Soul Wars

by Josh Reynolds

  Pharus was nearly thrown from his feet as the chamber shuddered. Pillars cracked and twisted on their bases, before slamming into the chamber floor. Great clouds of dust rose from ruptures in the ground.

  ‘What is this, what’s going on?’ Calys asked. She had retained her footing, but only just. ‘Is this normal?’ The chamber was shaking, as if it had been caught in the grip of ague. Pillars cracked and - crumbled, and the web of chains clattered below.

  Pharus snarled in frustration. ‘No. It’s an adventure every day down here.’ He thrust the ferrule of his halberd against the floor, bracing himself. He saw priests scrambling for safety, and heard the cries of those still caught among the chains in the abyss. He thought of Elya and felt a moment of fear for the child. Briefly, he considered sending someone to search for her, but pushed the thought aside. He had a duty to protect the catacombs, and what lay within. Elya would have to look after herself. At least for the moment.

  From somewhere within the labyrinth, funerary bells began to ring, sounding the alarm He held up a hand. ‘Listen - the bells.’ Each of the twelve major thoroughfares in the catacombs had its own set of bells, with their own particular tone, high up in a reinforced tower. When a thoroughfare came under threat, the bells would be rung by the priests stationed there, summoning aid from the rest of the catacombs.

  Some were silvery temple bells, while others were great, brass monsters, looted from ruined citadels. All of them were ringing now, thanks to the shock waves tearing through the catacombs, but only one set was doing so with purpose - a ponderous sound, like the thunder of inevitability. ‘The Black Bells of Aarnz.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘This way. Along the Avenue of Souls.’ He started in the direction of the bells, Grip at his heels. As he strode out of the chamber, navigating against the convulsions, he gestured to nearby priests. ‘All of you - get to safety. Let the chains look after themselves. Go!’ The mortals streamed away, the able-bodied helping the wounded. Calys hurried in his wake.

  ‘My cohort,’ she began. They passed fallen stones, and Pharus saw broken, ash-smudged limbs sticking out from under piles of debris. Groups of priests worked frantically to free those who might be trapped, and Pharus was forced to send them on their way with gestures and curses. Anyone caught under those rocks was dead, or soon would be. He heard screams, echoing up from distant tunnels, and the crash of stones.

  ‘Your cohort will already be heading in that direction, if they have any sense.’ He glanced at her. ‘Can you taste it? The air has gone sour.’ Chunks of loose stone pattered against his war-plate. It felt as if the catacombs were collapsing in on themselves. For a brief instant, he had an image of them being buried under tonnes of mouldering stone, like the mortal priests. He shook it aside.

  The Avenue of Souls ran along the northern rim of the abyss, beneath an uneven archway of hundreds of stone buttresses, illuminated by innumerable flickering candles. The buttresses had been fashioned at Pharus’ request by the craftsmen of the Riven Clans - duardin, long dispossessed of their ancient homelands, who had come to Shyish seeking new ones. In Glymmsforge, they had found such a place.

  The ramparts held back an unmoving mass of tombs and mausoleums, piled atop one another in untidy fashion. Once, they had lined the slope in neat rows, with great steps and porticos to connect one row to the next. But time and disaster had rendered them into a morass of stone, held from complete collapse only by the duardin-crafted ramparts.

  A mausoleum broke loose from its perch and tumbled down the slope, smashing aside smaller vaults in its plunge, before finally crashing into a buttress and collapsing it. An avalanche of broken stone swept dangerously close and spilled across the pathway, momentarily obscuring everything in a grey haze of dust. Coughing, Pharus waved a hand, trying to clear the air. His eyes narrowed as he noticed motes of purple light dancing through the cloud. ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘What?’ Calys coughed.

  ‘The air - feel it? It’s…’

  Grip snarled a warning. Pharus, acting on instinct, swept his halberd out. A decaying corpse slumped back, minus its head. More bodies stumbled out of the dust, reaching for the two Stormcasts with crumbling fingers. They were wrapped in burial shrouds, their mouths sewn shut and their eyes hidden behind folds of cloth. None of this seemed to hamper them, however. They pressed close, in eerie silence. Purple sparks danced across their juddering limbs and through the rents in their decaying flesh.

  Grip darted forwards, beak snapping shut on a desiccated leg. The gryph-hound jerked the deadwalker off its feet and began to drag it away. Calys swung her shield into position as a corpse lunged towards her. Her warblade snipped out, removing the groping hands at the wrists. Pharus watched her fight, analysing her technique even as he swept his halberd out in a wide arc. The way a warrior fought was as good a look into their soul as any.

  Calys fought like a miser. No movement wasted, every twist of her blade a thing of precision. She created a cage of steel about herself, and then expanded or contracted that cage depending on the needs of the moment. It spoke to a certain efficiency.

  A corpse floundered against him, broken fingers scrabbling at his chest-plate. He swept it aside and smashed it from its feet. More of them staggered out of the dust, twitching as the magics that animated them flared and pulsed, out of control. The ground shuddered beneath his feet. There was a sound like thunder, tolling up from below. He could hear screaming as well, and shouts.

  More bells had begun to ring throughout the catacombs, as his warriors reacted to the threat. Pharus had devised a number of stratagems and drilled his warriors in them. The order in which the bells rang would tell them what to do, where to go. But never before had so many bells rung - and never all at once.

  The dust grew thick on the air, coating his war-plate. He lost sight of Calys for a moment, as the cloud roiled. He felt the ground shake as another pillar fell. The ground shuddered so wildly he barely kept his feet. Stone ruptured and chains burst. Spectral faces congealed in the dust, only to dissipate moments later. He saw Grip drag another walking corpse to the ground as he spun his halberd in a tight circle, momentarily casting the deadwalkers back. There seemed to be hundreds of them, pressing in from all sides.

  Calys fell back towards him ‘We’re cut off. Nowhere to go.’

  ‘Then we hold what we have,’ Pharus said. He considered unhooking his warding lantern, but dismissed the thought. Its holy light would have little effect on the dead. Better to deal with them the old-fashioned way - brute force. He thrust his halberd forwards, crunching it into a deadwalker’s chest. He heaved the twitching carcass up and hurled it into its fellows, knocking several of them to the ground. But more pressed in.

  The air parted suddenly, as something fast and bright pierced the gloom A sizzling arrow punched through a corpse’s skull, spinning it around and casting it to the ground. More arrows followed the first, plucking the dead from their feet. The dust tore like cloth as Stormcasts charged through, falling upon the deadwalkers like wolves.

  A trio of Retributors forced their way through the press, their lightning hammers casting broken corpses from their path. Liberators and Judicators advanced slowly in their wake, finishing off any deadwalker that managed to avoid the crackling arcs of the Retributors’ hammers. Pharus recognised the warrior in the lead - Briaeus, Retributor-Prime.

  He was clad in the heavy bastion armour of his conclave, decorated with tokens of death and good fortune. He swung and spun his hammer with graceful ease, wielding it like an artist might wield a brush.

  He called out to Pharus as he smashed a quartet of corpses to the ground. ‘Ho, lord-castellant, are you in need of aid?’ One of the deadwalkers hauled itself erect, and he caught it up by the neck, as if it weighed nothing.

  ‘If I were, you would be the first I’d call for, Briaeus. Now, tell me,’ Pharus said, clasping the Retributor-Prime’s forearm. ‘I heard
the bells.’

  ‘The sleepers have awoken,’ the big warrior rumbled. ‘The lesser dead, all throughout the catacombs. It’s as if someone reached into every mausoleum and tomb, and shouted them awake, all at once.’ He glanced up and quickly stepped to the side as a chunk of masonry crashed down and shattered. ‘And the catacombs are coming apart at the seams.’

  ‘They’ll survive,’ Pharus said confidently.

  ‘That’s not what I am worried about,’ Briaeus growled. ‘These quakes are tearing open even the most tightly sealed of the tombs - there are things abroad in these tunnels that should not walk.’ He hefted the struggling deadwalker and shook it, as if for emphasis. Its spine snapped, and the Retributor slung it away from him with a growl of disgust.

  ‘What could be worse than walking corpses?’ Calys asked.

  Somewhere, out among the tombs, something screamed. A long, low wail of desolation, echoing down through the broken hummocks of stone. Pharus looked at Calys. ‘I expected you to know better than to ask such a thing, and here, of all places.’

  Calys shook her head. ‘My apologies.’

  Above them, specks of witch-light danced through the tombs. Behind them, a great clamour rose from the abyss, as of many muffled voices, shouting in their confinement. Pharus glanced uneasily past the pillared supports of the ramparts, at the edge of the pit. Briaeus was right. It was as if something had woken all of the dead beneath Glymmsforge.

  ‘Is this some… spell, perhaps?’ Briaeus asked.

  Pharus shook his head. ‘If so, it’s unlike any we’ve seen before.’

  Another scream sounded. More voices were added to that hellish choir. They echoed throughout the chamber and were joined by others from elsewhere. It sounded as if the entirety of the catacombs were howling.

  ‘Lord-castellant - look.’ Calys pointed.

  Something like a mist had begun to drift down the slope, gathering speed. It flooded between the tombs and swept through the shattered gateways, pouring down over the broken porticos. Motes of violet light swirled within it, growing brighter as it drew closer to the Stormcasts. Pharus slammed the ferrule of his halberd down on the ground. ‘Form up, form up. Shields to the fore!’

  Liberators hurried to form a shield wall. Pharus was pleased to see Calys take her place, without waiting for his order. Sigmarite war-shields were locked together to form an unbreakable bulwark. Judicators raised their bows and sent a volley of crackling arrows arcing over the heads of the Liberators. The arrows sped down, and muffled explosions of lightning flared briefly beneath the mist. Undaunted, it rolled on, picking up speed, as the screaming intensified.

  Pharus grunted. That wasn’t good. ‘Brace and hold,’ he snarled. Briaeus and his Retributors stepped forwards, lightning hammers at the ready.

  ‘I prefer deadwalkers,’ the Retributor-Prime said.

  ‘So do I,’ Pharus said. He lifted his halberd. At his side, Grip crouched, feathers stiff, tail lashing. The gryph-hound whined shrilly as the mist billowed down the crest of the slope and spilled over the buttresses. There were distorted faces in its convolutions. Wide, howling mouths and bulging eyes that swelled, split and disgorged more of the same. A constant, churning mass of spectral agony.

  Nighthaunts. Hideous spirits that had no corporeal body to speak of. Some were the restless souls of the wrongfully dead, while others had been wrenched from their living bodies by dark magics and cast adrift into eternity. Regardless of their origins, the result was always the same - a hateful creature of undeath.

  The fog bank of howling souls struck the shield wall a moment later, and rolled over it. Sigmarite warblades, crackling with the lightning of Azyr, passed through the whirling storm of lost souls with no resistance. The weaker spirits came apart like smoke and fluttered away. But the stronger ones thrust aethereal claws through the joins in the Stormcasts’ war-plate. The dead could not easily be killed, but they had little difficulty harming the living.

  Wispy talons slid through holes in masks, and Stormcasts staggered, choking. Broken blades and phantasmal weapons crashed down, sometimes with no effect - but other times, the blades bit abnormally deep into armour. Only the Stormcasts’ preternatural skill saved them from agonising death, as the host of spirits enveloped them. Warblades flashed, dissipating some spirits and causing others to retreat. But not enough.

  ‘Hold them,’ Pharus roared. ‘Briaeus - drive them back!’

  The blows of Briaeus and his fellow paladins were more effective than those of their brethren. The lightning hammers snapped out, trailing sizzling bands of energy, and spirits convulsed and came apart as they were struck. But there were only three of them, and they could not be everywhere.

  ‘Judicators - loose,’ Pharus shouted, whirling his halberd out to tear through the misty neck of a nighthaunt. At his command, the Judicators loosed arrows into the morass of tormented souls, further scattering them, though not permanently.

  Pharus heard Calys cry out and saw her stagger back, a writhing spectre clinging to her. One unnaturally long hand was thrust into her chest. ‘No!’ He swept his halberd out. The blade chopped into the murky substance of the wraith’s form, and it spasmed in apparent pain. His blow tore it from her and sent it whirling away. As she fell backwards, the shield wall began to crumple. Pharus sank down beside her.

  ‘Do you yet live, sister?’

  ‘I… believe so,’ she gasped, clutching at her chest. ‘That… I have… I think I have felt that cold pain before…’ She looked at him, her eyes wide behind the mask of her helm ‘I can see.’ She shook her head, as if confused. He knew what she was feeling, the sudden flood of half-forgotten sensations. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Death,’ Pharus said flatly. Nearby, another Liberator gave a strangled scream as a ghost reached through his armour and stopped his heart with its chill claws. The warrior’s body came apart in motes of crackling, azure lightning as he slumped. With a shuddering snarl of lightning, his soul was cast upwards, back to Azyr and the Anvil of Apotheosis, there to be reforged.

  Pharus flinched away from that light. He had not yet endured a second death, and he had no intention of doing so, if it could be helped. He reached down and caught hold of the back of Calys’ war-plate. ‘We are giants, raised up and cast down, to rid the land of evil and keep safe all that is good,’ he roared, as he dragged her to her feet. ‘Hold fast and swing true.’ He looked at her. ‘Stand, sister.’

  ‘I am fine. It. it. I felt it, in my heart. Squeezing my heart.’ She clutched at her chest. ‘My armour did nothing.’

  ‘It kept you alive,’ Pharus growled. He unhooked his lantern and hung it from the top of his halberd. Where its light touched, the spirits recoiled. They were not of Chaos, but they were corrupt nonetheless. ‘Now ready yourself. They come again. If you must die, let it be on your feet.’ He raised his halberd high, so that the light of the lantern washed across the shield wall. ‘Stand, brothers and sisters. Not one step back.’ He slammed the halberd down, and the light of his warding lantern blazed forth.

  ‘Whatever comes - we hold!’

  Chapter three

  Sigmarabulum

  AQSHY, THE REALM OF FIRE

  In the scented pavilions of Thurn, daemons were screaming. Mortal slaves and warriors, swaddled in silks and silver chains, fled the inhuman wailing, their hands pressed to newly burst ears and their bloody eyes clamped shut. Vainly they sought respite in the far pavilions, sprawled across the rocky convolutions of the Felstone Plains, or in the wilds, staggering into the smouldering darkness of the Aqshian night. But nowhere was free of the daemonic shrieks.

  In the Pavilion of Roses, Havocwild, Headsman of Thurn and Lord of the Six Pavilions, winced as the screams grew in volume and poured himself another goblet of wine. He was a tall man, bronzed by the sun and clad in black silks and golden war-plate, engraved with the sixty-six verses of Slaanesh. He had been handsome once, bu
t more than a century of warfare could wear the lustre off almost anything.

  He stood on a basalt dais, festooned with thick cushions and closed off by curtains of tattered silk. Various weapons and pieces of armour were scattered around the dais and on its slabbed steps. Empty jugs of wine, and trays covered in rotting meats and fruits, lay among them, discarded where his slaves had dropped them before they’d fled.

  Behind him, the screams of the daemons rose in pitch, and the jug in his hand vibrated, cracked and burst, spattering his armour with the dregs of the wine. He sighed and sniffed the contents of his goblet. It was an exquisite vintage, made from grapes grown in the volcanic soil of the Tephra Crater. He tasted it and frowned. The screaming of the daemons had turned it sour. He tossed the goblet aside and turned.

  On the great rugs of magmadroth hide that covered the ground, dozens of daemonettes twisted and writhed. But not with their usual sense of elation. Normally, the Handmaidens of Slaanesh were poetry in motion, graceful and hypnotic. At the moment, however, they lacked all grace, twisting and twitching as if afflicted with ague. Their screams became even shriller, and his eardrums ached in a most unique fashion.

  But like all new sensations, it quickly became tiresome. ‘Enough,’ he snarled, groping for the haft of his headsman’s blade. The massive, two-handed sword had earned him his sobriquet as well as mastery of the Six Pavilions. ‘Either cease screaming, or cease being - but do so swiftly.’ He snatched the sword from its sheath of tanned human flesh and swung it up over his head as he advanced on the closest of the daemons. ‘Whatever game this is, it has become tedious. Stop. Stop!’

  The daemonette continued to howl, tearing at its own androgynous features with crustacean-like claws. It had gouged out its own eyes, as if it had seen something beyond its ability to bear. One moment, the creatures had been cavorting for his amusement as usual. The next, they had succumbed to these strange convulsions. He had never seen the like before, but rather than exciting him with its novelty, the sight made him uneasy.