‘What do we do with it then?’ Esselt asked. ‘We can’t just leave it.’
‘No, we can’t,’ Talorcan agreed. His gaze turned to the little shrine of Sigmar. ‘But maybe we won’t need to take it away with us.’
It was late the next day when the witch hunters left Tora Grae. The cool of dusk would soon descend upon the desert of Droost and the keen-eyed demi-gryphs would be able to pick their way across the dunes by moonlight as easily as they could by sunlight. With a long journey between themselves and the temple complex of Vorthion, Esselt and Talorcan were eager to avoid as much of the daytime heat as they could.
The villagers watched them ride away from the tops of the barrier rocks. They had seen enough of the fight to know the peril they had been saved from. The witch hunters had their gratitude if not their adoration. Even for simple desert folk it was difficult to be at ease knowing the Order of Azyr was watching.
Old Morleo didn’t join his people on the rocks. Instead he was crouched inside the shrine, bowing his head before the altar and praying to Sigmar that Talorcan and Esselt would have a safe journey. The basin to one side of the altar was empty now and on the morrow he would have to bring up a new supply from the pool to bless in Sigmar’s holy name.
The box of offerings at the other side of the shrine was a little fuller than it had been before. There was a new stone there, a plain and withered-looking thing. All that remained of the brilliant girasol after it had been drowned in holy water and offered up to Sigmar.
All that was left of Khorne’s obscene relic once the Blood God’s malice was removed.
THE TAINTED HEART
by C L Werner
Amidst a deadly blight that has engulfed the Realm of Metal, witch hunters Talocarn and Esselt pursue a cultist whose bloody trail leads them into danger – and a possible solution, if they can survive…
Find this title, and many others, on blacklibrary.com
The Prisoner of the Black Sun
Josh Reynolds
I still endure.
I still stand.
This realm is mine.
Spiders have spun their webs across my eyes, and worms burrow in my chest. But I still live. I yet stand against my enemies. I shall always do so, for I can do naught else. My will gutters and flares, like a fire newly stoked. The Great Necromancer awakens.
I still endure.
The Three-Eyed King crushed the ranks of my servants. His daemon-blade shattered my bones, and cleaved my heart in two. My rites and magics were torn asunder, my power broken on the altar of fate. My body was left to the dust, and to the dust I returned. My soul fell shrieking into the darkness as a black comet, streaking across the underworld, and the impact of it cracked the roots of this world.
I still endure.
Nagashizzar is toppled. Its great towers and basalt pillars are dust. Where it once stood, there is now only broken earth; in the streets where a thousand warriors marched, the only sound to be heard is the wailing of jackals.
Yet I still endure.
I have pulled down the sun, cracking the seals of the underworld, and dried the seas and burned the grasses. I have humbled my enemies and cast the earth into the sky, walking to and fro in the deep places, and still I am returned.
Nagash has risen.
Something stirs in the wild places of all that which is mine. Some power, stinking of the storm, comes slinking into my demesnes. I sit upon my throne in starless Stygxx and feel it rising all about me, drawing to it that which is mine. Souls slip my grasp, spirits flee my voice. Thieves and invaders stalk my realm. They think me gone.
I still endure.
Heed me. Listen to my words, those of you who have the wit to hear. The Realm of Death is my body. Its caverns are my bones, its peaks my crown. The realm is as large as my word, as small as my wish. I bestride the seas of the east, and shatter the mountains of the west. My throne is in the north, and my shadow in the south. Wherever you so seek, I am there. Wherever you make worship, so Nagash strides.
Whosoever believes in me, whosoever follows my will, the will of Nagash, shall prosper. I have awakened, and my enemies shall know my name again. Seek out my foes, and make them yours. Seek out these thieves, and take from them as they have taken from me.
Hear me. Heed me.
Listen, and be joyful.
Nagash is all, and all are one in Nagash.
Nagash has risen.
Tarsus, Lord-Celestant of the Hallowed Knights, gave voice to a full-throated bellow. He brought his hammer down on the crimson helm of a howling bloodreaver and the warrior fell, its skull split in two. Tarsus whirled to open the belly of a second opponent, the sword he held in his other hand slashing in a deadly arc. His weapons crackled with holy lightning as he struck out left and right, dropping foemen with every blow.
‘Who will be victorious?’ he roared.
‘Only the faithful,’ came the reply, from the small host of Stormcasts that streamed in his wake. Liberators, Prosecutors, Judicators and Retributors – all were clad in star-forged sigmarite, and bearing weapons of the same material. Their panoply of war gleamed silver where it was not rich gold. Their shoulder guards bore their sigil – the curling white slashes of a bull’s horns – and, like their heavy shields, were of deepest regal blue. The weapons they carried shimmered with holy fire. Now, they swept them out to smash down any enemy who managed to avoid the attention of their Lord-Celestant.
He stepped over the body of a bloodreaver and looked ahead. Through the ranks of the enemy, the path they had been following since they had arrived some days previous was visible. Sigmar had cast his lightning down upon the shattered husk of a once-proud citadel, now overgrown with grey lichen and nodding, vast-rooted trees. A carpet of yellowing grass had clung to the cracked stones of the courtyard, obscuring the heaps of bones that clustered thickly throughout. The thunderous arrival of the Stormcasts in the Vale of Sorrows had set thousands of crows to flight, and a black cloud of the croaking birds had followed them ever since.
The path ahead had previously been a road, but was now mostly overgrown with the stiff, yellow grasses that seemed to cover this region. Ancient ruins and shattered hovels stretched out across the landscape to either side of the path. At one time there had been a city here. Now it was only a howling wilderness full of enemies and carrion birds.
‘Who shall win Sigmar’s favour?’ Tarsus cried, swinging his hammer over his head. He brought it down on a bloodreaver with bone-shattering force. With his sword, he chopped through the deplorable icon the blood-cultist had borne and trampled it beneath his feet.
‘Only the faithful,’ the Stormcasts around him shouted, as one.
‘Only the faithful,’ Tarsus echoed as he whipped his sword around in a deadly pattern, splitting the gullets of the enemy who pressed close. He smashed the dying bloodreavers aside, using his greater weight to grind them under.
Tarsus’ warriors called him the Bull-Heart, a name earned at the Battle of the Cerulean Shore, when Tarsus had crashed in amongst the enemy ranks with a ferocity few could equal. It was a fitting war-name for both he and his Warrior Chamber, and they bore it with pride. Their swords were as horns, their hammers were as hooves, and they employed both against the enemies of Sigmar in equal measure.
‘Smash them,’ he bellowed. ‘Grind them under, in the name of Sigmar and the Realm Celestial!’
Bodies littered his path as he drove forwards, into the very teeth of the foe. The bloodreavers were maniacs, but mortal, and none who were such could stand before Tarsus. He was a Stormcast Eternal, and in him flowed the might of Sigmar Heldenhammer. He roared and stamped, battering opponents from his path as he led the way towards the knot of heavily armoured Blood Warriors that formed the raging heart of the enemy battle line. The latter charged to meet him, chanting the name of the Blood God as they smashed aside their own followers in their eage
rness to come to grips with the Hallowed Knights.
‘Who will be remembered?’ Tarsus cried.
‘Only the faithful,’ thundered his Stormcasts as the leading retinues of Liberators came to grips with the Blood Warriors. Spread out in a line, they closely followed the vanguard of Retributors and Decimators led by their Lord-Celestant.
Tarsus caught one of the Blood Warriors in the belly with his shoulder, and flipped the frothing berserker over his back even as he plunged on without slowing. The hammer of a Retributor from one of the retinues marching behind him slammed down, ensuring that the Blood Warrior remained where he’d fallen. Tarsus caught a second across the head with his hammer, and rammed his sword into the belly of a third, plunging it all the way to the hilt. His blade became lodged in the baroque plates of the Blood Warrior’s armour, forcing him to spend precious moments wrenching it free. Even as he did so, a saw-toothed axe crashed down on his shoulder plate.
The force of the blow drove him to one knee. A second blow clipped his head, and he teetered off balance. Brass and crimson shapes surrounded him, and axes covered in daemonic sigils chopped down. For every one he turned aside two caught him, drawing sparks from the sigmarite plates. No blow had yet pierced his armour, but it was only a matter of time.
‘Hold fast, Bull-Heart,’ a voice thundered.
Lightning speared down, washing over Tarsus and his attackers. He grinned fiercely as the Blood Warriors shuddered and jerked in the clutches of the storm. Smoke boiled from their mouths and eye sockets, and what flesh was visible beneath their armour was charred black.
Tarsus surged to his feet and caught one of the smoke-wreathed Blood Warriors beneath the chin with his hammer. The warrior pitched backwards and then lay still. Tarsus hacked another down and turned to greet his rescuer. ‘Nicely done, Ramus,’ he said. ‘A few more moments and I might have been sorely pressed indeed.’
‘Think on that, the next time you find yourself so eager to meet the foe that you outpace the rest of us,’ the Lord-Relictor of the Bull-Hearts said. ‘There are not so many of us that we can spare you, Tarsus.’
Like all those of his rank, Ramus of the Shadowed Soul bore weapons and armour replete with icons of faith, death and the storm. It fell to him to keep the souls of the Hallowed Knights of his Warrior Chamber from the gloom of the underworld with words and fire.
Tarsus nodded. ‘I shall. But for now – show them your power, my friend.’
Ramus raised his reliquary and murmured a soft prayer, his words lost amidst the clangour of battle. The sky overhead was already dark, and roiled and jagged as spears of lightning struck the enemy, burning them to ash or reducing them to stumbling, screaming torches. Tarsus raised his hammer, bringing his Stormcasts to a halt as the lightning continued to strike again and again, until all was silent, save for the soft crackle of flames.
‘Who will be victorious?’ Tarsus murmured, as he gently tapped his Lord-Relictor on the shoulder with his hammer.
‘Only the faithful,’ Ramus intoned, glancing at Tarsus. ‘The road ahead is clear, Lord-Celestant. We are free to continue our march.’
‘Indeed, and we shouldn’t tarry,’ Tarsus said, as he signalled for his retinues to fall into a proper marching order.
The Stormcasts swung fluidly into position with an ease born of centuries of training. Liberators moved to the fore and flanks, encircling the Judicators, while the Prosecutors swooped overhead. The retinues of the winged warriors would range ahead of the host as it marched, keeping a keen eye out for any more would-be ambushers.
Not that such a tactic had succeeded yet, and nor would it if Tarsus had anything to say about it. Had he been anything other than a Stormcast Eternal, he might have taken the continued attacks for an omen, but fear had been burned out of him long ago and left only faith in its wake. He and his warriors were heroes, their valour proven in battles all but forgotten in the haze of their reforging. The Hallowed Knights had been the fourth Stormhost to be founded, the ranks of their Warrior Chambers filled with the faithful of the Mortal Realms. Their only commonality was that each had called upon Sigmar’s name in battle – and been heard – and that each had shed his mortal flesh in the name of a righteous cause.
Tarsus could but dimly recall the days of his own mortality. He remembered the weight of his sword and armour, and the rustle of a war cloak of deepest purple. He remembered screaming himself hoarse on the stone battlements of a burning citadel as red, lean-limbed daemons scrambled up the walls and across the causeways towards him and those he led. He remembered a name – Tarsem – and a word – Helstone – and the moment a monstrous shadow had fallen across him and the air had writhed beneath the beat of great wings. Then a roar, and… nothing. Nothing until he’d awoken in Sigmaron, forged anew.
That was the way of it, and Tarsus was glad. His enemies had not changed, but now he had the power to meet them, and break them. He was Stormcast, and they would learn to fear that name, before the end. His reverie was soon broken by Ramus.
‘This is a fell place,’ Ramus said, as he and Tarsus led the host.
‘Parts of it, yes,’ Tarsus said. He thought of the things they’d seen since arriving: strange hourglass-shaped mountains that rose along the far horizon, and clumps of pale flowers that softly sighed when one walked past them.
‘A land of endings and silent decay,’ the Lord-Relictor said. ‘This is a place of whispers, where forgotten ghosts wander roads and paths that lead nowhere. A place where mountains crumble only to be raised anew with the sun, and birds and beasts are born and die in the same day. All is in decline here, though I know not whether it is the doing of our foes or the dread master of this realm.’ He looked at Tarsus. ‘Do you think he will listen?’
‘I do not know,’ Tarsus said. ‘Nagash betrayed Sigmar once. Mayhap he will do so again. But that is not for us to worry over… Our concern is to gain audience with him and make common cause, so that we might begin to wrest this realm from the enemy.’
‘But first we have to find him in this wilderness,’ Ramus said.
They had been searching for a way into the underworld since their arrival – one of the legendary Nine Gates into the underworld of Stygxx. The Great Necromancer had vanished, disappeared into the depths where none could find him. But Sigmar had set his scribes the centuries-long task of scouring the ancient records, compiled long before the Allpoints War, for any hint of where the Nine Gates might be. That knowledge had been passed on to the Stormcasts charged with seeking out Nagash. The Nine Gates had been housed in nine citadels, some massive and well-defended, and others so small as to be forever hidden from the eyes of the enemy. Nine Warrior Chambers had been despatched to find these structures and the gates secreted within their walls.
So far the gates had proven elusive, but Tarsus had hope; Sigmar would not have sent them to this place were victory not achievable. A gate was within reach, somewhere. And they would find it.
The trail grew rougher and steeper as the Stormcasts marched on, leaving the detritus of battle far behind them, winding through verdant fields that withered in the moonlight only to flourish once more as the sun rose, and trees that shuddered and sighed in the slightest of breezes. The sky overhead was pale and dim, even in the middle of the day, as if the sun feared to show its face in the Realm of Death. The crows were still overhead, circling and wheeling amongst the Prosecutors as they swooped above on wings of lightning.
‘Aye,’ Tarsus said. ‘And we will do so, even if we must fight our way across this land to do it.’ They had come into conflict with the deranged servants of the Ruinous Powers more than once since their arrival. The worshippers of the Blood God were as thick as fleas in the crags around them. The Realm of Death was under siege, and every peak and valley was infested with the followers of the Dark Gods. He shook his head. ‘Though I’d not turn down aid in that regard, if it were offered.’
A cry from above
caught his attention, and Tarsus looked up. One of the Prosecutors swooped low and pointed towards a rocky outcrop that rose abruptly from the surrounding landscape, towering over the bare trees.
‘Something ahead – a structure of some sort at the top,’ he cried. Tarsus waved them forwards, the winged warriors hurtling into the distance, towards the dome-roofed ruin that occupied the summit of the tor.
‘Another ruin,’ Ramus said.
‘And perhaps a way into the underworld,’ Tarsus said. He raised his hammer, signalling to his retinues. ‘Liberators to the flanks, shields out,’ he said, his voice carrying over the gleaming ranks of his Warrior Chamber.
Liberator retinues moved to the flanks of the formation, shields at the ready, in case there was an ambush in the offing. If it was the place they sought, it could be defended and such a place might well provide refuge for warbands like the ones that had relentlessly attacked them since their arrival. With a single gesture from Tarsus, shields raised over the heads of the Stormcasts and to the sides, transforming the Stormhost into a veritable serpent of sigmarite. Their protection allowed them to weather arrows, rocks and even sorcery as they moved. Satisfied, Tarsus swung his hammer towards the ruin.
‘Forwards,’ he bellowed.
A wide path wound around the outcrop and led to the top. Tarsus led the way, and saw that the path ahead was lined with skulls as he rounded the slope. Mounted on spikes of brass and iron, the skulls twitched and champed yellow, cracked teeth, as if in protestation of their fate. Bones were scattered below them, mixed with bits of rusty armour and broken weapons, and piled up in drifts alongside the path. Tarsus stared at the skulls, pity warring with disgust. ‘They still live,’ Tarsus murmured. ‘Even now.’
‘No, Tarsus,’ Ramus said. ‘They do not. And that is the horror of it. Nothing in this realm ever truly dies, even now,’ he said, looking at the skulls. ‘Their souls are bound here, in chains of magic of the darkest sort.’
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