Hamilcar- Champion of the Gods - David Guymer

by Warhammer

  ‘I am always wary.’

  ‘If he can scale the walls of Malerion’s palace, walk the Black Maze, evade the mirror-traps and the shade-hounds and almost get back out alive, then he can break into the Seven Words.’

  ‘I know how to hold a castle, Hamilcar.’

  Before I could try another avenue of persuasion, I heard a commotion from the other side of the doors. Voices, raised in argument. Armoured bodies scuffling in a hallway. I turned, just as the doors were thrown open and Frankos of the Heavens Forge shouldered his way between the two Retributors trying in vain to keep him out.

  I was aware of my mouth hanging open.

  Frankos?

  The Lord-Celestant looked exactly as I remembered him. The face of a child-king, the purity of a child of Dracothion. His beatific features were unworn by any duty or care or the passing of the centuries. His hair was the gold of Sigmar’s throne. His eyes were light. And yet, he was different. His breastplate – though I challenge anyone to look directly on that much gold in direct sunlight and make out much – depicted the Anvil of Apotheosis, the Heavens Forge, six lightning bolts shooting from the centre to form the spokes of a Celestial ring. His cloak dragged across the ground. It was heavy, woven not of cloth or hide, but hammers.

  He looked as though he had been encased in an idealised statue of himself.

  Or me.

  ‘Frankos?’

  ‘Hamilcar. By the God-King, it’s true.’

  The Lord-Celestant’s sternness evaporated into something luminous and he extended his arms, brushing off the Anvils of the Helden­hammer as he strode towards me and drew me into his embrace. I laughed and met strength with strength, crushing his breastplate into mine and knuckling his perfect hair. Almost as soon as I did, however, he pulled back, pushing me off as if I had just grabbed his face and tried to kiss him.

  Frankos has ever been an open tome. The kind with woodcuts, in fact. If there is a thought in his head or a passion in his heart, then it is there for the realms to see and to make their peace with. What I saw on his face then was an inarticulate mashing together of horror, disgust, and a hatred of himself for harbouring such a base response towards a mentor and a brother. It was as if he had reached out for his best friend and found a daemon masquerading in his skin.

  I had done my best to forget every­thing that Ong and his caricatures – and yes, even Sigmar himself – had tried to tell me about the injuries that Ikrit had caused to my soul. Because any problem that can be readily ignored was never a problem at all. Now I thought about it, it occurred to me that Zephacleas had behaved somewhat oddly when I took his hand. And the Anvils of the Heldenhammer that had greeted my arrival through the Realmgate had definitely been feeling something other than awe at my presence. Frankos had always been difficult to ignore. That was what had made him such an exceptional Heraldor; why he may yet make a worthy successor to me as Lord-Celestant.

  He didn’t even need to speak to reach you exactly where your heart beat.

  ‘What?’ I said, not sure I wanted to know, but knowing that I needed to ask. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It is… difficult to describe.’ Frankos backed off, staring at me as though to catch me in some unclean act. ‘It’s like looking upon a holy vessel, taking it up in your hands, only to find its contents befouled.’

  I snorted. ‘No offence taken.’

  ‘My lord. Forgive me.’ For once, Frankos’ golden tongue failed and he stuttered, bowing low, ostensibly in apology, but with every outward appearance of simply not wishing to look upon me a moment more. ‘Pray… I meant no–’

  ‘It’s alright, brother. I was joking.’

  ‘I felt it also,’ said Akturus, behind me.

  So that was what the expression had been when our fingers had touched. I felt an odd sort of triumph at the fact that it had just been my poor broken soul, and that I had not unwittingly offended him again in my brief stay.

  ‘You see now why I can’t stay,’ I said.

  ‘I do.’ Akturus turned to the Retributor who was still filling the doorway like a storm cloud. ‘It is alright, Kephos. The Lord-Celestant will not be staying long.’

  ‘Your will be done, Lord-Castellant.’

  The door was closed very deliberately behind him.

  ‘By all that is good and glorious,’ Frankos declared, rounding on me as it shut. ‘What has been done to you, lord? What wickedness could the vile skaven be capable of inflicting that even the blessed fires of the Anvil itself cannot undo?’

  I could still hear grumbling from outside, but ignored it. It was probably just the Retributors again, complaining about Frankos.

  ‘I cannot discuss it,’ I said. And preferred not to. ‘Only that Sigmar has charged me with bringing the warlock responsible back to him in Sigmaron.’

  ‘Then by the Twelve Points of Sigendil and the eternal fires of Dracothion you shall go with every sword, hammer and bow of the Heavens Forged beside you.’

  ‘No,’ said Akturus, calmly. ‘He will not.’

  ‘You dare give me orders? I am Lord-Celestant in the Seven Words, and the warriors of the Heavens Forged are mine to command.’

  Akturus raised an eyebrow.

  I took an unconscious step back.

  ‘He goes for the very jugular of the beast,’ Frankos cried, articulating with a grabbing motion of his hand. ‘The Astral Templars would join him in the hunt. Share the danger, and the taste of blood when it is spilled.’

  That was Frankos, ever willing with a turn of phrase.

  ‘That’s enough,’ I said. ‘Akturus is right.’

  ‘He’s–’

  Whatever the Lord-Celestant had been about to declaim was cut short by a severely disgruntled Retributor.

  ‘There is a runner from the Realmgate, Lord-Castellant,’ he said, pushing the door aside. ‘Vikaeus Creed has returned with a Thunderwave Echelon of Knights Merciless. She urgently requests the presence of both you and Lord-Celestant Frankos in the High Hall.’

  Vikaeus.

  Sigmar had sent Vikaeus after me.

  The thought both thrilled and terrified.

  I was thinking of a cell with a view in the Forge Eternal, and the centuries I had to look forward to spending in it.

  ‘You are welcome to join us, lord,’ Frankos said, sternly, spreading his glare evenly between Kephos and Akturus.

  ‘No, no,’ I said, declining as naturally as I could. ‘She asked just for the two of you, I’m sure she has her reasons.’

  ‘Come, lord,’ said Frankos. ‘You are only just arrived, she cannot know yet that you are here or she would have summoned you as well.’

  Of that I have no doubt.

  ‘She’ll know where to find me.’ I took his pauldron. He cringed, doing a poor job of hiding it. ‘I’ll be out there, with them, where I belong.’

  Frankos bowed low.

  ‘I will have Kephos escort you back to the wards,’ said Akturus.

  ‘No need,’ I said, waving the offered Retributor off. I was already eyeing the door he was standing in. ‘I remember the way out.’

  Chapter seventeen

  Lord-Veritant Vikaeus swept into the keep like a cold wind. The Dracoth she rode padded over the cracked flagstones with the cool deliberation of an alligator returning to water. Its scales were the blue of Celestial hoarfrost, its armour white, tack and harness glittering in the torches that burned sporadically in the handful of sheltered sconces about the disarming chamber. With cold-blooded patience it surveyed the weapons benches and alcoves, and the chipped stone columns that lined the east wall. I hid behind the farthest column and tried not to breathe. While the Dracoth satisfied itself, two Concussors in the frost-white bastion plate and silver trim of the Knights Merciless drew in alongside. They had their lightning hammers drawn and their Sigmarite Shields raised. They all had their helmets fitted. Th
at confirmed my worst suspicions.

  The Knights Merciless donned their war-masks only when in hostile lands, or in the dispensation of Sigmar’s justice.

  They were here for me.

  Vikaeus swung one foot out from the stirrup and slid down the Dracoth’s scaly flank, landing in a clump of sigmarite that she never­theless made graceful. Drawing her abjuration staff from its saddle sleeve, she left a lingering hand on the beast’s jaw as she turned to scour the chamber’s crannies with habitually suspicious eyes.

  The sight of her stole the breath from my lungs, even reaching into my veins to pick their pockets too. My blood felt thick. The pounding of my heart left an echo in my head. Part of me was tempted to hand myself over there and then, simply to know what it would feel like to have my gaze returned. I had to physically put my hand on my breast and push myself back into hiding.

  ‘I am sorry, Cryax, I know. But this is not Sigmaron. You will have to remain here.’ Vikaeus turned to the two Concussors. ‘I will not be long.’ With that, she turned and strode away, behind another column and out of my view.

  ‘Welcome back, Lady Vikaeus,’ came another voice that I couldn’t see the owner of from where I was hiding. A mortal by the sound of it, a woman, and walking towards the Lord-Veritant from the door to the main halls. ‘The lords Frankos and Akturus await you in the High Hall.’

  ‘That is swift. Good. What I have to say to them is urgent.’

  Her footsteps thudded further into the obscurity of the keep, and I felt myself breathe easier with her gone. I glanced back to see the two Concussors still idling by the open gate where Vikaeus had left them.

  ‘Strike,’ I swore.

  As I watched, one of them slid from his saddle and approached Vikaeus’ Dracoth. The Paladin caught its bridle armour almost playfully in one hand and whispered something that I assumed to be reassuring in its ear. What words might reassure a Dracoth I had no idea, and less interest in knowing.

  Only the purest of spirit or the noblest of purpose could hope to tame a child of Dracothion.

  Naturally, then, the Celestial beasts had never had much truck with me.

  Cryax swung its armoured head towards me and snorted, a preternatural cold freezing the moisture in the air and causing it to fall as ice.

  I drew quickly back out of sight, armour clanking softly on stone, cursing under my breath.

  ‘Strike it until it sunders.’

  I was tempted to just march up there and bluff my way through, on the off-chance that Vikaeus had not shared the reasons for her pursuit of me with her Extremis Chamber. A few self-congratulatory backslaps and a bellowed welcome here and there had seen me this far through the keep, after all – but somehow I doubted whether the Knights Merciless would fall for it as readily as the keep’s mortal soldiery and servants had. And the longer I thought about it, which is why thinking for too long about anything is rarely a good idea, the more I appreciated that Vikaeus would have had no need to explain why she was hunting me in order to let her warriors know that she was hunting me.

  They were called the Knights Merciless for a reason, after all. A Knight-Excelsior might burn an innocent’s house down to destroy a corruption in the wood or the stone, but only a Knight Merciless would make sure the innocent was still inside.

  Lacking a better option, other than trying to force myself through the arrow slits, which hardly qualified as better, I was about to follow through on that first impulse and brazen it out when I saw the mortal steward that had just admitted Vikaeus walking towards me.

  I looked quickly around and saw the smaller door behind me that led to the servants’ stairs.

  ‘Dracothion’s breath.’

  The woman walked past my hiding place without noticing me and continued on to the door. She was clad in the purple doublet and trews and steel breastplate of an armed retainer of the Astral Templars. Not all Stormhosts had the same custom of taking on the best and the fiercest of the mortal Freeguilds – in fact, most didn’t – but we always saw it as a way of keeping alive certain traditions that would have eventually died if they had been left in the care of the immortals. It was obvious to me that, consciously or not, most selected men and women that reminded them in some way of themselves. This woman was grey-haired, but there was a firmness of muscle to her still and a martial pride in her carriage. I knew her, or a younger version of her.

  ‘Nalys,’ I hissed. The name arrived with me just as she pulled on the latch. One of Barbarus’ chosen ones. Prideful then, fearless and loyal.

  ‘Lord Ham–’ she began, before my hand could smother her mouth. ‘Why are you hiding in a corner of the disarming chamber?’ she hissed, after I’d drawn my hand away.

  ‘The ways of the Stormcast Eternals are not for mere mortals to follow,’ I said, smiling. As I’d hoped she smiled along, assuming that it was just me fooling about at one of the other chambers’ expense, as usual. ‘I need you to do something for me, Nalys.’

  The retainer straightened. ‘Name it, lord.’

  ‘See those warriors out there?’

  The mortal craned her neck back around. ‘The Concussors. Yes, lord.’

  ‘I want you to tell them that Vikaeus’ audience with Frankos and Akturus is going to take longer than she had expected. Tell them to stable the Dracoths and return here to wait for her when they are done.’

  ‘And is it going to take longer, lord?’

  ‘The trick to making people believe in you is to believe in yourself, Nalys.’

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  ‘Believe it…’

  ‘Yes, lord. I will, lord. Her audience is going to take longer than expected.’ Sucking in a big breath, the armsman stuck out her chin and marched back towards the front gate.

  I was counting on the fact that the Knights Merciless, like most Stormcast Eternals, would have forgotten the retainer’s existence the moment she had stepped out of their eye line. With any luck they wouldn’t notice that she was coming from the servants’ stair, whereas Vikaeus had departed by the main doors. I crossed my fingers. I was probably worrying over nothing. They probably wouldn’t even recognise she was the same woman as before. I watched from hiding as Nalys relayed my message. After a brief back and forth, which my heart spent most of firmly in my mouth, they turned their mounts about and headed back into the wind.

  I grinned as I watched them leave.

  Stormcast Eternals, and exalted heroes like the Paladins of the Exemplar and Extremis Chambers are the worst for this, have always underestimated the worth of the mortals amongst them.

  I crossed Nalys’ path as I made for the now unguarded door. She winked at me. I thumped the sign of the comet against my breastplate. And then we were off on our separate ways.

  The low sun and stinging wind stabbed my eyes the moment I stepped outside.

  To my right, the two Concussors were leading Cryax and their own mounts by the bridles towards the stables. Built by visiting duardin masons in the Azyri style, and to Dracothion scale, the stone outhouse looked more like a fortress than the keep it was attached to. It was well kept, but empty. Quiet, save for the desolate scratch of a single stable boy’s brush. Neither the Imperishables nor the Bear-Eaters – nor the Heavens Forged, apparently – benefitted from the might of any Celestial beasts in their number. The stables had been constructed on Vikaeus’ order.

  To my left, the rock of the Gorkomon rose sheer and impenetrable, breaking through the Seven Words’ meandering inner fortifications, buildings clinging to it all the way down to the outer walls and the Morkogon Bridge.

  The front door.

  My way out.

  I hurried down the granite steps and through the inner bailey, waving casually to the duty watchmen, who waved cheerfully back as I ran under the portcullis and into the wards. I clattered down worn steps. Hurtled along fiercely sloping streets. Street vendors and townsfolk, begga
rs and urchins, haunted-looking souls that must have been war refugees from the Gorwood outposts; they clogged the narrow lanes like moss in a gutter. None of them so much as pulled a leg out of my way as I barrelled through them. Quite the opposite, in fact.

  ‘Hamilcar is here!’

  ‘Praise Sigmar for you, Hamilcar!’

  ‘Tell the vermin that the Ward of Akenfel sent you with their blessings, Hamilcar.’

  Akturus or Vikaeus would have walked down the same streets and found them suspiciously deserted, but for me the crowds came in force. At every street corner they mobbed me. Out of every pile of stones dedicated to Sigmar or Gorkamorka, or to the scores of local deities to wind and tree whose worship persisted, they flocked. Under the warmed terraces of every blacksmith and brownsmith and shoer of horses, they rejoiced in my name.

  ‘Hamilcar. Hamilcar. Hamilcar.’

  I cast a furtive glance back towards the keep.

  My plan to slip out of the fortress unnoticed was not exactly falling within the vague outline I had plotted for it.

  Responding to the acclaim with a painted grin and the occasional flexed bicep – for some appearances need to be maintained – I pushed through the adoring crowds as quickly as I could. I waded through a hundred or so well-wishers, gathered outside a building fronted with the emblem of the Grand Conclave where soldiers and officials were parcelling out food, and onto the one real road in the Seven Words, which the first occupiers from Azyr had endearingly called the Bear Road. The cobbles were broken and clotted with weeds, flanked by crumbling stonemasonry that rolled down the steep incline towards the gatehouse. Beyond that massive piece of stonework, designed and built by Lord-Ordinator Ramhos of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer, the horizon bristled with peaks. The dark stone and crag ice of the Morkogon loomed largest, its goliath bulk studded by the occasional stray cloud.