Arnhault closed his eyes. The Sequitor-Prime had given voice to the worry that nagged at his own mind. Was the Shrouded King leading them all into a trap?
‘Some bait is worth taking,’ Arnhault told Penthius. ‘Employ what precautions you feel are necessary, but we will not abandon this trail. Wherever it leads, the Hammers of Sigmar will follow.’
Arnhault said no more. He did not dare to. It was enough that following the Shrouded King would lead them to the wraith’s stronghold and allow the Stormcasts to complete their mission: to liberate Wyrmditt from its undead oppressor and reclaim the region from Nagash’s power. This much was the duty that had been entrusted to the Hammers of Sigmar.
There was another reason that drove Arnhault onwards despite the danger. A possibility that was so profound in its potential that he trembled to consider what it might mean.
The process of reforging was flawed. Wresting the spirits of the valiant from the grasp of death at the very moment of their passing gave Sigmar the power to build an army of eternal heroes. But there was a price to such power, a toll that was paid by each Stormcast when their soul was set upon the Anvil of the Apotheosis. An insidious sort of degradation set in, stripping away the memories of what had come before. The Stormcast who fell in battle was reborn in Sigmaron, but each time he left something of himself behind. There were some who had undergone the process so often that only their sense of duty and their devotion to Sigmar remained. In rare instances even this spiritual anchor was lost and the spirit broke free to become a rampaging lightning-gheist, a near-mindless ghost of awful strength.
Reforging wore down the memories of each Stormcast. What they were remained, but who they were was increasingly lost. Arnhault himself had no memory of who he had been before his first reforging. The spells, the esoteric lore, even the history he’d drawn from the libraries of his Sacrosanct Chamber, these were all at his immediate recall. The life that had come before then, however, was a blur – mere impressions rather than memories. Seldom had he even given the lost past much thought. It was enough that he had his duty and his devotion to Sigmar.
At least it had been so until now. Arnhault had felt the Shrouded King’s recognition like a sword piercing his breast. ‘Volkhard’, the wraith had named him, and he knew the name was his own. Just as he knew the undead fiend was Sabrodt and that the creature was a usurper with no right to the crown he claimed.
Arnhault did not know how he knew these things; he only felt them to be true, as true as anything he had ever learned – scraps from a forgotten past rising from some buried part of his being. That they could be conjured forth by Sabrodt was a mystery, one that Arnhault was determined to unravel. The Shrouded King had transcended death, just like the Stormcasts, but he had not lost his memories. Further, he had somehow been able to provoke them in Arnhault’s psyche, stirring them up from whatever secret place they had been buried during his reforging.
Even more than freeing Wyrmditt and ending the terror of the nighthaunts, Arnhault had to discover how Sabrodt had done this to him. How had the wraith made him remember he had once been named Volkhard? The key to unlock that mystery had implications far beyond simply Arnhault’s own lost memories. It could bring about a new age for the Stormhosts and serve to correct the terrible flaw in the reforging process.
If Arnhault could discover Sabrodt’s secret, he and all his fellow Stormcasts need never fear losing their humanity when their spirits were set against the Anvil. They would fully become the heroic warriors Sigmar intended them to be.
The spectral trail led across what had been the frontier and deep into the Kingdom of Kharza. Great stands of blackened trees, their branches scratching at the sky like the claws of skeletons, had risen to reclaim the pastures and fields of more civilised centuries. Black buzzards cried out as they flew through the grey sky, their eyes roving the earth below for the merest scrap of carrion. Lean jackals crept through thorny brush, their noses sniffing the air for any hint of rotten meat on the wind. Emaciated hogs, their hides hanging loose over their bones, pawed at the desiccated soil, greedily devouring the few grubs and beetles their efforts exposed.
Through this wild desolation, the golden armour of the Stormcasts made a stark contrast as they marched onwards. Scouts preceded the main column while strings of pickets watched the flanks. In the midst of his retinue, Knight-Incantor Arnhault maintained a stoic silence, marching with the almost mechanistic step that told his companions he had entered a semi-meditative trance. Left to their own company, Penthius and Nerio took position at the head of the column where they could monitor both the main body and the scouts ahead of them.
‘Another village,’ Penthius pointed out, waving his maul towards a stretch of wilderness where the weeds and brambles exhibited a certain uniformity in the way they had grown. ‘The walls are gone, but you can still see how the plants mark where the buildings stood.’
Nerio smiled at the Sequitor-Prime’s observation. ‘Anything that needs to sink its roots deep can’t do it where there’s a stone foundation to contend with.’ He clapped his brother on the back. ‘I explained as much to you three villages ago. You are so vexed by the possibility of ambush that you are becoming forgetful.’
Penthius uttered an annoyed grunt. ‘I still say we are being led by the nose. The Knight-Incantor suspects as much himself, but he feels it is a risk worth taking.’
‘Do you question Arnhault’s judgement?’ Nerio asked, both surprised and offended by Penthius’ words.
‘I am not so arrogant that I would be so impertinent,’ Penthius replied. ‘But it may be that Arnhault is… Well, to me he seems distracted. And I think that has caused him to lose his sense of perspective.’
Nerio gave Penthius a reproving look. ‘You are questioning the Knight-Incantor’s judgement,’ he accused. He glanced around, noticing that his raised voice had drawn the attention of the Sequitors and Castigators following them. ‘Arnhault has served the Hammers of Sigmar through many reforgings. He is a veteran campaigner who knows his duty.’ Nerio’s tone became almost derisive. ‘What could possibly distract a warrior of his calibre from fulfilling his mission?’
The severity in Penthius’ eyes when he looked at Nerio made the Castigator-Prime stop in his tracks. He did not argue when his brother drew him away from the column and towards the ruined village.
‘I do not know what it is that has disturbed Arnhault,’ Penthius told Nerio, ‘but something happened to change him back in Wyrmditt. There is a shadow hanging over his mind. He has not spoken of it, but sometimes, for just a moment, you can see it if you are watching him closely enough.’
Nerio shook his head and pointed back to the column and at Arnhault’s trance-like march. ‘The Knight-Incantor meditates to bring his powers to their peak. His mind is on the battle ahead of us…’
‘That is just the problem,’ Penthius interjected. ‘Arnhault isn’t thinking about the battle. Not the way he normally would.’
‘What is wrong, Penthius?’ Nerio’s tone was curt. ‘Is he deviating from protocol too much for your hidebound sensibilities?’
Penthius let the jab go unanswered. Instead, he simply gestured to the ruins around them. ‘This is the third village we’ve seen. The deeper we march into what was Kharza, the more evidence we see of how prosperous this land once was.’ He pointed a finger at Nerio’s chest. ‘Consider how populous this land was before Chaos despoiled it. Now ask yourself how many of those people, how many of their spirits, have been drawn into the Shrouded King’s legions?’
Nerio shook his head, rejecting the idea. ‘The Shrouded King was not so mighty when we fought him in Wyrmditt.’
‘But now we will fight it on ground of its choosing,’ Penthius pointed out. He waved his maul at the blackened forests with their skeletal branches. ‘Remember when we first descended upon Ghur and how Arnhault showed us the lingering taint of Chaos? Have you seen any sign of that corruption
here? Or is it all suffering from a different blight, a blight from Shyish and the black power of Nagash?’
Nerio was silent as he weighed the questions put to him. He had done a fair amount of scouting after they’d left Wyrmditt, rotating the duty between all his Castigators. ‘No,’ he confessed. ‘I have seen no evidence of Chaos, only the decay of death.’
‘This is the Shrouded King’s domain,’ Penthius stated. ‘The wraith has led us here on purpose because it is here that it thinks it can destroy us. Among the strictures of combat there is the admonishment to always beware of letting the enemy decide when and where to fight.’
‘If all you say is true, then we have no choice but to fight the wraith here,’ Nerio said. ‘Place our trust in Sigmar that our pursuit of the Shrouded King has been swift enough for us to catch him before he is ready. If we do not vanquish him, then we will fail in our duty here.’
Penthius nodded slowly. ‘We will answer the demands of duty and none shall look upon us and say our honour was in question. But when battle is joined, we must be vigilant. This thing that distracts Arnhault…’
‘You think the Knight-Incantor would do anything…’
‘No,’ Penthius interjected. ‘Arnhault would do nothing to put the rest of us at deliberate risk. But I would not say he would disdain to take such a risk onto himself. If he thought the gain to be had was worth it, he would not spare himself.’ There was a grim look in Penthius’ eyes. ‘That is what we must look for. I worry that Arnhault will underestimate this enemy and take chances with himself that he should forego.’ He looked back to the column and stared at the Knight-Incantor. ‘I think there is some connection between him and this wraith. And I fear that connection may bring Arnhault’s doom.’
Into what had been a land of fertility but was now a haunted domain of lingering shadows, Sabrodt’s spectral trail led the Hammers of Sigmar. Arnhault could feel the change in the air, could sense the macabre atmosphere into which they marched. Throughout the long chase, the landscape had grown steadily more decadent, the unburied corpse of Kharza left to rot under a grey sky. Now, however, that sense of things dead and forsaken intensified to such a degree that he could feel it down inside his lungs every time he drew a breath. Nor was he the only one to be afflicted by that uncanny impression. The Sacrosanct Stormcasts were all attuned to the aether to lesser and greater degrees. He could see the most sensitive among the Castigators and Sequitors pause from time to time in their steps, hesitating as they tried to shake the ghoulish influence pressing upon them.
For Arnhault it was something more than just sensitivity to the necrotic aura of the Shrouded King’s land. From the corners of his eyes he kept catching fleeting images of the Kharza of old. He saw the peach trees with their furry fruit, watched the wind sigh through a field of golden wheat. A sun-bronzed ploughman working the soil. A big white cow idly chewing her cud. Children playing around the walls of a well, their yellow hair flaring in the breeze. All of these scenes called to him, crying out to some part of his being that was impotent to respond. He felt a sense of regret that he did not recognise these phantasms, for he knew they had once been precious to him. When he turned his head, when he would have focused more directly upon these images, they invariably disappeared, consumed by the grimness of Sabrodt’s kingdom.
Sabrodt’s kingdom. Merely thinking of it as such made Arnhault’s body cold with rage. The wraith had done this. Whatever destruction the hordes of Chaos wrought, it was the blight of necromancy that now assailed these lands. Or perhaps the rot was even older than that. The idea suggested itself to Arnhault and would not go away, nagging at the edges of his anger and trying to fan it into a consuming hate.
Kharza had been remade into the decayed semblance of the Shrouded King. Nowhere was this in greater evidence than when the Stormcasts ascended the narrow pass and stood upon the barren plateau. The morbid influence became stronger still as Arnhault gazed across the plain. Here, he knew, was the very root of the nighthaunts, the font from which the undead scourge drew its hideous strength.
Arnhault knew this because he found that he knew this place. Not with an understanding conjured from books and scrolls, but with the wisdom engendered only by experience. He looked across the plain, at the surrounding heights of jumbled stone, the deathly bulks of barrow mounds and ancient cairns – but he did not see these things.
Instead, he saw a great army assembled. Arnhault could hear the snap of banners flying in the wind, could smell the husky scent of war dogs as they were led from their wheeled kennels. He saw cavalry, a great company of high-born sons astride coal-black destriers, their lamellar armour painted with the glyphs of their household gods. The mounted knights were arrayed on the flanks, screened by a phalanx of common pikemen, freeholders drawn from across the kingdom, each responsible for his own weapons and armour. Beside the pikemen were row upon row of archers, professional soldiers maintained by the nobles and the great temples, each company bearing the colours of their sponsor. At the centre, terrible in their blackened mail, were the royal guards of the priest-king himself, warriors chosen from across the domain and from every caste, selected not for the blood of their breeding but for the blood they were prepared to shed in battle. Among them, fighting afoot as was the royal custom, would be the priest-king himself.
Arnhault shook himself, shuddering as he felt a part of himself being drawn into the mirage. Quickly he looked around, fighting to orientate himself in the present. The battlefield of yesterday was washed away, receding into the corridors of his memory.
‘What is it, my lord?’ Penthius asked. There was not only concern in his tone, but also a touch of uneasiness.
‘This is the place,’ Arnhault declared. ‘This is where the necroquake cast its most malignant energies. The Shrouded King will fly from us no longer. Here is where he will fight.’
‘It is a trap,’ Penthius said, looking across the ancient graves.
‘Yes,’ Arnhault agreed. ‘Our advantage is that the Shrouded King does not expect us to know it is a trap. Bold is the dragon who enters the snare knowingly and fierce is his wrath when the hunter comes to claim him.’
Penthius smiled as he lifted the sigmarite mask to his helm and fastened it tight. ‘What are your orders, my lord?’
Arnhault gazed across his retinue. At Nerio and his Castigators with their thunderhead greatbows, at the Sequitors with their stormstrike mauls and soulshields. He looked again at the echoes of the past, at the army of Kharza arrayed for its final battle. He could see now the priest-king, adorned in the jewelled armour of his estate, the clawed crown of his kingdom circling his helm. He felt those royal eyes upon him and he knew the monarch’s name was Volkhard.
‘We advance,’ Arnhault said. He pointed his staff at a small patch of green amidst the morbid waste. ‘That will be our rallying point.’
Penthius nodded and motioned Nerio to join them. ‘It is too much to think we will get that far without being challenged.’ He glanced at the rocky slopes that descended from the sides of the plateau, and to the rocky slopes that bordered its further edge. ‘The nighthaunts are spectres without substance. Difficult ground will be no impediment to them.’ He gave Arnhault a severe look. ‘When they come at us, they will come from every side.’
‘We march in turtle formation?’ Nerio asked. ‘My Castigators at the centre with your Sequitors locking shields?’
‘No,’ Arnhault told them. ‘Not a turtle. A dragon.’ He pointed to Penthius. ‘Divide your warriors into four groups, fore and aft, left and right. At your command, any one section drops down and allows the dragon to expel its flames.’ He turned to Nerio. ‘Your warriors will provide those flames. Each of your maces can break the arcane cord that maintains the undead. As we advance, the Castigators will maintain a steady barrage. The Sequitors will hold the enemy back with shield and maul – you will finish them with your volleys.’
‘As you command,�
� Nerio replied, excitement in his tone.
‘The plan is a sound one,’ Penthius said. ‘A similar tactic was employed by Lord-Celestant Kadir Lingh at the Battle of the Cursed Fountain and he was able to successfully fend off three thousand beastkin with less than a hundred warriors.’ He shook his head. ‘Of course, our foes are more formidable than beastkin and–’
‘And there is the fact we will be advancing while we are in formation instead of just holding our ground,’ Nerio added. He saw the surprise in Penthius’ eyes. ‘I am familiar with procedure – it is just I seldom find it applicable.’
Arnhault gestured with his staff at the plateau. ‘Your Castigators must move and fire,’ he told Nerio. ‘How quickly they do so will set the pace of our advance.’
Nerio saluted the Knight-Incantor. ‘We will not fail you, my lord.’
Arnhault nodded and dismissed his brothers. They had their warriors to make ready and he, he had his mind to prepare. The battlefield was of Sabrodt’s choosing, a place steeped in the blood and death of Kharza’s last stand against Chaos. The Shrouded King had chosen this site because it was here that his dominion was strongest.
His eyes drawn again to that small spot of green, Arnhault considered that it was also here that Sabrodt’s dominion was not complete.
A chill wind whipped across the plateau as the Stormcasts began their advance. Nerio could feel the clammy clutch of the grave pawing at him, reaching down inside him with cold fingers that scratched across his very soul. He closed his hand tighter about the hammer talisman he bore and whispered prayers until the profaning energies abated. Around him he could hear other Stormcasts following his example; many of his Castigators and even a few of the Sequitors were trying to drive away the defiling emanations.
The Hammers of Sigmar maintained a loose formation. Penthius would give the command to close ranks and become the dragon of Arnhault’s plan. The intention was to lull the Shrouded King into complacency, to make the wraith believe that they were haplessly following him into his trap. To alert the their foe early would be to fight for every inch of ground. This way they would be able to gain some distance unchallenged.
Sacrosanct & Other Stories Page 7