City of Secrets

by Nick Horth

  Another section crushed a large portion of the Veins, and the last crumpled a stretch of the city’s great wall before exploding into fragments in the field in front of the city. Thousands died in the aftermath of the fall, yet countless more lives were saved with the destruction of the daemonic army that had besieged the city.

  With the death of Kryn and the disappearance of the High Arbiter, as well as the banishment of the great portal in the sky, whatever chains of sorcery binding the daemonic legions of Tzeentch to the Realm of Beasts were sundered, gibbering abominations faded and disappeared, exploded into clouds of violent colours, or simply melted in on themselves. Shorn of their daemonic support, the Cult of the Fated Path and their feral allies were encircled and destroyed. The loyal survivors of the City Guard regiments showed no mercy, and the slaughter carried on long into the night. General Synor personally slew the chieftain of the beastmen in single combat, earning yet another scroll of honour for the mighty Eighth.

  As with any battle, there was no clean ending. The Firewolves, who had been encircled and ambushed by the traitorous Coldguard, were decimated by volleys of rifle and cannon fire. Hundreds of warriors were slain in moments, and General Revard was dragged from his horse and butchered. By the time the insurrection fell apart, and a troop of duardin irregulars had arrived to relieve them, the Firewolves had been reduced to a mere seventy-five men and women. The regiment was dead. Try as they might, the remaining armies of the city could not hunt down every single cultist heretic, and many took advantage of the chaos of battle to slink back into the shadows, once more taking up their civilian identities. The warriors of the Knights Excelsior wasted no time in surrounding and guarding the fallen pieces of the crystal tower. The remnants of the Coldguard regiment, judged to be corrupted beyond hope of redemption, were rounded up and led to the dreaded Consecralium. The screams of the dying echoed across the city for many nights, and the legend of the White Reaper’s ruthlessness only grew.

  General Synor’s office was a far different place than it had been before the battle of Excelsis. The fine whalebone desk, once covered with decanters and cigars, was now home to several imposing towers of parchment – maps, official-looking letters with a colourful variety of intricate wax seals, and all manner of other bureaucratic ephemera.

  Callis opened the door, ducking past a flush-faced guardsman carrying a crate full of deep-green uniform long coats. Inside, the room was hazy with spice-smoke, and the curtains had been pulled closed to cut out the midday sun. Synor sat behind the desk, a bandage wrapped around his wounded neck.

  ‘Ah, corporal,’ he said, rising from his chair with a visible wince. His leg was splinted and heavily bound. ‘I’m glad you came. Please, take a seat.’

  Callis obliged. He gazed over the documents spread out before him. Dispatch notices for various infantry formations. Maps of the local area. Records of destroyed or lost equipment that needed to be replaced.

  ‘Believe me, this is nothing,’ said Synor, uncorking a fresh bottle. ‘The city’s a mess. We’ve got half our soldiers missing or dead, a fair portion of the city burnt to ashes, and the Reaper looming over our companies looking for a reason to string up the rest of us.’

  ‘I don’t envy you, sir,’ said Callis. ‘I suppose it’s little comfort that things could have been a fair deal worse.’

  Synor snorted. ‘Perhaps. Personally I would find it hard to choose between a violent death and having to fill out another requisition order.’

  ‘Don’t you have an orderly to take care of that, sir?’

  ‘I had several. All of them were killed during the fighting. Believe me, you don’t appreciate the help until they’re gone.’

  The general poured fine amber spirit into two glasses, and offered one to Callis. The former corporal shook his head.

  ‘I’ll cut to the quick,’ said Synor, slumping back down into his chair. ‘After the madness of the last few days, I find myself very short of good men. Men with initiative. I know that we hardly got off to the best start, corporal, but having the sky fall in on your head and your city burn around you will clear the mind of any man. The truth is that I misjudged you, and I’m man enough to apologise for that.’

  ‘You’re offering to reinstate me?’

  ‘No. I’m offering you a commission. Lieutenant. You’ll be responsible for your own platoon.’

  Callis blinked in surprise. A commission? Sigmar’s teeth, that was far beyond what he had expected. Few but the richest Azyrite youths could afford to pay for an officer’s stripes. Those like Callis, descended from the reclaimed tribes of the Coast of Tusks, had to do it the hard way, rising up and up through the ranks over the course of a long career. This was the sort of opportunity he had never even dreamed of.

  ‘That’s… I don’t know what to say, general,’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘Say yes. You’re a bright lad, and you can fight. I need fighters. Right now Excelsis is vulnerable, corporal, and every blood-sucking predator and petty warlord on this filth-pit of a continent is going to smell that weakness. I need new men, and I need new officers to lead those men.’

  He drained his glass, and fished his spice-pipe from his jacket. The smell of the damned thing was awful, like burnt hair mixed with cheap perfume. Callis did his best not to breathe in. Spewing up all over the general’s desk would probably not be the best way to secure his promotion. Synor rummaged through the documents on the desk, liberally smothering everything in foul-smelling ash. He hurled a cluster of curled, yellow scrolls aside, and grabbed a small wooden box. He flipped it towards Callis.

  ‘There are your stripes. I’ll expect you to report here at the crack of dawn tomorrow. We’ll go over all the necessaries then. Until then, take the afternoon off. Spend a few glimmerings. There’ll be precious little time for leisure in the coming months.’

  Callis turned the box over in his hands, and stood up to take his leave. Synor was already scrabbling through the detritus before him, piling documents haphazardly on separate piles, dragging back on his pipe furiously. All in all, not the most glamorous advertisement for a career in the military. Callis felt oddly hollow as he closed the door behind him. This was what he had wanted for years now, toiling away under the command of incompetents and blowhards, thinking of all the things he’d do differently in their place.

  Now that long sought-after promotion was, quite literally, in the palm of his hand. And he felt nothing but a vague sense of melancholy and a wave of crushing tiredness.

  It was blazing hot again. Lieutenant Armand Callis shrugged at the sweat-soaked jacket he wore, trying to adjust the thick material until he was halfway comfortable. This was the trouble with being a ranking officer – you had to try and look like one.

  The heat was not the only issue. He looked out across the collection of rogues and miscreants he had been handed. Two weeks of drilling dawn to dusk, wearing them down with endless training exercises and physical fitness examinations, and they still resembled a gang of gangly youths who had accidentally stumbled across a wardrobe full of soldiers’ uniforms. He walked down the line, baton in hand. Guardsman Korgis had a shiny pair of black eyes and an impressively swollen lip.

  ‘Guardsman,’ he growled through gritted teeth. ‘I believe I told you that the next time you got drunk and started a brawl I would hang you from the top of the harbour wall by your most treasured organs.’

  Korgis’ eyes flicked nervously back and forth.

  ‘Not been fighting, sir,’ he said, his words rendered barely intelligible by his battered jaw.

  ‘Would you like to explain, then, why it looks like you have spent the last few days headbutting a stone wall?’

  The guardsman’s eyes furrowed in concentration. There was a silence that stretched on uncomfortably long.

  ‘Tripped?’ he offered at last.

  Callis sighed.

  ‘You’re on latrine duty for th
e next week,’ he said. ‘You can start right now.’

  Guardsman Korgis’ battered face fell, and he strode off towards the barracks, shoulders slumped. Callis shook his head. They needed a war to fight.

  ‘The rest of you,’ he bellowed, trying to get that same air of disgusted rage that old Happer had managed to capture so well. ‘Three circuits of the arms yard. Get moving.’

  His collection of awkward youths and cauliflower-eared troublemakers began to half-heartedly jog. Callis could not even be bothered to threaten them into taking the exercise more seriously. He moved over to the shade of the bastion’s perimeter wall, and watched the fighting third platoon stagger around the yard.

  ‘Now that’s an imposing collection of warriors,’ came a voice at his side.

  It was Toll. He was leaning against the wall a few steps away, turning his wide-brimmed hat around in his hands. Callis was surprised at how good it felt to see the man. He guessed a certain amount of camaraderie was to be expected after the hardships they had endured together.

  ‘Ruthless killers to a man,’ said Callis, approaching the Witch Hunter. ‘We lost a lot of good men in the battle. Have to find new recruits from somewhere.’

  Toll nodded. ‘Congratulations on the promotion, by the way. Sorry I missed you after the fighting. I was… otherwise engaged. Fulfilling the last request of an old friend.’

  ‘I’m sorry for what happened to Kazrug,’ said Callis, softly. ‘I didn’t know him long, but he seemed a good sort.’

  Toll gave a brief nod, but said nothing more. They stood in silence for a while, watching Callis’ men do their circuits. A few of them were kicking each other’s ankles, trying to trip each other up. Callis sighed.

  ‘You know, I’m glad,’ said Toll.

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘That you’ve got the look of a man who’s bored out of his skull and deeply regretting the career choices he’s made.’

  Callis shook his head. ‘I’m not, that’s not what–’

  ‘You’re not a soldier any more,’ said the Witch Hunter, ignoring Callis’ half-hearted indignation. ‘You’ve seen behind the veil. You’ve faced down one of the countless evils that want to pull this world we’re creating down around us. Training rookie guardsmen is not going to compare.’

  ‘I’m just a soldier, Hanniver. This is where I belong.’

  ‘We’re all just common men and women, Armand. That’s what the Order is. We’re not the monsters the people believe us to be. We have no magical powers. All we have is our wit, our fortitude and our determination to destroy those who would corrupt and destroy the new world that the God-King is building across the realms.’

  ‘What are you asking of me?’ said Callis, honestly confused. ‘It’s good to see you, but I’m not sure why you’re here.’

  ‘My superiors have a new task for me,’ said Toll, stepping away from the wall and placing his familiar wide-brimmed hat upon his head. ‘I find myself without a companion at my side, and it’s a sad truth that there are not many souls in this city I trust. Not any more. You, however, I am pretty sure are not going to knife me in the back.’

  ‘Thanks very much.’

  ‘I am offering you a position at my side. You’re quick-witted, and decent in a fight. You know the city, and you know the dangers we face.’

  ‘I’m a lieutenant now. In charge of my own platoon,’ Callis said. ‘I can’t just drop everything and leave.’

  ‘If you value any kind of stability in your life, I suggest you don’t,’ said Toll. ‘Let’s make something clear here – if you join me, the pay will be bad, the leisure time will be extremely limited, and it’ll be a quiet week indeed if no one tries to kill you. This is also a time-sensitive matter, so you’d have to abandon your post right now if you were to come with me. That’s desertion, as I’m sure you’re aware.’

  ‘You’re not exactly selling this to me, Hanniver.’

  Toll shrugged. ‘All I can say is that at my side, you’ll be doing Sigmar’s work. Heretics and traitors like Vermyre? Madmen like Kryn who would see this world burn in exchange for just a glimpse of power? We are the sword poised above their necks. And there is nothing quite so satisfying as watching such men fall.’

  Callis shook his head, but said nothing. What did he really want? The last couple of weeks had been hellishly dull, an endless parade of training and drills, punctuated by visits to the officer’s mess, where they shunned him as a jumped-up native who had been promoted above his ability and birth. On the other hand, he had always been a soldier. That was all he knew. How could he just abandon that and stride off into Sigmar alone knew what kind of life?

  Toll let the silence stretch out. There was a faint grin on his lips, as if he already knew what the lieutenant would say, and was only waiting for the words to be spoken.

  Callis stared out across the drill yard. Six or seven of his men were standing hands on hips, red-faced and wheezing. On the far side of the yard, Lieutenant Donalholme was bellowing directly into the face of a young recruit, while Lieutenant Franc looked on, not even bothering to hide his gleeful smirk. On the walls above, bored soldiers leaned on their halberds, staring out over the city.

  He turned to Toll.

  ‘Fine, but you’ll have to write me one hell of a resignation letter,’ he said.

  About the Author

  Nick Horth is the author of City of Secrets, his first Age of Sigmar novel. 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 The Realmgate Wars: Ebook Collection.

  Chapter One

  God-forged

  The bolt struck Vandus Hammerhand like a spear flung from the heavens. First there was light, a searing luminescence so bright it eclipsed all sense of being and self. Then pain brought him back with white daggers of pure agony. Heat, fury, and the drumbeat of immortal vigour rushing through his veins reached a crescendo so loud it turned into deafening silence.

  Then peace, a feeling of true solace and quietude.

  Vandus would come to learn it was always this way. This is what it meant to be born of the storm and borne by the storm.

  Reforged, wrought anew. Brought back. This is what it was to be eternal. But as with all such godlike deeds, this apotheosis did not come without a price.

  Before…

  After defeating Korghos Khul, the Hammerhands went north.

  Though the Goretide were scattered, their ranks would swell again. The war against the dominion of Chaos was far from over, but Sigmar’s Stormcasts had won a great victory at the Gate of Azyr. Now that momentum had to be seized upon were it to mean anything.

  And so the Hammerhands went northward.

  Thousands clad in unalloyed sigmarite crossed the Igneous Delta. Liberators bloodstained and begrimed by war marched with grandhammers slung across the burnished plate of their shoulder guards. Dour Retributors strode in grim silence, their massive lightning hammers held firm across their chests. Above the infantry, retinues of unearthly Prosecutors had taken wing and soared across the blighted sky. At the clarion sound of the warrior-heralds’ war horns, their masked brethren below would close ranks and raise shields, knowing an enemy horde approached.

  There had been many enemies, for the Igneous Delta and its surrounding lands were overrun by those bound in blood to Khar-neth.

  It would fall to other Stormcast Eternals to hold the realmgate they had opened to Azyr. At least now they had a foothold at the Brimstone Peninsula, something to defend. But the vanguard could not rest. They had to forge on, despite the lead in their limbs.

  Only when night had fallen and they reached the crags did they stop to make camp on a sheltered plateau of rock. Here the army had mustered, whilst a few of its leaders had walked up the shallow incline to a second smaller plateau from which they m
ight gauge the best route onwards.

  ‘This is a strange land,’ murmured Dacanthos as he regarded the rime of frost around the fingers of his gauntlet. He clenched it in a mailed fist, shattering the ice that had formed.

  ‘Agreed,’ said Sagus, leaning on the head of his lightning hammer as the caustic wind of the delta tried to sear his armour. The air was rank with the stench of blood and cinder. It carried a foul cawing, like the mockery of crows, only deeper, as if uttered from the throat of a larger beast. Several carrion-creatures had already been seen.

  The Hammers of Sigmar had left the scorched desert behind them. Here, on the rugged crags and low hills, a deep winter prevailed.

  Snow hid some of the land’s deformity, its hillocks like the petrified claws of some ancient leviathan, a golem trapped forever in its final moments of agony. Eight stunted crests rose up from the smothering tundra like horns, and there were hollow cavities where eyes might once have been.

  ‘It is a grim place, enslaved to darkness,’ uttered Vandus, his voice deep, his distaste unmasked. From the edge of a rocky promontory, he looked out across the Igneous Delta and beyond. Swaths of forest colonised much of the eastern lands, but the trees looked unnatural, bent and tortured, their limbs petrified.