‘Praise Sigmar,’ Arnhault intoned, thanking the God-King for granting him the power to break through the wards. Only for a moment did he pause within the entrance. Then, conjuring a golden glow to surround the head of his sigmarite staff and illuminate his way, Arnhault hastened into the tomb’s murky halls.
The inside of Sabrodt’s barrow had a musty, decayed stench. The reek of old bones was omnipresent, as was the stink of soil from which all vitality had been drained. Even with Arnhault’s spell to light his way, the corridor was cloaked in gloom and shadow. He would almost be upon some niche in the wall before he was able to discern the sarcophagus of an ancient king or valiant knight. There were places where faded murals and tattered tapestries ran along the hallway, their artistry now wasted almost to the point of oblivion.
The hall angled sharply downwards, plunging ever deeper into the cursed earth beneath the mound. The further he penetrated the tomb, the more Arnhault felt a crushing weight pressing upon him. Not the mass of stone above, but rather an emotional pollution that perverted the atmosphere. A miasma of misery and bitterness that dragged at him with almost physical force. The contagion left behind by the Shrouded King’s festering thoughts.
Arnhault hesitated when a dust-veiled mural caught his notice. Singing a minor cantrip, he sent a blast of wind across the wall, driving away the dirt and revealing the image hidden beneath the patina. What stood exposed was a scene of the heroine Sofira with her obsidian spear embedded in the primary head of the hydra Rhasst. A shiver coursed through Arnhault, a tremor that magnified the fury he already knew. It was not the memory of the ancient legend that upset him, but rather the memory of where he had seen this mural before. It had adorned the royal palace of Kharza.
The Knight-Incantor quickened his pace, no longer caring that he might trigger some trap left behind by Sabrodt to guard his tomb. Aware now that the Shrouded King had violated the royal palace to decorate his grave, Arnhault began to see other pieces that should have been in the home of the priest-kings. With each discovery, his outrage at the Usurper’s effrontery was redoubled.
By the time Arnhault reached the centre of the tomb, to that great hall where Sabrodt had built his morbid imitation of Kharza’s throne room, he was ready to tear the barrow mound apart stone by stone. When he saw this ultimate profanation of the royal house he was overwhelmed, sickened by the macabre scene. The Dragonseat, from which the monarchs of Kharza had ruled the land, now dragged down into a cobwebbed crypt deep beneath the earth.
The shadow that reposed on the Dragonseat stirred, turning the smouldering fires in its skull towards Arnhault. There was scorn in that gaze, the smug defiance of a thief confronted with his crime.
Arnhault glared back at Sabrodt.
‘You are in my chair.’
Cold malice flowed through the essence of Sabrodt, permeating every corner of his spectral being. The purity that Arnhault exuded, the taint of Azyr that emanated from his golden armour, stung the wraith’s senses, an irritation that at once both vexed and provoked.
And the Shrouded King was already provoked. His ire had been roused the moment he had recognised Volkhard in Wyrmditt.
‘I looked for you among the dead, Volkhard,’ Sabrodt hissed. ‘How long and earnestly I probed the Underworlds seeking your spirit.’ He raised a fleshless hand and pointed at the Knight-Incantor. ‘Now I understand why you were not there. Sigmar stole you from Great Nagash and made you one of his mindless puppets.’
Arnhault raised the sigmarite staff he bore and shook it at the sneering apparition. ‘You will not profane the name of the God-King, usurper!’ At his gesture, a bolt of lightning flared through the gloomy hall.
Sabrodt did not stir from the throne. There was no need. The lightning fizzled before it could come near to him, shattering into a cascade of flickering sparks. ‘How much the God-King has taken from you, wretch!’ he snarled, his hands sliding across the arms of the throne. ‘This is the Dragonseat, enchanted by the Magi of Yordo to defend the royal blood against all spells that would render him harm. You should know these things, Volkhard. It is useless to turn your magic against the priest-king of Kharza.’
‘Then I will pull you down from your stolen throne with my bare hands,’ Arnhault growled. He rushed towards the Dragonseat.
A burst of deathly power threw the Stormcast back, repelling him as completely as the arcane lightning he had conjured. Arnhault staggered, his golden armour singed by the repulsing force.
‘The Dragonseat protects the king from assassins,’ Sabrodt’s ghoulish tone descended into a hateful snarl. ‘Even those assassins who were once kings.’ The last word was poison in Sabrodt’s mouth, forcing him to concede that there had been a time when Volkhard ruled Kharza. It was a memory hateful to him, so he decided to evoke one he sensed would be just as unsettling to the Stormcast. He leered at Arnhault, willing his spectral essence to rebuild for a moment the face that had once rested upon his skull.
‘Have you forgotten even this?’ Sabrodt asked, at once shocked and disgusted by Arnhault’s response, his lack of agitation at gazing on the wraith’s mortal visage. ‘Can so much of who you were have been taken from you?’
Sabrodt could see the Stormcast’s confidence falter. He saw the glimmer of confusion in Arnhault’s eyes. Just as the name of Volkhard had drawn together the scattered fragments of memory, so now did the Knight-Incantor react to the Dragonseat.
‘I was furious when your spirit escaped from me,’ Sabrodt said. ‘When the power of Nagash raised me from my grave, I sought you, but you were not to be found. Even the spot where you died has defied my influence.’ A scornful hiss rattled up from the wraith’s essence. ‘Now I see there was no reason to be angry. Sigmar has done far worse to you than I should ever have imagined. He has stripped your identity and left you naught but a hollowed shell. A zombie that deludes itself into believing it is still a man.’
Arnhault shook his head, revulsion in his eyes. ‘Brother,’ was the word that dripped from his tongue.
Sabrodt rose up from the throne. ‘Yes. Brothers.’ He pointed to his phantasmal face. ‘A visage the very mirror of your own. But for the accident of a few heartbeats, I would have been king! But it was you who was drawn from mother’s flesh first. I was but a contingency, trained only as successor in case you should perish. Mine was a shadow existence of observing all that could have been mine, yet knowing that it would never be.’ He clenched his bony fists, the loathing he felt causing his phantom features to vanish and leave only the fleshless skull. ‘So long as you were alive, I was nothing!’
The Stormcast glared at Sabrodt. ‘You are still nothing,’ he jeered. ‘You don’t even have a body, a twisted spirit too wretched to rest in its tomb.’
‘No!’ Sabrodt’s roar boomed through the hall. He stretched his arms wide and exerted his hideous will. From the darkness, shadows gathered. ‘I rule here now! Kharza is mine! Everything is mine!’ He glanced from side to side as the nighthaunts took shape and began to surround the Stormcast.
‘I am the Shrouded King! It is you, Volkhard, who are nothing!’ Sabrodt gestured to one of the wraiths, a thin apparition draped in black with the crossbeam of a gallows lashed to its back. At his gesture, a billowing mass of darkness spread across the ghost’s hands, hardening until it had taken the appearance of a gleaming double-axe. ‘You will die, Stormcast. My executioner will cut the gilded head from your shoulders, and this time we will see if Sigmar can cheat Nagash of your soul.’
‘By volley! Loose!’ Nerio shouted as the black cloud of wraiths came rushing against the Stormcasts once more. The explosive maces detonated only a few feet from the crouching Sequitors, sending crystalline shards clattering against their soulshields. Dozens of the shadowy ghosts were ripped apart in the impact. Those at the centre of the blast were banished entirely, their essence consumed by the Stardrake’s breath within. The wraiths on the periphery of the explosions, however, were not comple
tely destroyed.
Scattered by the maces, Nerio did not believe the chain-draped phantoms could have reunited their essence on their own. Certainly not as quickly as they did. It was the ghastly corpse-light held by one of the spectres that was infusing the wraiths with such power. Almost as soon as the sound of the explosions was fading, the disincorporated ghosts were taking shape once more and converging upon the Hammers of Sigmar.
‘We could beat them back, brother, if it were not for that accursed lantern!’ Orthan snarled to Nerio as he hastened to the latest breach in the shield wall. His greatmace came cracking down upon the phantasmal skull of a scythe-bearing wraith, shattering the creature in a burst of necrotic vapour. The Sequitor the undead had sliced with its ghostly blade struggled for a moment to rise and then collapsed. An instant later he vanished in a bright flash of light, his spirit drawn back into the keeping of Sigmar.
Nerio aimed his thunderhead greatbow and sent an explosive shot crashing through the wraiths that came rushing towards Orthan. The apparitions vanished in a cloud of celestial energy. Before any others could charge the breach, the remaining Sequitors repositioned themselves to repair the shield wall.
Several of the Sacrosanct Stormcasts had been dragged down by the nighthaunts and with each loss, the space within the formation became ever tighter. Orthan was having difficulty manoeuvring and reaching the gaps. Soon there would not be room enough for all of Nerio’s Castigators to remain behind the protection of the Sequitors.
‘They will wear us down if we continue to fight them this way.’ Nerio looked past Orthan to where the pale wraith and its ghoulish lantern continued to draw spirits from the dead earth and reshape the ones the struck down by the Stormcasts. Arnhault had pursued the Shrouded King; perhaps without their undead lord the rest of the nighthaunts would lose their foothold in Ghur and fade back to the Underworlds. But for such an event to help the Hammers of Sigmar, they would have to keep from being overwhelmed.
‘By Sigmar, we will hold,’ Nerio vowed. He gestured towards the lantern-bearing spectre. ‘Either we will be the doom of that fiend or it will be the doom of us!’ He looked across the Sequitors and Castigators, proud that these warriors would accept his command even if it was far from anything to be found in the martial strictures Penthius knew by heart. ‘It does no good to hold position here. On my mark, we will make a drive for that corpse-calling wretch! I want ten Castigators to alternate with the Sequitors in the vanguard. As you shoot, fall back and allow one of your brothers to take your place. Sequitors will defend you as best they can. It will need speed and boldness to prevail. If the lampbearer flees before us, we must catch it or we gain nothing.’
Holding his thunderhead greatbow high, Nerio shouted to the Stormcasts. ‘For Sigmar! For the Heldenhammer! To glory and victory!’ On his command the Stormcasts shifted positions. A wave of oncoming wraiths were surprised by the reformation, extinguished by the concentrated volley of crystal-headed maces that shot out at them the instant they came near the shield wall. The first Castigators fell back, letting warriors with loaded greatbows take their place. The redeployment happened even as the armoured warriors marched across the plateau, none of them missing a step.
The nighthaunts came at the Stormcasts from all sides. The Sequitors on the flanks and rear were especially hard-pressed to hold off the undead assault, for this time there was no withering volley from the Castigators to break the attack. There was no alternating glow of maul and shield as the Sequitors made their reprisals upon the nighthaunts. Now the soulshields maintained a steady illumination as the Stormcasts focused their energies entirely upon defence. Trying to present an unbroken front against which the wraiths would crash, they lost the versatility that had served them before. One by one, Sequitors were pulled down, stabbed by glaives and scythes that managed to slip past the warding shields.
Nerio felt the fall of each Stormcast like a knife twisting in his guts. He knew they were being brought down because of his change in tactics, but he also knew that if they didn’t change tactics then they would not be victorious. The lampbearer had to be vanquished if they were to prevail.
‘Castigator-Prime!’ one of the Sequitors in the vanguard cried out. ‘The ghostmaster knows our plan! It is sending even more wraiths to intercept us!’
Nerio looked to Orthan. ‘I think it will need something even more unexpected and reckless to carry the day,’ he said. ‘I should appreciate your aid.’
Orthan nodded and hefted the bulk of his greatmace. ‘Show me where you want violence.’
Nerio gathered a group of ten Castigators. ‘Hold back and do not rotate with the others,’ he told them. To the rest of the Stormcasts, he gave different instructions. ‘We will rotate archers three more times. On the fourth rotation, the front rank will drop down as they loose. Then the reserves will open up. You are going to cut a tunnel through the wraiths for myself and Orthan to reach the lampbearer.’
Nerio and Orthan kept in the centre of the formation as the Gilded Sphere advanced towards the spectre. The wraiths came rushing the Stormcasts from each direction, attacking with a vengeance. More Sequitors were dragged from the line and even a few of the Castigators in the van were brought down. Then came the moment for the double-volley Nerio had arranged. The front rank dropped to one knee once the fourth rotation was in place. Two lines of Castigators sent a withering hail of thunderhead maces into the tide of undead. Those in the fore were extinguished in flashes of brilliant light. Behind them, scores more were immolated by the draconic energy, the shreds of those blown apart in the first volley evaporated completely by the explosions from the second.
A gap ten paces wide had been opened in the wave of nighthaunts. Into this fissure, Nerio and Orthan plunged. The Sequitor led the way, sweeping his greatmace through the few wraiths that moved to block their charge. The apparitions were battered by the heavy weapon, their aethereal substance ripped apart. There was no chance to make certain of their dissolution as the two Stormcasts hastened onwards, leaving their undead foes to reform behind them as the necromantic light summoned them back to battle.
There was no going back for Nerio and Orthan. A spectral mass of ghosts now separated them from their brothers. Only by pressing on could they gain anything at all. Both could see the lampbearer ahead. The spectre appeared to recognise their threat. It raised its skeletal arms and beckoned to a clutch of glaive-armed wraiths. The apparitions came howling towards the two Stormcasts, determined to keep them from reaching the corpse-caller.
‘Do not tarry,’ Orthan told Nerio. Without explaining himself, he intercepted the stalking wraiths. His greatmace came cracking down on the skull of one, extinguishing it in a blaze of dark vapour and divine light. A second stalker was subdued by Orthan’s fury, its essence bludgeoned by the glowing weapon. Such was the havoc unleashed by Orthan that the other stalkers deviated away from Nerio and converged upon the Sequitor. From all sides, the piercing glaives came slashing for him.
As the doomed Orthan had warned, Nerio did not tarry. Accepting the Sequitor’s sacrifice, he hurried onwards towards the fleeing lampbearer. At the very limit of effective range, Nerio raised his greatbow and took aim.
The spectre glared back at him with the graveyard glow that shone from the shadows of its hooded face. It raised the grisly lamp higher, beckoning, commanding the restless dead of the plateau to rally to its aid. Nerio felt all the creature’s undying hate smash down on him in a surge of wrath.
Then the Castigator-Prime shot the mace from his greatbow. The missile spun across the haunted field, narrowly flying over the cowled heads of the undead as they rose from the earth. The crystal tip of the mace whistled past the heavy lantern, causing its light to flicker. Then it slammed into the shadow-veiled head of the corpse-caller. The unleashed stormbreath billowed out in a nimbus of purifying power. The spectre gave voice to a piercing wail of despair as the celestial energy devoured it, collapsing its tenuous bond w
ith the corporeal world. Like a puff of smoke, the phantom vanished, its extinguished lamp crashing to the earth alongside its empty cloak.
As the lamp’s light faded, so too did the ghosts that had been rising from the earth. Like mist before a strong wind, they drifted apart, seeping back down into the cursed soil. Nerio was comforted by the knowledge that there would be no unending tide of reinforcements for the nighthaunts now.
That only left the multitudes of enraged undead already upon the battlefield. Nerio turned from the residue left by the lampbearer to see the rat-skulled stalkers finish Orthan. Pierced by the ghostly glaives many times, the Sequitor lost his hold upon the greatmace. Even as the weapon crashed to the ground, the Stormcast’s life ebbed away. In a blinding flare of light, his spirit was drawn back to Azyr.
Their prey gone, the stalking wraiths remembered the other foe they were supposed to destroy. Too late to help the lampbearer, they now came rushing to avenge the spectre by dealing with Nerio as they had with Orthan.
Nerio fitted another thunderhead mace to his greatbow. How many of the undead horrors would he vanquish before they could reach him?
Arnhault watched as the spectral headsman emerged from the circle of nighthaunts. The murderous axe glistened in the wraith’s grip, its edge alight with fell enchantments. Sabrodt had spoken true; there was death in that blade. Perhaps even death for a Stormcast.
‘There was a moment when you, too, knew the menace of this axe,’ Arnhault told Sabrodt. A thrust in the dark, an informed guess based upon what he had learned of the spectre. For him, as a Stormcast, the past was only hazy fragments. For the Shrouded King, the past was an obsession, a pattern from which he could not extricate himself.
The thrust struck home. Furious light glowed in the sockets of Sabrodt’s skull. The wraith shook a bony talon at Arnhault.
‘I spit on your pity,’ Sabrodt hissed. ‘I rejected it when it was offered! I warned you of what would happen… brother. I warned you that the Dragonseat would be mine!’
Sacrosanct & Other Stories Page 9