by Warhammer
‘Praise be to Sigmar,’ cried Krysthenna, unable to contain herself. ‘Gather the procession, my Chosen, and let us take the road south to salvation.’
‘Will you lead us, Lantern Bearer?’ asked a red-faced old man in merchant’s garb. His impure skin glistened red in the torchlight where the rain had scalded it, but the expression on his face was one of unalloyed joy.
‘Of course, it has ever been my honour and my blessing, Pieter,’ she replied. Taking a torch, Krysthenna led her faithful along the base of the wall and, as the road turned south alongside the canal, she followed it. The rain hissed from the surface of the waters. In the torchlight, thick mists rolled half-visible over the marshland to Krysthenna’s right. Behind her, Draconium hunched massively in the dark, its lights defiant.
‘Their defiance shall not long last,’ said Krysthenna, and if she was more smug than sorrowful in that moment could she truly be blamed? How many times had she tried to warn them? How many times had she been ignored, spat upon, shunned? Let them face the coming horror, she thought, for there were naught but sinners now left in her wake.
With her flock praying and chanting at her back, Krysthenna led the march towards the distant line of the dark forest. To her right, the mist continued to thicken, and she smelled something sour on the air as its tendrils began to creep onto the road. Truly, the corruption of the Mortal Realms was becoming all too apparent, she thought with disgust.
‘It is fortunate, is it not, that we are departing this ghastly place before damnation descends?’ she said, and several of her followers agreed effusively. Yet a glance showed Krysthenna that many eyes had turned to the thick fog bank now rolling in from the marsh, and nervous expressions were creeping over rain-slick faces as the grey-white vapour rolled like a smothering wave over the road and engulfed the procession of Chosen.
‘Steady your nerve, my Chosen,’ called Krysthenna. ‘We knew that this march would take us through lands overbrimming with damnation. Sigmar has tests for our courage and our fortitude yet, but keep your faith and you shall be saved.’
‘Lantern Bearer, where are you?’ came a muffled voice, floating from amidst the mists.
‘I am ahead of you, and my light leads the way!’ cried Krysthenna, shouting loud to ensure her flock could all hear. ‘Your torches are holy stars amongst these tainted mists, just as your souls are celestial lights amongst the tainted darkness of the realms! Follow the lights, hold tight to the Chosen at your fore and let the Chosen at your back take a hold of your garments. Watch the Chosen to your sides that they might not stray, and those beside the marsh, those beside the canal, stay a solid course! Azyr lies ahead!’
Affirmations floated back to her. Dark shapes moved in the fire-lit fog. Krysthenna pressed on, her pace slow but determined, the hands of her nearest followers gripping her threadbare robes.
Then came the first scream.
It was sudden, shrill and so warped by the dense fog that it took Krysthenna a moment to understand what she had heard. Then came another, and a deeper yell of alarm, then a cry of pain from elsewhere. Krysthenna spun, staring hard into the fog to see what was happening to her Chosen. The faithful near her massed protectively, more of them piling up by the moment as they stumbled from the fog to join the frightened mass of steaming bodies.
‘Lantern Bearer!’ came a thin shriek.
‘Oh, Sigmar. Get it off! Get it off!’
‘Yannick? Yannick where are y–’
‘Pray, my Chosen, pray with all your might and hold your lights aloft,’ ordered Krysthenna, her heart thumping in her throat. ‘This is a test. Only the truly faithful shall be permitted to walk the path of the heavens. Only they shall pass the cleansing gates and walk the road to beauteous Azyrheim. Think of that golden road. Picture those glimmering fields, the starlight that makes them glow. Believe it all shall soon be ours, our reward well earned and paid for in pain. Pray with me now.’
And, as cries echoed through the thickening mist, she led her flock in the prayers she knew would keep them safe.
‘Oh Sigmar, God-King of the heavens and all the Mortal Realms…’
A flurry of screams and cries, growing closer.
‘Shield us, your humble servants, in our hour of greatest want…’
A heavy splash from the direction of the canal, and a terrible wet gurgle.
‘That we might continue on along the path of the faithful…’
An inarticulate shriek of pain, and a crunch that Krysthenna knew was bone.
‘And return to you upon the day of the Last Warning…’
A flare of fire somewhere to the right as something was engulfed in the flames of a torch.
‘With our hearts full of faith and our songs full of love…’
Doubt, creeping into Krysthenna’s mind like poison as the awful sounds continued and something dark flitted overhead, there and gone. She fought it desperately, for if she, the Lantern Bearer, allowed the worm of doubt to creep into her soul then they would all be lost to the rot. Yet how did one not think a thought? The more she tried to focus upon something, anything else, the more the doubt forced its way in. Krysthenna took a step back and something crunched underfoot. She looked down and stiffened as she realised that fat black beetles carpeted the road in a squirming mass. She gave a small, involuntary moan of horror. A figure to her left shrieked as something snatched him away into the fog. Krysthenna’s heart pounded as she strained to see through the mists, trying to work out what was taking her flock, trying to understand why their prayers were not working. Was it her doubt? Had she damned them at the last?
Something flitted behind her, and a terrible cry echoed over her diminished Chosen, something bestial and wholly inhuman.
‘For we are your Chosen, and to us alone shall the bounty of the heavens be revealed,’ Krysthenna finished, her voice wavering as she felt insectile legs scratch at her shins and smelled the dank reek of corruption. ‘For we are your Chosen,’ she repeated, as terror and pain wore away her shield of faith and the mists swallowed her flock whole. ‘For we are your Chosen,’ she said, as she clutched her torch close and spun in a crunching circle, all sense of direction gone. ‘For we… are… your…’
Dark shapes closed in around her.
Red eyes gleamed in the torchlight.
On the ramparts, Hendrick heard a last, shrill scream rise from the dense fog bank. He saw one last torch wink out. His heart pounded, his knuckles hurt where he gripped the ramparts. There was a sour taste in his mouth.
‘And so it is done, Sigmar’s divine judgement delivered and the curse ended,’ said the regent militant, and Hendrick felt anger at the satisfaction he heard in the man’s voice. ‘Captain Morthan, make preparations if you would. We shall open the city tomorrow at dawn. The danger is ended, the necessary sacrifices made. Praise Sigmar.’
With that, Selvador swept from the battlements leaving horrified silence in his wake.
Act 2
NIGHTFALL
‘It comes now rising high above,
It’s heard your hue and cry,
The Bad Moon fills the velvet dark,
And beady is its eye.
Those naughty children that it sees,
No, Sigmar cannot save,
Grobi-the-Blackcap comes for all,
A-squirming from his cave.’
– Azyrheimer nursery rhyme
Chapter Seven
CALM
Hendrick opened his eyes to rosy dawn light. It spilled through the half-open curtains to limn the tired old furnishings with a reddish-gold glow.
It took the sergeant a moment to realise the significance. When it clicked, he untangled himself from his sweaty sheets and padded across to the window. He squinted blearily against the daylight, the after-effects of a late night and one too many ales causing his head to throb.
Hendrick pushed back the curtains and look
ed out through the dirty windows to see the light of Hysh beaming down upon Draconium.
Cobbles and slates gleamed like quicksilver, still slick with the last of the storm’s rainwater. Rain-awnings, saturated by days’ worth of downpour, steamed in the morning’s heat. Despite the early hour, dozens of folk were out in the street; they talked excitedly and revelled in the simple act of venturing out without scald-shades and rain cloaks. Some were setting up produce stalls, eager to hawk wares that had spent days languishing in cellars and back rooms. He saw a man in gaudy leggings and little else dancing up the street, his fingers a blur as he hammered out a tune on a local instrument that Hendrick didn’t recognise, a cheerfully-coloured arrangement of tuned strings and small finger-cymbals. A ragged group of children followed in the man’s wake, and smiling city folk dropped coin into the wide-mouthed wicker basket strapped to his back.
‘Can’t be,’ said Hendrick thickly. He stared blearily at the scattered scraps of cloud that were all that remained of the seemingly-endless storm. The volcanic mountainsides were easily visible all the way up to their smouldering calderas. The forge-red glow of the volcanoes’ fires contrasted sharply with the cobalt blue of the sky.
‘Barely a damned cloud,’ he croaked, before shaking his head and turning away from the surreal cheer of the morning. He needed water, and something fried, and he needed to think about what this all meant.
Hendrick found several of his comrades at the inn’s rear. Behind the Drake’s Crown was a wide yard with a high, whitewashed wall around it, stables on one side and a half-hearted attempt at a rock-garden on the other. The carved stones had been artfully arranged, with various mossy plants and small, tough trees grown up around them by someone with a decent eye for landscape. Hendrick assumed that person wasn’t the current landlord, as Gathe had clearly let the garden grow wild and hadn’t repainted the flaking wooden benches that lined the garden’s edge in a long while.
Still, with the morning light beaming down upon it and rain-steam rising from the tough mosses that clung to the weathered stones, the scene had its charms. Clearly Romilla, Eleanora and Bartiman thought so as they were all tucking into breakfast and mugs of metha while enjoying the simple fact of sitting outdoors. Borik, meanwhile, could be seen over near the stables. He was examining a bulky old wagon that sat on resting blocks just inside the stable doors, a speculative expression on his face.
‘Good morning, Hendrick,’ said Bartiman. The old wizard favoured him with a crinkle-eyed smile. ‘You look about how I feel. Come, sit here in the Hyshlight. It is most invigorating.’
Hendrick sat, closing his eyes and letting out a small sound of contentment as the warm light soaked into his skin. His head was still pounding, and his mouth had that ‘ogor’s latrine’ flavour that too much drink brought on, but he couldn’t deny the daylight felt good.
‘So, no need to state the obvious,’ he said, glancing meaningfully up at the sky.
‘Aelyn felt the change in the early hours,’ replied Bartiman. ‘She’d been out into the streets and come back before I even rose. Apparently, people have been out from first light giving thanks to Sigmar for their salvation. The shrines on Pole Hill are thronging, from what she observed.’
‘Where is she now?’ asked Hendrick.
‘Gone back out to do some more scouting,’ said Bartiman. ‘Our aelven friend doesn’t trust this sudden meteorological miracle one bit, was the impression I got.’
Hendrick’s next question was interrupted by the appearance of a serving girl, the first he had seen turn up to work at the Crown for two days. She quickly took his order of toasted oat-bread, fried runti haunch and metha, then bobbed a curtsey and hurried back inside.
‘Well the smile on her face suggests that she has no such reservations,’ said Romilla. ‘One would suspect that is true for most of Draconium’s folk.’
‘Just like that?’ asked Hendrick, frowning. ‘Days of dark omens and gruesome deaths, and suddenly the rain lets up and they’re all celebrating their salvation?’
‘The regent militant put out a decree at dawn’s first light,’ said Romilla. ‘Cryers carried it through the streets. He’s pinned everything on the Shrine of the Last Days’ Warning, and made it known that he commanded them with Sigmar’s own voice to martyr themselves, that the curse on our city might be lifted. He’s opened the gates, he’s stood down the militia… and, I mean…’ Romilla gestured at the beautiful blue sky above.
‘People whose houses were disintegrating around them will be out on their ladders with rain-wash, treating the walls and roofs, saving hearth and home,’ said Bartiman. ‘Folk who couldn’t perform their trades will be out making coin again. People who thought they were going to starve, or scald to death, or die of disease crammed into overcrowded poor-shelters, have all just breathed one great big sigh of relief and stepped out into the light of a dawn I suspect many feared they wouldn’t see.’ He gave a sudden, surprised laugh. ‘That tenacious bloody bargeman probably got let in this morning, eh?’
‘For the first time in days, I didn’t have the dream last night either,’ said Eleanora.
Hendrick blinked as he realised that his sleep, too, had been untroubled.
‘But still,’ he said, frowning. ‘They cannot believe that it is over simply because one little band of fanatics strayed into the marshes.’ He heard again the shrill screams in his mind. Goosebumps rose on his skin and suddenly the morning light didn’t feel so warm. ‘What happened out there last night?’
‘Perhaps it was divine vengeance,’ said Romilla, avoiding his eye and sipping her metha.
‘Really?’ asked Hendrick. ‘Is Sigmar so jealous in his worship? Does he truly have time to inflict a curse of displeasure upon an entire city because a deluded cult worshipped him the wrong way?’
‘Hendrick, the regent militant was a mighty servant of Sigmar back in his youth,’ said Romilla. ‘He founded an entire city upon faith alone, defeated a mighty champion of Chaos and all his armies, defended this place without any aid from the Stormcast Eternals. His deeds are little short of miraculous. Doesn’t it seem plausible that the God-King might take a personal interest in this place? And can you not at least entertain the notion that perhaps the regent militant’s prayers were answered with clarity, and a terrible blight was expunged?’
‘Didn’t get plucked up in lightning though, did he?’ asked Bartiman. ‘Surely someone that marvellous should have been reforged, no?’
‘From what I saw, Romilla, those fanatics were dead-set on leaving anyway,’ said Hendrick, giving the serving girl a brief smile as she placed his breakfast before him. ‘What did the regent militant really do?’
The girl’s return smile faltered at his words, but she kept its remnants plastered on her face as she hurried back into the inn.
‘For all we know, it was the strength of his faith that repelled the heathens and drove them to go marching out into the storm as they did,’ replied Romilla. ‘I do not disagree that last night was unpleasant, cruel even. But this is a cruel time, Hendrick, and deviance swiftly brings the curse of Chaos down upon us all.’
‘Doesn’t matter why it happened,’ said Borik as he joined them, and his manner was brisk. ‘Fact is, the city’s open, we’ve done what we were hired to do, and we’ve an overdue contract to complete. I’ll talk to the barkeep about hiring that wagon and a beast to pull it. We can be gone by noon.’
‘You want to leave?’ asked Hendrick, finding himself unsurprised.
‘Why would we stay?’ asked Borik, sounding genuinely surprised. ‘Whatever this was, it’s done. We’ve a job to finish.’
‘I’m not convinced we’ve finished this job,’ said Hendrick.
Borik’s expression darkened. ‘We’re done with Draconium, Hendrick,’ he said, his words hammered out like flint. ‘We warned them. We helped. We’re done.’
‘It doesn’t tie up,’ said Hendrick stub
bornly. ‘Varlen’s warning wasn’t about some band of deluded cultists. And just because the storm’s stopped–’
‘Enough,’ Borik growled. ‘Varlen was possessed, or gibbering nonsense! For all we know, we were never here anyway by anything other than ill chance! We’ve a fair wind and a clear heading, Hendrick. Now, are you captain enough to lead us, or are you going to stay here chasing a deeper meaning that doesn’t exist until the Olmori tribe send another mercenary band to take their treasures back by force?’
‘People were eaten by insects!’ exploded Hendrick, thumping the table. ‘The food rotted! The livestock were taken by beasts and plagues! Does any of this sound like Sigmar’s work to you? Does it?’
He glared angrily around at his comrades. Romilla was drawing breath to answer when a new voice replied instead.
‘No, Sergeant Saul, it does not.’
‘Oh, rust take me,’ spat Borik as Captain Morthan emerged from the Drake’s Crown with a pair of watchmen in tow.
‘Captain, you don’t agree with the regent militant?’ asked Romilla.
‘I don’t wish to sound unconvinced of the regent militant’s divine wisdom, but no, in this instance I do not,’ replied Morthan, sitting. She waved her two watchmen back. They took up positions either side of the inn’s rear door, and to their credit Hendrick saw that they remained every bit as vigilant as if the rain had still been hammering down and the dark signs abounding.
‘The storm has gone, the dreams have stopped–’ began Romilla.
‘And yet three more of my watchmen vanished overnight,’ interrupted Helena. ‘And something, Sigmar only knows what, rampaged through an overcrowded poor-shelter in the early hours and left the place looking like an abattoir. And two separate drinking wells were found congealed into green slime this morning. This isn’t over just because the rain has dried up.’