The Keeper of Secrets bared lupine teeth in a hideous parody of a smile. ‘I will. But in my own time. The hunt is ever more pleasing than the kill.’ It spread its uppermost arms. ‘Why else would I leave the stunted inhabitants of this wasteland with their souls intact?’
‘Not all of them,’ Sathphren said. The stink of the daemon flooded his nostrils. It was a cloying fug, like perfume over rot. He shook his head to clear it.
The daemon’s head twitched, like a bull shaking away flies. ‘Ah. Does word of my magnificence reach so far, then?’ A bifurcated tongue slid across the thicket of fangs. ‘I am flattered.’ A claw-tip caressed the ruby. In its facets, something that might have been a face, contorted in agony, formed briefly before dissipating. ‘Yes. I took their prince. The last prince of Gazul-Baraz. He is precious to me. I keep him with me always and will until the day I grow bored of these arid lands, and the scuttling prey that inhabits it.’
Sathphren laughed. ‘That’s not the story I heard.’
‘Oh?’
‘I heard that you remained here out of fear.’ Sathphren forced a laugh. ‘Shyish has claimed so many of your kind. They say that Amin’Hrith hides in the wastes, hoping the war will pass him by. That the Soulflayer is nothing more than a scavenger, picking the bones left behind by more faithful celebrants.’
The daemon snarled. It thrust its chitinous claw at Sathphren. ‘Choose your words with care, little glow-bug. You are alone.’
‘I’m done with words.’ Sathphren snatched his boltstorm pistol free of its holster and loosed a shot. One of the gemstones on the daemon’s abdomen burst as the bolt struck home. Amin’Hrith shrilled in rage as a soft will o’ the wisp of soul-light fluttered upwards, through the daemon’s grasping hands.
‘Thief!’ The daemon capered, trying to catch the light as it swam upwards and away towards the roof of the cavern above. Sathphren fired again and again, backing away with each shot. Gems burst like blisters, releasing soft puffs of radiance – souls, long denied their rest by the daemon’s greed. With every shattered bauble, the daemon grew more enraged. It loped after him.
‘I will tear your soul to pieces, to replace that which you have taken,’ it screamed. It drew the blades that hung from its war-harness as it ran, and slashed apart a nearby pillar in a fit of petulance. Sathphren raced up the steps and into the temple through the slabbed archway that marked the entrance.
The rotunda was full of pillars, each carved with thousands of runes – names, he knew. Or so the Gazul-Zagaz had claimed. The names of the dead, going back to the founding of the city. At the heart of the rotunda was the vast pool from which all the water in the city flowed. It bubbled and flowed, as fresh as the day the first duardin had discovered it. A colossal statue of Gazul sat atop a dais of dark stone, overlooking the waters. The god’s statue was draped in a burial shroud of shadows and dust, his features obscured.
Sathphren lost himself among the pillars, moving as quietly as possible. He could hear the clop of the daemon’s hooves on the stone floor. ‘I can taste your fear and your desire on the wind,’ it growled. Its voice was thick with silky menace and promise, all in one. It echoed through the pillars. ‘I will add your soul to my collection, little glow-bug. You will dangle ’pon my chest, and your screams will soothe me to sleep, ’ere I grow tired of my games.’
Sathphren didn’t answer. He heard a voice chanting – Elder Judd. The rune-singers were gathering outside the temple now. They had waited centuries for this day. The jaws of the trap were clashing shut. He heard the scrape of chitin on stone, and tensed. It was close.
‘Why do you not answer me, little glow-bug? I thought your kind liked to talk. So boastful, you storm-riders. You wield declarations like swords.’ It chuckled again, and he could almost see the ghastly smile on its twisted features. ‘Do you tremble at the thought of my gentle touch, glow-bug? As well you should.’
A fug of perfumed musk suddenly enveloped Sathphren. He spun. A chitinous claw thrust itself towards him. He leapt aside. The claw gouged a pillar in half, casting rubble across the floor. The Keeper of Secrets lunged into view, hauling itself around another pillar. Its eyes blazed with a monstrous greed. ‘Oh, I have such sights to show you,’ it snarled. ‘Nightmares and ecstasies beyond any you can conceive. I will flay your soul from the meat. I will make adornments from your bones, and wear your screaming skull into the eternities yet to come.’
Sathphren lunged, his starbound blade licking out across the daemon’s taunting muzzle. Amin’Hrith jerked back with a shriek of pain. Sathphren twisted aside, narrowly avoiding a wild slash from the daemon’s blade. He whistled sharply, and Gwyllth leapt down from the top of the pillars, where she had been waiting. The gryph-charger’s weight caught the daemon by surprise, and knocked it stumbling. The great beast clung to the daemon’s broad back, tail lashing. Her beak stabbed down into the alabaster flesh, releasing a spurt of sickly-sweet ichor.
Amin’Hrith shrieked, clawing at its attacker. Sathphren ducked beneath a flailing claw and drove his sword into the daemon’s elongated torso, twisting it upwards with all his strength. It gave a tooth-rattling shriek and dropped a heavy fist onto him, driving him to one knee. A second blow caught him on the chest, and sent him skidding backwards. The daemon tore the screeching gryph-charger from her perch and hurled her into a pillar. She crumpled to the ground with a muted whine.
Sathphren rolled onto his stomach. Pain beat at his temples, and his chest felt as if it had been caved in. He coughed, and tasted blood. The chanting was louder now, beating at the air like hammer strokes. The air felt heavy with something – anticipation, he thought. He glanced towards the statue of Gazul, and it seemed as if the god’s eyes were gleaming.
It was time. The trap snapped shut.
Amin’Hrith touched the ragged wounds opened in its flesh with something akin to wonder. ‘How exquisite. It has been centuries since my flesh was ravaged so.’ It fixed Sathphren with its yellow gaze. ‘I thank you, glow-bug. Let me show you my gratitude properly.’
‘Let me show you mine, first,’ Sathphren wheezed, hauling himself upright. He rose to one knee, spots swimming across his vision. ‘For the gift.’
‘Gift?’ The daemon hesitated, head tilted.
Sathphren held up the ruby. He’d managed to chop it loose, just before the daemon had swatted him aside. It pulsed with an unsettling warmth, as if there were a fire within its crimson facets. Amin’Hrith looked down at its chest, and then back at him. It took a heavy step towards him, claw extended. ‘Give it back, glow-bug. Or I will ensure your torments are legendary, even by the heady standards of the Pavilions of Pleasure.’
‘A kind offer, but not one I care to take.’ Sathphren slammed the flickering gemstone down on the stone floor, shattering it. Outside the temple, the song of the rune-singers rose to a rolling crescendo, shaking the very stones underfoot. They fell silent as the echoes of the ruby’s demise faded.
In the quiet that followed, Amin’Hrith laughed, and Sathphren felt his sense of triumph ebb. ‘And what was that supposed to achieve?’ the daemon sneered. ‘What did you think would happen, glow-bug? I am no mere courtesan, to be banished at the whim of a mortal. I am Amin’Hrith, the Soulflayer. I have wallowed in the dust of a thousand worlds, and seen reality itself shatter beneath the awful weight of my lord’s gentle gaze. I have worn ghosts as baubles and hunted entire peoples to extinction, in the World That Was. And I will do the same here. I–’
The shards of ruby shone suddenly with a soft light, interrupting the daemon. Blood-red shadows crawled across the pillars and floor. Curls of cerise smoke rose from the fragments, twisting and coalescing with one another, until they became a vaguely duardin-shaped mass. Something that might have been a face turned towards the daemon, and twisted into a wrathful expression. A wordless cry boomed out of the stones and air, and the daemon stepped back. ‘What is this? You could not challenge me while you li
ved, little prince. What makes you think you can do so now?’
The smoky shape took a step forwards, its hunched form sprouting an amorphous shield and something resembling an axe. The temple seemed to shake with its tread. Sathphren caught sight of ghostly shapes drifting through the pillars – the dead, come to answer their long lost prince’s call. ‘He isn’t alone,’ Sathphren said.
While the daemon held the soul of their prince captive, the Gazul-Zagaz had been unable to act against it. Now, with the ruby shattered, and the soul free, the dead of Gazul-Baraz, raised up by the song of the rune-singers, could have their long-delayed vengeance. Sathphren smiled. A good plan. A fitting plan.
A grim dirge rose from the spectres as they gathered, encircling the daemon in a ring of insubstantial bodies. Sathphren could hear the faint crash of steel, and the crack of stone. Motes of pale light floated within ghostly skulls – the eyes of the dead, fixed on the author of their torment. Uzkul, they moaned, as one. Uzkul. Uzkul. Uzkul.
The Keeper of Secrets turned, trying to keep all of the gathering spirits in sight. ‘Begone, shades. There is no joy to be had from your pallid essences.’ It swept out a claw dismissively, trying to disperse the horde. The dead struck, as the claw passed through them. Ghostly axes and hammers caught the limb, and ichor spurted. Amin’Hrith screamed in rage and pain. The daemon jerked its injured limb back. ‘No. No, this isn’t right.’ It whirled, eyes fixed on Sathphren. ‘What have you done?’
‘What I do best,’ Sathphren said, as he rose to his feet. Gwyllth was on her feet as well, if somewhat battered. He caught hold of her and hauled himself into the saddle. ‘And now, I leave you to it.’ He thumped the gryph-charger in the ribs, and she leapt away with a shriek, even as the daemon lunged for them.
Amin’Hrith crashed awkwardly into a pillar as they avoided its grasp, and screamed in fury. It clattered after them, smashing rubble aside in its haste, and the ghosts boiled up around it like storm clouds. A typhoon of spirits – led by the crimson essence of the prince – surrounded the blundering daemon, striking at it from all sides and angles. They blinded it, slowed it. Trapped it.
And there was another presence there as well, something greater than any ghost, and mightier than any daemon. It seemed to gather itself in the limits of the temple, readying itself as Sathphren urged Gwyllth towards the entrance. The shadows thickened and the voices of the dead were echoed by a deep tolling, rising up from somewhere below. Not a bell, this, but a wordless cry, like the crash of stone into the sea.
It roared out as the gryph-charger leapt through the archway and down the steps. Sathphren turned his steed about, sword in hand, to face the archway. The Keeper of Secrets clawed at the entrance, hands gripping either side of the aperture. It strained, as if against unseen bonds. Its mouth was open, but Sathphren could hear nothing save that roaring cry.
A wind rose up from somewhere and caught at the creature, forcing it back. Beneath the roar came a grinding sound, like stone rasping against stone. One by one, the remaining gemstones on the daemon’s flesh burst. Ghostly hands clutched at the Soulflayer’s limbs and head. The daemon’s eyes bulged as it fought against the dead.
‘Uzkul. Uzkul. Uzkul.’
Sathphren glanced around. Judd and the other rune-singers chanted as they approached, their bells tolling sombrely. With every peal of the bells, the daemon’s grip on the aperture seemed to grow weaker, its claws digging deep trenches in the stone. Then, with a final thunderclap, a dark shape, massive and indistinct, caught hold of the Soulflayer and jerked it backwards, into the dark of the temple and out of sight.
It did not even have a chance to scream.
The rune-singers ceased their song. The sound of the bells faded. All was silence, save for the burble of water. Judd thumped the ground with the ferrule of his staff. Slowly, the spirits of the dead emerged from the darkness. Their prince stood among them, his form as indistinct as before, recognisable only by the raw, red radiance.
Judd lifted his staff, and murmured. The spirits of the dead duardin wavered like smoke and dispersed, in shreds and tangles. They drifted upwards, towards the roof of the cavern and the moonlight streaming through. Something like thunder rumbled in the depths, and Sathphren felt its reverberations in his bones. He thought it might be laughter.
Judd smiled sadly. ‘Gazul is pleased. Our oath is fulfilled at last.’
Sathphren looked at him. ‘They say Nagash devoured the other gods of the dead, and added their might to his own.’
‘Yes, that is what they say.’ Judd shrugged. ‘And yet, what is death to a god?’ He scooped up a handful of dust, and let the wind pull it from his hand. ‘Dust, and less than dust.’ He sighed and looked at Sathphren. ‘But that is a matter for another day. For now, we will fulfil our oath to you. We will lead you where you wish to go.’
Sathphren nodded solemnly. ‘I expected no less.’ He laughed suddenly and turned Gwyllth about, towards the sounds of fighting. ‘But first – our task is not yet done. There are still daemons to hunt, and an oasis to free. As I promised.’
HALLOWED KNIGHTS: PLAGUE GARDEN
by Josh Reynolds
During the greatest battles of the War for Life, the Stormcast Eternals suffered a great tragedy: the Hallowed Knights Lord-Castellant Lorus Grymn was lost to the Realm of Chaos. Now his fellow Steel Souls venture into the domain of the Plague God Nurgle in search of their lost comrade…
Find this title, and many others, on blacklibrary.com
Callis & Toll:
The Old Ways
Nick Horth
Armand Callis winced as the marsh strider bucked beneath him. Every time the beast moved, his legs rubbed painfully against the rough hide saddle that was lashed around the creature’s segmented body. They had been travelling for hours, and he still hadn’t got used to the strider’s awkward, rolling gait as it stretched out its six long limbs to balance on the soupy morass beneath them. He sighed as he peered through the gathering fog, hoping to catch sight of their destination looming into view. It was useless. He could barely see more than a few metres ahead.
‘How much farther?’ he shouted.
‘Soon,’ grunted their guide, a wizened old fellow with an expression that could turn milk sour.
Callis’ marsh strider clicked and hissed, before releasing an arcing jet of fluid from its mandibles. On the whole, Callis decided that he preferred horses.
‘Marshpoint is close,’ said Hanniver Toll, mounted upon his own strider to Callis’ left. Beneath his signature wide-brimmed hat, the older man’s face was chapped pink by the cold and had several days’ worth of stubble across his chin. Callis rubbed his own face ruefully. His typically neat and well-groomed moustache was tapering wildly out of control, and a coarse beard itched beneath the scarf wrapped around his mouth.
‘Follow my lead once we arrive,’ said Toll. ‘The feud between the Junicas and the Dezraeds is on the verge of erupting into a full-scale border war.’
‘No wonder,’ muttered Callis. ‘I’d be miserable too, if I lived out here.’
The Brackenmarsh was a featureless expanse of foul-smelling mud and grime that lay to the east of the great city of Excelsis. It was a bubbling pit of slime and weeds that reached to the mouth of the enormous Ulwhyr Forest. They had avoided the winding trade road that led through the marsh to the frontier township, as Toll had wanted to make it to Marshpoint as swiftly as possible. Unfortunately, marsh striders were the only way to cross the fenland – travelling by foot was a sure way of getting yourself drowned or eaten by the primitive beasts that dwelled within its murky depths. Despite their immense size and vicious, barbed forelimbs, the mantis-like beasts were completely docile. Each of their six legs ended in a tangle of thick hairs that spread out across the rippling surface of the water, forming buoyant pads that allowed the striders to skip across the marsh with surprising speed.
‘The disappearance of
Adrec Junica has turned a tense situation into a volatile one,’ said Toll. ‘House Junica has long accused the Dezraeds of trying to undermine their trade in silksteel, and now they have an excuse to spill blood.’
‘If that happened, the Freeguilds would not receive their shipments of silksteel.’
Silksteel was a substance woven by arachnids found within the Ulwhyr. Thin and light, it possessed a fearsome tensile strength, meaning that it could be woven into light, padded armour that stopped blades and arrows as surely as steel plate. As Excelsis lacked vast natural deposits of metal, silksteel was vital for outfitting the local regiments. Without it, the already undermanned city guard would find itself under-equipped too.
‘Indeed,’ said Toll, nodding. ‘We’re here to try and neutralise the fray by uncovering whether Lord Junica’s firstborn son was indeed slain by the hands of the Dezraeds, or simply drank too much, stumbled into the marsh and drowned.’
‘Hardly seems like vital work for an agent of the Order of Azyr,’ said Callis. ‘Couldn’t they have sent a detachment from the city guard?’
‘The city guard is stretched parchment-thin as it is,’ said Toll. ‘The battle for Excelsis left the city weak and vulnerable. If it comes under siege again, it will fall. Trade has been severely hampered and the people are ready to riot. Callis, this infighting could be the spark that ignites a full-scale uprising.’ Toll paused. ‘We would have no choice but to set the White Reaper loose. That’s not an outcome I would relish.’
Callis fought off a shudder. He had once come face to face with Lord-Veritant Cerrus Sentanus – the White Reaper of Excelsis – and had barely escaped with his life. If Sentanus was loosed upon the inhabitants of the city, the streets would run with blood.
‘Here,’ growled their guide, pointing one thin finger into the distance. Following his gesture, they could see the lambent glow of torches flickering. Rising up out of the mist like the backbone of some drowned behemoth, a perimeter wall loomed over a short pier of mildewed wood. It was a well-made fortification, as these things went. The wood was smoothed and sanded down to prevent anyone scaling it, and dotted along the line were swivel-mounted arbalests with large, hook-shaped magazines. A great, circular tower loomed above the parapet, and atop the battlements, Callis could see a heavy ballista, aiming out into the gloom.
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