by Nick Horth
Callis gave a start, torn from his uneasy thoughts. The aelf was dressing, pulling on her tunic and securing her belt, her body silhouetted by the early morning light. On the sill of the tavern window rested a travel bag of cured leather.
‘You’re leaving,’ he said, and it wasn’t a question. He had expected this, though that fact didn’t stop it from hurting. They’d only had a few blessed weeks to share one another’s company, and he found that he would miss the experience intensely.
She sighed, and turned.
‘I would never have left before you awoke,’ she said.
‘You could stay,’ he offered, but the words sounded weak and futile even to him. They both knew the truth; their lives were simply heading down different paths. He sighed and sat upright, bunching the sheets around him.
‘I made a promise to a friend,’ she said. ‘To chart the realms, and to carry on the great legacy that Occlesius started all those years ago. I intend to keep my word. And anyway, this life you lead, it’s not one I can share. I know it’s something you believe in, so I won’t ask you to leave it behind and come with me. We had our moment, and I’m so glad to have met you.’
She moved to him, leaned down and kissed him, long and fiercely. Then she moved back to the window and gathered her satchel.
‘Where will you go?’ he asked.
‘Wherever the wind takes me. There’s an expedition heading into the Tiungra Valley in search of the Seeing-Stones of Prensis that’s caught my interest. Or perhaps I’ll read through my father’s notes. He always talked about tracking down the Seven Tombs of the Ulkirian Faroahs.’
‘Just try and keep out of trouble, will you?’ he said. ‘No more accepting dubious offers of assistance from masked figures. That never ends well.’
Shev smiled at that.
‘I believe that we will see each other again, Armand,’ she said. ‘The realms are infinite, but we’ll bend them to our will, you’ll see. I wonder who we’ll be when fate brings us together a second time? It’s exciting to think that, isn’t it?’
Callis thought the chance of them seeing each other again extremely unlikely, but thought better of saying it. This parting was painful enough already.
‘Take care of yourself, Shevanya,’ he said.
‘You too, Armand.’
And with that, she was gone.
Toll was indeed at his usual spot at the Hammerhead, a duardin-run tavern that overlooked the dock district on the eastern rise of Trader’s Row. It was mid-morning now, and already the piers and jetties were thick with bodies, muscular shiphands hauling produce and nimble-tongued merchants trying to score themselves a good deal. The sky was clear, a rarity in Excelsis, and in the far distance one could see the sails of Zenthe’s privateer fleet flitting between the rows of moored vessels, keeping a close watch on their flock.
The witch hunter had taken a table in the shade at the far side of a small balcony, covered by a canopy of coloured shark-hide. He leaned back in his chair, sipping from a glass of crystal-clear water. As Callis arrived, Toll pushed out the nearest stool with his foot, not taking his gaze from the bustling harbour. They sat awhile in silence, listening to the sounds of civilisation. It had taken many harsh months for the city to recover from the horror of war and the shock of Vermyre’s betrayal. Life continued of course – you could hardly afford the luxuries of grief and self-pity in the wilds of the Beastlands – but before Callis had left there had been a foreboding sense of gloom, a lack of trust between even those who had formerly been trusted neighbours. It seemed, at last, that the wounds were healing.
‘She’s gone, then?’ said Toll.
Callis raised an eyebrow.
‘Shev told you she was leaving?’
‘No, but you’re up and out of bed before the sun’s reached its apex, and you’ve got a general hangdog look about you that I happen to recognise quite well.’
Callis sighed, and gestured to the barkeep for a mug of ale.
‘I’m at peace with it,’ he said. ‘It was her decision. I knew she wasn’t the type to stick around for long. I think Excelsis still holds bad memories for her. She says we may see each other again, one day.’
Toll nodded, and had the good grace to not point out how incredibly unlikely that was.
‘I’m sorry, Armand,’ he said, scratching at the stump of his arm, where his coat had been folded over and stitched up.
‘How is it?’ Callis asked, suddenly quite keen to change the subject.
‘The arm? Having two was far more convenient, if I’m being honest, but I’ll manage. The tales were right, though. You still feel it after it’s gone. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, reach for a cup of water and realise…’
He looked like he was about to speak further, but simply shook his head.
‘Will you… get a replacement?’ asked Callis. He had seen several Ironweld engineers and Freeguild officers who had been grafted with intricate mechanical arms to replace those lost through war or unfortunate accident. They were awkward and cumbersome for the most part, but still mostly effective.
Toll shook his head. ‘For now, it’s a fair reminder of what happens when I drop my guard. Before I rush to fix this wound, I want to get used to what it means, the difficulties it poses me. I mistrust simple, swift solutions.’
They sat another while in silence. It was a pleasure simply to be amongst civilisation again, after so many months at sea. Callis peered off into the distance, seeing a violent crimson sail on the horizon.
‘That’s the Blood Drake,’ he said, gesturing towards the departing vessel. ‘Zenthe’s new flagship, formerly the property of our old friend, High Captain Kaskin. The good captain’s off again on her travels.’
Toll nodded. ‘I paid my debt to her in full. She’s not one to stay still too long, if she can help it.’
‘What was it? The city treasury? A blood sacrifice? Your firstborn child?’
The witch hunter gave a slight twitch of amusement. ‘No. I gave her the location of her father.’
‘Zenthe has a father? I assumed she was descended from a ghyreshark. Not much of a price for ferrying us halfway across the realm.’
‘It is for Arika. She’s off to claim his head and nail it to her prow.’
Callis glanced at Toll, who waved a hand wearily.
‘It’s a long story. I’ll tell it to you another time.’
A duardin steam-cog was pulling into port ahead of them, kicking gouts of greyish smoke into the air from a row of short black funnels. Its wide-open bay was filled with piles of black coal that shimmered with a faint silver light. The dockmaster, a wizened little man who insisted upon being carried everywhere in a sedan chair, arrived as if summoned from the aether. Leaning out of the window of his chair, he began to shout and holler at the stoically unimpressed duardin captain, who was covered head to toe in grime so thick it seemed as if he was wearing pitch-black overalls. Callis couldn’t stifle a grin.
‘I never thanked you, Armand,’ said Toll, meeting Callis’ gaze for the first time. ‘It would have been the sensible thing to leave me behind in that place, but you didn’t. You risked your life to save mine, and I won’t forget it.’
Callis didn’t really know what to say to that, so he simply gave his companion a brief, awkward nod, and accepted the proffered ale brought over by the broad-shouldered innkeep, passing the man a handful of glimmerings.
They watched as the dockmaster and his hirelings continued to wage their war of words with the duardin steamheads, which grew steadily more foul-mouthed and inarticulate, until it suddenly and unexpectedly culminated in a shake of hands and a transition of coin and goods. Triumphant, the elderly dockmaster was carried forth on his mighty steed, onwards to the next glorious victory.
Diplomacy writ small, Callis thought with a smile.
‘We have orders,’ said Toll, fetchi
ng a clutch of papers from his coat. ‘We’re leaving Excelsis again. The Indefatigable’s refuelling and finalising repairs as we speak. I managed to talk Admiral Bengtsson into giving us passage. The least he could do, considering the king’s ransom he earned from our last voyage. I’d make all the goodbyes to this city you think necessary, because we won’t be coming back here for quite some time.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Callis. ‘I’m ready to move on.’
‘Good. Because we’ll travel further than we ever have before. Our path takes us across realms, Armand. Beyond the edge of this map and onto a whole new one. To the Jade Kingdoms and beyond.’
About the Author
Nick Horth is the author of the Age of Sigmar novella City of Secrets and the novel Callis & Toll: The Silver Shard. Nick works as a background writer for Games Workshop, crafting the worlds of Warhammer Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in Nottingham, UK.
An extract from Soul Wars.
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.
