[Storm of Magic 03] - The Hour of Shadows

by C. L. Werner - (ebook by Undead)

  A WARHAMMER NOVEL

  THE HOUR

  OF SHADOWS

  Storm of Magic - 03

  C.L. Werner

  (A Flandrel & Undead Scan v1.0)

  This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

  At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl-Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

  But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering World’s Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever near, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

  CHAPTER ONE

  2250 Imperial Calendar

  Smoke curled upwards into the darkening night. From the pyres, the last embers slowly lost their fiery glow. A cold wind blew across the field, setting the long grass swaying.

  Slowly, the men surrounding the mounds of ash and charred wood turned away. Starlight gleamed from the plates of steel that encased them—where the polish was not lost beneath the blood and grime of battle.

  The knights marched away in dour silence, their spirits haunted by the malignity of their vanquished foes. Bold warriors who would have happily boasted of felling giants and slaying dragons, men who existed solely to test their valour, still they felt the deathly chill of their enemies lingering all around them. Even in the green country of Bretonnia, even in the hearts of that land’s noble defenders, there were some things too unholy to contemplate.

  The knights did not celebrate their victory. As they climbed into the saddles of their destriers, they did not look back to the scene of the day’s battle. None of them wanted to be reminded of the horrors they had seen. In ghostly silence, the men rode away, moving across the fields, hurrying to the promise of hearth and home.

  Among the knights, one rider lingered, casting a cold gaze across the smouldering mounds of ash. Normally, the burning of the dead would have been peasant work, but there had been no time to levy soldiers from the villages. The importance of consigning the enemy bodies to flame had been too great to wait for gangs of peasants to be brought to the field. That base duty had fallen to the knights themselves to perform.

  The lone knight smoothed the torn tabard he wore over his armour, his fingers lingering against the golden grail embroidered across the breast. His hand fell away from the grail, reaching instead to his belt. From a small pouch, he withdrew a small piece of ivory carved into the semblance of a great eagle. He stared at it for a moment, then shifted about in his saddle, fixing his grim gaze upon the growing darkness.

  There was no one to meet his gaze, but he knew there was something out there in the darkness. The same something that had rallied to his knights during the battle. Volleys of arrows had struck the enemy’s flanks without any sign of the archers. Strange lightning and eerie fires had played about the enemy’s ranks. Weird witch-lights had darted about the knights, guarding them from the blades and magic of their foes.

  A power older than men, perhaps older than the gods themselves, had assisted the Bretonnians and helped them to victory. But it was a power that had first summoned the knights to the field of battle, sending strange visions to Duc Sarlat d’Armen, dreams which had compelled him to assemble his warriors and ride to battle upon the Field of Razac.

  Only once before had Duc Sarlat encountered the mysterious fey-folk, during his Grail Quest. The fey had demanded a boon from him, a favour which they would claim at a later time. The ivory eagle had been the token of that debt.

  Now the debt was closed. The knight had no doubt as to the nature of his mysterious allies, nor to the force which had summoned him. The fey-folk had ventured from their haunted forest to help the Bretonnians, but Duc Sarlat knew it was only because the knights, in turn, had helped the fey.

  “I honour my promise,” Duc Sarlat called out to the night. He glanced down at the ivory eagle. He felt exploited and deceived. Men had died because they had followed him into battle, died fighting for the fey. Angrily his fingers tightened about the carving. “You have your boon!” the knight snarled, hurling the carving into the darkness. He did not hear it strike the ground.

  “Do not call upon me again,” Duc Sarlat snarled. Savagely, he drove his spurs into the flanks of his steed, moving off through the tall grass. He did not see the pale hand which caught the ivory token, or the limpid blue eyes that studied his retreat from the battlefield.

  * * *

  Ywain watched the duc ride away, accepting his scorn with stoic indifference. The human had been useful, but he had achieved his purpose—the purpose she had foreseen long ago. Ywain had guided the knight down the path of life, carefully cultivating his every step, steering him towards this day and the Battle of Razac Field. The crude brutality of the knights had been necessary to achieve victory here, so far from Athel Loren. She had foreseen that as well. The strength of the asrai was tied to their woodland home. So far from that strength, it had been necessary to employ the barbaric humans.

  She might have done without the humans, but Ywain knew that to do so would mean allowing the enemy to enter Athel Loren. That was a risk she was unwilling to take. Not now, not when the Hour of Shadows was so near. If a thing such as Nahak of Khemri were allowed to set foot upon the Golden Pool…

  Ywain shivered as her thoughts strayed to the Golden Pool and the power it contained. No evil thing must ever be allowed near it.

  Such power must never be allowed near an evil mind. The vision of what would happen was one that caused the elf maiden’s skin to crawl. There were some obscenities that even a spellweaver could not countenance.

  Ywain composed herself before turning back towards the archers who had accompanied her and lent their marksmanship to the battle against Nahak and his undead horde. The elves stood scattered about the field, their bows slung over their shoulders, their lean bodies displaying an attitude of ease and indifference. Ywain knew the display was deceptive. The kinband of Thalos Stormsword was as wary as a wolf-pack and could strike as swiftly as a viper. It was one of the reasons she had chosen them to accompany her and aid her in her cause.

  Her blue eyes settled on the rakish figure of the kinband’s leader. The beginning of a smile teased at Ywain’s face. As Mistress of the Golden Pool, her course had been chosen for her long ago and it did not include dalliances with handsome, green-eyed highborn elf lords. Still, she could not reason away the feeling which had buried itself somewhere deep within her heart.

  Thalos noticed the spellweaver’s attention. Wrapping his emerald mantle about his shoulders, the highborn marched to her side, bowing before her and pressing fingers to lips in the traditional gesture of honour before addressing one of Athel Loren’s mystic stewardesses.

  “Lady Ywain,” Thalos said. “The last of the humans have departed. The bones of the grave-spawn have been destroyed upon the
pyres.”

  Ywain stared at the elf lord, trying to read his sharp features for any trace of emotion, hoping against reason to see her own affection mirrored there. All she could find were the cold lights of duty and loyalty.

  “You wish to know if our task is done here? You wish for us to return to the forest?”

  “Forgive my impertinence,” Thalos said. “I did not mean to question the vision of a spellweaver.”

  Ywain frowned at his choice of words. They echoed the doubt that continued to nag at her. Portents and omens were not so easily interpreted as letters upon a page. They were like ripples upon a pond, scattering before the eye could follow them, one rushing into another and creating a third from the ensuing confusion. By leading Duc Sarlat’s knights into battle against the horde of Nahak, Ywain had prevented the liche from marching on Athel Loren. But had the menace to the Golden Pool been ended?

  To know that, she would need to understand the ripples rushing away from the events she had set into motion.

  The moons of Mannslieb and Morrslieb were high in the night sky by the time the elves quit the Razac Field. No eye witnessed their passing, for the folk of Athel Loren were accomplished masters in the art of stealth and any sign of their presence that might be beyond their natural skill to conceal, the magic of Ywain wiped away.

  Their withdrawal was noted just the same. Not by sound or sight or smell, but it was noticed by the creatures lurking in the darkness. They had a sense for magic, after a fashion, and felt the presence of the elves as though icy fingers raked through their fur. Only when that sensation of unease and disquiet left them did the lurkers emerge from their burrows and steal through the long grass.

  The elves had hidden their scent, but they had neglected to blot out the tell-tale stink of battle. Far had the scent of blood and bone carried, scattered by the wind, drawn into the noses of hungry scavengers. Crawling from their holes, the vermin had come to steal whatever provender the battlefield might offer.

  Man-like in posture, yet with the furry bodies of rodents and the fanged muzzles of rats, the creatures scurried through the grass. As they crept across the field, their heads were in constant motion, darting from side to side, nervously watching for any sign of danger. Creatures of the underworld, born in subterranean burrows and reared in darkness, the skaven were uncomfortable out in the open. The naked sky above them filled them with instinctive horror, their fears populating the panorama above them with soaring hawks and monstrous owls just waiting to swoop down upon them with sharp claws and tearing beaks.

  Hunger was the only force powerful enough to bring the skaven to the surface, and all the scrawny ratmen were firmly in the clutches of starvation. There were no easy pickings for the skaven who made their lairs in Bretonnia. The knights of that land were far too vigilant to allow the ratkin to prosper. Unlike other lands, their nobility was too virtuous to be corrupted, too bold to be threatened. So it was that the skaven of the Gnawbone clan assumed a starveling existence, scavenging only those scraps that the knights left unguarded, terrified lest more energetic depredations lead to their extermination.

  Neek Stumblepaw scratched at his mangy, flea-infested fur, sniffing dejectedly at the air. The tantalising smell of blood was there, but not the savoury stench of rotting meat. He ground his fangs together in fury. Just like the vile steel-things to take away their dead. They would rather lock away all that meat in stone vaults than leave anything to feed either vulture or worm. Spiteful, cruel-minded tyrants. Some day the Horned Rat would bring them low, cast down their castles and stone meat-vaults. Then the skaven would be revenged upon the arrogant steel-things. It would be the steel-things who would grovel in the dirt trying to find whatever scraps the skaven discarded.

  Neek lashed his tail in frustration. The knights had left no heaps of carrion behind, but perhaps they had overlooked a few things. A severed arm, perhaps. The ratman’s mouth watered at the idea of such a morsel. Despite the risk, he rose up from the grass and took a long sniff, desperately trying to find any hint of decaying flesh in the air. No, there was nothing. Only the bitter smell of ashes and charcoal.

  The ratman’s ears perked up as his brain analyzed that bit of information. The steel-things would take away their own dead, but they would often burn the bodies of the dirty man-thing slaves who served them. And, of course, they always burned the corpses of their enemies.

  Neek’s belly grumbled as a new image supplanted that of a juicy severed arm. The fires would have burned away all of the meat, but they might not have burned hot enough to destroy the bones. A nice goblin femur or even the broad ribs of a beastkin gor would make a veritable feast for the hungry skaven. Neek’s tongue slid along his fangs, already tasting the sweet repast.

  Other skaven had already reached the same conclusion as Neek. He could smell their excitement as they scuttled across the field, converging upon the bitter-smelling patches of scorched ground where the steel-things had raised their bonfires. Neek cursed his own laxity. He had a foolish habit of thinking when he should be acting. It was a habit which had never served him well, always causing him to lag behind, forced to pick from whatever his fellows overlooked. It was a flaw of character which had earned him the title “Stumblepaw”.

  Hurrying through the grass, Neek rushed past the nearest piles of ash. Already there were mobs of squabbling skaven rooting about, pulling charred bones from the debris. Snarls of anger and squeaks of pain sounded as the larger skaven snatched the bones from their smaller kin. Noisily they cracked the bones open with their fangs and began sucking out the marrow.

  Neek shunned the closer ash-rings and their knots of squabbling skaven. He focused instead on the more distant pyres where there would be fewer skaven and less chance of being forced to fight for his supper. Scurrying across the field, he passed first one, then another pyre, rejecting each in turn as he found verminous shapes already scratching at the ashes. Neek had always been something of a runt and his sketchy diet had rendered him even less fit for a scrap with another skaven. As the scavengers lifted their muzzles from the piles of ash and bared their fangs at him, he bowed his head and hurried on.

  Finally, Neek found himself driven to the last pyre. Even here there were skaven scraping through the debris. They turned towards him, displaying their sharp fangs. Instinctively, Neek recoiled, retreating from the threat. He had only taken a few steps, however, before his belly clenched, sending a flash of pain through his body. There was nowhere else to go. This was the last pyre. If he was going to find anything to eat, it would be here.

  Desperation drove Neek back towards the pile of ashes. His hand closed about the rusty sword thrust through the ratgut belt he wore. Fear pounding through his veins, terror gripping his glands, he rushed at his fellow skaven.

  They must have smelled the change in Neek’s scent, for they once again looked up from their scavenging. One of their number, a black furred killer named Tisknik, whipped out his own sword. One of Clan Gnawbone’s fiercest warriors, Tisknik was also one of its craftiest. That was why he had chosen a distant pyre, knowing the competition would be less, leaving the closer pyres to those skaven who let their bellies rule their brains.

  Neek faltered before Tisknik’s blade, his desperate courage flickering as he saw the gleam of murder shining in the black skaven’s beady red eyes. His foe was quick to exploit Neek’s timidity. Like a flash, the black skaven’s sword licked out, slicing across Neek’s fingers.

  The rusty sword fell from Neek’s paw as he squealed in pain. The runt cringed away, hugging his injured limb to his chest. Tisknik’s nostrils flared as the smell of fresh blood excited his senses. He continued to close upon Neek, but it was no longer anger that burned in the black skaven’s eyes, but hunger.

  Only one thing preserved Neek from the cannibalistic attentions of the larger ratman. Tisknik’s feet disturbed the piled ash, disclosing a jumble of blackened bones. The other skaven rummaging among the ashes spotted the bones and pounced towards them, squeaking excitedl
y. Tisknik was soon too busy trying to defend his find from the other scavengers to bother about Neek.

  Dejectedly, Neek watched the clanrats squabble. Even if Tisknik’s sword killed a few of them, there was little real chance that enough of them would die to give Neek an opportunity to dart in and get some food. The victors would be even more zealous about protecting the meat from a dead ratman than they were about a bunch of old bones.

  As Neek watched the confused melee, he saw something roll out from the ashes, kicked away by one of the fighters. The runt scurried to the object, noting its bony smell. True, it was very old, but there might be some marrow left in it. Without bothering to look at it, Neek grabbed the thing with both paws and hugged it close to his body. Not daring to linger, he scurried off into the grass before anyone could come after him.

  When he felt he was at a safe distance, Neek looked down and inspected his find. His belly clenched tight as he discovered that his prize was nothing but an old man-thing skull. No marrow there, nothing to produce even the slightest morsel. The only bit of nutrition about the thing was the splotch of blood which stained it—blood from his own injured paw.

  Gnashing his teeth in outrage, Neek drew his arm back, intending to throw away the mocking, inedible skull.

  Then a voice seemed to speak to him, a thin whisper that echoed inside his brain.

  Do you throw power away so easily?

  Neek paused, his hackles rising. He glanced about, warily trying to spot whoever was speaking to him. He had a horrible idea where the voice had come from. It took a long time before he dared to look at the skull. When he did, he found that there was a faint flicker of light glowing deep down inside the eye sockets. His glands clenched at this display of sorcery. Again, he moved to cast the grisly thing from him.