of bone and looked up. The skulls of all those he’d killed, gilded and decorated with flowers and fine gems, covered the sides of the immense tent. An eerie green radiance flitted from skull to skull as he watched. Then, as one, they began to twitch and clatter on their barbs. He heard a sound as of a thousand voices, murmuring all at once and close by. Some of them screamed, in memory of pain they could no longer feel, or for a vengeance they would never claim.

He laughed, delighted, and his eyes were drawn to the sky above. It seemed to convulse, in time with the tremors that wracked the ground. Striations of amethyst light passed slowly through the dark, and the tremors grew fiercer. He watched in growing awe as the stars began to wink out, one by one.

‘How exquisite,’ he whispered.

When everything began to shake, Tonst fumbled at the control valves of his aether-endrin and let it carry him back out of the shipwreck, towards his tiny, one-duardin aether-hauler. His elbows scraped against the edges of the hole in the hull of the wreck as he floated free.

The remains of the Arkanaut Frigate hung awkwardly in the air, its endrin still functioning despite the massive amount of damage the vessel had endured. There was no way to tell what had happened, nor did he particularly care. That it was here, and still might hold something of value, was enough.

He’d tracked the derelict south, just past the Chimera Isles, following the air currents to where it had at last become snared in the tangle-clouds. What was left of the crew was still scattered about, in messy fashion, and whatever cargo they’d been hauling was rela­tively intact. Or so he hoped.

Tonst was a salvager by trade, and he had the certificates to prove it. That they were forgeries mattered not at all, so long as they had the golden stamp of Barak-Urbaz. He’d paid a hefty price for that stamp, but not so much as he would have paid for the real thing. Paper was paper. And salvage was salvage.

But he forgot all about what treasures the wreck might contain as he emerged and saw that the sky was crawling. ‘Grombrindal’s bones,’ he muttered, watching as the sky’s lustre was hidden beneath an amethyst shroud. The pressure gauges and valves that dotted his suit began to spin crazily, and his beard bristled in unease.

He’d thought it was just the ship settling, but instead it seemed as if the skies themselves were convulsing. He gritted his teeth and tried to compensate for the rising wind. If he weren’t careful, he might be blown into the side of the wreck, or worse, carried out over the mountains, away from his own vessel. The aether-endrin on his back had seen better decades, and would only keep him aloft for a few hours at a time.

As he watched, the purple haze filled the sky, staining the clouds and erasing the stars above. The wind rose to a brittle shriek, and he felt a chill in his thick limbs despite his suit’s insulation. It sounded as if the stars were screaming, somewhere out of sight. ‘Get a hold of yourself,’ he muttered, trying to ignore the sense of trepidation that filled him. ‘Are you a beardling, to be frightened of the sky?’

Resolutely, he turned away, angling himself to float back into the hull. He extricated his anchor from his harness and hooked the edge of the gap. Carefully, he began to reel out the chain. The sky continued to quake, but the wreck seemed sturdy enough. At worst, its endrin would finally fail. If that happened, he would simply release his anchor and float free through one of the great rents in the deck above.

A fine layer of frost crystals covered everything in the hull, crates and corpses alike. He set down gently, bracing himself for the deck to fall away. When it didn’t, he took a step. Frost crunched beneath his boots as he made his way deeper into the hold. The sun-stones mounted on his harness flickered to life, casting a soft radiance over the contents of the hold. Dozens of broken crates and shattered casks were revealed.

The wind keened through the wreck, causing scraps of paper and wood to tumble about. Things clattered in the dark, and the deck swayed beneath his feet. He started as the deck dipped and a body slid into view. The crewman had been gutted, his suit ripped open and his torso hollowed out. Frozen blood covered the carcass, and Tonst couldn’t tell what had made the wounds. He swallowed, uneasy.

It wasn’t likely that whatever had done this was still around. There were cloud-barnacles on the broken planks and no sign of tracks in the frost. Even so, he paused, listening. He’d heard stories about grot raiders, creeping down from the great spore clouds that blossomed in the dark above the highest peaks to set ambushes in floating wrecks.

But all he heard now was the creaking of the rigging. Through the gaps in the deck above, he caught flashes of amethyst light, cascading upwards. He squinted. Was there something up there, hidden by that glow? And where was it coming from? It looked like no atmospheric distortion he’d ever seen. The information might be of value to–

Thump.

Tonst tensed. ‘Just a crate,’ he muttered.

Thump. Thump.

He cursed softly and let his lights play across the opposite side of the hold. In the gloom, something moved. A soft sound – a groan? – ­echoed. ‘A survivor?’ he said, his voice loud in the quiet. He approached the place the sound had come from, moving quickly. A survivor could be bad for business – or exceptionally good, if they were from a sufficiently wealthy family.

‘Anyone alive down here?’ he called, hesitantly. ‘If so, I claim salvage rights as per artycle eight, point three…’

Another groan. Followed by a fumbling sound. He closed in on it, wondering if it was just the wind making a fool of him. His lights fell across another corpse. He stopped. The dead duardin’s boots had twitched. Tonst sighed. A survivor, and a poor one, to judge by his gear’s lack of ornamentation. ‘Just my luck. Well, come on then. Let’s see you, you wanaz…’

Tonst reached down, and the crewman caught at his wrist. The wounded duardin lurched up, helm crumpled, revealing frost-blackened features. Eyes like misted glass glared sightlessly at him, as teeth champed mindlessly. He jerked back, yelling, as the duardin – not wounded but dead, he realised, dead and moving! – thrashed in pursuit.

The corpse of the crewman flopped towards him, making gabbling noises that sounded more like a beast than a duardin. Tonst backed away, reaching for his cutter. Something hissed from behind him, and he turned awkwardly, hampered by his endrin. Another crewman crouched atop one of the few intact crates in un-duardin-like fashion. Broken limbs quivered as the corpse crept closer. It lunged, groaning.

‘No,’ Tonst snarled, snatching his cutter from its sheath and sweeping it out. His blade sank into the corpse’s chest with a wet crunch, and snagged there. He twisted a control valve and slid away from the stumbling corpse, as others nearby began to twitch and moan. Hands flailed at his boots as he hurtled back the way he’d come, anchor chain clanking in his wake. He caught it up as he half ran, half hopped towards the gap in the hull. The wreck was shaking worse than before, as if it might tear itself to pieces at any moment. Dead crewmen rose around him, lurching into view as he fled.

He had to get out. Out, out, out!

He exploded out of the wreck, trying to reel in the anchor. Cold hands groped, catching hold of it. The chain stretched taut. Tonst was jerked to an unsteady halt. He snarled curses as he twisted in place, endrin straining. He flailed at the release catch for the chain, but the sudden halt had jammed it. The chain trembled. He tried to angle himself to see what was happening. When he did, his flailing became more desperate.

He was still trying to release the chain when they dragged him back.

In the Shadeglens of Hammerhal-Ghyra, dead shapes lurched through the gloom. They were packed so close together that they seemed almost a solid wave of shadow, rolling through the trees that marked the ancient burial gardens. A slash of silver parted the wave and cast back broken bodies. ‘Push them back,’ Aetius Shieldborn roared. ‘Lock shields and advance.’ The Liberator-Prime of the Steel Souls Chamber smashed a root-infested corpse from its feet and stamped on its skull, ending its struggles.

As one, the silver-clad Hallowed Knights to either side of him brought the rims of their shields together, forming an impenetrable bulwark against the frenzied corpses stumbling towards them. The dead were stymied, for the moment.

He glanced over his shoulder. Behind him, the remaining caretakers of the Shadeglens huddled, shocked and fearful. The mortals were clad in robes of green, and where their flesh was visible, it bore the knotwork tattoos of those who had pledged their spirit to the Everqueen, Alarielle. He frowned and signalled a nearby Liberator with a twitch of his hammer. ‘Serena, take Mehkius and three others – get the mortals out from underfoot. Reform a second wall, ten paces to our rear.’

‘Aye, my lord.’ Serena stepped back smoothly. The warriors to either side of her slammed their shields together, closing the gap instantly. She called out to Mehkius and the others, who repeated the manoeuvre with drilled precision.

As they escorted the mortals through the ivy-shrouded marble columns that denoted the northern entrance to the Shadeglens, Aetius turned back to the enemy. ‘Who will hold until the last dawn breaks?’ he cried.

‘Only the faithful!’ his warriors roared out in unison.

Aetius nodded in satisfaction. He could taste something sour on the wind – something that originated from further away than the deadwalkers scrabbling at the embossed face of his shield. Strange undulations of amethyst light made the night sky ripple in abominable ways. Hammerhal-Ghyra shook to its foundations, gripped by some unknown cataclysm. The echoes of collapsing stones and the screams of uprooted trees choked the air.

And the dead – the dead were everywhere. They clawed out of the blessed soil of the Shadeglens, or pounded on the walls of the crypts and mausoleums of the Azyrite necropoli of the southern districts. Shrieking ghosts crawled across the sky, and worse things stalked the deep shadows. It was as if the rule of life had been overturned and all the underworlds emptied. Aetius cursed as a deadwalker sought to tangle itself about his legs. He brought the edge of his shield down, separating its head from its neck.

‘Advance,’ he bellowed, as he kicked the head aside. The Liberators took a single step forwards, shields still locked. The line of deadwalkers staggered. Before they could recover, or those behind could press closer, Aetius struck the inside of his shield with his war­hammer. The bell-like peal sang out over the line. ‘Again,’ he roared. His warriors took another step, and another, as steady as a millstone.

Deadwalkers fell, crushed beneath the Hallowed Knights’ tread. But for every one that was pulped, three more surged forwards, silent and hungry. Aetius slammed his hammer against his shield again, and to his ears the ringing was unpleasantly akin to a funerary bell. He glanced upwards and felt a chill race through him as he saw the stars writhe and blink out, one by one.

As if Azyr itself were swallowed by the dark. He shook the thought aside. ‘Hold the line, brothers and sisters – hold, until this cursed night ends and day comes again!’

The taste of victory was not so sweet as Calys Eltain recalled. The Liberator-Prime sat on a toppled pillar, staring at the gryph-hound that lay listlessly beside her. Calys reached down, and Grip pulled back, out of reach, growling softly. Calys retracted her hand. ‘I am angry as well,’ she said softly. There was no telling whether the beast understood her or not. ‘He seemed to be a good leader. A good warrior. That he is not here now is a… mistake.’

Warriors died. That was their purpose. To die, so that another might not. That was why the Stormcasts were reforged – so that they might die as many times as was necessary, until the war was won. She took a grim satisfaction from the thought. Only Sigmar’s chosen had the will to endure such torment.

But it had gone wrong.

She had been ready to die again. Pharus had saved her, at the cost of himself. A debt she would do her best to repay, when he returned. If he returned. Sometimes it took longer than it ought. Some souls could not be reforged in days, or even months. They took years. Some were lost on their way back to Azyr, drawn to the edges of the realms, where the raw stuff of magic gnawed at the borders of existence.

She feared that whatever disaster had gripped Glymmsforge was not limited to Shyish. She felt it, deep in her bones – a sense of something wrong. As if the fundamental alignment of the realms had been thrown off somehow.

‘What was it?’ she muttered.

‘A cataclysm,’ a deep voice intoned. ‘One unlike any this realm, or any other, has ever weathered before.’

Calys looked up. Lord-Relictor Dathus stood nearby, watching her. He had his skull-faced helm under one arm, and his black mortis armour was covered in ash and other, less identifiable substances. ‘You did well, Calys Eltain. Took command, when it was needed, and held the line. Such qualities are much sought after.’

‘My thanks, my lord. But I did only what was necessary.’

The lord-relictor of the Gravewalkers nodded. ‘Yes. But you recognised what that was, at the time. Few warriors do.’ He came and sat beside her. ‘He requested that you be sent down here, you know. He asked for your cohort, specifically.’

Calys blinked. She hadn’t known. ‘Why?’

Dathus looked away. ‘Who can say? Pharus could be ridiculously cryptic when he put his mind to it. It was one of two reasons he was stationed here, in the dark.’

‘And what was the other?’

‘He was a brave warrior.’

Calys looked away. ‘He liked apples.’ She didn’t know why she said it, but it seemed appropriate.

Dathus looked away. Somewhere, in the dark, bells were ringing. ‘The aftershocks of the cataclysm have faded, but the dead are still in uproar, still stalking the lightless avenues. It will take many weeks to lay them all to rest.’

‘Then it was necromancy?’

Dathus frowned. ‘Some are calling it a necroquake. As good a term as any.’ He looked at her, his face expressionless. ‘Lord-Celestant Lynos has agreed that it is best that I take command down here for the duration of the current crisis. I have spoken to Briaeus and the others. Now I come to you.’ He studied her. ‘You have only recently come down here. If you wish your cohort to be rotated out, I feel it only fair to give you the opportunity.’

Calys glanced down at Grip. Then she shook her head. There was no need to consult with her cohort. Tamacus and the others would follow her lead. ‘No. We will stay.’

‘Good.’ Dathus did not sound as if he had doubted that she would. He leaned on his staff and stared out into the dark ruins. ‘The aether is in uproar. The winds of magic blow strong, even down here. The gate of every tomb rattles, and the shadows are full of faces. We will need to be wary, in the coming weeks and months.’

Calys looked around, though there was nothing to see. ‘It sounds as if Nagash has declared war on Azyr.’ Calys glanced at the lord-relictor.

Dathus laughed harshly. ‘He did that long ago, sister. This is just a renewal of hostilities.’ He lifted his staff. ‘Azyr and Shyish. Apex and nadir. The Heavens are potential writ large. They stir the soul and feed the soil. They bring light to the darkness and cast long shadows. All things are possible, if one but looks to the stars.’ He gestured to the roof of the cavern. ‘But in Death, potential ends. It damps the fires of creation and brings silence to all places.’

He tapped the side of his head. ‘I hear him, in the hollows of my soul. Like a great bell, tolling the end of all days. He wishes to recast us all in his image and make all souls one with his own. He will devour us, wholly and utterly, if we let him.’

Calys ran a hand through her hair. ‘Is the city safe?’.

‘For the moment, and so long as we keep watch over the Ten Thousand Tombs,’ the lord-relictor said. ‘Do you know what lies within them?’

Calys shook her head. ‘Rumours, only.’

‘An army. A legion of the dead, sealed away against the day of Nagash’s return, many centuries ago.’ He smiled coldly. ‘But we found them first and ensured that they would never awaken. Not while the Anvils of the Heldenhammer stood watch here, in the dark. That was Pharus’ task, and one he relished.’

‘And now?’

‘It will be mine, until a suitable replacement can be found.’ He studied her for a moment. He looked as if he wished to say something, but the sudden clangour of bells interrupted him. He sighed and got to his feet. ‘Another empty tomb has been found. Another black soul, loose in these catacombs.’

Calys made to follow him, but Dathus waved her back. ‘No. Briaeus and I will deal with it. You will see to the evacuation of the wounded. We will speak more later.’ He turned, eyes narrowed. ‘I fear that the cataclysm was but a prelude to something worse. Keep your sword close, Calys Eltain.’ His words echoed after him as he strode away. She watched him go and then looked down at Grip.

‘What was it Pharus said? An adventure every day?’

The gryph-hound yawned. Calys snorted. She needed to rejoin her cohort and resume her duties. She looked up. The dark seemed to stretch out in all directions and swallow every sound. An eternal void. She lost herself in it for a few moments. Or perhaps longer. Then, she heard Grip growl. She blinked and shook herself.

A cat was watching her. No, more than one. They prowled among the tombs, tails lashing. Thinking of Dathus’ instructions, she suddenly recalled the child – Elya – and wondered whether she had managed to escape the catacombs. Ordinarily, the child would have slipped her mind entirely. What mattered one child, in such devastation?

Yet… the girl had been important to Pharus. And something about her puzzled Calys. There were hundreds of urchins like her roaming the streets above. So why did this one feel… important?

She shook her head, annoyed. Ever since the wraith had touched her, she had been plagued by wisps of memory. Nothing solid, just snatches of a song that might have been a lullaby, the feel of a small hand in hers; frustrating glimpses of a forgotten time. She looked down at the cats. ‘Well? What do you want?’

The cats scampered away. She followed them. They led her along winding paths, through a field of fallen pillars and crushed tombs. She heard the voices of her fellow warriors, echoing through the ruin. A crowd of Stormcasts and several mortal priests were gathered around a small, angry shape. ‘Where is he? Where did he go?’ Elya screamed, pounding small fists against a hapless Stormcast’s armour. The warrior held his arms a safe distance from the child, perhaps worried about accidentally injuring her. ‘Bring him back!’

The cats scattered into the dark as one of the priests noticed her arrival and bowed low, making way. ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded.

A Liberator looked at her. One of the ones who had arrived with Dathus. ‘The child – she somehow got past the traps. Our orders–’

‘Our orders are to ward against the dead. Not the living. Let her go.’

‘But–’

Elya squirmed out of her captor’s grip and darted towards Calys. ‘Where is he?’ she cried. ‘Why isn’t he here?’

Calys sank down to one knee, and the child rushed into her unprepared arms. Instinctively, the Liberator-Prime caught and held her. The child felt fragile in her grip, like a thing of spun glass, and small. So small. Murmuring soothingly, she smoothed the girl’s tangled hair. The torn edges of her memory fluttered again across her mind’s eye. It was as if she had lived this moment before, many times. Calys wondered if somewhere in Shyish there were children with her eyes. And if so, did they remember her at all? She pushed the thought aside. ‘Why are you here, Elya? It is not safe.’

‘Where is he?’ Elya glared up at her, on the cusp of panic. She seemed to realise for the first time who she was speaking to. Tear tracks cut through the mask of filth that covered her thin features as she tried to free herself from Calys’ grip. Uncertain, Calys released her. The child backed away, features sharp with fear and fatigue.

‘You mean the lord-castellant?’ None of the other Stormcasts would meet her gaze, as she looked around helplessly. ‘He… I… Child, he is…’

Elya stiffened. ‘He’s gone, isn’t he?’ she said, in a voice old beyond her years. ‘The nicksouls got him. He said they wouldn’t, but they did. The way they got my mother.’

Calys nodded and pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart still hurt, where the wraith had touched it. ‘Yes.’

The child’s eyes were dry, as if she had cried all the tears in her. ‘Father says you come back, when you die. Like Mother.’

Something in the way she said it caused Calys’ heart to spasm. ‘No. We do not come back the way… the way your mother did. But sometimes we do come back.’

‘Will he come back?’

‘If Sigmar wills it.’

‘Will I come back, when I die?’

‘I…’ Calys trailed off. How did one answer such a question? Instead, she opted to avoid it entirely. ‘Your father will be worried. It is still dangerous on the streets. You must go home.’ She rose to her feet. ‘Someone will take you home.’ Then, a moment later, ‘I will take you home.’

The child frowned. ‘You don’t know where I live.’ It almost sounded like a question.

‘You will show me.’

‘Liberator-Prime?’ one of the other Stormcasts said. ‘Shall we accompany you?’

For a moment, Calys imagined a cohort of Stormcasts, tromping through an embattled city to deliver a child back to her father. She shook her head, smiling slightly. ‘No. Stay here. Hold position and continue repairing the defences. I will see her safely home.’ She paused, searching for a rationalisation they would understand. That she understood. ‘It is my duty to evacuate those who need it.’ She looked down at Elya. ‘Come, little sister. It is past time for all children to be asleep.’ She would find Tamacus and the others, and see to beginning the evacuation.

Elya looked up at her. ‘They say Elder Bones takes you when you die. Did he get Pharus?’

Calys felt a chill at the girl’s words. Elder Bones was the name some in Glymmsforge used for Nagash. ‘No,’ she said hurriedly. ‘No, he didn’t.’

And she hoped and prayed that it was so.

Sigmar Heldenhammer, God-King of Azyr and Lord of the Storm Eternal, looked out over the burning ruin of the Sigmarabulum and bowed his head. For a moment, he’d thought he’d heard something. A voice, crying out in the wilderness, seeking his aid.

But that was nothing new. A thousand voices cried in his ear with every moment. Too many to hear them all clearly. Some prayed. Others wept. There were few he could aid in any tangible way. But this one had been different. Louder, somehow. Before being suddenly silenced, as if by a great wind.

He stood at one of the huge cracks that gaped in the walls of the Chamber of the Broken World. Through it, he could see the full extent of the devastation that afflicted the great citadel-ring. Smoke rose towards the stars in spindle-legged shapes, and fire boiled up from cracked foundries. Strange shimmers of heat folded across entire districts, hiding them from view. Lightning flashed as the dead were put to rest.

He could taste the after-echoes of the great cataclysm, still resonating outwards. For all he knew, into universes undreamed. Everything stank of death. Every stone and star was soiled by the energies that had surged up from Shyish. The realms still shuddered, their very substance threatened by the sudden realignment of ages-old patterns. And still, aftershocks radiated upwards, as he suspected they would for some time.

Even Mallus had been affected. The dead world was gripped by tectonic disturbances such as it had not suffered in centuries. The fires in its core blazed, threatening to consume even more of the remaining surface, and the storms of broken souls that swept eternally between the poles had grown in ferocity. Sigmar half expected it to rip itself from its place in the heavens and cast itself down. But some things were beyond even Nagash.

There was no question that the God of Death was the author of this upheaval. It had originated in Shyish and shaken the Tree of Worlds from root to bough. ‘Nagash,’ he said softly. Then, more loudly. ‘Nagash. Always Nagash.’

Nagash. The Undying King. Brother and betrayer. Sigmar saw again the great cairn where Nagash had been imprisoned, its stones piled by unknown hands, and heard a voice, whispering in the dark. ­Unafraid, he had torn at the stones until his hands had wept starlight. When Nagash had reached out, Sigmar had held out his hand. And for a time, that had been enough.

But that time was long past, and almost forgotten.

Unaware of what he was doing, he raised his fists and slammed them out against the edges of the crack. Stones hewed from comets cracked, as lightning snarled about his clenched fingers. The fists came up and drove out a second time, with piston-like force, further shattering the walls and cracking the floor beneath.

Sigmar stepped back, as the ancient stones crumbled away and fell from sight. Rage undimmed, he fought to control himself. It was like trying to wrestle a storm into a box, but he’d had aeons of practice. Long past were the days when his fury might shake the heavens, or flood the lands below. He was a different god now, to the one he had been. Arrogance had been burned out of him by the fires of shame.

‘But some things never change, eh?’ he said, half to himself. ‘And some gods are as foolish as they were millennia ago.’ He turned to the golden-armoured figure standing behind him. ‘Let this be a lesson to you, Knossus Heavensen – some things never change, no matter our desires.’ He noticed the paleness of Knossus’ tattooed features and the stiffness of his posture, and realised belatedly that the lord-arcanum was disturbed by his display of anger. ‘Do not fear, lord-arcanum. My anger is not directed at you.’

‘I did not think it was, my lord.’ Knossus spoke with all due reverence, and bowed. He had his helmet clutched under one arm and his staff in the other hand. His war-plate was marked by signs of battle and stained with ash. Knossus and his warriors had fought for hours alongside other Sacrosanct Chambers to recapture those souls that had escaped from the soul-mills and rampaged across the Sigmarabulum.

Sigmar grimaced. ‘Do not bow, Knossus. I require no worship from you.’ He looked past the lord-arcanum. The Chamber of the Broken World was being repaired, but slowly. He had prevented its collapse, but the cataclysm had damaged more than just the walls and pillars. At the heart of the chamber, the Anvil had at last returned to normal, shedding the purple miasma that had clung to it.

Knossus straightened. ‘I know, my lord. But I give it freely.’

Sigmar looked down at him. ‘Perhaps I should have clad you in silver, instead of gold.’ He smiled as he said it, but Knossus took the statement at face value.

‘If such be your will, my lord.’

Sigmar sighed. ‘It was a jest, Knossus.’

A brief smile played across the lord-arcanum’s features. ‘I am aware, my lord.’

Sigmar laughed, and somewhere far away, thunder rumbled. He clapped Knossus on the shoulder, nearly knocking the Stormcast from his feet. ‘Good. Now tell me what there is to be told.’ He turned back to the crack in the wall.

‘The soul-mills are repaired. The aftershocks are fading. The dead…’ Knossus hesitated. Sigmar glanced at him.

‘The dead do not rest easy,’ he said.

Knossus nodded. ‘Even in Sigmaron, they rise and attack. The Vaults of the Firmament cracked wide in the cataclysm. Thousands of suddenly ambulatory corpses have spilled out into the streets, attacking any they come across. Some are no more than feral husks. Others are possessed of more malign awareness. It is as if a call to war has gone out, and now even the honoured fallen turn on us.’

‘A call to war,’ Sigmar repeated. ‘Perhaps that is what it was.’ He was already aware of everything Knossus had told him. He could feel the dead, clawing at the insides of their tombs, and hear the wailing of souls driven to madness.

He looked out, past the edges of the Sigmarabulum and down into Azyr itself, where high, snow-capped mountains rose over great plains and seas. The dead walked in Sigmaron, as Knossus said, and in Azyrheim, below it. In every great city of Azyr, the dead stirred. And not just there. Wherever one of his cities rose, he could see. Deadwalkers stumbled through the streets of Excelsis and Greywater Fastness. Cackling spirits threatened the Phoenix Temple in Phoenicium, and long-forgotten armies of fleshless deathrattle warriors stirred themselves from the boiling mud-flats and marched on the walls of Hammerhal Aqsha.

The embers of his rage flickered, threatening to blaze forth once more. He watched all that he had built in these scant decades since the opening of the Gates of Azyr come under attack, and his hands itched for the weight of his warhammer, Ghal Maraz. He longed to take it up once more and hurl himself down into Shyish. To at last answer the questions that lay between himself and the Undying King. But he had learned his lesson.

He turned from the wall and strode past Knossus. ‘I suspected this day would come the moment Nagash chose to reject my offer of alliance. He was always stubborn. But I hoped he’d see sense.’

Knossus followed him, shaking his head. ‘Perhaps there is method to his madness. We have pushed back the dark gods on almost every front. They are not defeated, but they are on uncertain ground. The other gods rally against them, and even Archaon cannot be every­where at once.’ He hurried to catch up to Sigmar’s longer stride. ‘This may well be Nagash’s only chance – we are stretched thin, and our eyes are on other foes.’

Sigmar slowed and glanced down at him. ‘There is more to this than simple strategy. I think this was the culmination of something set in motion long ago. Nagash has always taken a longer view than most gods. Even myself. I think in terms of centuries. Nagash thinks in terms of epochs.’ He stopped. ‘He has already foreseen the moment that the last star flickers out, and prepared accordingly.’

‘Surely that will never happen.’ Knossus sounded aghast.

Sigmar looked around before answering. The detritus of the battle against the lightning-gheist lay scattered everywhere. Scorched weapons and torn armour lay mixed among the rubble. Half a dozen Celestors and a mage-sacristan had perished, attempting to bring the rogue soul to bay. That the lord-arcanum known as Balthas had managed to survive, and defeat it, was a testament to his strength.

Balthas. There was a soul to be watched. An old soul. Sigmar glanced up, at Mallus, and then away. Balthas had requested that his Chamber be sent in pursuit of the escaped soul. Sigmar was still considering that request.

He glanced at Knossus. ‘It is not in my power to say what will happen, or won’t. All things move towards their end, whatever the will of men or gods.’ He picked up a crumpled helmet. The warrior who’d worn it was now in one of the soul-mills. He could feel the last moments of their life and the echo of their death. He could hear their soul screaming, begging for release. Sigmar closed his eyes. The helmet fell to the ground. Someone would clean it up later. It would be reforged and made ready for war again. All things could be reforged. Even gods.

‘But that end is not here yet, my lord,’ Knossus said.

Sigmar opened his eyes and looked up at the dark curve of the sky. He could see every star, and beyond. In the quiet between battles, when the affairs of the realms did not distract him, they sang to him, sometimes, calling down to him, bidding him join them in the eternal dance. He felt their pull now and knew that one day, he might no longer be able to resist their call. But not today. Not until the war was won.

‘No. It is not. You will go to Shyish.’

Knossus bowed his head. ‘As you will it, my lord.’

‘As it must be, Knossus.’ Sigmar approached the Anvil. The mage-sacristans who had been working to cleanse it retreated, bowing low. Sigmar gestured, catching up some of the skeins of magic that emanated from it. He could feel the heat of the world from which the substance of the Anvil had been drawn.

Mallus. It’d had another name, once. In another age, in another life. Once, it had been as vibrant as the realms and dearer to him than anything. Now, it was simply raw materials for a war beyond comprehension. A world and all those who might have once lived on it, made over into weapons.

‘As it must be,’ Sigmar said, again. ‘Until the war is won.’

The air tasted sweet, for all that it still stank of smoke. Calys Eltain drew another discreet breath of fresh air through the mouth-slit of her war-mask. She’d never thought that she could miss such a little thing, but after many days down in the dark of the catacombs, a taste of relatively clean air was worth its weight in sigmarite. Grip seemed to agree. The gryph-hound fairly pranced in Calys’ wake, chirping softly.

Calys was careful not to let the sweet air distract her from her duties. Her gaze swept the barred storefronts and shuttered windows to either side of the cobbled street. Buildings slumped in ruin, having collapsed during the cataclysm. The street before her was cracked and broken in places. Dark stains marred the cobbles and walls, and she could taste the tang of faded lightning.

She and her brotherhood moved in loose formation around Lord-Relictor Dathus, warding him from all possible harm. Not that she expected any. The city was quiet after the necroquake. Even the occasional aftershock did little to break the fearful serenity that had descended over Glymmsforge. The citizens were hardier than they looked, inured against the horrors of the dead, to some degree.

‘Things are quieter than I recall,’ Dathus said. His voice echoed against the stones of the street. ‘Where are the hawkers of wares and the urchins running underfoot?’ He turned, his skeletal war-mask catching the dim light of the lanterns that burned above the nearby doorframes. Calys could feel mortal eyes on them, watching from the dubious safety of crippled buildings.

‘They watch us,’ Tamacus, one of her Liberators, murmured. ‘They are frightened.’

‘They are wary,’ Calys corrected, without looking at him. ‘They have weathered cataclysms, if not so far-reaching, before. The underworlds are less stable than most places.’ She caught sight of a pale face, watching through the gaps in a boarded-up window. The face vanished a moment later.

‘The lamplighters have been out, at least,’ Dathus said.

‘It is almost morning,’ Calys said, without looking at him. It was hard to tell, these days. Since the necroquake, the sky rarely brightened beyond the colour of a new bruise. Dark clouds hung thick above the Zircona Desert, and not even the highest spires of Glymmsforge pierced them. She’d begun to wonder if the sun was even still there.

As if reading her thoughts, Dathus gave a harsh laugh. ‘I’ve long since given up trying to tell. Day and night are one and the same, now. And I fear it will be that way for some time.’ The lord-relictor sounded tired, but moved with brisk energy.

Since the cataclysm, he and Calys and the others had worked to reseal every open tomb and shattered alcove in the catacombs. Luckily, the Ten Thousand Tombs themselves had remained inviolate. Whatever magic sealed them still retained its potency. But the mortal priests tasked with securing the chains and saying the prayers of binding had reported sounds from within some. As if whatever terrors were contained within them were slowly beginning to stir.

Dathus had grown increasingly taciturn, as if mentally preparing himself for the worst. But at the moment, he seemed positively ebullient. Calys had allowed herself to hope that the worst might be behind them. Especially since word had come from Lord-Celestant Lynos that reinforcements were on their way.

Glymmsforge had been under siege since the quake. The dead had risen in the city’s burying grounds, despite the precautions taken to prevent that very thing. Deadwalkers roamed the slums, preying on the poor. Flay-braggarts and roof-walkers prowled the tomb yards of the aristocracy. Black hounds had been seen ­loping through the walls of Mere Gate, their ghostly howls causing the waters to turn to ice.

Worse were the tales brought to the city by the ever-increasing numbers of refugees, seeking safety behind high walls. The dead had never rested easy in this realm, but the sheer number of ravenous spirits and shambling corpses now flooding the underworld was unheard of in the annals of Lyria.

Shyish was the Realm of Death, and there was not a stone in it that did not have its own ghost. And now, it seemed as if all of those ghosts were awake and thirsty for the blood of the living. Reports from Fort Alenstahdt said that the packs of deadwalkers that roamed the desert were growing in number, and that the great wagon-fortresses of the Zirc nomads were beginning to circle, as if in preparation for a storm.

‘The child was back again, yesterday,’ Dathus said suddenly.

Calys didn’t react. ‘What child?’ She felt the gazes of Tamacus and the other Liberators in her cohort flick towards her and then quickly away.

‘I caught her creeping among the highest tombs, watching me.’

‘How many cats were with her this time?’ Tamacus said, before Calys could silence him. She glared at him, and he bowed his head in silent apology.

‘More than I felt comfortable confronting on my own,’ Dathus said. It was hard to tell if that was a jest. He drew close to Calys. ‘I got the impression she was looking for you. Why?’

Despite herself, Calys glanced at the lord-relictor. Elya had become a nuisance, of late. She’d thought – hoped – the child would avoid the catacombs for a time. At least until Pharus’ return. If he returned. Instead, it seemed as if she lived in the tunnels now. Then, having seen the hovel she and her father inhabited, perhaps the tunnels were preferable. They lived in the Gloaming – the slums that clung to the outer edge of the city.

It was an unpleasant place. Hovels made from scavenged material pressed up against cheap rooming houses and taverns that were little more than benches and some tents. Most were refugees from elsewhere in Shyish, seeking a better life under the aegis of Azyr. Others were the poor of Azyrheim and a hundred other great cities, seeking new opportunities in a younger metropolis.

Elya’s remaining parent was a wastrel lamplighter named Duvak. He’d already been well on his way to drinking himself into a stupor the first time she’d escorted the child home. He’d panicked at the sight of Calys and begun screaming. She wasn’t sure why. Elya had managed to quiet him, with an ease that spoke to long experience. Calys had left swiftly, after eliciting a promise from the child that she wouldn’t be caught in the catacombs again. A promise the child had since skirted around the edges of.

‘Is that what she said?’ she asked carefully. ‘That she was looking for me?’

‘She said nothing. I intuited. Briaeus and the others have seen her often. She is always quick to scamper out of reach, save when you are around. I’m told you’ve escorted her home twice since the necroquake. Unless I am mistaken, that is not one of your duties, Liberator-Prime.’

‘The child should not be down in the dark.’

‘Pharus allowed her to come and go as she pleased. Or so Briaeus swears.’

‘Pharus is not here.’ She looked away. He was right to chastise her. It was a dereliction of duty, whatever her rationalisations, whatever she had promised. ‘I shall ignore her in the future, lord-relictor. My apologies.’

‘I said nothing about ignoring her. I merely asked why she might be looking for you.’ He looked away. ‘Mortals are a gift fraught with heartache. We who fight in their name exist outside time, while they are slaves to it.’ He paused, as if considering his next words carefully. When he continued, his voice had lost some of its harsh edge. ‘There was a boy – a son of one of the Freeguild officers who ward this city. His name was – is – Fosko. When he was a child, I used to bring him trinkets to occupy him, whenever we had need to confer with his father on military matters. He reminded me of someone, I think. A son, a brother – I cannot say.’ He fell silent. Calys looked at him.

‘What happened to him?’

‘He got old, Calys. In the blink of an eye, he went from a child to a man, weathered by time and war. He joined his father’s regiment. He is a captain in their ranks, now. Soon, he will die. Either from natural causes or battle. When I look at him, I still see the boy he was, rather than the man he has become. And it pains me, Calys. For I can preserve the souls of my brothers and sisters, but not him.’ He gestured about him. ‘Not any of them. We can but protect them for a short time, and then it is in the hands of Sigmar.’

‘Is that your way of telling me not to get attached?’

‘If you like.’

Calys shook her head. ‘It’s not my idea, I assure you. She seems fixated on those catacombs. She says the cats lead her where they will.’

Dathus nodded. ‘That may well be the case. The cats of Glymmsforge are strange beasts, even in a realm full of such. Perhaps I should speak to her.’ He paused. ‘If I can catch her, that is.’ Another pause. ‘I suspect my mortis armour frightens her.’

Calys almost laughed, but managed to restrain herself. The thought of Dathus trying to catch the child as she sneaked about the catacombs was a deeply amusing one. Thunder rumbled through the city, shaking the rooftops and setting birds to flight. Lightning flashed, somewhere above them. Dathus gestured with his staff. ‘The Shimmergate opens, sister. We had best proceed swiftly, else Lynos will wonder at our absence.’

They moved quickly through the streets. Calys felt the eyes of the citizenry on them the entire way. Despite her earlier words, not all of the gazes were wary. Some were indeed fearful. But that fear was not directed at the dead. There had been purges in the past. Revolts against Azyr’s rule were not common, but neither were they unknown.

In every instance, it had been the Anvils of the Heldenhammer who had put the rebellion down. Calys had participated in one such purge only a few months ago, dealing with a coven of Soulblight vampires hiding among the city’s gentry. The leeches had turned entire Azyrite families of impeccable lineage into blood-hungry fiends, and then sought to manipulate the city’s growth for their own ends. Calys had sought out and beheaded the coven-leader, casting the creature’s still-shrieking head into a bonfire herself.

She wondered if it had been that action which had brought her to the attention of Lord-Castellant Pharus. She’d had no time to ask him – and no intention of asking Dathus. There was a time and a place for such things, and now wasn’t it.

‘Behold, the Shimmergate – the path of starlight,’ Dathus said. She looked ahead. The streets had widened, spreading into a vast plaza. It was lined with massive statues of jasper and gold, only a few of which had been broken during the cataclysm. The statues, she knew, depicted the city’s founders, the Glymm. Curious, she studied those carven faces as they passed through the shadows of the statues.

‘They were from Azyr, originally,’ Dathus said, noting her attentions. ‘Warrior-mages from the Nordrath Mountains, they came seeking new opportunities in the years after the Gates of Azyr had been cast wide. New lands to conquer, new fortunes to be made. Minor aristocrats like the Glymm became veritable kings in the underworld of Lyria.’

‘Glymmsforge doesn’t have a king,’ Calys said. The last royal son of the Glymm line had died defending the city against Vaslbad’s legions, leaving no known heir. Now, the city that bore his family’s name was overseen by a conclave of aristocrats, merchants and philosophers.

‘No. Perhaps it is for the best.’ Dathus sounded bleakly amused.

The representatives of the conclave stood at the other end of the plaza, waiting for their honoured guests to arrive. Most were clad in the finery of their office, though the representative of the Freeguilds wore his mauve-and-black uniform. His only concession to formality was an engraved, silver-plated breastplate and a high-crested helm of the same. Unlike the others, he was armed, though the blade was ceremonial.

Towering above the mortals were a trio of Stormcast Eternals. Two of them wore the black of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer, but the third wore the gold of the Hammers of Sigmar. The security of the city was shared between the two Stormhosts, though the latter had no permanent garrison in Glymmsforge.

Instead, they rotated chambers, on a seasonal basis. At the moment, it was the task of the Adamantine – a Warrior Chamber that had earned its battle-honours mostly in Aqshy, from what little Calys knew of them. The lord-celestant of the golden-armoured warriors stood beside the commander of Calys’ chamber, Lynos Gravewalker, and the Lord-Veritant, Achillus Leechbane.

At the other end of the plaza was the foot of the Shimmergate. The realmgate that connected Lyria to Azyr sat at the top of twelve, spiralling stairways of purest amethyst. The stairways intertwined as they rose to meet the shimmering blur of light that hung in the skies over the city, like a tear in the firmament.

At the moment, a cloud of cobalt mist billowed from the light and rolled down the steps. It brought with it the smells of clean water and cold heights. The air thrummed with aetheric tension. Calys shifted uncomfortably as the tang of lightning played across her senses. Beside her, Grip fluffed out her feathers and scented the air with a contented chirrup. ‘The winds of Azyr,’ Dathus murmured. ‘So clean as to pain the senses.’

The plaza, normally full of merchants and citizens going about their business, had been cleared for the evening. Bands of Glymmsmen stood watchfully at the entry streets, leaning on halberds or carrying crossbows. The Freeguild soldiers seemed on edge. Then, perhaps it was understandable. For most of them, the Shimmergate was as close to Azyr – and Sigmar – as they would ever get.

Calys led her cohort towards the gathering of notables. Dathus walked beside her, his previous good humour seemingly evaporated. As they drew close, she studied the golden-armoured lord-celestant. She’d heard stories of the Hero of Klaxus. Most Stormcasts had. Orius Adamantine had been among the first of their kind to march to war, and the list of his battle-honours took up an entire tome in of itself.

He stood at ease beside Lynos. The two lords-celestant were of a similar size, though where Lynos was pale, Orius was dark. He held his tempestos hammer in the crook of his arm, and his black hair was bound in long, serpentine locks and tied back. His golden war-plate showed the signs of hard use, and his heraldry was chipped and marred. Orius, it was said, had little interest in appearances – only in effectiveness.

He nodded in greeting. ‘Dathus. I thought you hidden away forever, down in the dark. Tell me, do the dead still sleep uneasily?’

‘When they sleep at all, lord-celestant.’ Dathus bowed slightly to the two lords-celestant. ‘I trust I was not called away from my responsibilities simply to see old friends?’

‘Hardly,’ Lynos growled. ‘The Shimmergate opens. Reinforcements from Azyr. Command of the city is to be turned over to them.’ He said it flatly and with no small amount of bitterness. Calys understood. Lynos had led the defence of the city for three decades, and in that time had turned back enemies both living and dead. Now, apparently, he was expected to turn his responsibilities over to another – and an unknown, at that.

‘So I heard,’ Dathus said mildly. ‘Who?’

‘We do not know. Sigmar has not seen fit to tell us.’ Orius smiled mirthlessly. ‘Perhaps he was busy keeping the stars from falling out of the sky.’

Lynos glared at him, in a not altogether unfriendly fashion. ‘We will know soon enough, I suppose,’ he said, somewhat grudgingly. He turned to the representatives from the city’s rulers and moved to speak to them.

Calys relaxed slightly, having safely delivered Dathus. She peered up at the statues that rose like siege-towers around them. ‘They were a mighty people in their day,’ a deep, harsh voice said, from behind her.

She turned to see Lord-Veritant Achillus watching her. His war-plate was covered in marks of purity and warding, as was the cloak of rich crimson he wore. The Lantern of Abjuration mounted at the top of his staff flashed softly as he joined her. Unlike most Stormcasts, who were warriors first and foremost, the duty of a lord-veritant was to root out corruption and evil in those territories claimed by Azyr.

‘It has been some time, Calys,’ Achillus said, nodding to her. ‘The last I saw you, you were covered in gore and carrying the head of a Soulblight vampire.’

‘It was an honour to assist you in that matter, lord-veritant.’ Calys bowed her head.

‘You did well. One of the reasons I recommended your cohort to Lord-Castellant Pharus. You have the stomach for war against the dead. A trait we are in need of.’

‘Is it to be war, then? The cataclysm…’

‘Was a precursor to something greater, yes.’ Achillus looked down at Grip. He sank to one knee, and the gryph-hound sidled towards his outstretched hand. ‘This is Pharus’ gryph-hound,’ he rumbled, stroking Grip’s neck. He looked up at Calys. ‘Are you caring for her now?’

‘She cares for herself, mostly.’

Achillus stood. ‘They do that. Pharus would be pleased to see it, nonetheless.’

‘Is there…’ She hesitated. It was not her place to ask such things.

Achillus shook his head. ‘No.’ He looked towards the realmgate. ‘Perhaps our reinforcements bring word.’ Calys turned.

The mist pouring from the Shimmergate had thickened noticeably. There was a sound, like crystal breaking, and lightning flashed within the tear. Then, shapes appeared in the mist, moving with disciplined swiftness. Stormcasts, from their bulk, but unlike any she had ever seen before. They wore the heraldry of the Hammers of Sigmar, but crackled with a strange radiance. ‘Who are they?’

Achillus grunted. ‘Someone I had not thought to see here. Things must be dire, indeed.’ He and Lynos shared a look. Calys could tell the lord-celestant was as puzzled as she was.

Lynos looked at Orius. ‘Brother, they wear your heraldry.’

Orius frowned and shook his head. ‘Even so, I do not recognise them.’

At the head of the column came a warrior all in gold, save for his azure robes and cloak. He bore a staff in one hand and rode atop a storm-grey gryph-charger. The great beast squalled in challenge as it loped down the wide steps with a familiar feline grace. Like its smaller cousin, the gryph-hound, the great beast was a blend of cat and bird, save that it was large enough to bear an armoured Stormcast on its back with ease. Its bifurcated tail lashed as it descended, and its rear hooves thudded as they struck the steps.

Behind the beast and its rider came phalanx upon phalanx of similarly clad warriors. Some bore blade and staff, others wielded heavy shields and maces that crackled with aetheric energies. Behind them came warriors in pale robes, bearing baroque crossbows.

As the gryph-charger touched the bottom step, the beast leapt forwards, as if enjoying its sudden freedom. It bounded towards the city’s delegation, screeching in challenge. Calys saw the mortals pale, and the Freeguild representative instinctively grasped for the hilt of his sword. She didn’t fault him – a hungry gryph-charger was a match for most things that walked or crawled in the realms. A normal man had little chance against one.

The rider hauled on the reins, and the beast slid to a halt, its back hooves drawing sparks from the plaza stones. The Stormcast slid easily from the gryph-charger’s back, and strode towards the waiting delegation, staff in hand. ‘I am Lord-Arcanum Knossus Heavensen. I come bearing the word and wrath of the God-King of Azyr, Sigmar Heldenhammer. Glymmsforge stands imperilled. But it shall not fall. Not while I stand with it.’ His voice boomed out across the plaza.

‘Sacrosanct Chamber,’ Achillus murmured, glancing at Dathus, who nodded tersely.

‘Then the worst is yet to come,’ the lord-relictor said.

Lynos and Orius met the newcomer. After a moment’s hesitation, the three warriors exchanged handclasps. Knossus pulled his helmet off, and Calys noticed an immediate resemblance between his tattooed features and the great statues. She wondered if the mortals who bowed so respectfully saw it as well. She thought that perhaps a few of them did, given their hasty glances between the newcomer and the nearest likeness.

The last Glymm had returned to his city, in its hour of need.

‘It is not seemly for our lord to hide himself away, so,’ Helios said. The Celestor turned, moving swiftly, sword rising. Miska stepped back, out of reach, and thrust her staff towards his abdomen. Helios twisted aside, light on his feet, despite his war-plate.

‘We all seek answers in different ways, brother.’

Around them, the Garden of the Moon stirred with a breeze. The great, silver trees that made up the garden had been caught in the fires that raged across Sigmaron, and many had warped and blackened, as had the pale grasses that grew in their shadow. But they would recover, in time. Aelf treesingers roamed the groves, encouraging new growth, and their lilting song provided accompaniment to the clashing of blades.

Helios’ cohort of Celestors sat or stood nearby, watching the duel. The swordsmen looked less battered than might be expected, given their efforts over the last few days. Then, that was simply the general mark of their competence. Not all of them had eyes for the bout between their Celestor-Prime and the mage-sacristan. Some duelled amongst themselves, while others saw to the care of their weapons.

‘And what is the question?’ Helios thrust his blade like a spear, but without speed or force. Miska tapped the point aside with her knuckles. ‘What gnaws at him so, that he ignores us for days on end and vanishes into a tomb of paper?’

‘The only question that matters,’ she said, whirling her staff towards his ankles. He leapt straight up, avoiding the blow. The watching Celestors applauded cheerfully. ‘The question we were forged to answer. Balthas is diligent. That is no sin, whatever your feelings on the matter.’

‘I do not judge him harshly, sister. I merely think it unwise to allow him to wall himself off from the world and all its wonders.’ He slid towards her, blade whirling. She backed away warily. Helios was as swift as the solar wind for which he’d been named.

Helios continued, pressing with words as well as his blade. ‘He has ever been brittle in his manner, but of late, he has become harsh as well. It is as if he has judged us, and found us wanting, in some manner.’

Miska laughed. ‘You say that as if it’s an impossibility.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Helios stepped back, arms spread, inviting attack. ‘Am I not incomparable in my prowess? Are my brothers and sisters not exceptional?’

Miska lunged. The head of her staff crackled with energy as it darted towards him. He twisted, batting it aside at the last moment. He ­stumbled slightly, but she recognised the ploy for what it was and held back. He straightened a moment later, grinning ruefully. She raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged. ‘You are more observant than most, sister.’

She sighed and stepped back, signalling the end of the bout. ‘Yes. And I have noticed what you speak of as well, brother. Balthas finds fault in his own actions, and his anger at himself has spilled over. He means no offence.’

‘Nor have I taken any. None of us have. He is our lord-arcanum, however prickly he might be. I do not doubt his courage or his skill, having witnessed both. But someone must speak with him, and soon. An absent leader is no leader at all.’

Miska frowned. At any other time, such words would have earned Helios a rebuke. Then, at any other time, he would not have felt free to say them. Balthas had always been remote, from his peers as well as his subordinates. But his isolation of late was beyond the norm, even for him. She shook her head. ‘Do the others feel the same?’ she asked quietly.

Helios hesitated. Miska gestured impatiently. ‘It is a simple question, brother. Answer me honestly, please.’

‘I have spoken to the others, yes. Mara and Quintus both agree. Porthas keeps his own council, as always,’ he said, naming the most senior officers of the chamber. ‘The others are of mixed opinion on the matter.’

‘You have been diligent,’ she said, not without some disapproval.

Helios accepted her chastisement without comment. He merely nodded and planted his sword point-first in the ground before him, his hands resting on the crosspiece. Miska ran a hand through her hair and tugged on her braid idly, considering the problem before her.

For as long as she had served under him, Balthas had delegated much of his responsibility. She was the intercessor between him and those he commanded. Many lords-arcanum encouraged a more informal relationship with those they led into battle – Knossus Heavensen participated in training bouts with his own Sequitors, while others, like Tyros Firemane, led their warriors in the rites of preparation and purification.

But Balthas did none of those things. Saw no reason to do those things, in fact. He was lord-arcanum and took the title at face value. Not for him was the easy camaraderie of the battlefield. He was above it all, and removed from it, save in gravest necessity.

Miska felt a twinge of guilt. In some small way, she had encouraged this behaviour. It was often simpler to work around Balthas, rather than include him. In battle, he had few equals. Off the field, however, he bristled at what he perceived as tedium, and often became obstinate when things did not align perfectly to his assumptions.

‘His failure to contain the lightning-gheist gnaws at him,’ she said slowly. ‘He cannot conceive of failing at a task he has accomplished a hundred times before. He will not be satisfied until he is given the chance to make amends.’

Helios nodded. ‘Then perhaps we must add our voices to his, and ask Sigmar to let us slip our chains. The others go to war – why not us?’ He looked around, and the other Celestors nodded in agreement.

Miska gestured for silence. ‘Quiet. We have a guest.’

Helios turned, startled. So too did the other Celestors. An aelf, impossibly pale and inhumanly thin, stood among them, clad in robes of soft indigo and radiant white. The aelf’s narrow features were tattooed with celestial designs, and her dark hair was bound back with a clasp of silver. She had come among them, her tread as silent as moonlight, and none of the burnished giants who surrounded her had noticed.

Miska bowed, and the aelf returned the gesture. ‘My apologies if we have disturbed your efforts, my lady,’ the mage-sacristan said.

‘It would take more than you to do that,’ the aelf said, with a swift smile. She reached out and touched the trunk of a silvery tree. ‘Indeed, the trees enjoy your presence. You are vibrant with starlight, and they drink it in. The grasses too grow thick beneath your feet. Stay as long as you wish.’

‘Our thanks, my lady,’ Helios said, taking the aelf’s hand and bowing low, as if to kiss it. ‘Such words are welcome to my ears.’ It was a courtly gesture, from another age, and one Miska had not expected of Helios. The aelf inclined her head solemnly, as if in acknowledgement, and pointed to the sky.

‘I did not come merely to compliment you. There is a message from the God-King.’

Miska looked up. Above, a star-eagle circled the garden. It cried out with serene savagery and swooped towards Miska, trailing sparks of light in its wake. The birds normally dwelled in the aetheric clouds high above Mallus, hunting the strange things that drifted there. But some came occasionally to Sigmaron, impelled by some instinct to serve as the eyes and ears of the God-King.

Miska lifted her hand, and the eagle landed on her forearm. It had almost no weight, though she knew it was strong enough to tear through anything save sigmarite. It screeched, flapping its great wings, and she heard a word – just one – echo in her head, like the distant thunder of a summer storm.

Then, with another flap of its wings, the bird launched itself upwards once more. Miska watched it go and felt a pang of longing that she could not explain.

‘Well? What message did it impart?’ Helios asked.

She smiled and tapped his shoulder with her staff. ‘Our prayers have been heard.’

Pharus Thaum passed beneath a broken archway of black stone, encrusted with skull-like barnacles. Will o’ the wisps danced across the barnacles, casting a pallid glow over the path ahead. As he walked, Nagashizzar twisted and bent around him, like a shroud caught in a fierce wind. Every street and boulevard was a ripple, an undulation, rising or sinking to reveal new mustering grounds, new tombs, new citadels of necessity.

‘Nagashizzar is vast,’ Arkhan said, as if reading his thoughts. The liche strode easily alongside him. Despite everything, Pharus was beginning to find Arkhan strangely companionable. ‘It swells like the night ocean, receding as the dawn breaks. Our gates spill forth upon every land, our towers spy every border. The desert around us is every desert in the realm. We are a single moment, a last breath, held and stretched into infinity.’

‘Sigmaron is much the same.’

‘Do you remember Sigmaron then?’ Arkhan looked at him.

Pharus scraped the flat planes of his memory. ‘I remember golden towers and the light – so much light. Starlight, moonlight, sunlight.’ He shook his head. ‘It is as if those memories belong to another man.’

‘What else do you recall?’

Pharus was silent for a moment. ‘The taste of apples.’

Arkhan turned away with a rattling sigh. ‘Ah. A good memory. I have not tasted food or drink in time out of mind. I have lost even the memory of such memories. Hold fast to it, Pharus Thaum. And remember who deprived you of such simple, impossible pleasures.’

Pharus did not reply. Around them, ancient vaults creaked open, disgorging deathrattle legions to march in silent lockstep to mustering fields scattered across the city. Primeval cisterns were uncapped, unleashing wailing tempests of nighthaunt spirits, long bound in darkness, but free now to take their vengeance on the living. These spirits swirled up into the air over the city, joining the storm of souls that was ever-growing there.

As the dead spilled into the sky, the winds picked up, casting sand and shards of shadeglass everywhere. A living mortal would have been blinded in moments, and flayed to the bone a few seconds later. For Pharus, clad in his new war-plate, it was no more disconcerting than a summer rain. He looked down at himself. Rather than the hammer-and-lightning sigils of Azyr that he kept half expecting, the war-plate bore the morbid heraldry of some long-vanished city-state of Shyish.

A stylised hourglass occupied the centre of his chest-plate. Crossed scythes marked the backs of his gauntlets, and heavy chains draped his shoulders and torso like a sash. His helm was a skull, topped by great, curving antlers of bone, and the cheek-guards swept back into bat-wing shapes. Thick robes, stained with grave matter, draped his limbs and lower body. Though when his concentration lapsed, both seemed no more substantial than smoke. ‘This armour… It does something to me.’

‘It suits you,’ Arkhan said. ‘Then, it was made for one of your kind. A cage and crown both.’ He paused. ‘Your head is clearer now, I trust. You have control over yourself. That is good. Otherwise you would be little more use than these broken things.’

He gestured to a flood of spirits swirling upwards nearby, howling their fury. The chainrasps were spiteful things, broken by Nagash’s will, their forms dictated by the circumstances of their death – and they surrounded him and Arkhan in a dolorous tempest, whispering and wailing.

They struck the walls like water, spreading and spilling to the ground. They crawled towards him in jerky fashion, begging for absolution or demanding vengeance. A part of him felt revulsion at the sight of them. But another part felt a strange sort of kinship with the tormented souls. ‘So many,’ he said.

‘There are more dead in Shyish than the living can comprehend,’ Arkhan said, as they paused to allow a ghostly black coach to thunder past. The fleshless steeds that drew it snorted amethyst fire, and the driver was a shapeless thing, clad in rags and laughing wildly. ‘Even the stones here have their ghosts. Even the trees.’ He gestured, and Pharus saw what he at first took to be a grove of skeletal trees, rising from among the crumbled temples. When one of them turned to look at him, he realised his mistake.

‘Sylvaneth,’ he said, drawing the word from memory.

‘Of sorts. The Everqueen has first claim on what passes for their souls, but some sought a different lord, in the days when she turned her face from the realms. As her song faded, they heard a different, more pleasing melody.’

The ghostly tree-spirits lurched silently past them, lumbering through the ruins, their bare branches shaking in the wind. Their features were jagged masks of ravaged bark, and their eyes burned with a terrible light. As they drew close, Pharus thought he heard a shrill keening on the wind. The sound was at once joyful and despairing.

That sound – or something like it – echoed throughout Nagashizzar. Every laugh was tinged with sorrow, every sigh with melancholy. Great funerary bells rang in the depths, and the dead shuffled from their centuried slumber and once more took up the devices of war. Chariots, coaches and hooves rattled along the avenues, as the kings and queens of forgotten bloodlines arrived to make their obeisance before Nagash. Flocks of carrion birds swirled through the storm of souls, or else perched on the high towers, croaking out Nagash’s name. Jackals prowled the alleys, their eyes glowing amethyst.

Pharus felt a great sense of anticipation building in him. He was at once cold and hot, hungry for something he could not put into words. His gauntlets creaked, as he clenched and loosened his hands in strange expectation. ‘What is that sound? Can you hear it?’

‘All dead things hear it. Nagash calls to you, on the wind and in your bones.’

Pharus twitched, feeling a sudden need, an urge, to turn and walk until he was commanded to stop. He could not resist it and did not wish to. ‘I am… hungry,’ he said, his voice no more than a whisper. ‘Thirsty. It hurts.’ Not as bad as it had, though. The war-plate he wore might be a cage, but it kept the pain at bay. Even so, he could still feel the storm, surging within him, seeking escape. He traced the hourglass shape on his chest-plate.

‘It will grow worse. Pain is the price we pay, to serve the Great Work. Even Nagash feels it – and your pain is but a shadow of his own. Remember that, Pharus Thaum. Remember that you are but a shadow of the Undying King, a part of him now and forevermore. When he reaches out, it is with a thousand hands, and you are one of them.’

‘Yes.’ The word felt wrong, somehow. Pharus’ hand fell to the sword now belted at his waist, in a sheath of rotting leather. It was a wide blade, meant for brute strength rather than finesse. Its hilt had been carved from a femur, and its crosspiece was made from the fangs of some large beast. Both the blade and the hourglass pommel had been made from some sort of dark, impossibly hard crystal – shadeglass, Arkhan had called it. It seemed to flex in eagerness as he gripped the hilt, and the sands in the hourglass hissed weirdly.

He hesitated, feeling the malignant hunger roiling within the deceptively crude weapon – the weapon longed to part flesh and gorge itself on the final moments of the dying. And part of him longed to allow it to do so. He realised Arkhan was watching him. ‘You understand now, I think,’ the liche said.

‘I understand nothing. I know nothing. But I…’ Pharus hesitated. ‘It does not seem so important to know, as it did earlier.’ He flexed his gauntlets, watching the haze of his substance flicker through the gaps in the iron plates. For a moment, he wondered if he was no more than a memory of who he had been. He felt a spark of anger flicker within him.

Before it could ignite, Arkhan said, ‘You have been remade, and all useless parts of you have been cast aside. If you have questions, it means he wishes you to ask them.’

‘Will he send me against Azyr?’

‘Do you wish him to do so?’

‘What I wish is not important.’

‘Good. You are learning.’ Arkhan sounded pleased.

‘Yes. I remember more of who I was. What I was.’ Pharus looked at him. ‘I also remember that you are the reason that Nagash spared me. He wished to destroy me. But you did not. Why?’

Arkhan glanced at him. ‘Tell me – what do you know of Nagash?’

Pharus hesitated. ‘He is… all.’ What else was there to know? Nagash was the sum totality of all things. All things were one, in him. Or so the voice beating in his brain insisted with monotonous rhythm.

Arkhan extended his staff. ‘Look to the east. What do you see?’

Pharus looked and saw an unlight – a black sun, squirming against the dark curtain of the sky. It boiled and burned amid the ruins, eating away at the world around it. It swelled and receded with the voice in his head, and he found himself unable to look away. Vastation built in him, purging his lingering uncertainties.

‘Nagash is the black sun – the true sun’s shadow and twin,’ Arkhan said. ‘As Sigmar holds the sky suspended, so too does Nagash draw down the earth. They move in eternal opposition, pushing against one another.’

‘I do not understand.’

Arkhan’s teeth clicked in what might have been an expression of amusement. ‘In some ancient texts, the black sun illuminates the truth of the soul. Nagash is the totality of truth – an absence of all lies, even the most comforting. He is the black sun, burning in an inverted sky. He is the truth, and Sigmar, the lie. Sigmar is a husk, filled with falsehood. He demands much and gives little in return. Nagash, at least, offers justice.’

‘Justice,’ Pharus echoed. He looked down at himself. ‘Is this justice?’

Arkhan laughed. ‘This is Nagashizzar. The place of final justice.’ He stopped and thumped the ground with his staff. ‘We are here.’

They had come to a long avenue that stretched eastwards, towards the black sun. It had been cleared of much of the rubble, but work-gangs of skeletons still toiled along the edges. Clusters of bodi­less spirits – chainrasps and flickerhaunts, gallarchs and lane-hags, scregs and flay-braggarts, masses of drifting, moaning spectres – bunched and floated through the ruins to either side, responding to the same call that drew Pharus.

‘What is this place?’ Pharus asked.

‘We approach the base of the Black Pyramid. Here, the Undying King has set his throne, so that he might receive the oaths of fealty owed him, by his most loyal servants.’ Arkhan turned west, towards the closest end of the avenue. ‘There, see? Three of the most prominent come now, to kneel at the Undying King’s feet – at their head comes Vorgen Malendrek, the Knight of Shrouds.’

A silent host of deathly riders paraded down the avenue, past Pharus and Arkhan. At their head was a towering figure – darkly magnificent, balefire bleeding from his eyes, wrapped in spectral shrouds. He wore a black iron helm, topped by great, curving bat wings, and bore a fine sword belted to his hip, an hourglass set into the hilt.

‘Like you, Malendrek once served the God-King,’ Arkhan said. ‘And like you, he has seen the truth of Sigmar’s perfidy.’ He sounded almost amused. He pointed. ‘And there, Crelis Arul, the Lady of All Flesh.’ Behind Malendrek’s nighthaunt riders came a shuffling tide of rotting flesh. The deadwalkers moved with no grace or precision, stumbling along like confused livestock. The greatest mass of them bore upon their backs and shoulders a palanquin made from bone and raw, bloody flesh.

The woman seated atop the hideous palanquin was draped in rotting and stained finery as of ancient days, her features hidden behind a crudely stitched leather mask. Two great dire wolves, their ribcages showing through tattered fur and their skulls bare to the moonlight, crouched to either side of her. Occasionally she stroked one or the other of them, as if they were living things.

She raised a crumbling hand as if in greeting, and Arkhan returned the gesture. Then, he turned and lifted his staff. ‘And last but not least – save perhaps in his own mind – Grand Prince Yaros, Lord Rattlebone.’

The deathrattle warriors who brought up the rear of the column marched as one, in perfect synchronisation. They bore heavy kite shields and long spears, to which had been affixed rotted pennants. Archaic armour sheathed the brown bones, and the rhythmic clamour of their passing was all but deafening.

At their head rode a princely figure, wearing a battered crown of iron and a cloak of dusty fur. The Deathrattle King rode a skeletal steed and had a single-bladed axe balanced across his saddle. He lifted the axe in salute as he passed.

‘Three lords of death, come to serve he who forged them.’

‘Where are they going?’

Arkhan silently extended his staff east. Pharus turned. Dust clouds rolled across the far end of the avenue, momentarily blotting the black sun from sight. When they cleared, Pharus saw, at the far end of the avenue, an immense structure of black shadeglass. It res­embled a dais, but was leagues across and surmounted by a towering throne, taller than any gargant, and circled by flocks of carrion birds. A great figure reclined atop the throne, and Pharus recognised the being who had remade him.

Nagash. Unspoken, the name echoed through him regardless, down into the hollows of his spirit. The confusion he felt, the doubt and anger, it vanished all in an instant. The storm in him subsided, like a startled beast. Hoar frost crept suddenly across the panes of his armour, and he felt a chill digging into the marrow of his non-existent bones. Cries echoed up around him, so many as to occasionally merge into a single, great howl. He stepped back as something that might have been fear stirred in him.

The Undying King sat on his throne, amid a slow typhoon of souls, swirling about him in desperate celebration. Broken skeletons, crawling along the avenue, reached out to the distant figure as if in supplication. Pharus felt the pull himself. Impossible to ignore or defy. It was as if there were a great weight pressing down on him and pulling him all at once. Somehow, all things bent towards Nagash, even the winds and the light of the distant stars. It was as if he were a hole in the realm, and all that existed fell into him, to be lost forevermore.

He groaned, and looked away, unable to bear such awful majesty for long. ‘He is all, and all are one in him,’ Arkhan said. ‘Do not resist. Let the silence of him fill you and smother all doubt in its cradle.’

‘I hear something.’ Pharus cradled his head. ‘Like a swarm of insects, rattling in my skull.’ He twitched, trying to escape the sound. ‘Is that him?’

Arkhan gave a rattling laugh. ‘Come. He calls to you, and you must answer.’ He stepped onto the avenue, and Pharus followed. The spirits that huddled along either side set up a great wailing, which Pharus thought must be akin to applause. A hundred thousand souls clustered among the ruins. Some were nothing more than bobbing motes of witch-light, while others seemed almost alive, save for their pallor.

More souls drifted down like ash from above, falling towards Nagashizzar from the dark skies. Some of these joined the throng that lined the avenue, while others were caught by the wind and whisked away, trailing despairing moans in their wake.

‘Where are they all coming from?’ Pharus asked.

‘Everywhere and nowhere. Wherever a mortal’s story begins, it ends here, and here is where all men must eventually come. Some will stay in Nagashizzar, caught fast by their crimes. Others will pass through the Sepulchral Gate and into whatever underworld calls them home. As it is inscribed there – by the manner of their death shall ye know them.’

The avenue quickly became crowded by swaying deadwalkers and eerily still deathrattle warriors. They made way for Arkhan, their ranks shuffling aside as if shoved back by invisible hands. Arkhan led Pharus through them, towards the great dais at the end of the avenue, where Malendrek and the other deathlords stood waiting for the word of Nagash.

Pharus felt their gazes on him as he approached, and he wondered what they made of him. Yaros seemed as stoic as any skeleton, the hollow sockets of his eyes burning dimly. Arul, the Lady of All Flesh, greeted them softly, her voice a liquid slur.

‘Lord Arkhan – it has been too long since you have visited my charnel gardens. They wax vibrant these days.’ She held out a mouldering hand, and Arkhan took it with courtly aplomb. His fleshless jaws brushed across her bruised knuckles.

‘I am sure their fragrance is as potent as ever, my lady.’

Her flat, milky eyes fixed on Pharus. ‘And who is this handsome spirit? He wears the raiment of a deathlord, and yet I do not know him.’ She held out her hand to Pharus. He hesitated, but only for a moment. He took it and bent. Had he been alive, he thought the stench of her would have choked him. She was a dead thing and stank of rot.

‘He is called Pharus Thaum, and he is newly made,’ Arkhan said.

‘Ah, a new soul. How charming.’ She reached up and traced crumbling fingers across the side of Pharus’ helm. ‘He smells of… lightning.’

Malendrek stirred. The burning slits of his eyes, visible within his helm, narrowed. ‘What game are you playing, Mortarch?’ he rasped. ‘The glory to come will be mine and no other’s. Certainly not any pet of yours.’

Arkhan turned. ‘Remember to whom you speak, Knight of Shrouds. You are not so high in our lord’s esteem that I cannot rend you asunder and reweave your soul into a more fitting shape.’ Malendrek drew himself up, one hand falling to the hilt of his blade.

‘Careful, Black One,’ he said. ‘You serve as his hand for the moment, but there are worthier souls in creation.’

Arkhan laughed. ‘Your ambition is admirable, though wasted, Knight of Shrouds. If you wish to supersede me, you must get in line. Be warned though, I am told it is quite lengthy.’

Malendrek hissed. ‘Speak, then. Who is this? Some broken liche of your circle?’ He looked at Pharus. ‘Arul is right. He stinks of lightning.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘Wait. I know him, now. Pharus Thaum – guardian of the dark places. One of Sigmar’s revenants. Another who received the blessings meant for me. And now you are here. The wheel of fate surely turns in strange directions.’

Pharus gazed at him in incomprehension. ‘Do we– did we know each other?’ Something in the creature’s words stoked the storm in him. Amethyst lightning sparked and crawled across the gaps in his armour.

Malendrek’s eyes blazed bright as his pale hand fell to the hilt of his blade. ‘We fought side by side, against the soulblight warlord, Vaslbad. In Glymmsforge.’

‘What was your name?’

‘You know my name. I was the commander of the southernmost gate. The slayer of the Slender Knight. I was a hero.’ Bitterness swelled in the dead man’s voice. There was naked longing there, a desire now impossible to fulfil.

‘I do not recall you,’ Pharus said. Then, more maliciously, ‘Perhaps you were not as important as you claim.’ He was surprised by his own venom and the pleasure he took in saying the words.

Malendrek shrieked and made to draw his blade. Arkhan stepped between them, his eyes glowing with a witch-light greater than Malendrek’s own. ‘Will you strike a servant of your master without cause?’ He slammed his staff down, and amethyst fires sprang up. ‘Are you a living man, to let hot anger stir your turgid blood?’

Malendrek snarled curses. Pharus reached for his own blade, but a glance from Arkhan stopped him. ‘Cease,’ the Mortarch of Sacrament intoned. Malendrek drifted back and glared at them.

Before he could speak, Yaros gave a dusty chuckle. The wight king stood nearby, watching the confrontation. ‘One more pawn, or one less, the game is set already. And the true winner sits there, watching us play at influence.’ He raised his axe. ‘Hail, Nagash. Hail, O Undying King.’

Pharus turned. Nagash was indeed watching them, slumped on his throne, his talons pressed together in a steeple before his bowed head. The Undying King sat as if engaged in some inconceivable calculation. Spirits writhed about him, whispering and singing hymns to his might and mercy. Massive, skeletal morghasts crouched to either side of his throne, their cruel glaives held ready to defend their master.

Nagash flicked a finger, and what Pharus had at first taken to be a pile of bones and rags heaped on the wide, rough-hewn steps of the dais, rose awkwardly to its feet. Arul clapped her hands gently. ‘Oh, how delightful – he has resurrected dear old Blood-a-bones to amuse us. It has been so long.’

Blood-a-bones proved to be a tatterdemalion of colour and injury. A court jester, clad in rotting costume and dented bells. He twitched up and bowed low. ‘Greetings, gentles all,’ he shrilled in a childish voice. ‘Our king welcomes you to his hall – see there, the stars shine through the holes in the roof, and the dead sweep away the dust on the floor.’ He flung up a broken hand and spun in a madcap circle, jaw sagging. ‘He strives, oh he strove, to make it pretty for you.’

‘Dance, jester,’ Nagash intoned.

At his words, the jester capered in awkward circles, as the carrion birds that circled Nagash’s throne pecked at him. His ragged costume was sewn to his mouldering flesh, and bare bone poked through his peeling features. Despite the state of him, he seemed in good humour. He bounced and spun, moving more swiftly than any dead thing ought, and the tarnished bells attached to his costume jangled piercingly. As he whirled, he sang without melody.

‘Our king is kind, so kind, and he will take what grows in every creature’s womb and make it his own,’ the jester screeched. ‘He will make every house a tomb, and as his great hand sweeps across the sea, all the fish will rise with their bellies up. The jackals bow to him, and the birds as well.’ He batted at the birds as they dived for what remained of his eyes. Jackals darted through the ranks of the dead and snapped at his flailing limbs. ‘He leaves a trail of fire across the desert, so that all who seek him might find their way. Rejoice! Rejoice! The Undying King is come again, in all his glory!’

Pharus felt no horror, no disgust at the display, though he knew he ought to. Only curiosity. Was there some message in the jester’s song, or was it merely gibberish? The question vanished from his mind as Nagash gestured once more, and the jester began to twirl faster and faster. He careened from one side to the other, losing bits of himself as he danced. ‘Rejoice! Rejoice! He is all, and we are him, and all are one! Rejoice!’

With a final despairing ululation, the jester collapsed into a heap. Light still burned in the sockets of his skull, but his song was finished. Jackals worried at his carcass, snarling and fighting with one another. Nagash gazed down at the remains in silence.

‘Behold,’ he intoned, in a voice like the grinding of stone. ‘I am risen.’ He looked up, and his burning gaze swept across the ranks arrayed before him. As one, the dead sank to their knees. Pharus found himself drawn down with the others, unable to resist the unspoken command. Like the jester, they moved as the Undying King willed.

Nagash stood. ‘I cast forth my hand and the trees raise up their roots.’ He threw out a talon, and great roots, colourless and sickly looking, erupted from beneath the avenue with a rumble and a roar. They rose high, coiling about nearby pillars, stretching towards the dark sky. Twisted faces blossomed on the pallid bark like fungus. They wailed. Some cursed Nagash’s name, while others begged for mercy. Pharus looked away.

‘Where I set my foot, the earth buckles,’ Nagash continued. He stepped down onto the steps of the dais, and the stone cracked loudly. Dust geysered as he descended, and the ground shook. ‘My gaze boils the sea and my voice calls down the stars. I am risen, and all is silence.’ The words echoed from the pillars. Nagash gestured. ‘Arkhan. Come forth and attend me, my most faithful servant.’

‘I am at your command, my lord, as ever,’ Arkhan called out, as he strode towards the steps leading up to the dais. ‘But speak, and I shall move the realms themselves.’ He climbed to stand beside Nagash. The liche looked tiny, next to his towering master.

‘There is no need, my servant, for I have already done so. I have realigned the heavens themselves.’ Nagash looked down, his flickering gaze fixing on Pharus for a moment, before sliding back to Arkhan. ‘Is this all, then? Am I abandoned by my servants?’

‘Never, my lord. A thousand wars are waged even now, in your name. A hundred deathlords march across the amethyst sands, travelling from the north, the east and the south. Spirit, bone and meat answer your call.’

‘And my Mortarchs?’

Arkhan set his staff and rolled his shoulders in an elegant shrug. ‘They go where they will and kill where they wish. As you made them to do, my lord. Rest assured, they have tendered their apologies for their absence and assure you that they strive ever in your mighty name. They build empires to your glory, O Undying King.’

Nagash gave a rumbling laugh. ‘I am sure that is what they say.’ He gestured dismissively. ‘No matter. The vagaries of the soulblighted do not interest me this day. I seek to raise up new champions and conquer old lands.’ He looked out over the gathered dead. ‘The time has come. Shyish must be cleansed. All who do not kneel before me must be made to do so. As it once was, so shall it be again, forevermore. Stand forth, my Knight of Shrouds.’

Malendrek drifted forwards silently. Nagash stretched out his hand. ‘You sought my favour, Vorgen Malendrek, and thus I have bestowed it. I have made you more than you were and raised you up, so that you might take vengeance for yourself upon those who used you so cruelly. Will you do this for me, my servant?’

‘Speak the name, my lord, and I shall cast them into ruin,’ Malendrek said, in a voice like the cawing of many birds. Pharus thought he detected a note of eagerness in the ghostly warrior’s tone. As if he already knew what Nagash intended to ask of him.

‘Glymmsforge,’ Nagash said. Malendrek gave a lingering sigh. Nagash gestured. ‘The way is already open. A gap in the defences. Use it. Crack the city wide and reclaim it, and the underworld of Lyria, for me.’ Nagash looked at the others. ‘Crelis Arul and Yaros of Dmezny – you shall serve my champion in this. Aid him. Break the city. Glory awaits.’

For a moment, Pharus thought one or the other might protest being subordinated to the ghostly warrior. But neither did. The hierarchy of the dead was set, it seemed – spirit, bone and then meat.

‘And what of your newest servant, my lord?’ Arkhan asked. He gestured to Pharus. ‘One once of Azyr’s heights, now of Shyish’s depths. What task shall he be bent to?’

Nagash turned his lamp-like gaze upon Pharus once more. For long moments, he stared, as if puzzled by the presence of the being before him. Finally, he looked at Arkhan. ‘By your whim was I encouraged to show mercy. Thus, to your whim I yoke him. Let him prove himself worthy of my mercy, howsoever you see fit, my loyal Mortarch. And if he should fail, you shall bear the brunt of my ire.’

Arkhan bowed low. ‘As you command, so must it be, my lord.’

Nagash returned to his throne, and the audience came to an end. The other deathlords turned away to depart, though not without a few backward looks and a glare from Malendrek. Pharus wondered if he’d made an enemy there, and what it meant. He waited, uncertain, as Arkhan descended the steps of the dais. If a skeleton could look pleased, Arkhan did so.

Nagash, for his part, looked neither pleased nor pensive. The fleshless rictus of the Undying King’s features did not change, as he sank back onto his throne in a clamouring of armour and bone. Carrion birds circled him, and swooped down to perch on his shoulders and knees. They set up a raucous chorus, screeching and cawing, as if advising the god of some mischief elsewhere. The jackals began to howl, casting their eerie song to the wind.

Pharus stared up at Nagash and knew, somehow, that the god did not notice him. It was as if, having delivered his commands, his mind had withdrawn to other spheres. Arkhan confirmed this, a moment later.

‘Shyish stirs, and so the reaper must ready his scythe,’ the liche said, as he joined Pharus. ‘You and the others will be its edge, and Glymmsforge, the harvest.’

‘I cannot feel him anymore – my head feels… empty.’ Pharus touched his helm. ‘I feel empty. He is silent.’ He wanted to hear that awful voice again, to feel it resonate within him. It drove out all fear and worry, and crushed doubt and uncertainty.

‘Fear not, Pharus. He is with you always. He is hidden within even the deepest of your thoughts, and in the hollows of your soul. What you see, he sees. What you feel, he feels. You are his hands and eyes and mouth. Even when you think yourself alone, he is there.’ Arkhan caught him by the shoulder. ‘This god will not abandon you, Pharus. That I swear to you.’

Pharus looked at Arkhan’s hand and felt the crackle of the lightning raging inside him. As if sensing this, Arkhan stepped back. ‘You were a jailer, once. Do you recall this?’

‘I… yes.’ Pharus dredged the slow currents of his memory. ‘The Ten Thousand Tombs. Beneath Glymmsforge. I… guarded them.’ The words came with difficulty and only brought more questions. Like sand, the memories sifted through his fingers no matter how tightly he grasped at them.

‘Yes. And now you will crack open the prison you built, and free those within.’ Arkhan studied him, his gaze revealing nothing. ‘Ten thousand souls, entombed by my hand, in the waning days of the Age of Myth. I had done so many times before, and since, to aid my lord and master. I would see these awakened. They will prove the undoing of the false city and shall march through the Shimmergate, with you at their head. You will be a sword, thrust into the heart of Azyr.’ He clenched a fist.

‘Thus Nagash has commanded, and thus it will be done.’

‘Easy, Quicksilver. Easy.’ Balthas stroked the gryph-charger’s feathered neck. The great beast felt his impatience and pawed at the ground in unsettled fashion. ‘We will be away soon. Won’t we, sister?’ He glanced at Miska. ‘They are late.’

‘They will be here.’ She stood beside him, staff in hand. Helios and his Celestors stood just behind them, acting as honour-guard. The swordsmen were the most skilled of his warriors, and Balthas valued their capabilities. Behind them, the remainder of the Grave Wardens Sacrosanct Chamber made ready to depart through the Shimmergate.

He studied the realmgate, his fingers tapping against the massive, scabbarded broadsword hanging from his saddle. He could not remember the last time he’d drawn it. Though he was as capable a swordsman as any, the blade lacked the elegance of aether. And he felt more comfortable with a staff in his hand than a blade.

The realmgate was a blur of light, encompassed by a circle of stone. It had been carved in ages past by unknown hands, though legends as to the mason’s identity abounded. Some thought her a sorcerer, seeking her lost love in the underworld of Lyria. Others said it had been shaped by a duardin craftsman, seeking a path to a hidden treasure. Whoever they had been, the Shimmergate was all that remained to mark their memory.

‘Nervous?’ Miska asked, not looking at him.

‘And why would you think that?’ he snapped. Suddenly ashamed, he made a show of studying the two cohorts of Sequitors that stood in disciplined ranks behind the Celestors. Mara and Porthas, their commanders, spoke quietly to one another, with a casual friendliness that Balthas sometimes envied. Mara was stocky, wielding a heavy, angular stormsmite maul and soulshield, much like her warriors. Porthas was built like an ox, and he had his two-handed greatmace balanced across his shoulders.

The Sequitors resembled Liberators, but their similarity to the rank and file of the Warrior Chambers was merely cosmetic. Unlike their brethren, the Sequitors were able to channel the limited magics that coursed through them into the armaments they bore. Thus empowered, their weapons were capable of slaying things resistant even to the touch of holy sigmarite. As they had done often, at Balthas’ command.

Miska looked up at him, eyebrow raised. He sighed and sat back. ‘Fine, yes. Somewhat. I have grown used to the veil of secrecy woven about us. To discard it now feels wrong…’

‘It is necessary.’

‘Unfortunately.’ He sighed again. ‘Perhaps I am simply annoyed. My researches were at a delicate phase.’ They hadn’t been, and they both knew it, but he refused to give her the satisfaction of admitting it.

‘They will keep.’

Balthas looked at her. ‘You’re excited, aren’t you?’

A half-smile quirked at the corner of her mouth. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘But this is what you wanted.’ She sounded as if she were asking a question, rather than simply stating fact.

‘Yes,’ he said, after a moment. He let his gaze drift past her, to where the final elements of his chamber were assembling. Quintus and his cohort of Castigators were diligently checking over the functions of their thunderhead greatbows. Resembling large crossbows, the bolts they loosed were heavy things, resembling a smaller version of a stormsmite mace. The heads of the projectiles were filled with the condensed breath of a stardrake. On impact, they unleashed a tempest of aetheric energy that would tear through foes, mortal or otherwise.

Miska gave a bark of laughter. ‘You’ve never been one for the battlefield.’ She shook her head. ‘Remember that city in Chamon – Agnostai? Rather than lay siege to the city, you turned their gold stores to granite.’

‘It worked, didn’t it?’ Balthas smiled. He had always possessed an affinity for the transmutive magics of Chamon. The alchemical winds responded to his will with an ease that surprised him at times. It was as if they recognised him, somehow. ‘Their army surrendered en masse, without a single arrow loosed or sword drawn. Mercenaries are loathe to fight without the promise of pay.’

‘Was that really the reason? Or were you more interested in getting into the Silver Sepulchre than wasting time taking the city?’

Balthas frowned. ‘The Sepulchre contained certain remains necessary to my research.’

‘So you assured me at the time.’

Balthas heard the unspoken criticism. ‘Finding a way that does not work is not failure. Only through meticulous trial and error will we discover that which we seek, sister.’

‘Spoken like a true alchemist.’

Balthas sniffed. ‘I trust you recall that I am your lord-arcanum and not a mere Sequitor, to be spoken to in such a disrespectful manner.’

Miska peered at him. After a moment, she inclined her head. ‘You are correct. Forgive me, my lord. Discipline is the foundation of victory.’

‘You are forgiven.’ He turned as a sardonic cheer went up from his warriors. Two figures, heavily encumbered, climbed the rocky slope. One of them waved slowly, in sombre acknowledgement of the cheers. ‘Finally.’

He urged Quicksilver towards the two warriors as they carried their burden up the slope. ‘Gellius, Faunus – you’re late,’ he said. The armour of the two Sacristan Engineers was hung with the tools and oddments of their duty, and they rattled as they climbed.

Gellius, the larger of the two, shifted the weight of the celestar ballista he carried on his back. ‘Better late than never, my lord,’ he said solemnly.

Balthas frowned. ‘I would reprimand you, if there were time.’ He looked at the other engineer. ‘I trust you will apologise on behalf of your brother-engineer, Faunus?’

‘If you require it.’ Faunus hefted an ornate astrolabe and peered through its scope. ‘A few final calculations and we’ll be ready.’

‘I’ve heard that before,’ Balthas said, annoyed.

‘Have we ever failed you, my lord?’ Gellius asked, patting the ballista he carried. ‘She’s a temperamental one, but faithful. As are we.’

Balthas made to reply when Quicksilver shrieked suddenly. He felt the aether tense and shiver. He turned, following the pull of it. Nearby, the arctic winds spun, casting up snow and sunlight alike. There was a snap of air, followed by the crunch of snow beneath a heavy tread. Sigmar appeared, striding across the snow, his golden war-plate gleaming and the heavy fur cloak he wore swirling about his shoulders.

Warriors sank to their knees, heads bowed, as the God-King passed among them. Balthas slid from his saddle as Sigmar drew close. Gellius and Faunus both dropped to one knee, and Balthas made to do so as well, but Sigmar stopped him. ‘Up.’ The God-King gestured sharply. He studied the Shimmergate for a moment. The light seemed to brighten beneath his attentions. He turned.

‘Come with me, Balthas.’ Sigmar turned and crunched through the snow. Balthas hesitated and glanced back at Miska, who motioned for him to go. As he followed Sigmar, he tried not to stare at the ground – the God-King left no tracks. The snow shifted beneath his weight, but there was nothing to mark his passing.

Sigmar glanced back at him, a half-smile on his face. Balthas realised, with some embarrassment, that the God-King somehow knew what he was thinking. ‘I forget, sometimes, about leaving tracks,’ he said. ‘I remember the sound. The wet crunch of snow beneath my feet, the feel of the icy wind, cutting through my furs. The weight of Ghal Maraz in my hands. But I forget other things – the way your weight displaces the snow. The ache that comes with hard travel, the way your lungs strain. Sweat.’ He stopped before an outcropping. ‘It’s easy, to forget.’

They stood in silence, gazing out over the horizon. Somewhere, a mountain eagle shrieked, as it took wing over its kingdom. Sigmar watched the bird, for long moments. Then, he turned. ‘You wish to go to find the rogue soul.’

Balthas nodded, uncertain as to where this was going. Had Sigmar not already given his permission? ‘Aye, my lord. It – he – escaped me. But he shall not do so a second time. I have the scent of his soul.’ He hesitated. ‘And there is only one place he could go, now.’ He glanced back towards the Shimmergate. ‘The boughs of the World-Tree bend low.’

‘Nagash has broken the order of things. The dead stir in every realm, shaken from their long sleep. I see the soil shift on forgotten graves, and bones gleam in the moonlight. Ghosts wander through the streets of the cities of men.’ Sigmar frowned. ‘Even here. Even here, the effects of his imprudence are felt.’ His hand clenched, and the sky shuddered with thunder. Lightning flashed in his gaze.

‘He has unleashed a cataclysm from which the realms will be slow to recover,’ Balthas said. He could still feel the echoes of that hellish reverberation in his bones. Wild magic boiled on the air, invisible to all save those with the wit to see.

‘We have entered a new, more deadly age,’ Sigmar said, watching the horizon. ‘Only time will tell whether it proves to be the last, or merely the latest.’ He smiled, but there was little humour in it. ‘Many crimes can be laid at the feet of the Undying King, but being boring was never one of them.’ Sigmar threw back his head and laughed.

The sound boomed out, shaking rocks and snow from the high peaks, and nearly pitched Balthas from his feet. ‘The wars we waged, Nagash and I. The schemes we concocted. We stole fire from the belly of Symr, Balthas. We cast up mountains and filled seas with the blood we shed against our enemies.’ His laughter trailed off, and his smile grew thin and strained. ‘And now we are at war once more. Heaven and Death, and all the realms caught between them.’ He looked at Balthas. ‘I can see your guilt burning in you.’

Balthas froze, but only for an instant. Sigmar sighed. ‘You blame yourself for your brother escaping. You think of it as a failure, rather than simply a thing that happened.’

‘It was my weakness that allowed it – him – to fall…’

‘It was not. Others had the opportunity to stop him. They did not succeed.’

‘Others are not me.’ Balthas cursed himself the moment the words left his mouth. But Sigmar merely nodded, as if he had expected nothing less.

‘I have heard similar sentiments before.’ He sank to his haunches and scooped up a handful of snow. Even crouched, he was massive, and Balthas felt as a child must, when a parent seeks to impart a lesson.

Sigmar held his hand out, and the snow swirled and shifted, taking shape. For a moment, it resembled a tree, and then something that put Balthas in mind of the interior of an anthill. ‘You hold yourself to a higher standard than your brothers.’

Balthas did not reply.

Sigmar did not look up from the snow as it twisted and changed shape. ‘You see yourself at odds with them, even if you do not admit it.’

‘Not at odds, my lord,’ Balthas said softly. ‘Never that.’

Sigmar nodded, not looking at him. ‘No? Perhaps not. Perhaps you are wiser than the gods, Balthas. I hope so.’

Balthas did not flinch. ‘If I am wise, it is because you made me so, my lord.’

Sigmar rose to his feet. ‘You flatter me.’ He held out his hand, and gestured to the swirling snow. It had expanded, taking the shape of a walled city. ‘Do you recognise the city?’

‘Glymmsforge,’ Balthas said, after a moment.

‘Yes. In the underworld of Lyria. That is where you are going. That is where you will find what you seek.’ Sigmar gestured again, and the snow melted and reformed – a man’s face, this time. Balthas recognised Pharus Thaum. ‘I felt his soul shatter as the cataclysm caught it. The energies of the Anvil ran wild, and a true son of Azyr became something less. A moment repeated too often for my liking.’

‘And mine, my lord.’

‘I told you before, Balthas, that you must hunt this prey for me. But for now, set your eyes upon a new quarry. Look.’ Again, the snow changed. It rose and spread, became a sphere, and then a column. Something was familiar about it. Balthas thought he had seen it before. Sigmar nodded, as if he had spoken. ‘You saw this in his mind as you confronted him, did you not? Do you recognise it?’

‘He was… guarding it?’

‘Yes. The duty he gave his life for. The Ten Thousand Tombs.’ Sigmar turned his hand, causing the image to rotate and spread. ‘A warren of catacombs, old when Lyria was young. A poisonous crop, planted by the hand of a dead man, against the day it might be needed. The souls of fallen heroes and bloodthirsty conquerors, imprisoned and awaiting the day of their freedom. Black souls that might rend the city asunder, if they were to be freed.’

Balthas grunted. ‘Does Knossus– do they know?’

Sigmar nodded. ‘It was discovered soon after the Shimmergate was claimed. The city was built atop it, in part to protect the tombs from those who might try to open them. One of the many unspoken responsibilities your Stormhost bears.’

‘Pharus has fallen. Who guards it now?’

Sigmar looked down at him, and Balthas nodded in understanding. ‘That is why you are letting me go – I am to take up where Pharus left off.’ He looked away. ‘It is fitting. I failed him in life. In death, I must make amends.’

Sigmar nodded. ‘If that is the way you wish to view it.’

‘And what of Pharus Thaum, my lord?’ Balthas asked. ‘Am I to just… abandon his soul to its fate?’ He shook his head. ‘Let someone else play the sentry, my lord, please. Let me find Thaum and bring him to Azyr’s light once more. Let me wash clean the stain of failure. Please.’

Sigmar’s expression was sad. ‘Would that I could, my son. But I cannot.’

‘But why?’ Balthas asked, knowing he shouldn’t, but unable to stop himself. ‘How can we abandon him?’

Sigmar sighed. ‘Nagash has his soul now, Balthas. I can feel it. I felt it too late to stop it – did not recognise what was happening in time. It is as if a piece of me is trapped, somewhere in the dark.’ The God-King opened his hands and let the snow drift to the ground, to rejoin the carpet of white.

He looked down at Balthas. ‘He is lost to us – to me – whatever his fate. But as you saw into his mind, so too will Nagash. And he will know the secret of reaching what we have hidden from him, all these years. His servants will seek out the Ten Thousand Tombs and attempt to open them. This cannot be allowed. Even if Glymmsforge itself falls, the Ten Thousand Tombs must remain sealed.’ Sigmar set a heavy hand on Balthas’ shoulder. ‘Do you understand?’

‘I do, my lord.’

‘That means that you will be under Knossus’ command.’ For a moment, Balthas thought he saw the God-King smile. ‘Do you understand that?’

‘I do.’ Balthas fought to keep his voice even. The elation he’d felt earlier was gone. He bowed his head and said, more firmly, ‘I do, my lord.’

Sigmar gave a satisfied nod. ‘I know that you do, Balthas. And it pleases me. Now go. Glymmsforge awaits.’

‘I will not fail you, my lord.’

‘None of you ever have, Balthas. I do not expect you will start now.’

Balthas turned and hurried down the trail. ‘Balthas,’ Sigmar called out. Balthas stopped halfway, and turned.

‘I told you that there was a time when I wandered the snows. In those days, I too was a hunter. I hunted meat rather than know­ledge, but the two things are not so different. One fills the belly, one fills the mind. But sometimes… sometimes the prey escaped.’ Sigmar stared up at the stars, his expression unreadable. ‘This was not failure. The time simply was not right. So I learned to wait. To hold my shot. To seek a better spot from which to observe my prey. To seek the proper moment.’

‘And how did you know when that moment was?’

Sigmar chuckled, and the sound throbbed through Balthas. ‘You’ll know, Balthas. When the moment is right, you will let your arrow fly. And I will be there to guide your aim.’

Balthas bowed his head. When he rasied it again, Sigmar was gone, with only a flurry of loose snow to mark his passing.

‘I will not fail you,’ Balthas said again.

His words were carried away by the wind.

Elya ran through the crowd thronging the street.

The tide of humanity was larger than any she’d experienced, even during high market days. Thousands of new faces, voices and smells, packed into the long, central avenue that linked each of the city’s rings, moving towards the heart of Glymmsforge.

She saw two women, one old, one young, dressed like traders from the distant city of Gravewild, in yellow linen and golden ornaments, and a fat man, dressed like a nobleman, in rich brocade and an embossed breastplate. There were duardin as well, clad in dusty travel robes, and she saw men and women dressed in the rough leathers of miners. Many carried weapons, and most looked as if they had been forced to put them to use recently. Everyone, whoever they were, had that pinched, hungry look she knew well. Everyone in the Gloaming looked like that, especially of late.

Glymmsmen threaded among the crowd in knots of black, inspecting the people, seeking signs of soulblight infection or cult markings. You could never be too careful, that’s what her father said. The Freeguild seemed to agree – they were out in force. And more besides. On one of the high, stone plinths that overlooked the avenue, a massive figure stood watching the crowd. With a shiver, she recognised the figure as the lord-veritant of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer. There were stories about the Leechbane – all of them bad.

Folk in the Gloaming said he’d led the purges of the northern slums, when they’d been overrun by grave-eaters, many years before she’d been born. And that he’d done the same more recently in the districts of the wealthy, when several families had come under the sway of a soul-leech. Not all Stormcasts were like Pharus or Calys. Some were much, much worse. She shivered again and moved quickly away from him, startling a flock of pigeons that were searching the street for food.

The purple-hued birds sprang into the air and rose high and away. Some folk claimed they collected the souls of the dead for Elder Bones, but the cats claimed that wasn’t so. It was the big, black ­carrion birds that served the King of the Dead, and the spindle-legged jackals that wandered the desert. The pigeons served a smaller god, and a quieter one by far. Or so the cats said.

The sky overhead was the colour of a bruise, and the wind rolling in off the desert was cold. She dodged around a burly road-agent, who cursed at her as she ran by. She spotted a pickpocket she knew from the Gloaming and gave him a wide berth. A moment later, she heard shouting and knew he’d been spotted. The crowd heaved suddenly as the thief ran past, and she was nearly trampled. Dodging bodies, she thought about climbing to a higher vantage point and seeking somewhere quieter to watch things, but decided against it.

She’d taken to the streets when she’d felt the ground begin to shake, earlier. Dust had geysered from the cracks in the street, and the buildings had shuddered. Something was happening down below, and people were worried. She would have asked Pharus about it, but he was… gone. She rubbed her face.

Calys had said he would come back, but Elya wasn’t sure she trusted the Stormcast. Pharus had been her friend, she thought. Calys wasn’t. She wasn’t sure what Calys was.

Calys scared her father. All Stormcasts scared her father, but he’d never yelled as he had when he’d seen Calys for the first time. He’d looked at her face and just screamed and screamed, as if he’d seen a nicksoul. The way he had the night her mother had died. Elya shied away from the thought. She hugged herself, suddenly cold.

She didn’t like to think about that night or any of it. She’d been too little to remember much of it – much of her. She recalled her mother’s face, twisted up and wrong somehow, and the sound of her father weeping. And then Pharus, with his lantern. The light had been so warm and her mother had gone away, but her father had kept crying. He still cried, some nights, when he didn’t get enough to drink. Or had too much to drink.

Her mother was dead. Had been dead. She’d become sick and died. Then she’d returned, and Pharus had killed her again. And now Pharus was dead too. Part of her hoped he wouldn’t come back, because if he did, she might begin to wonder why he had and not her mother. She stopped and for a moment became a little island in the sea of people. She scraped the heel of one palm across her eyes and frowned. She heard shouting.

There was a commotion going on up ahead. Voices rose up and the crowd convulsed like a thing in pain. Metal flashed, and a cry went up. Elya’s eyes widened, all thoughts of Pharus and her mother forgotten. The fat man she’d seen earlier had shoved one of the trader women – the older one – to the ground. The man drew a knife from within his robes. ‘Grave-eater,’ he screamed, kicking at his victim.

At his words, the crowd surged back from him, Elya included. Men and women had shouted those words from street corners since she’d been a baby. Sometimes, when people died, they came back. Not as nicksouls or wailgheists, but as grave-eaters – hungry corpses that had no mind, only appetite. Overcoming the sudden spurt of fear, she winnowed closer, trying to see. The fat man gestured at the old woman on the ground as her companion tried to intervene.

‘She is sick,’ the younger woman shouted, crouching beside her companion. ‘She is hurt – please. We have done nothing…’

‘She’s infected,’ the fat man spat. ‘Look at her! She’s turning already.’

More shouts as a Glymmsman forced his way through the crowd. ‘What’s going on here?’ The soldier reached out to grab the fat man, startling him. The fat man’s blade flashed, and the Glymmsman spun away, clutching a red arm and cursing. His cries drew the attention of his fellows, and those soldiers closest moved to confront the fat man, who stared at the Glymmsman he’d injured in shock.

‘I didn’t mean…’ he began.

On the ground, the old woman had begun to thrash and twitch, her heels and head striking the cobbles. The young woman was scrambling backwards, her face twisted up in a horrified expression. ‘No, Takha, no – oh, blessed Sigmar, no!’

When the old woman sat up, the young woman began to wail. The soldiers hadn’t noticed yet. The fat man had their attention. Two Glymmsmen had tackled him to the ground. The three of them rolled in the dust, the man’s cries muffled. Fists thudded into flesh, and the knife clattered away. More Freeguild hurried towards the brawl, fighting through the crowd.

When the old woman attacked, she went for the fat man first. She caught him by a flailing arm and sank her teeth into the meat of his forearm. He screamed a high, thin wail, and Elya shrank back. Her sudden movement attracted the attentions of the grave-eater, and the old woman scuttled towards her on all fours, bloody mouth working. People screamed and fought to get out of the way, as Elya turned to run. The corpse bounded through them, snapping its jaws wildly.

She ducked the dead woman’s flailing hand and scrambled under an abandoned cart. The grave-eater groped blindly for her, teeth gnashing like those of a maddened cur. Elya pulled all her limbs close, huddling away from the dead woman. ‘There she is – seize her!’ a man shouted, from close by.

The old woman whirled, snarling, as a Glymmsman grabbed for her. She leapt on the soldier and bore him backwards, ­biting at his throat. Elya crawled out from under the cart, hoping to put some distance between herself and the old woman. She tried to ignore the screams. Glymmsmen raced past her, cursing and shouting.

She caught sight of the fat man, trying to crawl away. He wouldn’t get far. Sometimes, when the grave-eaters bit you, you became like them. It might take days, or just a few seconds – but it would happen. That was probably what had happened to the old woman. She’d been bitten, somewhere out in the desert, and had turned after entering the city.

The Freeguilder was screaming, as the old woman gnawed at him. He would turn too, just like the fat man. Worse, he probably knew what would happen to him, if he had the bad luck to survive his mauling. Elya heard the crash of metal on stone and saw the crowd part with a frightened murmur for the Leechbane. The lord-veritant strode towards the confrontation, the lantern atop his staff glowing as brightly as the one Pharus had carried. But he wasn’t Pharus. Pharus wouldn’t have done what the lord-veritant did next.

‘Move back,’ he said, his voice cutting through the confusion like a blade. Glymmsmen drew back, and the Leechbane drew his sword.

He took off the old woman’s head with the first sweep of his long blade. He killed the wounded Freeguilder next, as easily as a cat might kill a mouse, before any of the soldier’s comrades could speak up. And then he stalked towards the fat man, who tried to get to his feet, his face pale. Elya closed her eyes as the fat man began to scream and then stopped, suddenly, as the sword flicked out a third time.

Silence fell across the street. Elya huddled beside the cart, trying to make herself as small as possible. If the Leechbane thought she’d been bitten, he wouldn’t hesitate to take her head as well. The only way to put down a grave-eater plague was to stop it before it got started, or kill everyone who might turn.

But if he’d noticed her, he gave no sign. Instead, he’d turned, as high up above the city, the Shimmergate was shining again, blazing like a small sun. Every eye in the avenue turned towards it, drawn with lodestone certainty, wondering what it portended.

Elya took the opportunity to slip away, moving as quietly as a cat.

Ayala turned, peering east. The wind brought with it a grave-chill, and the hint of a sour meat stink that was unpleasantly familiar. The old woman pulled her tatterdemalion robes tight about her, suddenly cold. Her hand fell to the curved knife sheathed on her hip. It was a good knife, blessed and edged with silver, but it made her feel no safer.

This was not a night for safety. No night was safe, not in Shyish. But this night especially – something felt wrong. Something had changed, though she didn’t know what. A few days ago, the sky had twisted in on itself, and the ground had shuddered. Tremors weren’t unknown in the desert, but never were they so forceful.

There was something coming. She felt it in her water, the way a sand-rat felt the shadow of a bird’s wings. From close by, music rose towards the stars as her kith and kin held back the shadows with the old songs. They would be dancing too, around the fire, whirling so that their robes caught the light and made the air swim with reflected colour. Noise and colour – these were the strongest proofs against the dark.

‘The wind in your bones, grandmother?’ her granddaughter, Uskya, called out as she drew near. Ayala turned. Uskya was the image of her mother, Ayala’s daughter, dead these past two turns of the season. The young woman was dark of eye and hair, with the slim build that characterised the Zirc. Her robes were of many colours, the same as Ayala’s, the same as those worn by every nomad in the nine hundred tribes. ‘Come back to the fire, we’ll soon drive it out. Feytos has made dinner.’

‘I know, child. Why do you think I’m out here?’ Feytos, her other grandchild, was chieftain now, like his father before him. Among the Zirc, it was tradition that a chieftain prepare the evening meal. Unfortunately for all of them, Feytos was a terrible cook.

Ayala glanced back towards the quintet of towering wagon-fortresses that bore her tribe across the desert sands. The enormous conveyances resembled wheeled citadels, their frames studded with balconies, garrets and towers. Higher than all of these were great pipes of bronze. Thin streams of steam wafted from the pipes, signalling the cooling of the massive boilers that turned the wheels.

The wagon-fortresses were arranged in a rough circle about the gigantic bonfire that the nomads had started. Feeding the fire had taken more of their precious supply of wood than Ayala approved of. But if there was ever a night for it, this was it.

Uskya laughed and interlaced her arm with Ayala’s. ‘He is not that bad a cook, grandmother. And the meat is good – the best the Azyrites had.’

Ayala sniffed. ‘The best they were willing to trade, you mean. They keep the best for themselves, always.’ The traders at Fort Alenstahdt were shrewder than she liked. They made her brothers, sneak-thieves all, look like naïve children when it came to bargaining. All of the Azyrites were like that, though.

She looked up at the stars. They seemed so cold and remote, this night. The Zirc worshipped Sigmar, who wore the firmament as a nomad wore robes. The Azyrites claimed to worship him as well, though their golden man-god seemed nothing like the Wind-Walker she and her tribesfolk venerated.

The wind shifted, bringing with it the sound of moaning. Out in the dark, jackals began to yelp. Uskya shuddered. ‘Deadwalkers,’ she said.

Ayala nodded, eyes narrowed. ‘And close.’ The hungry dead roamed the desert in grave herds, usually only a few dozen, but sometimes numbering in the hundreds. She listened and heard the slow ­shuffle of feet across the sand.

‘Getting closer,’ Uskya added. She tugged on Ayala’s arm. ‘Come. Let us go back.’

Ayala resisted. She’d seen something – starlight, glinting off steel. ‘There’s something else out there. Do you hear it?’ Like the rattle of war-plate, and the slow rasp of bone on bone. Her hand fell to the hilt of her knife.

The wind was howling now. Sand scraped her cheeks. Something – a man, perhaps – staggered over the top of the nearest dune, stumbled and fell. It rolled across the sand, leaving a wide trail. Uskya took a step towards it. ‘Is he…?’

Ayala caught her wrist. ‘No.’

The body flopped over and lurched upright with a crackle of strained ligaments. It gave a ghastly moan and sprang forwards, faster than Ayala expected. Usually, the dead were slow. But this one moved almost as quickly as a normal man. She jerked her granddaughter out of its path and reached for her knife. The corpse floundered into her, teeth gnashing.

As they fell, she saw more deadwalkers begin to stagger down the dunes. She fumbled at the dead man’s face, trying to keep his teeth from her throat. Uskya appeared over the deadwalker’s shoulder, her own knife in her hand. She drove her blade into the corpse’s neck, trying to sever its brainstem. The corpse jerked, knocking her sprawling. It lurched half-up, eyes fixed on new prey.

Ayala slashed out, recapturing its attentions. Her blade ripped the dried flesh from its cheek, exposing bone. It turned with a groan and snapped at her. She felt a jolt of pain and jerked back. The corpse followed, and she slammed her knife into the rotting hole where its nose had been. Angling the blade, she sliced into what was left of its brain. Black ichor gushed over her hand, and the corpse toppled off her. She jerked her blade free and Uskya rushed to her, helping her to her feet. ‘Hurry, grandmother, hurry! They are coming!’

Corpses shambled towards them, slower than the first, but not by much. And marching in their wake, skeletal forms, clad in rotting leather and tarnished armour.

Behind them, cries of alarm rose from the bonfire. Someone had finally noticed the dead. Something shrieked past, riding the night wind. Ayala looked up, as Uskya caught her uninjured arm. The old woman’s eyes widened as she saw ghostly shapes, swooping down through the black, skimming past the stumbling corpses. They seemed to fill the sky, from end to end, like carrion birds drawn to the feast.

Her folk had many names for them. So too did the Azyrites. She shoved Uskya towards the wagons. ‘The light, we must get into the light.’ Uskya didn’t argue. She had known what those shrieks heralded since childhood. All Zirc did.

The sands boiled behind them as they ran for the gap between wagon-fortresses, and the firelight beyond. Things cackled, just out of sight. Unseen hands tore at Uskya’s robes, and Ayala turned, slashing the silver blade out. The cackling things retreated, but only for a moment. And the walking dead drew ever closer.

‘Cold… so cold…’ Uskya said, clutching at herself where the dead had gripped her. Ayala nodded.

‘So are they,’ she said. ‘Hurry.’ The glow of the bonfire washed over them. The camp was in an uproar. Men and woman huddled together, fearful of the things that spun like great moths or bats, just out of the glare of the light, while others ran for the wagons or slashed uselessly at the spirits. Shadow-shapes stretched across the sands, clutching at the inattentive. Nomads shouted and thrust spears or blades into the gauzy things, trying to pin them to the ground. The dead slipped away, only to return like nightmares.

‘What is this, grandmother?’ Uskya asked. ‘Why is this happening?’

Ayala said nothing. Her kin raced about, gathering up what belongings they could, before hurrying to reach the safety of the wagon-fortresses. Steam belched from the copper pipes, as desperate crews stoked the boilers. Horns blew, and lanterns were lit, washing the sands with light. She saw her grandson, Feytos, bellowing orders to his kinsmen.

He wore his armour beneath his robes, as was habit with most of the men. He gestured with a silver sword, bought at great expense from some Azyrite merchant. ‘Get to the wagons,’ he roared. ‘Full steam west. Make for Fort Alenstahdt!’ He caught sight of them. ‘There you are – quickly, get aboard.’

His eyes widened slightly as he noticed Ayala’s wound, but before he could speak, something crashed down on him from above. It screamed like a water-panther as it landed, and Feytos died with its blade in his back.

The thing rose, jerking the blade free. It was like no dead man Ayala had ever seen: a thin, stretched shape, wrapped in black iron and grave shroud. Eyes like amethyst light blazed from within a shadowed helm, and the face that held them twisted and changed from that of a man to a fleshless rictus as she watched.

It took a step towards them, moving with an awkward, stuttering gait. It twitched and was suddenly closer. Every spasm brought it nearer. The world around her seemed to slow, and the night became as tar. She heard Uskya shouting, as if from a vast distance. But she could not look away. His eyes blazed brighter and brighter, drawing her in. The world closed about her and fell away.

And then the dead man was staring down at her.

‘Welcome to the Gloaming,’ Lord-Veritant Achillus said.

Balthas looked around, unimpressed. His surroundings put him in mind of a honeycomb, perforated by courtyards and blind alleys. He saw wretched structures with broken windows patched over with rag-and-board, dirt-smeared walls and rotting foundations. A canopy of crude bridges and gantries stretched above the street, from one side to the other. The sounds of singing, fighting, squabbling and screaming echoed all about him. ‘It’s a slum,’ he said.

‘Yes. And a large one.’ The lord-veritant stopped, as something crashed down on the street ahead. Balthas glanced up and saw a head vanish inside an open window. Shouts and curses echoed down from other windows, and rooftops. The city was in uproar. Not fully fledged panic, yet. But tensions were high. The Glymmsmen were stretched thin, handling the influx of new people to the city, all of whom brought with them tales of the dead.

In the wake of the cataclysm, it was too much. Flagellants roamed the streets, howling prayers. The citizens, inured to siege mentality, resignedly readied themselves for another assault. But this was different, and they knew it – for the enemy was already here.

More things – bricks – crashed down. People ran along the rooftops, shouting warnings. Balthas glanced back at the cohorts of Sequitors and Castigators following in his wake. They had orders to ignore such provocation, where possible.

‘They seem unhappy with our presence,’ Mara said. The Sequitor-Prime looked around, her gaze sharp behind her war-mask. She was not used to this, Balthas knew. The enemy was normally in front of them and clearly defined.

‘It is rare that we bring glad tidings,’ Achillus said. He raised his staff, and the lantern atop it flashed. ‘Especially to the Gloaming.’ As the light washed across the nearby storefronts and walkways, the catcallers above fell silent. ‘But they know me, here. And they know not to cross me.’

‘How many times have you had to do this?’ Balthas asked.

Achillus shrugged. ‘Enough to know that it is never simple.’ He paused. ‘Shyish is not simple. The dead are too close, here. Their whispers are shouts, and some among the living are too willing to listen.’

‘This is not the same thing. Deadwalkers are more akin to a pox than anything else.’

‘I know what deadwalkers are, lord-arcanum,’ Achillus said bluntly. ‘I have fought them since the first stones of Glymmsforge were set.’ The light from his lantern drove back the shadows and revealed ­huddled beggars in alleyways and cats slinking through gutters. Pigeons burst into flight, startled by the radiance. And something else – a warmer glow, like a current of hot air, tinged with amethyst. ‘This way.’

‘You have the trail?’ Balthas asked, following the lord-veritant down the street. They’d come into the Gloaming seeking several individuals who’d escaped a riot elsewhere in the city. A deadwalker had been involved – a trader from Gravewild, Balthas had been told. The creature had bitten several others, before it had been put down. Not all of the injured had been caught before they slipped away.

Achillus didn’t reply. Balthas frowned in annoyance. He did not require companionability in an ally, but Achillus seemed disinclined to give him the respect his position warranted. He wondered if this were some jest of Knossus’, to assign him so surly a liaison. His Sacro­sanct Chamber, along with Knossus’, was scattered across the city, investigating a thousand and one problematic incidents.

The dead no longer rested easy in Glymmsforge, and the fear in the streets grew stronger hour by hour. Deadwalkers haunted the slums, as ghostly shapes loped along isolated streets. A colony of great bats had descended upon a private park, in the inner ring of the city, and drained the life from the scions of a noble family. Undead street curs hunted cats in the back alleys, and phantom fires danced across the rooftops.

But so far, the city held. Balthas had to admit, if grudgingly, that this was mostly due to Knossus’ efforts. The other lord-arcanum was everywhere, fighting to hold together the fragile calm. His warriors walked the streets alongside the city’s defenders, and carried hope with them. It wouldn’t last, but for the moment, Glymmsforge stood inviolate.

‘There,’ Achillus said, loudly.

Balthas looked up. The tenement was a tottering pile of wood and stone with a slanted roof and haphazardly arranged chimneys. Rickety steps climbed up the sides, and crude gantries of wood and rope connected the building to those on either side, as well as one directly across the street. Washing lines stretched beneath these paths, and sodden clothes hung dripping from the highest. The doors and windows were seemingly boarded over from the inside, as if the inhabitants were afraid of someone getting in.

There was a smell on the air – subtle and foul. To Balthas’ storm-sight, the structure was bathed in a dark, amethyst radiance. Soulfire flickered somewhere inside. ‘Yes,’ he said. The magics he sensed were savage things – wilder than they should have been, and more potent. It was as if the winds of magic had grown stronger following the necroquake. But that was a problem for another time.

He turned to his Sequitors. ‘Mara, your cohort will enter the building with us.’ Mara nodded and turned, barking orders to her Sequitors. Balthas glanced at the Castigator-Prime. ‘Quintus, take your warriors and block off the surrounding streets. Nothing gets out, unless I say otherwise.’

‘As you will it, my lord,’ Quintus said, and genuflected. The Castigator-Prime gestured and his cohort scattered, two warriors to each street and side-passage. Balthas nodded in satisfaction and looked at Achillus.

‘You are certain of this, brother?’

‘I am.’ Achillus studied the doorway. ‘Several of the injured fled the attack. They might turn, if they haven’t already. If the curse spreads, this city will face a war on two fronts. The deadwalkers will scatter, and every new death will only feed their number.’

‘And if they are not gripped by this curse?’

Achillus said nothing. Balthas looked at the building. ‘A graceless structure,’ he said.

‘Function over form,’ Achillus said. He started forwards. Balthas fell into step with him. Mara and her warriors followed them, the clank of their armour loud in the quiet. Achillus drew his blade and shattered the boards blocking the doorway. A thick stink washed out over them.

Crossbow bolts splintered on Achillus’ chest-plate. He looked down, and then up. ‘That was foolish,’ he said solemnly. Then, he was through the doorway, blade singing out. Balthas followed him, staff held low. He saw Achillus cleave a mortal in two, and another standing at the top of a set of stairs, hastily reloading his crossbow. The man was a bravo, clad in rattletrap gear and bearing the scars of a life lived on the wrong side of Azyr’s law. Balthas saw the story of him at a single glance and chose a fitting end.

He gestured, drawing the skeins of aether tight, and the second crossbowman screamed as his form stiffened and became stone. The newly made statue rocked slightly and then toppled from the top of the steps to crash into the floor below. Achillus glanced at him and nodded. ‘Well done.’

‘It lacked subtlety,’ Balthas said. He looked around. Cheap lanterns hung from the walls. The bottom floor of the structure had been broken open, revealing the cellars below. Planks of wood crossed the hole like makeshift bridges. From below, he heard a dull moaning, muffled by the confines of the cellars.

Sequitors pounded past him, assuming defensive positions. He stepped to the edge of the hole and peered down. Deadwalkers ­shuffled aimlessly in the great pit below. Some scratched at the walls, while others gnawed on their own flesh. Many were old things, dried to sticks and covered in decades of filth. Others were fresh – their wounds only hours old, if that. ‘What is this?’ he said.

‘A plague pit,’ a voice said, from above. ‘Or it was.’

A man clad in thin, patched robes, stepped onto the landing above, accompanied by several warriors who had the look of sellswords. They looked distinctly unhappy about the situation, unlike their employer. He had a thin, haunted look, and the ghost of a smile passed over his face. ‘I spent months, digging through records and reports, until I found it. You burned it, once. I suspect it looks different now. But they were still here, buried in the dark. Truly, the dead are persistent.’

Achillus glanced at Balthas. ‘I thought this place looked familiar.’

Balthas shook his head. ‘Not all of those corpses are old.’ The man was mad. Worse, his soul was a tattered sack, leaking a sickening amethyst light. Balthas had fought sorcerers steeped in death-magic before, and began to draw strands of aether tight, readying himself.

‘Fresh ingredients, gathered by my… aides,’ the necromancer said, gesturing to the sellswords. ‘They were infected, you know. They would have turned, regardless. This way, they shall serve a greater purpose. They shall be tools of war, rather than mindless beasts.’ He glanced at one of the bravos. ‘Deal with them.’

The man, scarred and missing an ear, goggled. ‘What?’

‘I’m paying you to ensure that my studies are not interrupted, am I not?’ The necromancer gestured. ‘Kill them.’

‘But they… they’re…’ the bravo began.

The necromancer sighed. ‘Fine. I’ll do it myself.’ He raised a hand. Achillus lunged for the steps, as Balthas felt the aether quaver. Sickly green flame speared through the gathered sellswords, slaying them instantly. As they fell, the necromancer spun and flung out a hand. He spat a single, deplorable word that echoed like a cemetery bell.

From the cellar, the dead answered. Swiftly, more swiftly than seemed possible, the deadwalkers began to climb, one atop the next, scrambling over the lip of the pit with bestial agility. They rushed towards the Sequitors, slavering and snarling.

Balthas turned. ‘Mara – look to the pit. Leave the necromancer to Achillus and me.’ The Sequitors braced themselves, and Mara set herself between the deadwalkers and the doorway. Stormsmite mauls thudded down, pulping flesh and bone, as crumbling hands scraped against soulshields. Satisfied they would keep the dead corralled, Balthas turned back to the steps.

Achillus was already halfway up. The necromancer was chanting. The bodies of his sellswords twitched and rose, but not to attack the approaching lord-veritant. Instead, the dead slumped over the necro­mancer, intertwining their broken limbs.

Amethyst light danced across them, and flesh ran like wax, until one body bled into the next. The necromancer rose up, borne aloft on the hands and feet of the dead. Skulls cracked open and stretched over the necromancer’s head, forming a hood of bone and hair. The bodies had become akin to a twitching, steaming suit of war-plate, crafted from meat rather than metal.

‘Nagash calls and his faithful answer,’ the mortal shrieked. ‘When he reaches out, it is with a thousand hands. When he speaks, it is with a thousand voices. Hear the word of Nagash – hail Nagash! Hail the Undying King!’

The conglomeration took a plodding step forwards, towards the edge of the landing. Floorboards bent beneath its grotesque weight. The mortal swung out a hand, entombed within a number of others, creating a massive paw with hundreds of writhing fingers. The hand slammed into Achillus as he reached the top step, and there was a spark of azure light. The lord-veritant was sent tumbling down the steps, cursing the entire way.

The necromancer followed, shattering the steps as he descended, one great paw gouging apart the wall alongside him. A massive knot of fists barrelled down. Achillus rolled aside and scrambled to his feet. The necromancer heaved himself around in pursuit. ‘I will crack open your shell and offer up your soul to Nagash,’ he screamed.

‘No. You will not.’ Balthas stepped quickly between them, his staff raised. The conglomeration lurched forwards and grappled him. It was stronger than it looked. Faster. But Balthas held it at bay.

The necromancer snarled at him, baring rotten teeth. ‘Stand not between the Undying King and his kingdom!’ Balthas felt a preternatural chill slither through him at the words. He caught hold of the skull-and-scalp helmet, and felt the pulse of its wearer’s twisted soul. It was like broken shards of black glass, biting into his palm. The necro­mancer had used what was left of his own soul to weave together his grisly war-plate – the binding spell was a thing of brute force and crude edges, lacking in any subtlety. It was easy enough to find the loose strands of magic and tug apart the knot holding it all together.

As Balthas unravelled the spell, he felt the mortal’s soul twitch and flutter in his grasp. Panic rose in the necromancer’s gaze, and he thrashed, trying to free himself. Balthas held fast, however, and the mortal could not pull away. ‘N-no, no you cannot…’ the necro­mancer whined. ‘I was promised justice – justice against those who hounded me.’

‘Is this justice, then?’ Balthas said. The first flap of flesh-plate peeled away from the whole. More followed, with a hideous sucking sound. ‘This abomination? If you think so, you are as broken as these husks.’ Broken limbs and meat sloughed away all at once, leaving the necromancer dangling in Balthas’ grip. He shook the pathetic creature. ‘Answer me.’

The necromancer cursed and clawed at his forearm. Dark strands of aether tightened about his crooked fingers. Balthas saw the spell forming before the mortal spoke. He squeezed, cutting off the necro­mancer’s air. The mortal gasped, and the spell turned to ash on the air. Disgusted, Balthas tossed him aside.

The necromancer clambered to his knees, wheezing. ‘You… you are too late,’ he coughed. ‘The dead outnumber the living. And the lords of death march upon you. They are coming, and all who are imprisoned shall be freed by–’ He was silenced by Achillus’ blade, as it parted his head from his neck. Balthas looked down at the decapitated body as it twitched in its death throes.

‘He was no threat,’ he said, after a moment.

‘Not to us,’ Achillus said, glancing meaningfully at the bodies in the pit. He took down one of the lanterns hanging on the wall and cast it down, where the dead lay thickest. The cheap salamander oil spread quickly, carrying a trail of flame.

‘Come, brother,’ Achillus said, stepping over the flames. ‘The shadows lengthen and other tasks await us.’

Juvius Thrawl wrapped his scarf about his face and flung the door to the station office open. Purple sand, cast into the air by the wind, scraped against his exposed flesh as he hurried towards the walls. The portly scribe had an armful of scrolls and records, several of which he dropped as he navigated the cramped courtyard of Fort Alenstahdt.

Made from blocks of sandstone and imported timber, the fort was shaped roughly like a star, with sloping walls and a wide courtyard, dotted with long, timber-frame structures. The station office was one of these, while the others were mostly used as barracks and storehouses. An immense well-house rose from the centre of the courtyard, and was connected to the walls by gantries of rope and wood. Great, tottering stacks of crates, barrels and sacks lined the walls, and groups of Thrawl’s fellow scribes moved among them, recording the contents or preparing them to be transported to Glymmsforge.

From its position, Fort Alenstahdt stood watch over the Great Lyrian Road, a flat serpent of raised stone that stretched across the Zircona Desert from Glymmsforge. It was dotted by duardin-made oases and trading enclaves like the fort, garrisoned by whoever the merchant families of Glymmsforge could pay to do the work. Often, that meant one of the smaller clans of fyreslayers or otherwise uncontracted bands of Freeguild mercenaries.

The fort was a way station, situated amid a nexus of ancient trade routes stretching across the Zircona Desert. Those routes had been set by the great fortress-wagons of the Zirc nomads, which forever trundled across the deserts of the underworld, carrying the tribes from one oasis to the next. The nomads traded shadeglass and other oddities culled from the sands for iron and silver, both of which were in high demand by the desert tribes.

Thrawl sidestepped a pair of scribes arguing with a duardin trader. The duardin thumped a meaty fist into his palm, his tone becoming bellicose. His bodyguards fingered their axes and glared silently at the Freeguild soldiers lounging nearby, watching the proceedings with rude amusement.

The men wore what could laughingly be called a uniform – voluminous breeches of varying shades, tucked into knee-high boots, heavy leather coats made from the hide of some large species of reptile and reinforced caps of the same, hidden beneath the floppy, wide-brimmed hats that seemed to serve only to hide their grinning, scarred faces.

Both wore bandoliers heavy with powder, shot and an assortment of knives, axes and various implements of murder. Their hair and moustaches were long, and intricately braided. Both carried the long-barrelled handguns prized by the members of their company.

The Leatherbacks were a gun company, from the fenlands that stretched across the south of Ghur. As far as Thrawl was concerned, to call them disreputable was to do a disservice to the term. They were all but barbarians, with manners that put orruks to shame. Worse, they were all related, in ways too complex for an outsider to sort out. Thrawl had spent most of his time at the fort navigating a web of internecine alliances, blood feuds and grudges that had the local duardin nodding in appreciation.

But they were hardy warriors, capable of enduring the blistering days and freezing nights without complaint. They had little fear of the deadwalkers that roamed the dunes, and often trapped the hungry corpses in cages to use for target practice. And if they were a bit rough with the Zirc nomads who came to trade, so much the better as far as their employers were concerned.

One of the pair watching the argument lifted his handgun in the general direction of the duardin and sighted down the barrel. The other scratched his throat meaningfully, as the trader’s bodyguards tensed. Thrawl wasn’t concerned. The duardin knew better than to cause a scene, and the Leatherbacks were too lazy to actually start a fight.

Thrawl nodded to the one aiming his weapon. ‘Where’s Poppa?’ he called out, fighting to be heard over the argument.

‘Parapet,’ the soldier grunted, hiking a thumb over his shoulder. His accent was atrocious, and he spoke with a pronounced drawl. Then, that wasn’t surprising, given where he and his fellows came from. He lowered his weapon and gave it a fond pat.

Those Leatherbacks that weren’t lucky enough to own such a weapon had to make do with a glaive or a halberd, until someone better equipped died and they could ‘inherit’ a handgun. In his time at the fort, Thrawl had seen no less than three duels fought over such abandoned weapons. The duels were theoretically fought only to first blood, but said blood usually wound up spurting from somewhere vital. The Leatherbacks would just as cheerfully murder their own kin as they would the enemy, if it meant getting their hands on a gun.

Thrawl started towards the parapet, but cursed as he trod on the tail of a dog – one of a dozen curs that seemed to have followed the Leatherbacks from their last duty. The big, yellow brute yelped and turned, teeth bared. Thrawl, used to such displays by now, fumbled loose a scroll and smacked the mongrel on the snout. It blinked and backed off, growling. Thrawl swept past, before it recovered its courage. More of the beasts lay in the shadows beneath the parapets, hiding from the wind. Several barked lazily as he climbed the crude wooden steps up to the top of the wall, and the enclosed para­pet above.

Poppa Chown was waiting on him, at the top. The mountainous commander of the Leatherbacks was silver-haired, twice the height of his tallest warrior and heavy with fat and muscle. Even his scars had scars. His clothes had been altered to fit his massive frame, and gave him a tatterdemalion aspect beneath his battered coat. He sat on an iron stool in front of a firing slit, his rifle between his knees. It was half again as long as a handgun, with a narrow barrel that scraped the roof of the parapet and a reinforced stock that Thrawl knew was heavy enough to crush a deadwalker’s skull.

His men bustled about him, keeping watch on the road and the desert that stretched out to the horizon on either side. Chown glanced around as Thrawl entered the parapet. ‘Ho, children – look. The scribe has come to visit.’ Chown spoke around a mouthful of the brownish herb he incessantly chewed, and he punctuated his welcome with a gobbet of spittle that narrowly missed Thrawl’s boot. ‘Say hello to the scribe, pups.’

Nearby warriors shouted obscenities or made rude gestures. Thrawl ignored them. ‘I need your pay records,’ he said, without preamble.

Chown turned with a grunt and squinted at him. ‘Why?’

‘To ensure that they align with my copies.’

‘They do.’

‘Even so, I wish to make sure.’

Chown smiled, showing off brown teeth. ‘Don’t you trust Poppa?’ He gestured expansively, and his men laughed knowingly. Chown’s title was informal but accurate. He was the patriarch of a wide-ranging clan, as well as its captain. He was father, master and commander, and his men loved and hated him in equal measure.

‘I don’t trust my own father, let alone you,’ Thrawl said bluntly.

Chown gave a bellow of laughter and slapped his knee. ‘And nor should you,’ he growled cheerfully. ‘We’re cheating you.’

‘I know.’

‘Then you don’t need the books.’ Chown made to turn back. Thrawl stepped up beside him.

‘I need them if I want to see how much you’re cheating my employers by.’

Chown glanced up at him and grinned. ‘Intending to skim off the difference and fatten your own purse, eh?’

‘Obviously.’ Thrawl looked out through the gun-slit. He could see the great wagon-fortresses of the Zirc nomads moving across the horizon, trying to outrace the storm everyone knew was coming but no one was talking about. Behind the hulking conveyances, Thrawl could see the purple glare on the horizon. It was brighter than it had been yesterday.

He shivered, suddenly cold. He fumbled a sigmarite amulet out from within his robes and rubbed it with his thumb. It was just a cheap thing, made from lead. His mother had given it to him before his departure, thinking it would protect him from the horrors of Shyish. Its weight was comforting, when the shadows of this realm pressed too close.

‘The desert is on fire,’ Chown said, idly. He reached into his coat and pulled out a pouch of tanned leather. He extracted a handful of leaves from the pouch before offering it to Thrawl as he stuffed the leaves into his mouth. Thrawl waved the pouch away, faintly disgusted by the musky odour emanating from it.

‘It’s getting closer, then,’ Thrawl said, softly. They’d felt the realm shake, and the packs of deadwalkers roaming the desert had become more focused. Worse were the reports from the nomads, of the things they’d seen and heard, out in the wastes.

‘Death always does.’

Thrawl frowned. ‘Is that meant to be reassuring?’

Chown chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then shrugged.

Thrawl sighed. This hadn’t been his first choice of posting, but it had been the only one available. Men and women who could read and write were in high demand on the frontier. Someone had to keep proper records, to keep barbarians like Chown from bankrupting Azyrite merchants. And to keep said merchants honest when it came time to pay their taxes.

Besides records, Thrawl had amused himself with writing a concise history of Fort Alenstahdt. He fancied his Dispatches from Zircona might one day be read alongside such volumes as Herst’s History of Greater Lyria, Tertoma’s Forty Days in the Writhing Weald and Guillepe Barco’s infamous The Klaxus Wars: An Eyewitness Account.

At the moment, he was stuck on the chapter concerning the recent earth-tremors and the increased deadwalker activity. Accounts he’d gathered from passing traders and pilgrims made it seem as if every tomb and grave had disgorged its contents. It all seemed so… impossible. But that word had little meaning on the frontier. He sighed again. ‘I hate the desert. I hate Shyish.’

Chown grunted. ‘You should put in for a change of post, scribe.’

Thrawl snorted. ‘And do you have a recommendation, then?’

‘The Black Marsh Barony, scribe – good place. That’s where we’re from. A place for men. Not like this desert. Only bones in the desert.’ Chown leaned over and spat a mouthful of whatever he’d been chewing, hitting a dog that lay nearby. The beast yelped and whirled to its feet, snapping at the air in confusion. The men laughed. Chown wiped his lips and grinned. ‘Sand gets everywhere. Scrape a man to his stilts.’

‘Then why are you here?’ Thrawl asked.

Chown rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. ‘We go where the money is, friend.’ He frowned. ‘And where our creditors aren’t.’

Thrawl laughed. ‘You must have a lot of creditors, to wind up out here.’ Few Freeguild companies sought frontier duty – it was alternately boring and dangerous work, with little chance of filling the coffers. Most preferred to bivouac behind high walls, and patrol civilised streets, rather than chance the wilds.

Chown shrugged. ‘Powder and shot is expensive. And we don’t like cities.’ He stiffened and gestured to one of his men. ‘Buzos, bring Poppa his spyglass, there’s a lad.’ Buzos hurried over, holding a heavy spyglass made from brass and gold. Its shell was scuffed and tarnished, but the lenses were almost perfect.

Thrawl blinked. ‘Why does that have the Glymm crest on it?’

Chown shrugged again. ‘It’s a mystery. Hush now, scribe. Something is happening out there. The Zirc are sounding their prayer-horns.’

Thrawl strained, listening for the familiar, winding call of the horns. The Zirc rarely sounded them and usually only just before a sandstorm. They worshipped the storm-winds, and some said that the nomads followed them across the desert. He squinted, trying to see what was going on. The wind had risen to a harsh shriek, and his eardrums ached.

‘The soul-winds are screaming,’ Chown grunted. ‘The dead are angry.’

‘When are they not?’

‘In Ghur, we know how to treat the dead-that-are-not.’ Chown drew a line across his throat. ‘The stake, the sword, the fire. Simple. But here… not so simple. The dead are different here.’ He handed Thrawl the spyglass. ‘Look, scribe.’

Thrawl’s mouth was dry as he looked through the spyglass. Chown was right. There was a storm on the horizon. But not of sand or rain.

Instead, a howling gale of spectral green energy was racing across the dunes towards them. He thought he glimpsed horsemen there among the roiling tide, and worse things besides. He stared, ­unable to tear his eyes away. Unable to speak.

‘No, not simple at all,’ Chown said.

‘The desert burns,’ Knossus said, staring at the horizon. He looked at Balthas. ‘The enemy is close at hand. Can you feel it?’

Balthas nodded. The temperature had dipped precipitously over the past day. The heavy braziers set at intervals along the eastern wall struggled to hold the cold at bay. Flames snapped and whipped in the wind that moaned across the ramparts.

He gazed along the wall’s length. The great cannons of the Ironweld were arrayed in batteries as far as the eye could see. Glymmsforge’s arsenal was the largest in Shyish, and growing by the year. But all the powder and shot in the realm would not be enough to stop what he suspected was coming.

Still looking at the cannons, he asked, ‘Any word from the fort?’ Fort Alenstahdt had fallen silent as the fires on the horizon grew brighter. Galen Sleekwing, Prosecutor-Prime of the Anvils of the Helden­hammer’s Angelos Chamber, had demanded the right to send out patrols of Prosecutors, but Knossus had refrained. There were things abroad in the dark skies that no warrior, no matter how skilled, could face and survive.

‘None. Not for three days. If anyone is alive out there, they have other things to worry about.’ Knossus leaned against his staff, looking surprisingly weary. Balthas could tell that the responsibility was wearing on him. They possessed superhuman vitality, but even it had its limits. And the city was under siege, even if there was no enemy in sight yet. The dead rose in greater numbers than ever before, despite the usual precautions.

In the past day, drowned corpses had surfaced in the Glass Mere to attack the villages that clustered along the shore-wall, and the effluvia of an abattoir in the tannery quarter had congealed into something monstrous and hungry. Each day brought new horrors, necessitating some form of intervention. Which further distracted from the efforts of the city’s defenders to prepare themselves for the attack that was almost certainly coming.

Out among the dunes, Balthas heard the cry of a jackal. The eerie sound rose and quavered out. As if in reply, the howling of dogs rose over the city. The soldiers on the wall glanced at one another nervously. Balthas could see the fear that tinged their auras. He sent a whisper of power through his staff, so that its glow blossomed suddenly, washing across the wall. The fear in those nearest to him eased.

‘Compassion, brother?’ Knossus asked.

‘Pragmatism. Fear sharpens the senses, but too much can overwhelm them.’ Balthas looked up at the dark sky. He couldn’t see the stars. A flicker of unease gripped him, but he said nothing of it. ‘They must be alert.’

‘As must we.’ Knossus looked out over the desert. ‘Death draws closer with every breath we take. It feels as if the underworld itself is closing in about us. As if Nagash has us in his fist.’ He sighed. ‘I thought I had seen my darkest days already, but this feels unsettlingly familiar.’

‘Have you found the weakness in the city’s wards yet?’

‘No. But I am drawing close.’ Knossus gestured to the north. ‘There is a tang in the air, there – a musty note beneath everything. It is there, I think.’

‘We must seal it, then, and swiftly,’ Balthas said. ‘While it exists, the city is weakened. Its defences are incomplete.’

Knossus blocked Balthas’ path with his staff. ‘I will deal with it. There is something else that you must do. The Grand Tempestus.’

Balthas paused. ‘I was under the impression that it was protected.’

‘It is. By you.’ Knossus smiled. ‘Sigmar sent you here for this purpose, brother. Defending the city’s walls is my responsibility. You will defend its heart. I have already sent word to Calys Eltain, placing her under your command.’

Balthas bowed his head. ‘My… thanks, brother.’

‘You will not be alone. The Grand Tempestus sits amid the main artery of the city – I have despatched forces to hold the surrounding streets. They will be of some help to you.’

‘Mortals?’ Balthas said, doubtfully.

‘Lynos and Orius are needed elsewhere. It will be up to us to hold the enemy on the walls. Hopefully, you will not see a single spectre or walking corpse.’

Balthas looked back towards the desert and the witch-light glow dancing on the horizon. He did not share Knossus’ seeming confidence. Whatever was coming, it would take more than walls and mystic wards to stop it.

But he did not voice his concerns. Instead, he simply turned away. ‘I hope you are right, brother. And Sigmar help us if you are not.’

The wind whipped along the spires and buttresses of the northern mausoleum gate and set the lamps to flickering, when Lieutenant Vale got word that the lord-arcanum was on his way. He didn’t know what that meant, but rolled out his men for inspection. With the rest of Third Company being deployed elsewhere, that left his section in sole charge of the northern mausoleum gate. There were enough warm bodies to man the walls – just. The city’s forces were stretched thin everywhere.

The men came with much grumbling and the clatter of kit being hastily pulled on. None of them wanted to be outside their gatehouse-barracks on a night like this, and he didn’t blame them. The nights were getting longer, and there was a purple fire on the horizon. Bad omens clustered thick, wherever you looked. And worst of all – it was raining.

‘Get in line, get in line,’ he hollered, as he splashed through the mud. A hundred men or more could comfortably line up single file in the courtyard.

Wide avenues of cobblestones ran through the courtyard, stretching from the pair of massive portcullises that were set into the high walls between the largest bastions. Once, those avenues had been crowded by columns of refugees, traders and pilgrims. Now, they were empty of everything save the overturned carts and makeshift barricades Captain Fosko had ordered set up before his departure. Storm-lanterns hung from nearby posts and support beams, casting a watery blue light over the proceedings. ‘Boots on, breeches up, you jack-a-ninnies,’ he shouted, slapping his gauntlets against his thigh as he strode down the line.

‘I’m not sure that I’m drunk enough for this,’ Sergeant Gomes said, upending his flask. Vale glanced at the squat figure of his second in command. ‘Stow the flask, Gomes,’ Vale said, but quietly. ‘Kurst is coming this way. I’ll never hear the end of it if he sees you with a flask pressed to your lips.’ The warrior-priest was his section’s disapproving shadow, assigned to them by Captain-General Varo Tyrmane himself, the better to keep his men’s blades blessed and their souls relatively intact.

‘Oh joy, the Vulture shows his beak,’ Gomes muttered. Vale frowned, but didn’t chastise his sergeant. Kurst did resemble a carrion-bird, and an ugly one at that; a thin, gangling man, clad in loose black robes and out-sized black armour, with baroque decorations of stylised bones and scythes. He was bald, save for a fringe of lank, colourless hair that spilled down the back of his scrawny neck. His face was pinched in a permanent expression of disapproval, and he thumped the head of his warhammer into his palm repeatedly as he stalked the line of assembled soldiers.

‘I’ve always wondered where they dug him up – he must be sixty turns of the wheel if he’s a day,’ Gomes said. ‘You can practically smell the grave-mould on him.’

‘A man like that doesn’t get older – just nastier,’ Vale said. ‘And that’s not grave-mould. I’ve heard he doesn’t bathe. Says it weakens the ligaments.’

Gomes chuckled. ‘One good smack and he’d go to dust, ligaments or no.’

‘Feel free. But not when I’m around.’

Gomes gave a gap-toothed grin. ‘Worried about your prospects, lieutenant?’

‘Not just mine,’ Vale said. ‘I– Hsst. They’re here.’

The Stormcasts arrived, the lord-arcanum at their head. Knossus Heavensen made for an impressive figure, sitting astride his massive gryph-charger. Vale had grown up around Stormcasts, but he felt himself somewhat awestruck by the gold-clad warriors of the Sacro­sanct Chamber as they marched into the courtyard.

Gomes took another surreptitious slug from his flask. ‘They say he’s really young Knossian Glymm, come again to defend the city he saved from Vaslbad the Unrelenting.’

‘He’s a Stormcast. They were all once someone else. Now be quiet.’ Vale swallowed and stepped forwards, one hand on the hilt of the blade sheathed at his side. He caught sight of Kurst, doing the same. The warrior-priest stared at the Stormcasts with almost feverish intensity. As if they were living saints, or gods made flesh. He cleared his throat. ‘Welcome, lord-arcanum. Would you like to inspect the troops?’

He realised how inane the question was, even as it left his lips. The lord-arcanum looked down at him, gold helm running with rivulets of rain. Then he looked around. Vale knew he was taking in the state of the courtyard. Vale closed his eyes, silently cursing himself for not ordering the men to make things ready for inspection.

‘I stood here, once before,’ Knossus said, his voice echoing through the courtyard. ‘It seemed larger, then.’ He looked down at Vale. ‘You are in command?’

‘Lieutenant Holman Vale, my lord. Third Company.’ Vale gave the traditional salute – two thumps and a wave – and tried to stand as straight as possible. ‘I have the honour of warding this place.’

‘Do you know who is interred here, Lieutenant Vale?’

‘I… I’m afraid not, my lord. Before my time, rather.’ Vale glanced around and saw Kurst nearby. He gestured hastily, and the warrior-priest smirked.

‘Orthanc Duln, the Hero of Sawback,’ Kurst murmured helpfully. Vale grimaced. He had no idea who that was, or even where Sawback was. Ghur? It sounded Ghurdish. Vale looked up at Knossus and smiled weakly.

‘There we have it – Orton…’

‘Orthanc Duln,’ Kurst corrected.

Vale shot him a glare. ‘Right, yes, sorry, Orthanc Duln.’

Knossus chuckled, and the sound nearly turned Vale’s bowels to water. ‘Your youth excuses you, lieutenant. So long as you do your duty, it is no sin. The Celestial Saints are remembered by Sigmar and we who serve as his hand, and that is all that matters.’ He slid from the saddle with a crash of sigmarite. Even on the ground, he loomed head and shoulders over Vale.

‘Why – ah – to what do we owe the honour of your presence?’

‘There is a problem.’

Vale froze, wondering if they’d found out about the pilfered wages. Or worse. There was no telling what Gomes got up to in his free time. He’d heard rumours of extortion, and local shopkeepers paying protection, to keep non-existent deadwalkers at bay. ‘P-problem?’

‘A weakness in our defences.’ Knossus turned, studying the arcanogram carved into the street. A flicker of relief passed through Vale. They didn’t know about the money, then. Then he realised what the lord-arcanum was saying.

‘Oh. Ah.’ Vale glanced up at the walls. ‘Has something happened?’

‘A long time ago, I fear,’ Knossus said. He extended his staff and gently pushed Vale back a step. ‘My warriors and I shall join the defence of this place. See to your men, lieutenant. The enemy is coming, even now.’

Vale felt a cold slither of fear and turned away. Kurst followed him. ‘Is he right?’ Vale asked. Kurst snorted.

‘You only have to stand atop the wall to see that much. The eldritch glow on the horizon grows closer with every passing night. The winds wail, carrying the groans of deadwalkers. Listen, fool – hear them?’

Vale stopped. He’d never thought about it before, but Kurst was right. He’d been hearing the sound for days without knowing what it was – a dull, somnolent groaning. Like the rumble of distant thunder. He shuddered and ran a hand through his hair, trying to think. Gomes stumped towards him. ‘Should I dismiss the lads?’

‘Yes, but double the watch.’

Gomes blinked. ‘They won’t like that.’

‘I don’t give a damn,’ Vale snapped. ‘You heard him – they all heard him – something is wrong.’ He swallowed. ‘The wall won’t hold.’

‘Then we shall be the wall,’ Kurst said. He thumped his hammer into his palm. ‘We shall build it with steel and silver, or, failing that, with our bodies.’

Vale shared a look with Gomes. ‘Right. Yes. Obviously.’ He turned away, watching as the Stormcasts set up some sort of massive ballistae, near the entrance to the courtyard, where the two portcullis pathways intersected. Others, carrying heavy crossbows, were climbing up to the parapets, to join the mortal soldiers on duty there.

‘What is he doing?’ Gomes muttered.

Vale looked and saw Knossus gesturing ritualistically over the section of the arcanogram that ran through the gatehouse. Motes of corposant bristled about his hand as he moved it back and forth over the silver runnels. Light danced across the purple sands, and the air flickered with something like a heat mirage.

Ghostly images wafted into being about the lord-arcanum. Vale saw a stooped figure – an older man, worn sharp by life and heavily scarred, wearing the uniform of a Glymmsman – raise a breacher-spade over the sands and thrust it down.

Gomes cursed softly. ‘I know that face. That’s Vorgen Malendrek. The Hero of the Southern Gate…’

Vale looked at him in confusion. ‘Who?’

‘Before your time, lad,’ Kurst said, flatly. ‘Captain of Fifth Company. Or he was. He warded the southernmost gate during Vaslbad’s attack on the city, and held Undst Keep against the Slender Knight.’

‘Why haven’t I heard of him?’

‘He survived, didn’t he?’ Gomes said, grinning. ‘Nobody likes it when heroes survive.’ He leaned over and spat. ‘But he vanished not long ago. Everyone thought he’d been taken in the night by a gheist.’ He peered at the image. ‘What is he doing with that spade?’

The image flickered eerily, as the breacher-spade came down again and again. Kurst hissed. ‘The blessed salts – he’s digging them out!’

Vale stared at the image in horror. ‘If the salts are gone…’

From the wall, he heard the winding call of a war-horn. He jerked around, eyes wide. The horn blared again, the echo of its warning shuddering through the rain. The image of Vorgen Malendrek vanished, as the lord-arcanum looked up. Vale heard shouts and cries of alarm. A man hurried to the edge of a parapet. ‘Deadwalkers, sir! Thousands of them.’

Vale felt his stomach fall into his boots. Mouth dry, he looked at the lord-arcanum. The Stormcast nodded, and Vale was suddenly glad for his presence.

‘It begins,’ Knossus said.

It had all gone very wrong, very quickly, Vale thought.

Gomes was dead, torn apart by cackling gheists. Most of his men were dead. Those that weren’t had fallen back from the courtyard, leaving the enemy to the Stormcasts. Now they took cover in shattered storefronts and behind overturned carts of the streets past the gate, watching as powers beyond them clashed. Vale sat, his back to a stone wall, his sigmarite sigil clutched in his hands, whispering every prayer he knew. It was only one, really, but he wasn’t certain of the words, so he tried several versions.

He’d been too young to serve during Vaslbad’s assault on the city, but he’d fought deadwalkers before. They were dangerous, but you could put them down with steel and fire, if you were careful. But this was something else. Something worse. Gheists crawled along the rooftops and circled in the air like birds of prey. They reached through stone and wood as if it weren’t there, and could pluck out a man’s heart in a trice. Honest steel did nothing, and silver wasn’t much better.

Vale heard a shout and saw the black-armoured form of the Vulture lurch into motion. The warrior-priest’s hammer snapped out in a looping blow, and a gheist fell away. The spirit crumbled to dust and tatters. Kurst stomped forwards through its drifting remains, his croaking voice raised in a battle-hymn.

‘Up – up, you sons of Sigmar,’ the warrior-priest snarled, as he smashed another gheist aside. ‘Up, you gentle princes of Azyr! There is work to be done. Fasten your hands to the plough, and turn the soil – cast the dead back, and bury them deep! Up, you cowards and fools, up and look to the stars – there is courage there, if there be none in your gizzards!’

He reached down and jerked Vale to his feet. ‘Draw your sword, captain, or I’ll crack your skull here and now. Time to put in honest effort for your pay.’

Vale shoved the priest away and drew his sword. He didn’t quite extend it between them. ‘I’m no coward, but what good is steel against these things?’

‘It is better than the alternative,’ Kurst said. ‘And it’ll do well enough against those.’ He pointed his warhammer at the inner gateway, where a line of Stormcasts had locked their shields against a flood of groaning deadwalkers. The corpses clawed at the armoured warriors, pressing them back through sheer numbers. ‘Get the men up, Vale – we’re needed.’

Vale swallowed and nodded. The Vulture was right. The northern mausoleum gate was his responsibility. Whatever else, he didn’t intend to make a bad showing – he had his prospects to consider. He turned and, in what he hoped was a suitably heroic tone, shouted, ‘Men of the Third – on your feet! Sigmar’s chosen require aid.’

‘Let someone else help them, then,’ a soldier shouted back.

‘Unfortunately for you, Herk, we’re the only poor bastards around,’ Vale snarled, grabbing the dissenter and dragging him out of hiding. ‘Our only choices are to fight or die. And I don’t plan on dying anytime soon. Now get moving, or I’ll send you to Elder Bones myself!’ He shoved Herk into the street and looked around. ‘That goes for all of you. Up, or I’ll give you to the Vulture – up!’

The men closest to him rose, if reluctantly. There was no time to see if it was all of them, and there was nothing he could do about it if it wasn’t. ‘Get moving,’ he shouted. Vale let the Vulture lead the way, allowing room for the warrior priest’s huge hammer. A Stormcast glanced back as they approached, and Vale saluted.

‘You handle the gheists, my lord. We’ll handle the corpses–’

Vale’s bravado disintegrated along with the Stormcast. The warrior crumbled to flashing sparks of azure light as Vale watched, wide-eyed. A sword – as black as night and shining like wet glass – retracted, and a grotesque, iron helm appeared. Eyes like balls of balefire met his, and Vale stepped back, trying to scream but ­unable to find his voice.

The warrior, wrapped in black iron and grave-shroud, turned, almost lazily, and cut down another Stormcast. Lightning flashed, but didn’t go far. Something hunched and horrid cast rusty chains about the warrior’s soul, ensnaring it. Vale thought he heard the trapped soul scream in horror and despair.

‘Blasphemy,’ Kurst roared, striking at the hunched thing. His blow caught it on its warped helm, and it spun, smashing at him with its chains. Howling spirits rushed at the priest, obscuring him from view, though Vale could hear him cursing. More spirits boiled through the gateway, followed by shambling deadwalkers. The gheists ­hurtled away, streaking through the streets to either side of him. His relief was short-lived, as the deadwalkers lurched towards the line of Freeguild soldiers, groping blindly.

‘Hold – hold fast,’ Vale stuttered to his men, hacking at a deadwalker. His soul felt like ice in him, as he watched the dark warrior slay another Stormcast. How could such a thing be fought? How could it be faced?

He shook himself, trying to concentrate on the threat he could fight, rather than the one he couldn’t. The deadwalkers were just as deadly as the gheists, and they were more interested in him than the spirits seemed to be, at the moment. He could hear the screams of the men on the walls, and still in the courtyard. They wouldn’t last long, even with the Stormcasts there. ‘Hold them back,’ he shouted, chopping a deadwalker off its feet. Its icy fingers tore strips from his sleeves and left rotten smears on his breastplate.

More gheists streaked overhead, their wails digging into his eardrums. Dozens of them, then a hundred. Until the sky was all but blotted out by rotting, tattered shapes. There was a sound like bird wings flapping against the wind, as they kept coming. They passed through the walls as if they weren’t there, and squirmed into the buildings on the other side of the street. He heard screams, but ignored them. The street was a tangle of confusion. More and more deadwalkers were pushing out into the street beyond the gatehouse. There were bodies slipping and falling all around him, men dying, corpses twitching and lurching. He ignored it all. The only thing that mattered was the dead thing in front of him. ‘Keep fighting,’ he screamed, trying to spot the Vulture.

A man beside him yelled as a deadwalker bore him to the ground, jaws champing. Vale kicked the corpse in the head and bisected its skull when it turned on him. ‘Get up, Doula.’ He hauled the soldier to his feet.

‘We can’t hold them,’ Doula gasped. ‘There’s too many.’ Vale shoved Doula towards the others – pitifully few of them now.

‘Fall back, all of you. Fall back! We’ll regroup at the lych-gate. Regroup…’

Something grabbed him, and he screamed. ‘Shut it, boy,’ the Vulture rasped. The old man looked like death warmed over, and his armour was coated with hoar frost, but he’d survived his brush with the nighthaunts. ‘Call them back. Got to hold the line. Got to–’

He grunted. Vale looked down. The tip of a blade jutted from between the plates of the old man’s armour. It was retracted with a wrench of metal. A gust of frosty breath emerged from his lips as he sagged against Vale. A tall figure, dressed in archaic war-plate and bearing a staff with a lantern atop it, looked down at him. The flame of the lantern burned with an ugly light that threatened to sap the strength from Vale’s limbs.

‘Have you heard the voice of Nagash, little mortal? Can you feel his hand upon your shoulder?’ the nighthaunt intoned, its voice shuddering through Vale. ‘Shall I speak of what awaits you, at the end of the last, long night? Would you hear the voice of Omphalo Dohl?’

Vale shoved Kurst’s dead weight aside and turned to run. A Stormcast staggered across his path, clutching at his neck, lightning bleeding between his fingers. The warrior collapsed to his knees, losing cohesion. The hunched thing, wrapped in its chains, swooped down like a bird of prey, pouncing on the warrior’s soul as it jetted upwards.

Before it could capture its prey, however, a streak of lightning cut across its path, driving it back. Vale turned and saw a gryph-charger rear up over him, its talons dragging a gheist from the air. From its back, Lord-Arcanum Knossus roared out an incantation, and another gheist was reduced to a cloud of ashes. ‘Back, grave-maggots. Back, shadows! This city belongs to the living.’

Vale ducked as gheists shot past him, towards Knossus. Lightning seared the air, immolating spectres and deadwalkers alike. Something caught his leg. He raised his sword, before he realised it was Kurst. The old priest was still alive, somehow. ‘Thank Sigmar,’ Vale began, as he reached down. The old man groaned and caught at him. His eyes were empty and white, like the belly of a fish. His grip tightened, and Vale stumbled. Kurst fumbled for his throat, jaws wide – impossibly wide.

‘No!’ Vale hacked at the dead man’s neck, nearly severing his head. From all sides, more dead hands clutched at him. He turned, slashing his sword out, lopping off fingers and tearing wounds in the bodies of his former subordinates. As he fought his way clear, towards Doula and the few remaining survivors, he saw the dark, shroud-clad warrior stride away through the carnage, followed by the hunched thing and the lantern-bearing nightmare.

‘Fall back,’ Vale shouted, as he hurried towards his men. ‘The northern gate is lost. Fall back!’

‘What about the lord-arcanum?’ Doula asked, face pale.

Vale tossed a glance towards the gatehouse, where the fighting still raged. He could hear the snarl of lightning and the screech of a gryph-charger. But the dead were pouring through, and they were too few to stop them.

‘Sigmar help him,’ Vale said, turning away. ‘Sigmar help us all.’

Elya climbed through the stone canopy of the Grand Tempestus. As she climbed, she listened with half an ear to the babble of panicked humanity rising from below. Her father was somewhere among them, trying to crawl into a bottle. Maybe his last.

She’d left Halha with him. The trader seemed eager for something to occupy her time and was keeping Duvak from making a mess of things, or getting into a fight. Normally, that responsibility was Elya’s, but it was hard to sit and do nothing but watch her father pickle himself and talk about people who weren’t there anymore.

People were screaming and crying. The air throbbed with tension, and the sounds of battle from outside were only making things worse. She’d had to climb to get away from it. There were many people, in too small a space, despite the fact that the nave of the temple was as wide as a city boulevard, and almost as long.

She paused, watching as soldiers took up positions among the pillars and statues. Their commander shouted hoarsely, directing them with his blade. The duardin she saw were more subdued, but they readied their shields, making improvised bulwarks between the centre of the temple and the main doors.

Elya watched for a time, and then continued to pick her way across the stone carvings, as light as the cats that watched her progress from above and around her. They were scattered throughout the temple, seeking someplace safe and warm to wait out the storm.

Above her, a cat hissed suddenly. She froze as something passed across the face of a nearby window. A shape that wasn’t a shape. She could hear the nicksoul gibbering as it slithered across the glass, scrabbling ineffectually at it, for the glass was blessed and it couldn’t get in. It sounded like the mad men who sat on the corners and talked to people who’d died in the last siege. Just words, words, words and none of them making any sense.

Curious, she crept towards the window. It was one of hundreds, set into the base of the roof, below the immense glass dome that looked down on the nave. The windows were small circles of stained glass, meant to let in coloured shafts of light. Now, they were all covered in frost, so thickly that she thought it a wonder that they didn’t crack.

The glass bled cold, and her breath frosted the air. The thing on the other side grimaced at the sight of her and began to twist itself in knots. It had maggots where its eyes ought to have been, and its teeth were nothing but sharp splinters.

But it had been a person, once. A man, she thought. No, a boy. It spoke to her, too fast and sounding like it couldn’t catch its breath. The words tumbled over one another, and she couldn’t make sense of them. It pressed broken fingers to the glass, and hoar frost spread wherever it touched. She hesitated, and then reached out, placing her fingers against the glass. It was so cold it burned.

The nicksoul stopped talking. It stared at her with its squirming gaze, and she could almost feel those maggots gnawing at her own eyes. She blinked and looked away. It hissed, not like a cat, but like a Mere-eel – a wet, guttural sound. ‘He is coming,’ it rasped. ‘He knows you, and he is coming.’

A cat climbed up onto her shoulder and growled, tail lashing. The nicksoul jerked back, as if it’d been stung. Elya turned, something telling her to look up. The dome overhead was dark, and things that might have been stars flickered in that darkness.

But they weren’t stars.

Stars did not scream.

Inside the Grand Tempestus, all was quiet.

Few people spoke, beyond muffled prayers or the coughing of the injured. The Glymmsmen and duardin tended their wounded, while keeping wary eyes on the visible entrances. The citizens had gathered in bunches throughout the nave, or against the walls. Some moved aside as Balthas led Quicksilver down the nave, away from the main doors.

His warriors split up into smaller cohorts composed of Sequitors and Castigators, towards the twelve entry-points. Helios and his Celestors sat in a watchful line before the main doorway, their weapons across their knees and corposant dancing across their armour. Gellius had set his ballista up on the altar – shaped like a massive, twelve-pointed star – where he had a clear view of the entirety of the nave and the main entry hall.

Calys Eltain’s Liberators still held their posts, at the doorways. He saw no reason to pull them from that duty – twelve warriors more or less would make little difference. They would act as alarms, just in case the wards were breached and the dead managed to get inside. When he said as much, Miska frowned. ‘She – they – deserve better than that, I think.’

Balthas didn’t look at her. ‘We all do.’

‘Especially the mortals.’ Miska looked around. Her face was set in a frown. ‘I suspect you used Fosko and Juddsson to absorb the brunt of the enemy – to gauge their strength. We should have pulled them back from the beginning. I knew that and said nothing. Too many died that need not have.’

‘You disapprove of my strategy?’

‘You are lord-arcanum.’

‘I am. And I saw fit to preserve my troops for as long as possible.’ Balthas sighed and looked at her. ‘The mortals had their duty, as we have ours. Now we must concentrate on what comes next.’ He gestured to Fosko, and the Freeguilder trotted over, followed closely by Juddsson. The duardin thane was pale and moved slowly, but seemed to be on the mend. ‘Status?’ Balthas asked, without preamble.

‘Most of my men are walking wounded,’ Fosko said, bluntly.

‘Bitten?’

Fosko grimaced. ‘No, thank Sigmar. But we’re checking, even so. If we find one… we’ll deal with it, quietly.’ He looked as if he wanted to spit, but refrained. ‘I left the best part of my command out there, lord-arcanum. The dead were on us too quick – we’re used to dealing with single nighthaunts, or just a handful. Never seen this many in one place.’ He swallowed. ‘Never wanted to.’

Juddsson nodded grimly. ‘We weren’t prepared. Too many manling promises of impenetrable walls lulled us. And now we’re trapped.’

‘Feel free to leave,’ Fosko said.

‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ Juddsson sneered.

‘No. You would have to open the doors,’ Balthas said. ‘That would not be ideal. We are not trapped,’ he said, after a moment. ‘This place is sturdy. It can be defended, if not easily.’

‘A siege might last days, or weeks. If we’re cut off from the rest of the city…’ Fosko let the thought hang, unfinished. ‘We should ask Obol about supplies. See what the Azyrites have been hoarding in this oversized chapel of theirs.’

Balthas turned, scanning the crowd of mortals. Priests in robes of blue and gold wandered through the crowd, speaking softly to those who huddled weeping, or sternly to those whose faith seemed lacking. The one in charge was a portly man, with a cavernous scar disfiguring one side of his round features. It ran across his eye, which gleamed white in its ravaged socket, and up over the crown of his bald head. He wore gold-plated armour over his robes, but cradled a battered, utilitarian-looking mattock in the crook of his arm. He was speaking to an elderly couple as Balthas approached, the others in tow.

‘Lector Obol,’ Balthas said, pitching his voice low.

Obol turned, his good eye widening slightly. Balthas knew a little about him, from Fosko. One of several priests – or lectors, as the Church of Sigmar called them – sent by the Grand Theogonist from Azyr to oversee the spiritual welfare of the citizens of Glymmsforge, both Azyrite and otherwise. A former war-priest, Obol now spent most of his time seeing to the upkeep of the Grand Tempestus. Obol bowed as low as he was able, given his bulk. ‘My lord. You honour me – honour us – with your presence.’

Obol glanced at Fosko and smiled. ‘Glad to see you survived, you old wastrel.’ His smile faded. ‘Can’t say I expect we’ll all be so lucky, if this keeps up, though.’

‘Supplies,’ Balthas said. Obol blinked.

‘Some stores, in case of disaster,’ he said, after a moment. ‘Not enough for this lot, though. Even depending on whether you eat.’ He looked at Balthas, eye narrowed. ‘Forgive my impertinence, lord, but… do you?’

‘We do. But we do not need to, save rarely.’

‘Shame,’ Obol said. He patted his belly. ‘Sigmar knows best, I suppose, but a good meal sets the world to rights, I’ve found.’

‘Often, by the looks of you,’ Juddsson grunted. The duardin sat heavily on a nearby bench. Obol laughed.

‘And have you ever turned down a meal, thane?’

Juddsson squinted at him and rubbed his chest as if it pained him. ‘What sort of fool does that?’ He turned. ‘I remember installing a well. So there’s water, at least.’

Balthas looked down at him. ‘You built this place?’

Juddsson gestured dismissively. ‘Why do you think I wanted to be the one to defend it? Took me months to get the capstones set properly. I wasn’t going to just sit back and let a bunch of walking corpses infest it.’ He stroked his beard. ‘We could always use the tunnels, if need be.’

Fosko frowned. ‘The catacombs would be worse than staying up here. Besides, I’d heard they’d sealed them off.’

‘Not the catacombs,’ Juddsson said. ‘There are tunnels running throughout the city. We of the Riven Clans dug most of them. If we could get down there, we might stand a chance.’

‘And go where?’ Obol said. ‘The city is under siege. The dead are everywhere. At least here, we know they can’t get in. Sigmar would not allow it.’

Juddsson fell silent. Balthas looked up, at the high dome overhead. It was covered in a heaving shroud of gheists and hoar frost. ‘Sigmar might not allow it, but he is not the only god present here, today, I fear,’ he said. Obol paled and made the sign of the twin-tailed comet.

‘Then it is true, what they say… Nagash moves against Azyr?’

Balthas looked at him. ‘Who is this “they” everyone refers to?’ He held up a hand. ‘Never mind. Yes. I want an accounting of supplies. You will provide it.’ Obol bowed awkwardly and hurried away, calling for several of the junior priests to accompany him. Balthas turned to Fosko. ‘This place must be fortified. I want the entry halls blocked off, if possible. It won’t stop the nighthaunts, but the deadwalkers are a different story.’

Fosko frowned. ‘We’re staying, then?’

‘For the moment,’ Balthas said. Fosko nodded and turned to rejoin his men. When he’d gone, Juddsson laughed harshly.

‘Busy work, is it?’

‘What do you mean?’

Juddsson tapped the side of his head. ‘I’m no fool. This place was never meant to be a fortress, whatever manlings think. And it won’t keep the dead out for long, blessings or no. So you’re thinking of something else. Fosko doesn’t see it yet, but he will.’ He peered towards his own warriors. They had erected their heavy shields into a bulwark and were priming their drakeguns. One of them began to sing, softly at first, and then more loudly. Other duardin joined in, their deep voices echoing through the nave.

Balthas watched, perturbed. ‘What are they doing?’

‘Singing,’ Juddsson growled. ‘Did you think we did not know how?’

Balthas hesitated. ‘I knew. I have simply never heard it.’

‘Few have, outside the clan-halls. Our songs are not for the ears of the unwrought. Today, we make an exception.’

‘Is it a dirge?’

Juddsson looked at him. ‘Of course not. Why would you think that?’

Balthas didn’t reply. Juddsson snorted and heaved himself upright, and made as if to stand. Balthas moved to help him, but Juddsson waved him off. ‘The day I need help to stand is the day I no longer deserve to do so.’

Juddsson limped towards his warriors, one hand pressed to his chest. In moments, his voice joined theirs, rising in song. Balthas watched them sing for a moment. He glanced up at the windows, where ghostly faces were pressed to the glass, wailing silently. He imagined the nighthaunts clinging to the outside of the cathedral and felt faintly nauseated.

‘They will not get in,’ Miska said, after a moment. She had stood silent, while he conversed with the others, keeping her thoughts to herself. Now he looked at her, wanting her opinion. He felt uncertain… something he was not used to.

‘Are you sure of that?’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘Once, I might have been. But now… that thing – that creature leading the dead – was Thaum. I saw it. Felt it.’ Balthas sagged back, onto the bench Juddsson had vacated. He wanted to take off his helm, but didn’t. It would be a sign of weakness, and he needed to be strong. Strong enough to make right what he had allowed to go wrong. ‘It – he – killed Lynos. His own lord-celestant. And Porthas.’

‘He almost killed you as well,’ Miska said.

‘Something has happened to him. He has been altered somehow. His soul is tainted. The light of Azyr is trapped in a shroud of darkness.’ Balthas shook his head. ‘Only a god could do such a thing.’

‘Nagash.’

He nodded. ‘He has captured the soul of a Stormcast before. More than once. Indeed, for some years, we thought it was his driving obsession. But never before has he managed something like this. I am forced to wonder – if he has the capability now, are any of us safe?’

‘Sigmar would not allow it.’

‘We must pray that it is so.’ Balthas bent forwards. ‘I saw into his mind – what was left of his mind.’ He grimaced. ‘It was like… a nest of maggots, making a hollow carcass dance. It is him, but he is just a mask for the thing inside. And I saw its plan.’

‘The Ten Thousand Tombs,’ Miska said, anticipating him.

‘A place of censure. A moment of black time, stretched across roots of stone and left to fester.’ Balthas closed his eyes, trying to forget the feeling of being in Thaum’s head. ‘There are ten thousand souls imprisoned below us. Fell souls – warlords and sorcerers, tyrants and failed heroes. More potent than the spirits commonly hurled against us, and left imprisoned here by the will of the Undying King.’

‘Why would he do such a thing?’ Miska asked. ‘I have always wondered. Surely such souls might have been more useful on the battlefield, rather than chained here in the dark.’

‘Unless even Nagash feared they might prove too hard to control,’ Balthas said. ‘That he seeks them now should give us all pause.’ He looked at her. ‘Where is Calys Eltain? I must speak with her.’

‘She is at her post.’ Miska looked down at him. ‘Are you going to tell me why?’

‘We know where they are going. Why else would Nagash send Pharus Thaum back to Glymmsforge, save to open the vaults he once defended? And to get there, they will tear this temple down, stone by stone. It is not safe here. We cannot defend this place for long. We will be overwhelmed long before Knossus is able to ­reinforce us. The only safety is down.’

‘The catacombs?’

‘We cannot make our stand here. They will overwhelm us sooner or later. So we must withdraw to face them on more optimal ground. There are reinforcements below.’

‘If we cease our prayers, they will rush in.’

‘Then someone must stay.’

‘A death sentence.’ She did not sound angry. Balthas nodded.

‘Yes.’

‘Volunteers?’

‘One will be enough.’

‘And you have one in mind?’

Balthas was silent. Miska smiled faintly. ‘Go – speak to Eltain. I will tell him.’ She turned away. Balthas raised his hand. Dropped it.

‘Thank you, mage-sacristan.’

‘It is my duty, lord-arcanum.’

He watched her go and then let his gaze drift across the interior of the temple. Even now, preoccupied as he was, he couldn’t help but calculate the geometries of the place. It was such a small thing – plain and pale next to the glories of Sigmaron. As Glymmsforge paled next to Azyrheim. But both were groping towards that glory, in their own way.

That, in the end, was the difference between gods. Where Nagash forced everything into the same shape – his own – Sigmar sought to raise his people up. To serve Sigmar was to forever reach for the stars above. To serve Nagash was to never notice the stars at all.

His eyes found the reliquary that rested at the opposite end of the nave from the main doors. It was the largest chamber in the temple, built to house the bones of the faithful, and now a hundred or more citizens of Glymmsforge crowded within its embrace. Innumerable skulls, marked by the symbol of the High Star, peered down at the gathered mortals. Longer bones had been laid beneath the skulls, and thousands of phalanges hung from the ceiling.

The reliquary radiated a peace utterly at odds with the dead things outside. Here, a soul could find true rest, safe from the machinations of the Undying King. A shame that such peace would soon be disrupted. Another necessary sacrifice.

It seemed to him as if there were too many of those, of late.

Perhaps Miska and Tyros were right. He was easily distracted. He had not steeped himself in blood, the way others had. He had always thought himself possessed of a higher purpose – not just a warrior, but a seeker of hidden truths.

But what was the truth, here? The only one he saw was that he had failed, and his failure had compounded itself in ways he had never imagined. There was no telling what Thaum had done, or would do, if he was not released from Nagash’s control. He leaned his head against his staff, seeking equilibrium.

He stared at the bones, at the ranks and rows of sainted dead lining the reliquary, and wondered where they were now. Lyria was but one underworld among millions. He could feel spirits here, watching. They existed outside the awareness of all but the most sensitive of mortals, and those possessing a spark of the divine. The truly dead, those who had passed beyond even the reach of gods, into spheres unknown and unknowing.

Only a rare few in the realms were so lucky as to travel on to that undiscovered country at the moment of their death. Many souls were trapped in the weft and weave of the realms, drawn into the aether that permeated everything. Sometimes they escaped, but other times, they simply… sat. Waiting for one god or another to collect them, or for the winds of magic to cast them back into physical form, through rebirth or reincarnation.

He knew this as surely as he knew that the war being fought in the realms was not just a battle over physical territory, but a war for souls. The souls of all those who had been or ever would be. Even those souls already claimed by another.

He closed his eyes, listening to the wails emanating from beyond the walls of the temple. He felt suddenly weary, and his grip tightened about his staff. Corposant flared softly, dancing in tune to his simmering frustration. He had failed. Twice now, he had faced Pharus Thaum, and twice he had failed to contain him. Twice he had failed to prevent the repercussions of the rogue soul’s rampage. The third time would be the last. He did not know how he knew this, only that it was as certain as the stars above. As constant as the firmament.

As this understanding filled him, so too did warmth, driving back the edges of fatigue and bringing with it clarity. He could see the way ahead clearly now. He was on the correct path. The battle could not be won here. But elsewhere, it might be possible. Like a hunter, he had to find the proper ground.

He could almost feel Sigmar’s hand on his shoulder. Magic, sorcery, aetherworking, whatever you called it, it was all about ritual. About the meeting of craft and circumstance, the right words, the right gesture, at the right time. Too early or too late, and the spell would not work. Like a hunter, taking aim at his prey. Release the arrow too soon, and the prey escaped. The time had not been right, before. But it would be. He just had to recognise the moment, and… let his arrow fly.

‘You look tired. I didn’t think your sort could get tired.’

Balthas turned. Juddsson stood nearby. ‘We can,’ Balthas said. ‘But I am not. Have you finished singing, then?’

Juddsson grunted and tugged on his beard. ‘Yes, for the moment.’ He sniffed. ‘We’re in the krut, and no two ways about it.’

‘Yes, but I might have a solution. Come with me.’

Juddsson grinned. ‘I knew you were a clever one. The moment I saw you, I said to myself – Grom, there’s a clever sort of manling.’

Balthas frowned. ‘Let us hope you are proven correct.’

He and Juddsson found Calys standing near the main doors, her gaze fixed. She spun as she registered their presence, her blade springing up. Balthas didn’t hesitate. ‘Your dutifulness does you credit, Liberator-Prime.’

She nodded tersely and turned her attentions back to the doors. ‘As you say, lord-arcanum.’ Balthas could feel her dislike of him, and he smiled. Eltain was not practised in hiding her feelings.

‘The Ten Thousand Tombs,’ he said. ‘You were one of those who guarded it?’

‘I was sent down only recently,’ she said doubtfully.

‘Can you find your way into it?’

‘I barely found my way out – let alone back in – unaided. The ruins change shape constantly. Pharus did something. He created false walls and streets to nowhere, to confuse intruders.’

‘Pharus did nothing. We built those things.’ Juddsson frowned. ‘Granted, he came up with the idea and drew the plans, but it was duardin hands that piled those stones. And duardin minds that improved on his human cleverness.’ He packed so much condescension into the final word that Balthas felt vaguely insulted on the former lord-castellant’s behalf.

He looked down at the duardin. ‘Then you, or one of your clansmen, can lead us.’

Juddsson laughed harshly, and then winced. He clutched at his chest. ‘No, manling. That place was built to isolate itself. Things move at random. Walls switch places, floors dip, paths bend back on themselves.’ He shook his head. ‘We know our business. Pharus didn’t want anyone getting in there without his permission, so we made sure of it. Only the warriors assigned to protect the tombs know the way in and out.’ He frowned and looked at Calys. ‘Most of them, anyway.’

‘And Elya,’ Calys said, idly.

Both Juddsson and Balthas looked at her. ‘Who?’ Balthas asked.

‘The child. The girl. Pharus said that she kept managing to get in, and he didn’t know how.’ She shrugged. ‘If I hadn’t seen it myself, I wouldn’t have believed him.’

Balthas shook his head. ‘A child?’

‘She’s shrewd.’

Balthas frowned. The rudiments of a plan were beginning to form. ‘Let us hope so.’ He looked at Juddsson. ‘The tunnels below – the ones you mentioned before, with Fosko and Obol – do all of them lead in the same direction?’

Juddsson saw what he was getting at immediately. ‘No, some lead elsewhere in the city. We can reach our clan halls, even.’ He squinted, looking around. ‘Slow going, with these. Especially if we have to fight.’

‘You won’t have to. The dead aren’t interested in slaughter. At least not these.’ Balthas looked back at the windows, above the main doors. Pale, distorted faces screamed in silence there. ‘They’ll follow us.’

‘How can you be sure?’

Balthas looked down at him. Juddsson grunted and made a gesture of surrender. ‘Fine. You know your business.’ He tugged on his beard, frowning. ‘I’ll just go make the preparations, then, shall I?’ He stumped away, still pulling on his beard.

‘What is going on? What are you planning?’ Calys said, deference tossed aside.

Balthas studied the doors. ‘We must leave this place.’

‘I have orders to ensure that nothing gets past these doors.’

‘And you would perish in the doing so, your soul to be claimed by phantasmal jailers.’ Balthas gestured dismissively. ‘An inefficient use of resources. Once we get into the catacombs, you will be needed.’

Calys shook her head in confusion. ‘Go down – but we can’t…’

‘We can.’

Calys eyes widened slightly. ‘Elya. You mean to use her.’

‘You said she managed to find her way below. We need a guide.’

Calys frowned. ‘She’s a child. It would not be safe.’

Balthas looked at her. ‘Yes, and there is nowhere safer in this city than with us.’ He paused. ‘If we do not do this, the dead will surely break open the Ten Thousand Tombs. You will fail in your duty, Liberator-Prime. We both will.’

She stared at him for a moment. Then nodded. ‘Come. I will take you to her.’

They made their way back to the reliquary, where the air stirred with the echoing hush of prayer. Many of the mortals had wrapped themselves in cloaks and blankets, passed out by the priests who moved among them. Some huddled in the corners, staring at nothing. Others spoke quietly among themselves. This ceased, as Balthas and Calys appeared. A priestess hurried towards them, but Balthas waved her aside. ‘Where is the child?’ he asked.

The priestess hesitated. Balthas realised that specificity was called for – there were many children in the reliquary. ‘The girl,’ he said. The priestess looked around helplessly.

‘Elya,’ Calys called, softly.

‘Here,’ a small voice called out. Calys started towards the back of the reliquary. Balthas followed. They found the child – a girl of perhaps ten seasons – sitting beside a lanky man, sleeping fitfully. A young woman sat near them, and she started at their appearance. Elya whispered to her, and then settled back beside her father.

Balthas could smell the fear that permeated him. His mind, slumbering as it was, was an open book to Balthas’ storm-sight and all but impossible to ignore. Scattered memories flashed across his perceptions. The man – Elya’s father – lived in a stew of recrimination and terror. Something had broken him, in ways too difficult to repair.

‘Duvak,’ Calys said. Balthas looked at her. She pulled off her helmet and hung it from her belt. ‘His name is Duvak. Duvak Eltos. He is her father. A lamplighter.’

‘He is broken.’

‘One does not preclude the other,’ Calys said, looking down at the man. There was something in her gaze that made Balthas look away. He looked at the girl. Elya was dark and scrawny. An urchin – an orphan, for all that she still had a parent. She met his gaze without flinching. He was struck, in that moment, by the thought that this was the child he’d seen in Thaum’s memories. He did not question it – something deep in him told him it was true. But what did it mean?

‘Do you have a face?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’ Balthas tapped his helm and sat down beside her. ‘This is it.’

‘Father says that we’re fated to die. Will I have a face like that, after I die?’

He studied her for a moment, trying to find the words. He suspected that even as a mortal, he had not understood children. ‘Fate is another word for certainty. And the only certain thing in any realm is that nothing is certain. Not even death.’

‘The cats don’t believe in death. They say it’s just a longer sort of dream.’ Elya looked up. Balthas followed her gaze. Half a dozen felines lay nonchalantly among the stacked bones, or paced across the floor, tails twitching.

One, a brute with a scarred lip, leapt up into the girl’s lap. It glared balefully at Balthas for long moments, then turned away with a disdainful twitch of its ears. Elya smiled and scratched the animal. ‘I think he’s the king,’ she whispered.

‘I wasn’t aware that cats had such a thing.’

She frowned. ‘Or maybe he’s a marquis.’

‘Maybe. Despite the folktales, cats have no king. Only a queen. And a queen may have many toms, but a tom only one queen.’ He scratched the animal under the chin. ‘Your mother was from Ghur, wasn’t she? I can see the skeins of amber running through your blood.’

Elya shrugged with childish inscrutability. Balthas nodded as if she’d replied, and glanced at Calys. She was still watching Duvak sleep. He wondered what was going through her mind. ‘Did you know that there were once many gods? As many gods as there were people, for every tribe and clan had their god. They were the gods of small things – of rivers and trees and fair winds. Death gods, as well.’

Elya looked at him, interested now. ‘What happened to them?’

‘Oh, their stories had many different endings. Some weren’t really gods at all, in the end – just monsters. Others became as beasts, and lost sight of all that they had been. A few, like the King of Broken Constellations, were killed, while others, like Yahm, old god of the rivers, were defeated and imprisoned by those who came after.’ Balthas leaned forwards. ‘But some… escaped. They slipped between the cracks in the realms, where even the Ruinous Powers dare not go. One of those gods was the mother of all cats.’

Elya frowned. ‘Not all cats.’

‘The first ones, at least. She left her children in every realm. Some were big, some small. Some weren’t really cats at all.’ He glanced at Quicksilver, who lay nearby, beak resting atop his crossed forepaws, and then at Elya. ‘But all gods leave a little of themselves behind, when they go. An echo, a whisper.’

‘A ghost,’ Elya said.

Balthas nodded. ‘If you like. Not all of those echoes take a familiar form. And maybe the new queen of the cats isn’t a cat at all. Or maybe it’s just a story.’ He hesitated for a moment, considering why Sigmar had seen fit to place this girl in his path. Not just to guide him, but for some other reason, perhaps. He hoped so. He held out his hand. ‘I need your aid, Elya. I must get into the catacombs, and swiftly. I do not have the time to do so by the normal routes. Can you help me?’

She hesitated. ‘Something is coming, isn’t it? Not just the nicksouls.’

‘Yes. But we can stop it. If you help me.’ He turned, suddenly aware that every cat in the room was watching him. Armoured though he was, he could not help but feel almost like a mouse, in that moment. If Elya noticed, she gave no sign.

Before she could reply, Duvak screamed. He’d awoken at some point and was now wailing like an animal, trying to scuttle away from Calys, who reached out as if to comfort him. Balthas caught her wrist. ‘Leave him,’ he said, more harshly than he’d intended. Calys jerked her hand free and turned away, pulling on her helmet as she did so. Duvak had pressed himself against the wall of the reliquary, and was muttering a name, over and over again. The young woman Balthas had noticed earlier went to him, murmuring gently.

Balthas stood. He glanced up again, at the cats watching him. Watching it all.

Elya looked up at him, her expression unreadable. ‘I’ll help,’ she said.

Thunder rumbled above.

Balthas paused, listening. Helios had done as promised. He had bought them time enough, and now Juddsson and his warriors were leading Fosko, Obol and the others to the halls of the Riven Clans. Whether there was safety there or not, Balthas could not say. Regardless, the mortals were well out of what came next.

‘Helios has returned to the stars,’ Miska said, from beside him. He looked at her and reached up to ruffle Quicksilver’s feathery mane.

‘He held them longer than I calculated.’

‘He did not return to Azyr alone. Can you feel it?’

Balthas nodded. The aether seemed lighter somehow. As if a burden had been lifted from the realm. He looked around. The tunnel sloped sharply downwards and was narrow enough that the Stormcasts could only move through it three abreast. The shadows were pushed back by the flickering glow of their staves, and the glimmer of corposant that clung to the arms and armour of the warriors following in their wake.

Built by duardin engineers, the tunnel was dry and sturdy, with heavy bracers of stone holding the crushing earth at bay. It twisted and turned back in on itself in ways that made sense only to the duardin, but always going down. Several times they came to crossways, and had to wait for Elya to come back and lead them into the correct passage. Smaller tunnels split off from the main, at intervals, but most had been sealed recently – bricked up or otherwise blocked off, and marked with runes of protection and warding.

Despite those runes, even here there were spirits. Balthas could see the dutiful echoes of long-dead duardin, working as they had in life, shoring up the stone and smoothing the floors. He’d read, once, that the duardin afterlife was very much just a continuation of life – the reward for a life of honour and hard labour was to live that life over, forever.

There was a pleasing sensibility to that. Then, Balthas could look forward to much the same – an eternity of war, waged beneath the stars. If he were lucky. He thought of Pharus and flinched away from the implication.

‘The child has vanished again,’ Miska said. Elya ranged far ahead of them, moving more quickly than the column of Stormcasts she led into the underworld.

‘Can you see any cats?’

‘A few.’ Eyes gleamed in the dark, the creatures crouched in nooks and crannies, or slunk along the bracers. The soft pad of cat-feet, beneath the grinding tread of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer.

‘Then she is close.’ Balthas was confident that the girl was leading them in the right direction. There was something about the child – an ineffable quality that bemused and intrigued him. The story he’d told her had just been a story. One more folktale culled from his decades of study. That did not mean it wasn’t the truth.

The mortals of the realms worshipped many gods, some old, some new, some real, some false. Who was to say that there hadn’t been a god of cats, who did as cats often do and slunk into some small crack in the universe to wait out catastrophe?

Quicksilver grunted, and Balthas glanced back to see Calys making her way towards him, the gryph-hound, Grip, padding in her wake. She had been bringing up the rear, after having sent the rest of her cohort with the mortals. He knew what she wanted, even before she spoke. ‘We’re close,’ she said. ‘I can feel the vibration in the stones.’

‘Good. Any signs of pursuit?’

‘Not yet. We’ll know as soon as it happens. Juddsson and Fosko left a surprise for them – they hid their remaining stores of powder and silver shot in the reliquary, ready to explode if the passage is opened.’

Balthas grunted. ‘That will do little to deter them.’

Miska turned. ‘Perhaps we should consider doing the same ourselves. A few warriors might hold this passage, for a time.’

‘But not long enough to do any good. Besides which, they won’t come this way. Pharus knows the secret route, hidden in the reliquary. He will attempt to force that one.’

‘Then why are we here, rather than there?’ Calys said.

‘To get ahead of them, if possible. There are reinforcements below. Lord-Relictor Dathus, and those forces under his command. If we can join our forces to theirs, while Pharus is still trying to find his way through his own labyrinth, we might stand a chance of bringing him to open battle.’ He looked at her. ‘Without him, without a central, driving will, the nighthaunts will scatter.’ He looked up. ‘The battle for the city will continue. But the horde which follows us will take no further part in it… and the Ten Thousand Tombs will remain sealed.’

‘And you will get to face him head on, once more,’ Miska said.

Before Balthas could reply, a cat yowled. He looked up and spotted the same scar-lipped feline that seemed to shadow Elya wherever she went. He looked ahead and saw the child seated atop a bracer, waiting on them. ‘It’s here,’ she said, as she dropped to the ground, light as one of her four-legged companions.

‘Where?’ Balthas looked past her. The tunnel continued on, its end swallowed in darkness. He wondered if it were a false seeming of some sort.

‘Here.’ She pointed down, at a rusty, iron grate set into the floor. Balthas had noticed many such grates since their descent, set every few thousand paces. Presumably these were to prevent flooding, in the case of the Glass Mere’s rise. What marked this one as different, he couldn’t say.

‘Why this one? Why not the others?’

Elya looked up at him. ‘Got to go this way, otherwise you can’t follow me.’ She looked down, into the dark. ‘You’re too big to go down the other ones.’

‘How long will it take?’

She shrugged. ‘You’re not very fast,’ she said doubtfully.

‘We’re fast enough.’ Balthas pulled his staff to him and murmured a single word. A ball of corposant bloomed atop the staff. He plucked it free and dropped it through the grate. The light split into two, and two into four, until a dozen will o’ the wisps danced in the dark below. ‘And now we can see where we are going.’

A slope – steep and twisting, like a mountain path – descended away from the grate, and into the dark. Balthas could hear a steady crash, as of waves, rising from somewhere out of sight. He murmured a few words and waved his hand over the grate, and the rusty iron became red dust, which sifted away as if it had never been.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘It is time we see what it is that Nagash so desires.’

‘We should not have let her go alone,’ Miska said. Calys had already vanished among the sliding corridors of mausoleums. She could hear the crash of Gellius’ ballista and the all-consuming rumble of stone. Lightning flashed to the south, tearing holes in the dark. The dead were close. She reached down, touching the spirit-jars hanging from her belt, making sure they were close to hand. She looked at Balthas. He didn’t reply. He stared back the way they’d come, as if entranced by the sounds of battle.

She turned to the lord-relictor, Dathus. ‘Go. Muster who you can. Ring the bells, call every warrior, Stormcast or mortal. I fear they will be needed.’

‘And what about you?’

‘We came to defend this place. And that is what we will do. We will delay them. Give you the time you need. Go, brother! Ring the bells! Sound the call to war. And leave us to do what we were made to do.’

Dathus hesitated. Then, he nodded and turned away, heading north. He barked an order, and his warriors followed him at a trot. They soon vanished into the gloom that shrouded the avenue, leaving behind only the echo of sigmarite ringing against stone. Satisfied, Miska turned back to Balthas.

‘I was wrong,’ Balthas said, so softly that she almost didn’t hear him.

She looked at him. ‘About what?’

Balthas caught hold of Quicksilver’s saddle and hauled himself up. ‘I thought I could choose the moment. But it chose me, instead. Chose us.’ He looked down at her. ‘I thought we were to meet them in the open, Shyish against Azyr, on the black rim of the world. There was a… a resonance to it. But instead, the moment comes upon us here, in the middle of a forest of crypts. The final clash comes, not over ancient tombs, but over a child’s soul. Do you understand?’

He sounded so annoyed that she could not help but smile. ‘I do. I wondered why you were so insistent on bringing her. And if you’re asking my opinion, well, I would rather fight to preserve a single living soul than ten thousand dead ones.’

He gave a disgruntled sigh. ‘I think I would as well.’ Balthas straightened in his saddle. ‘Gellius and Mara are buying us the time we need to get into position. The aether swims and surges. The foe will come this way. And we will meet them. Head to head, and soul to soul.’ He lifted his staff. ‘Castigators to the fore. Sequitors, make ready to advance. Miska…?’

‘Aye, Grave Warden?’

‘I want Pharus. Clear me a path.’

She nodded serenely. ‘We shall provide you a fitting honour-guard.’ She turned and signalled to the remaining Celestors. They were gathered behind the Castigators, kneeling, their heads bowed. As they prayed, small sparks of lightning danced across them.

They rose at her gesture, and she joined them. Memories of a time half-forgotten rose. Of the rattle of shields and the call to war. The feeling of running across the taiga, beside a hundred others, racing to meet the enemy. It was a good feeling, that. She smiled.

‘Come, brothers. Let us be as the storm wind, and wipe this place clean.’

The desert was still burning.

Arkhan knew it would be for some time. He stood atop the ruins of one of the black watchtowers which lined the outer districts of Nagashizzar. The spirits bound to it had been freed during the necro­quake, and so he could stand in blissful silence for a time. His dread abyssal, Razarak, lay nearby, tail clattering as it sat and waited patiently for its master to finish his ruminations. The skull-faced beast hissed softly, and Arkhan nodded.

‘The sky is beautiful, yes.’

The horizon was awash in purple light, and ash fell like snow. Nagashizzar shook with its master’s rage. Whatever came next, in the battle for Glymmsforge, for Lyria or the other underworlds, Nagash would not be satisfied. Once more, Sigmar had thwarted him. The War of Heaven and Death would continue.

The Mortarch of Sacrament could not help but feel some small ­satisfaction at the way things had gone. He had wagered heavily, and lost little. Nagash had no one to blame but himself. The Undying King’s rage would fall on lesser champions, and Arkhan would stand blameless, and loyal, as ever.

The failure had revealed much that was of interest. The Ten Thousand Tombs yet remained waiting – Sigmar had not destroyed them. Perhaps he lacked the power. Or, more likely, the God-King saw them for what they were: a resource yet untapped. The thought sent a prickle of apprehension through Arkhan’s bones. If Sigmar had at last realised what Nagash and the Ruinous Powers already knew – that mortal souls were the most valuable resource in all the realms – then the game had truly entered a new, more deadly phase.

Razarak shifted its weight and hissed in warning. This, plus a bat-like screech from above, alerted Arkhan to the arrival of an uninvited guest. He looked up and saw the feline shape of a second dread abyssal swoop towards the tower. Ashigaroth was as recognisable as its master, and about as trustworthy.

The beast slammed into the edge of the tower and perched there, amid the crumbling ramparts of stone. It shrieked challengingly at Razarak, who responded with a restrained yawn. Arkhan gestured surreptitiously, and his steed settled back, content to ignore the newcomer. Ashigaroth’s rider dropped from the saddle with a rattle of armour and the clink of spurs. Arkhan turned away.

‘I do not recall requesting your presence, Mannfred.’

‘Your little toy failed, liche. As did your scheme. Neferata is probably laughing herself sick in whatever palace she’s currently occupying.’

Mannfred von Carstein’s voice plucked at Arkhan’s awareness like the buzzing of a singularly annoying insect. He turned slightly, as the vampire sidled towards him, smirking. ‘I felt Nagash’s shout of rage echo through my skull. Thought it wise to return and offer my services. Perhaps he’ll send me after Glymmsforge next. Now that you’ve failed.’

‘The battle for the city still rages, leech. Malendrek might yet attain the victory Nagash demands. The Knight of Shrouds could well be elevated to the station he so desires. A new Mortarch come among us.’

Mannfred snorted. ‘Doubtful.’

Arkhan said nothing. Privately, he agreed. Malendrek was powerful, but a fool. He was a weapon crafted from need and regret, blind to his own shortcomings. Much like the one who had created him. He brushed the thought aside as quickly as it had occurred to him. ‘The future is written. What will be, will be.’

‘How very philosophical of you.’

‘Perspective, not philosophy. The end is not in doubt. Only the speed with which it arrives.’ Arkhan looked out over the desert. ‘Though it is best that it does not do so too soon.’

‘That almost sounds like you don’t want it to end at all,’ Mannfred said, slyly. ‘Have you come around to my view at last, liche?’

‘No. I merely wish it to arrive at its predestined time. Death has its place, as all things do. It is part of the cosmic balance – as certain as the stars shine in the heavens, death welcomes all things.’

Mannfred laughed. ‘A measured response. Nagash would not approve, I think. Especially as it concerns the certainty of the stars.’ He tapped his claws against the pommel of the basket-hilted sword sheathed at his waist. ‘I am curious – how does this wish of yours align with your manipulations of Nagash’s newest servant? What scheme was born at the crossing of those two threads, liche?’

‘There was no scheme.’

Mannfred drew his blade with a flourish and let the edge kiss the underside of Arkhan’s jawbone. Behind them, Razarak heaved itself to its feet with a rumbling snarl. Ashigaroth crouched, growling shrilly. Arkhan gestured for his steed to remain where it was. This was nothing more than a bit of play-acting on the vampire’s part.

Mannfred leaned close. ‘Do me the courtesy of assuming that I am not so blind as all that, Arkhan, my old friend. I knew you were up to something the moment you sent Neferata and I away. And so did she.’

‘And yet she is not here.’

‘She is better-mannered than I am. Rest assured, her spies in Nagashizzar and Glymmsforge both have reported all that occurred to her already. But I am here, and put the question to you as one equal to another. What were you up to, if not to seize the glory of conquering Glymmsforge for yourself?’

Arkhan sighed, a sound like wind whistling among gravestones. He reached up and pushed Mannfred’s blade aside. ‘My concerns are neither glory nor conquest. The universe is caught fast between two spheres of order. One, a sword. The other, a shield.’ He thumped the ground with his staff. ‘Shyish is the sword. Azyr, the shield. Thus has it always been. Thus must it always be.’

Mannfred frowned and sheathed his blade. ‘Nagash does not agree.’

‘No. But he believes. And that is all that matters. Between them, Azyr and Shyish held the Ruinous Powers at bay for centuries. Even when lesser gods fell by the wayside, the Lords of Death and Heaven stood firm. They are two parts of the same whole – beginning and ending. One cannot stand without the other. The realms cannot stand without either.’

Mannfred chuckled. ‘I begin to see, now, I think. How clever you are.’ He clapped his hands mockingly. ‘You think to manipulate the gods into open conflict, so that they might – what? – become allies once more, once they’ve vented their divine furies? Lanced the holy boil?’ He leered at Arkhan, teeth bared in a snarl of derision. ‘And then what, eh? Will they turn their attentions to the true foe who besets us?’

Arkhan shook his head. ‘I manipulate no one. Nagash would have done this regardless. But, as you said – there was opportunity in the madness. And so I seized it.’ He paused. ‘And for the first time in centuries, the Undying King and the God-King met face-to-face. And neither destroyed the other.’

‘Clever, liche, clever, clever, clever. Risky, though. A gamble.’

‘Yes.’

‘And what if your gamble should fail?’

‘Then silence shall fall over the realms, and Nagash shall stand alone.’

Mannfred frowned. ‘An unpleasant thought. An eternity of stultifying darkness. Even the damnations of Chaos might be preferable to that.’ He shivered suddenly, as if recalling an unpleasant memory. He looked at Arkhan. ‘If you’d told me sooner, I might have aided you. Neferata would have too. It serves our interests, as well.’

Arkhan looked at Mannfred. ‘If I had told you, you would have simply sought your own advantage. I required a tool fit for purpose, and fortune bestowed one upon me. A weapon of both Azyr and Shyish, but truly part of neither.’

‘And now that that weapon is destroyed?’

‘There will be others. A saying occurs to me, though I cannot recall where I might have heard it… Rival lions must drink from the same oasis.’

Mannfred threw back his head and laughed. ‘Quaint, but apt.’ He turned back towards his steed, flinging the edge of his cloak over his shoulder with a flourish. ‘Let us hope you are right, Arkhan. Let us also hope that Nagash realises it, before it is too late. For if this war continues, it will not be long before the Ruinous Powers seek to turn it to their advantage.’ The vampire climbed into the saddle. ‘And if that happens, we are all surely doomed.’

He thumped Ashigaroth in the flanks, and the dread abyssal leapt from the tower with a raucous cry. Arkhan watched them swoop away, towards the horizon.

‘Yes. Let us hope,’ he said. After a moment, he turned away to take his own leave. Nagash would call for him, soon. There were new plans to be made. New wars to wage.

The Undying King commanded, and his most loyal servant would obey.

As sure as death. As certain as the stars.

Josh Reynolds is the author of the Horus Heresy Primarchs novel Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix, and the audio dramas Blackshields: The False War and Blackshields: The Red Fief. His Warhammer 40,000 work includes Lukas the Trickster, Fabius Bile: Primogenitor, Fabius Bile: Clonelord and Deathstorm, and the novellas Hunter’s Snare and Dante’s Canyon, along with the audio drama Master of the Hunt. He has written many stories set in the Age of Sigmar, including the novels Eight Lamentations: Spear of Shadows, Hallowed Knights: Plague Garden and Nagash: The Undying King. His tales of the Warhammer old world include The Return of Nagash and The Lord of the End Times, and two Gotrek & Felix novels. He lives and works in Sheffield.