by Warhammer
‘Chosen, welcome once more to our shrine,’ she said, spreading her arms wide, then bringing her hands together to form the sign of the Opening Gates. The Chosen repeated the gesture, young and old alike mimicking the prophesied opening of the Gates of Azyr.
‘What is this life?’ she asked, falling easily into the rote prayer of her order.
‘Corruption,’ they chorused back at her. ‘Suffering. Pain.’
‘What must we do?’ she asked them.
‘Wait,’ they replied. ‘Watch. Endure.’
‘For what do we wait, and for what do we watch?’ she asked, her voice as strident as any priestly rhetorician.
‘We wait for Sigmar’s Last Warning,’ they answered in voices brimming with fervour. ‘We watch for the signs.’
‘And when the last warning comes, my Chosen, what then shall we do?’ she cried.
‘We shall return! We shall pass through the open gates of Azyr and be offered succour in his realm forevermore.’
‘And what, my Chosen, what shall become of the unbelievers?’ she demanded, voice hard as stone.
‘Eternal suffering in the fires of the Dark Gods as they consume the Mortal Realms and transform them in their blighted image!’ they answered, some descending into wails of religious horror, others tearing at their garb or their hair. There were some, newer converts or the less suggestible, who looked alarmed at these outpourings of religious fervour, yet not one of them took a step away. Krysthenna smiled a hard smile and produced a tattered chap-book from within her robes. Riffling its well-thumbed pages, she opened it to a passage she knew well and read aloud.
‘And lo, though the tribes of Azyrheim did return to the Mortal Realms, their exodus was but a test from the God-King to ascertain their worthiness and their faith, for the heavens had no room for the unbeliever. And the Mortal Realms were beyond salvation and only the Realm of the Heavens had known not the touch of the daemon nor the daemon’s deluded thrall. And in those places where Chaos had lain its taint, there the servants of Sigmar would know no true succour, but only suffering and pain and the slow erosion of the soul. For we are made of the stuff of the stars themselves, my Chosen, and unto them the truly faithful shall return when the clarion call doth sound. But to his truly faithful Sigmar did tell this secret, and he did instruct that they seek his signs, and answer his challenges of their worthiness, and listen always for his warning upon the last day. And on that day Sigmar did say that his Chosen should return unto him through the gates of High Azyr, abandoning all those too foolish or too lost so that the fires of Chaos might consume them and all of these tainted realms forevermore.’
She slammed the book shut, sweeping her gaze across the faces of the Chosen, reading the avid hunger, the self-righteous fear and single-minded faith that burned in their eyes. Prayers rose from the assembled mass, which heaved and stirred like a single beast. An electric charge of faith filled the warehouse, seeming to expand until the rafters must surely creak and the windows shatter with its pressure.
Krysthenna held up her hands and her followers stilled.
‘You know, do you not, my Chosen?’ she asked, knowing well the cause of their fervour.
‘It comes, Lantern Bearer,’ cried one old crone.
‘The last day!’ shouted a young nobleman near the front of the mob.
‘The return is nigh,’ enthused a grubby dockman, one of his arms wrapped around the waist of a stocky woman, the other cradling a little girl no more than two years of age. Excited happiness shone from that faithful family, thought Krysthenna, and yes, no little self-satisfaction. And who could blame them, when they had proven faithful where their perceived betters had not?
‘That is what protecting your loved ones looks like, Chosen,’ she shouted, pointing at the man and his family. His little daughter looked around in alarm at the sudden regard of the congregation and buried her face in her father’s broad shoulder. He beamed, and he and his wife held each other a little tighter.
‘You have all seen the signs, for your eyes are open and your minds alert,’ continued Krysthenna. ‘You know the corruption all around you, and you recognise that no physical labour nor worldly possession can amount to ought but tainted lies while we remain within this realm. You have heard of those who have gone missing in the streets at night, the lost and the luckless swallowed by the darkness. You have seen the omens as birds have flown backwards through the skies, and water has run uphill, and vegetables have yielded heart’s blood when bitten into. You have felt the building malice all around us, the growing pressure as the madness of Chaos gathers like a tidal wave to sweep away all our foolish fellows have wrought! In their ignorance! In their arrogance!’
She saw her congregation stir at these words, felt their understanding and heard their prayers.
‘You have all had the dreams, felt the terrible squirming tide wash across you, felt the ground groan and tear beneath your feet, seen the dread visage of the Dark Gods fill the skies above and try to drive your souls from your bodies with its malevolent gaze. And you have endured! You have waited! You have watched! And soon, my Chosen, you shall have your reward.’
A sigh of religious ecstasy passed through the throng, peppered here and there with pious exclamations and oaths of faith and preparedness.
‘What must we do?’ shouted one of the Chosen.
‘How much longer should we wait?’ asked another, and, ‘Do we leave now, Lantern Bearer? The nearest Realmgate is many days to the south!’
Krysthenna clapped her hands briskly, the sound bringing instant silence.
‘Still your questions, Chosen, for questions are the words of the Dark Gods forced through your minds and spat from unwilling lips. Know that I will tell you when the hour to depart is upon us, for am I not Sigmar’s Lantern Bearer in this place? Go, prepare yourselves for a long journey through the gathering dark. Surely, we shall be tested one last time before our return, and those without sufficient faith will not endure the road. Gather food and water, for though all in this realm is tainted it is our duty to sustain this mortal flesh until we may shed it for the starlight of the God-King’s realm. For is it not said that our mortal frailties are but another test that we cannot ignore? But leave all other possessions – they are but flotsam adrift upon a sea of poison, to which drowning fools cling and so are swept to their doom upon the currents of complacency.’
By the time she stopped speaking, Krysthenna was breathing hard, sweat trickling down her back, nostrils flaring and eyes wide. Her Chosen stared at her with fervid adoration and then, having made the sign of the Opening Gates again, they turned and began to file from the warehouse. They went in small groups, quick and quiet, furtive so as not to draw the notice of the watch.
And then Krysthenna was alone in her empty shrine. She moved slowly from one collection of candles to the next, extinguishing their light with sharp pinches of her fingers, unmindful of the building pain from one small scorch after another. Her thoughts were full of the warning, so close now, the last day approaching. She felt tears of gratitude threaten, forced them down along with the trepidation at what challenges Sigmar might set his faithful before the return. Would she be equal to them, she wondered?
‘I must,’ she whispered to herself as she slipped out of the warehouse’s door and into the hammering downpour of the storm. Overhead, lightning crackled through the black clouds, illuminating the stark tangle of rooftops that reared above her.
‘Thank you, Sigmar,’ she said. ‘I will stay strong.’
With that, Krysthenna set off down the street with a sense of purpose burning in her heart.
‘We’re stuck here, then,’ said Hendrick, a sour look on his face. Aelyn could hear the bitterness in his voice, and the underlying tremor of self-doubt she’d detected these past few days. She could smell the old sweat on his skin, mingling with the acidic tang of rainwater and the hoppy scent of the ale in h
is tankard. Aelyn could filter such smells from amidst the fug that filled the inn’s common room, just as she could tease out the specific sounds of her companions’ voices, their breathing, even their heartbeats if she wished, all despite the tumult of conversation, scraping stools, clinking glass and the ferocious roar of the rain against windows and roof. Aelven senses were far sharper than those of humans or duardin. Aelyn had spent centuries honing her control over hers.
It didn’t take such heightened senses to detect the mood of despondent anger that had gripped her comrades since their brusque dismissal from the regent militant’s presence. Hendrick and Bartiman both looked sour and tired. Romilla had an air of betrayal. She kept shaking her head and touching her fingers to the hammer talisman she wore about her neck. Borik hadn’t spoken a word, but when he removed his helm upon entering the common room his thunderous expression had spoken volumes. Eleanora simply seemed anxious; after her initial entreaties that she still be allowed access to a workshop had fallen on deaf ears, she had fished tools and a gadget from her bag the first chance she got and was now working at it with a frown of furious concentration on her face. Only Olt had seemed ambivalent, perhaps even relieved. Yet his mood, too, had soured the moment Captain Morthan revealed they couldn’t leave the city. Olt now sat silently at the inn table with the rest of them, his hood still up and dripping rainwater into the ale clutched in his tattooed hands.
Captain Morthan sat opposite. She had shed her watch cloak and insignia, foisting them on one of her underlings in exchange for a heavy rain-cloak and one of the leather scald-shades covered with holy warding sigils that Aelyn had seen the city folk carrying. She had then led them to the nearest decent inn outside the Holyheart Wall, a place named the Drake’s Crown, and bought them a round of drinks.
‘You shouldn’t be here at all, the city’s entirely locked down,’ she said before taking a long, angry pull from her flagon and thumping it back onto the table. ‘I only let you through because I thought you might be able to convince Selvador to see sense.’
‘You used us,’ said Bartiman, jabbing a bony finger at her. ‘That was not the first time you’ve tried to sway the regent militant to your point of view, was it?’
‘Of course I used you, it’s my duty,’ Morthan retorted. ‘What, you think I just make a personal exception for every band of vagrants that appears at the city gates with some fantastical excuse for why they should be allowed entry? You think those bargemen haven’t assured the militia on the rivergate that their cargo is absolutely essential to the city’s survival? It is my job–’
‘Our warning is essential to–’ Romilla interrupted.
Morthan raised her voice and spoke over her.
‘It is my job to deal with threats to the security of this city, and to make use of whatever resources are at my disposal to neutralise any dangers within the walls. Arch-Lector Hessam Kayl and his militia watch for dangers from outside, my watchmen keep the inside safe. That’s the deal. That’s what Sigmar expects of me. It’s not like we’ve got a Stormkeep sat in the heart of the city – a brotherhood or two of Stormcasts just ready to sweep out and save our arses every time something goes wrong, is it?’
‘You don’t feel that you’re holding up your end,’ said Bartiman, sipping at his tumbler of dark spirits.
‘The regent militant simply will not see the danger,’ said Morthan, the words escaping her like an exhaled breath too long held. ‘I shouldn’t say such a thing out loud, especially not to the likes of you, but there it is.’
‘Precisely what danger do you think threatens?’ asked Bartiman. Aelyn thought he sounded intrigued.
‘I… a Chaos cult? Some hidden cabal? Sigmar’s throne, a curse, maybe? You’re the ones with the warning, I hoped you might know,’ said Morthan in frustration, taking another swig.
‘My brother died for that warning,’ said Hendrick, and Aelyn tensed as she heard how dangerously low his voice had dropped. Ten years she had known Hendrick, a long time by human standards, and she had come to know his temper’s tells very well. ‘My brother died, and we brought his last words here to those who needed to hear them so that his death would mean something. Then you snatched us up and paraded us in front of that man as part of an ongoing feud. You must have known it would prejudice him against our words.’
Captain Morthan had become still and moved her hands away from her drink, down towards whatever weapons she wore at her belt. Good at reading people, Aelyn wondered, or just professionally paranoid? The waywatcher adjusted her own stance so that she could drive a knife through the captain’s wrist if she went for her gun.
‘Your warning had resonance with everything we’ve been going through here,’ she said carefully. ‘I genuinely believed that even Selvador would listen.’
‘Well he didn’t,’ said Hendrick, his knuckles turning white where he gripped his tankard. The metal creaked slightly at the pressure. His eyes were locked on Captain Morthan. ‘We had one chance to make Varlen’s sacrifice mean something. You spat upon it.’
‘The only reason that you delivered your warning at all was because I permitted it,’ Morthan replied, and to Aelyn’s surprise the captain didn’t sound alarmed. She sounded every bit as angry as Hendrick. ‘You’d be sat outside the gates getting rained on if it weren’t for me. Do not hang the blame around my neck for your abject failure. Sigmar’s throne, man, had you even thought about what you were going to say?’ She made a sharp gesture to Eleanora. ‘If she hadn’t recalled the words of the bloody warning and managed to recite them to Selvador you would have landed in the cells! No wonder he dismissed it with the same old saw about Sigmar’s will. Do not make the mistake of believing you were the only one in that room with a lot to lose, Sergeant Saul.’
‘You didn’t lose a brother,’ he growled.
The captain’s eyes hardened. ‘I may yet lose a city,’ she returned.
‘A city that is still in danger because our warning was ignored!’ Hendrick pounded his fists on the table hard enough to spill ale. Aelyn placed a hand on his shoulder and, when he glanced at her, she shook her head, once, sharply. She saw Hendrick become aware that the hubbub of conversation around them had died at his parade-ground shout. Alarmed glances were aimed their way.
He subsided, glowering. Hating himself again, no doubt, she thought.
‘Carry on, good people, carry on,’ said Bartiman, hands raised placatingly and voice as grandfatherly as he could make it. ‘Our friend has had a dram too much, and he’s had a very long day.’
There was some muttering from the folk around them, but the buzz of conversation returned over the next few moments. It did not touch their table, however. The Swords sat and glowered over their drinks. Aelyn listened to the relentless drum of the rain against the windows. The hiss of water hitting cobbles intensified for a moment as another drenched and cursing figure swung the inn’s door open and lunged inside.
Captain Morthan took a deep breath, blew it out slowly. She looked directly at Hendrick.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and Aelyn heard her sincerity. ‘It was not my intention to hijack your quest, and had I truly realised its significance to you…’ she paused, shook her head. ‘No. I would have done exactly the same thing. If there was even a chance that you could have woken the regent militant to whatever this threat is, I’d have paraded you all in front of him until Hysh’s light dawned again.’
‘Why is it you believe the warning we brought is prophetic?’ asked Bartiman, leaning forwards on his elbows. ‘We barely know its true meaning ourselves, and only came this far to deliver it because of the circumstances of its acquisition. But you overrode the authority of the militia-militant and rushed us straight to the heart of Draconium on the strength of a few cryptic lines.’
‘I hoped you knew more than you had said, the actual nature of what Chaos-spawned horror approaches,’ said Morthan.
‘Be that as it may,�
�� Bartiman continued, his airy gesture making the bangles on his thin wrist clank together, ‘what little we do know clearly resonated with you. I think I speak for all my comrades when I say that we are intrigued to know why.’ Borik snorted, but Bartiman pressed on. ‘So, since we’re stuck here anyway, and thus the consequences of any impending threat may well be ours to face as well as yours, indulge us. What has you so unsettled, Captain Morthan? I think you owe us that much after this evening’s events.’
‘Helena,’ she said, raising her tankard then pulling a sour face as she realised it was empty. ‘I’m Captain Morthan when I’m on duty, and this is definitely off the books.’
‘Helena, then,’ said Bartiman, looking expectantly at her.
‘I’m not sure where to start,’ said Helena. ‘It’s been weeks now. We’ve had fights, disappearances, civil disturbance, religious agitation.’
‘Nothing unusual for a large city like this,’ said Romilla.
‘No, but the unrest has risen like a flood-tide,’ said Helena. ‘And there have been all manner of strange circumstances. Grown adults dragged down and eaten by swarms of insects, if you can believe that. Babes and pets snatched from homes, incidences of sudden and inexplicable insanity that have spread like plague. Why, two days ago there was a riot in Fountains Square when a homewife started screaming of great eyes in the sky, and then others near her took up the panicked cry, but then another faction attacked them. Shouted at them to stop “angering the face in the darkness”. Six people died during that fracas and another thirteen were injured, but worst of all was that everyone touched by the violence was found afterwards to have pale purple fungi growing right out of their flesh.’
A couple of the Swords made disgusted noises. Bartiman leaned so far forwards that Aelyn thought he would crawl onto the table.
‘Fascinating,’ he exclaimed. ‘Do you think that the fungus was the cause of the madness? There have been cases, so I have read, of fungal spores driving men mad with fear, anger, even cannibalistic hunger.’