The Lady laughed, and Gryme felt a shiver run through him. ‘Oh, Ompallious – once, you might have ridden at my right hand,’ she said. ‘Was the dukedom of Festerfane not enough for you?’
‘That was not its name then,’ Zeyros said, softly.
‘And what was its name?’ the Lady asked, gently. ‘Do you even remember?’ Zeyros turned away, and Gryme saw the Lady nod. ‘You gave up so much, for vengeance. You let the Great Changer hollow you out of all but that singular ambition. But your end is here, and there is love yet in the ending. And serenity in acceptance. Come back to me, my love – my sweetest knight…’ Gryme felt something in his heart twist for the pain he heard in her voice. The truest love, of a lady for her knight.
‘Love,’ Zeyros said, harshly. ‘What do you know of love?’ He turned. ‘You pitted us against one another, for love. My brothers and I fought, for your love. My brothers in arms. All lost now. All dead…’ He began to cough, and bent nearly double from the force of it. The mould on his armour was shrieking with laughter. He clawed at it frantically, scraping it away.
‘Not dead,’ the Lady said. ‘Nothing truly dies in the gardens of the King of All Flies. They sleep and dream of the day when they are needed again, to safeguard the seven duchies.’
‘Be silent, rot-hag,’ Zeyros snarled. He struck the crystal egg with a fist, and its facets flared with a monstrous radiance. The Lady screamed, and Gryme screamed with her. He launched himself up the steps, blade raised to shatter the crystal.
Zeyros’ glaive swept out, driving Gryme back. ‘No. Not until I have what I want. The cure to this malady that infects me. Then I will banish her from this realm, and send her back to Nurgle’s vile garden, as I – I…’ He half turned away from Gryme, his body wracked by coughing. The blade of the glaive dipped. ‘As I should have – have…’ The rest of his words were lost in a deluge of hoarse hacking. The mould clinging to his raiment was spreading, and singing, now. Zeyros clutched at his abdomen, as if in pain.
Gryme turned. The Lady was looking at him, now. ‘My knight,’ she murmured. He did not stop to think who she might be referring to. Instead, he spun, sword raised. He would slay Zeyros, and free her. He would fulfil his oath.
But as he whirled, the haft of Zeyros’ glaive slammed into his helm. He crashed backwards, against the egg, and rolled down the steps. His sword slid from his grip and then Zeyros was upon him, one golden boot pinning him to the floor. The glaive swept his sword out of reach. Zeyros spun the weapon about, and placed the tip of the blade to Gryme’s throat. Almost gently, he prised Gryme’s helm off, and sent it clattering away.
Zeyros looked down at Gryme. ‘I have tried to avoid this, boy. You are of my blood – though centuries have thinned the stuff in your veins to gruel – and I would have spared you this, out of love for kin and kingdom.’ He raised his glaive. ‘But that was never our fate.’
Gryme did not flinch. If this was to be the end, he would meet it as a true knight. Zeyros tensed, readying the thrust.
‘Wait.’
Zeyros turned. ‘What is it, daemon?’
‘Spare him, and I will spare you, Ompallious Zeyros.’
Zeyros paused. ‘You would bargain with me?’
She spoke slowly, as if the words pained her. ‘His life means more to me than yours. Spare him, and your skein is untangled. Kill him, and suffer the fate you fear most.’
Zeyros lowered his glaive. ‘Do it, then. Cure me of Ephraim Bollos’ last gift. And I will spare your newest toy.’ He gestured, and the crystal egg splintered and fell away into flickering shards. The Lady brushed a shard from her shoulder and sang a single, sibilant note. Zeyros staggered. Clumps of giggling mould fell from his form and clumped together on the floor. One of them slid towards Gryme, wriggling like a worm, and he closed his hand about it, quickly, before his captor could see.
The rest of the mould was not so lucky. Before it could go far, Zeyros thrust his glaive into it and Changefire swept across the floor, burning it clean.
The Lady hung her head and sighed, sadly. ‘It is done.’
Zeyros looked down at his cleansed armour, and took a deep breath. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not yet.’ He looked at Gryme, and swept his glaive up once more.
The Lady cried out in consternation. Gryme bit back a cry of his own, as the glaive drove down towards his heart.
‘No.’ Mordrek’s blade caught Zeyros’ glaive and turned it aside. The Radiant Knight stepped back in surprise. Gryme looked up at his saviour, and saw no sign of the wound he’d given the other warrior. ‘The battle is finished, Zeyros. You have what you wish. To take any more than what fate provides is simple greed.’
‘You defy me?’ Zeyros said, incredulous.
‘My geas is broken,’ Mordrek said. ‘You bound me until my defeat, trusting in my pride. But this boy – this knight – set me on my back, and fairly.’ Mordrek glanced at Gryme, and then back at Zeyros. ‘Thus, my will is my own.’
‘I could send you back to death with but a word.’
‘If you could, you would have said it already.’ Mordrek lowered his sword. ‘You were a knight, once. And you swore an oath.’
Zeyros stared at him. Then, with a disgruntled sigh, he nodded. ‘Fine.’ He let Gryme rise, and stepped aside so that the young warrior could escort the Lady from the dais. She extended her hand as Gryme stumbled towards her.
‘My lady,’ he mumbled.
‘My Carkus,’ she said, softly. ‘Whatever am I to do with you?’ Pushing aside the sudden thought that she was somehow disappointed in him, Gryme took her hand carefully, and helped her down. She stood tall and regal, despite her bedraggled state. She looked at Zeyros. He met her gaze steadily.
‘Fair warning… I am not the only one who smelled the duchies’ weakness on the winds of Chaos,’ he said. ‘I am but the first to try my hand. There is a war brewing, in the spaces between. Nurgle recedes and Tzeentch ascends.’
The Lady looked away. ‘As Nurgle will ascend, and Tzeentch will descend, in days to come. Such is the eternal cycle. All seasons have their moment.’
Zeyros laughed. ‘As you say, my lady. But all things change. Even the dance of the seasons. A storm sweeps the realms, and what was once set is now upended. Malign portents crowd the minds of seers, and ancient things best forgotten stir.’
‘Let them stir,’ Gryme said. ‘Let them come. We will ride out to meet them. The Blighted Duchies belong to the King of All Flies, and he shall rule them for evermore.’
Zeyros looked at Gryme. ‘Your bravado, misplaced as it is, reminds me of another. A man I called friend. And then slew, for his treachery.’ He pointed at Gryme. ‘Do not cross my path again, or it shall be the same end for you.’ He turned away, and gestured dismissively. ‘Now be gone, all of you. I grow weary of the stink.’
Gryme watched as the Stalking Keep prowled away from the glen, crushing trees beneath its great talons. It somehow felt wrong to allow a foe to escape without even a token resistance, but the Lady had commanded, and he could but obey.
He turned. The others stood nearby. Blisterback crouched protectively next to the Lady, his cleaver over one shoulder. The old beast had waited loyally for them to emerge from the Stalking Keep’s craw, and had seemed unsurprised to see them. The Lady watched the Stalking Keep depart, her expression unreadable behind her veil. She seemed stronger than she had within the monstrous edifice, as if whatever force had been sapping her power was now gone.
Around her, the glen was returning to normal. The trees were darkening and twisting back into their usual shapes, and the flowers were dying. The sad notes of their dwindling song hung on the air, and Gryme sighed in satisfaction. Then he winced and clutched his chest. Pain flared in him. Blisterback scuttled towards him. The beast caught Gryme’s arm and wrapped it about his hairy shoulders.
‘You live, young master. Pain is good.’
�
�The beast speaks true,’ Mordrek said. He stood some distance away, studying the stars overhead. ‘Pain is good, in moderation. It means you are still a man, whatever else.’ He looked at Gryme. ‘The stars are foreign to me.’
‘You get used to them,’ Gryme said. He winced again, as Blisterback helped him to Mordrek’s side. ‘What now, Mordrek? Will you return to Festerfane with us?’ He glanced at the Lady. ‘There will be feasting, I think. A celebration.’
Mordrek shook his head. ‘No, boy. I would explore this new realm I have been drawn up into. Perhaps there are wonders and horrors yet that I have not witnessed. If so, they might enliven the tedium of eternity, if only for a few centuries.’ He turned and extended his hand. ‘But if you need me, simply blow the slughorn you carry, and Count Mordrek will ride with all haste to your aid.’
Gryme glanced down at the horn. At the time, he had not thought to question its presence. Now, though, he wondered how it had come to be in this place. When he looked up, a question on his lips, Mordrek was already gone. Vanished into the rising miasma.
‘He has ever travelled strange roads, that one,’ the Lady said, without turning around. ‘No man or daemon can say where or when he will appear, or on whose side he will fight. A mystery.’ She turned, then, her gaze bright and scalding. ‘I do not like mysteries. I find them tedious. Almost as tedious as mortals.’
Gryme swallowed, suddenly struck dumb.
‘I did not require your aid,’ she continued. ‘Or that of these brave fools.’ She looked around at the heaps of fallen knights as if somehow… disappointed. ‘The matter was well in hand. Ompallious would not have harmed me.’
‘I – I thought…’ he began.
She laughed, softly. The sound was like a knife in his heart. ‘No. I doubt that greatly. Do you know what you have cost me, today? What you have cost the King of All Flies? From the ashes of Ompallious Zeyros, Ephraim Bollos might have risen, returned to us. Something which is sorely needed, in these dangerous times.’ She pointed an accusing finger. ‘I traded that possibility, for your life. What have you to say for yourself?’
Gryme shook his head. ‘Forgive me,’ he whispered. ‘I have disappointed you.’ He fell to his knees, head bowed. ‘But I have not failed you.’ He reached into his armour and withdrew the softly chuckling clump of mould he’d saved. It squirmed on his palms. Without a word he proffered it to her.
He felt the heat of her gaze falter. ‘Oh… Ephraim,’ she murmured, as if to a lost pet, newly found. Gently, she took the quivering mould from him and stroked it. ‘With this, he might yet return.’ She looked down at him. After a moment’s silence, she said, ‘Rise, young Carkus. Only knights must kneel before me. And you are not that. Not yet.’
Gryme hesitated. He rose slowly, staring at her. She laughed softly, and he was reminded of the gentle dapple of a plague-rain upon glass. Her fingers caressed his blistered chin, and her smile was as lovely as the reflected gleam of balefire on still waters.
At her touch, the pain of his wounds and the ache in his limbs faded, and a sweet numbness flooded him. ‘Not yet,’ she murmured, again. ‘Seven are the trials every knight must face to earn his spurs. This is but the first. Six remain for you, before you are deemed worthy to sup from the Flyblown Chalice.’
Gryme frowned. He wanted to argue. To proclaim his worth. But if he were truly worthy, would he need to say so? Finally, he nodded. ‘I am at your service, my lady.’
She stepped past him, crossing the clearing on dainty hooves. ‘That remains to be seen, young Carkus. But do not hope. Only in acceptance is worth found. Now come. Festerfane awaits. And there is a tourney to finish, I believe.’
‘As you say, my lady,’ he replied. ‘What will be, will be.’ But even as he said it, he felt a twinge deep in him.
As of a weed, growing in a garden.
THE HARDEST WORD
David Guymer
A mural of the two-headed orruk war-deity, Gorkamorka, covers the rock in age-blanched chalk. Beneath, the granite is stained with black, yellow and faded pinks, the marks left by a succession of lords of destruction and Chaos. Gorkamorka is the largest but not the most recent. Several layers of runes and glyphs adorn the mural, proclaiming the greatness of their lord and his god, but none of them claim this throne room now.
The visiting Lord-Veritant looks up at the painted wall, disapproving. But I like the wall. It is a tapestry of my enemies’ defeats, a thousand years old, and there is something about it that reminds me of my mortal home.
When Vikaeus is Lord-Castellant of the Seven Words, she can decorate as she pleases.
‘Do not haunt my doorway, Lord-Veritant,’ I say. ‘I will stand for no ceremony here.’
‘The doorway is not yours, you self-aggrandising fool. You guard it for Sigmar. Like a dog.’
With a scrape of her boot and a wind-ruffle of a cerulean cloak, she turns to me. The phrase ‘Ice Queen’ leaps unbidden into my mind.
I do not immediately disavow it.
Her armour is the white and blue of the Knights Merciless. Her mask is an expression of bitter spite, which I am relieved to see she carries underarm. The Knights Merciless are known for donning war-masks only when in hostile lands, or in the dispensation of Sigmar’s judgement. Her long black hair is drawn back from her forehead and worn in a tail. Her skin is like marble, though no artisan of Azyr ever worked on a material so hard.
I beckon impatiently.
Her footsteps clank on bare stone as she walks down the aisle towards my throne. A pair of gryph-hounds with beaks clad in blessed sigmarite, their neck scales picked out with runes of abjuration, snarl at her heels. My own companion, Crow, uncurls from the beastman pelts piled at my feet and barks a warning that echoes between the crumbling arches and columns.
It appears that even our hounds share a mutual dislike.
‘What brings a Lord-Veritant to the House of the Seven Words? Chaos retreats on every front, for Hamilcar Bear-Eater is as decisive as he is vigilant.’
She halts ten strides away and plants the staff bearing her Lantern of Abjuration, the symbol of her office, into the ground with a resounding clang.
‘I have crossed the Chamonic Gate and been admitted to the crucible pools of Molybdenos. I have spoken with the Prophet Argent, and conferred with the oracles of the Sigmarabulum. I have seen a skaven as old as the world, his paws in the secrets of the gods. His tail is a serpent of probing shadows and in my visions I see it winding close about Sigmar’s neck.’
I scratch my bearded chin. It is oft remarked that Sigmar and I share a likeness, and it is true, the resemblance is uncanny.
‘So why come here?’
‘I see a rising vermintide. It begins here. And I have seen you, Hamilcar. You appear in my visions most frequently of late.’ I smile importunately, but she douses it with a frown like ice water. ‘I see you caged in a storm of unholy lightning, screaming as you are broken, piece by piece.’
I lean back, the totems and trophies that bedeck my purple war-plate clinking as I shift position. ‘You are certain it is me? You are certain it is my fortress?’
‘Even if my visions were less clear, then yes. Now I am here, I am sure. I can feel the taint of the ratmen under my skin, Lord-Castellant.’
I glance up to the Lantern of Abjuration, a cage of comet ice that encircles the top of her staff.
‘They are here already,’ she continues. ‘Though I know not where, nor how they mean to enter a bastion of Sigmar.’
‘My fortress is impregnable,’ I say with irony, glancing up at the mural and its long legacy of capture and loss. I grasp the arms of my throne, rising from the seat in a creak of heavy armour and hanging mail. Crow yawns and stretches, and I kick him good-naturedly from under my feet. He chews at my greave in turn.
‘With me, Lord-Veritant.’
I throw aside the broken doors, still damaged from w
hen I hurled the previous Castellant from his throne room, and stride out into the hall.
Rubble litters the old tiles, though most of it has been swept into messy piles away from the central aisle. The walls gape onto wispy clouds, and the occasional dash and shade of an aetár, the great eagle-kin, startles the gryph-hounds. The seven mortal winds whisper with seven mortal voices.
Down innumerable flights of duardin-cut stairs, Vikaeus and I find our way to the calefactory that the knights of the Bear-Eaters have commandeered for their own.
The chamber has no windows. Skins of beastmen and animals are thrown over the floor, the table and the backs of chairs. The hearth is cold, but simply being out of the wind is enough.
My second, Decimator-Prime Broudiccan, pauses, mid-sentence into an exaggerated tale about his battles with the sankrit on the Sea of Bones, a jug of something warm in his scarred and tattooed fist. His chair scrapes as he stands. Frankos and Xeros Stormcloud, clad in black armour and bands of skeletal decoration, both look attentive.
‘Rally the Stormhost,’ I command Frankos.
The Knight-Heraldor rises immediately. Dragging his battle-horn from the table, he hurries from the chamber. Broudiccan glances at Vikaeus, but does not ask. His knotted brow knots all the harder. The Decimator is a man of grave heart and few words, which is why he serves me so well.
‘Muster the mortal levies,’ I tell him.
‘What shall I tell them?’
‘That Hamilcar stands with them.’ I hold out my hand and Broudiccan, with a rare smile, picks up my halberd from the rack and tosses it to me.
‘That will please them,’ he says, nodding respectfully to the Lord-Veritant before following Frankos out.
‘What is it, Hamilcar?’ Xeros asks, but his dark eyes rove between Vikaeus and me.
‘A vermintide is coming, Lord-Relictor,’ says Vikaeus. ‘I came from Sigmaron with all haste, but the attack may come at any time.’
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