Maesa and his companions were dying. Not a sharp blade-cut end, but the slow drip of souls weeping from broken hearts.
Grey dunes rolled away to chill eternities. Aelphis stumbled up slopes and down slip faces, his antlers drooped to his feet. Maesa swayed listlessly in the saddle. Shattercap was silent. A few drops of Ghyran’s life-giving waters remained to sustain them. They would have to return soon, or they would die.
At the same time, they grew hopeful. Increasingly in the dust they saw glittering streams of coarse grains of green, black, amethyst and other gemstone colours. These were realmstones of Shyish – life sands, each streak on the dunes the crystallised essence of a life, a grain for every week or so. Maesa looked at his compass often, hoping against hope that the needle would turn and point to one of the deposits, but he was disappointed. The needle aimed towards the horizon always. None of the coloured streaks were Ellamar’s mortal days.
And then, the miraculous occurred. After what felt like years, and could have been, the needle on the compass twitched. Maesa stared dumbly at the device cupped in his hands. The needle was moving, swinging away from their line of travel.
‘Shattercap!’ said Maesa, his voice cracked from days of disuse.
‘Master?’ replied the spite, a breath of words no louder than the whisper of the windblown sand.
‘We approach! We are near!’
Maesa spurred Aelphis into life. Huffing wearily, the king of stags lumbered into a trot.
‘To the right, Aelphis! There!’ said Maesa, intent upon the dial.
Their path took them closer to the line of skeletons. At last, the source of the animates’ burdens became apparent. Where realmstone gathered most thickly, a depression had been carved.
Within the bowl of a great quarry, the two lines of skeletons joined into one. They entered, looped round, bent without slowing to peck at the sand, then walked around the back of the bowl and thence out again, carrying their dot of treasure away to their master. In the dim starlight, Maesa spied many such pits, some worked out, some alive with the flash of dead bones.
A moment of horror gripped him. If Ellamar’s sands were in one of those pits…
Relief came from the compass. It span a little to the left, then as Aelphis followed, to the right. The compass rotated slowly around and around. Maesa brought Aelphis to a halt and slid from his back.
Sand shifted under his feet. Rivulets of it ran from the dunes’ sides to fill his footsteps. The grey dust comprised the lesser part of it, much was realmstone. Many colours were mingled there. Many lives blended.
The prince stooped low, the compass held to the sand. By lifting individual grains to the compass rose and watching its spin, he ascertained that Ellamar’s life was of an indigo hue. One grain set the compass twirling sharply. A handful made it blur.
‘Fitting,’ he said. ‘Indigo was her favourite colour.’ He took out the last of the life water, and roused the spite. ‘Shattercap.’
‘Good prince?’
‘We shall finish this. We shall need all our strength. The servants of Nagash will come.’ He took a sip, gave a drink to Shattercap, and then tipped the last of the water into Aelphis’ mouth. The stag huffed and stood taller as vitality returned.
‘Help me. Pluck up this indigo sand.’ He drew out the hourglass from his saddlebags and placed it on the desert floor. He opened up the lid. ‘Fill it up. Carefully. Not one other grain, only hers.’
When lowered to the sand, Shattercap mewled. ‘It burns me, master!’
‘Bear the pain, and you shall be four steps closer to freedom,’ said the prince sternly. ‘Hurry!’
Together the aelf and spite worked, fastidiously plucking single grains of the glittering sand from the dust and depositing them in the hourglass.
The bottom bulb was almost full, and the grains becoming harder to sift from the rest, when a piercing shriek rose over the desert.
Shattercap’s head whipped up. His hands opened and closed nervously.
‘Master…’ he whimpered. ‘We are noticed.’
Another shriek sounded, then a third, each one nearer than the last. The ceaseless, gentle wind of the desert gusted fiercely.
‘Fill it, spite!’ commanded Maesa. He drew the Song of Thorns. The woody edge of the living sword sparked with starlight. ‘Get it all. I shall hold them back.’
Howling with outrage, a wraith came flying over the ridge of a nearby dune. It had no legs, but trailed streamers of magic from black robes in place of lower limbs. Its face was a skull locked into a permanent roar. Its hands bore a scythe. This, unlike the aethereal bearer, was solid enough, a shaft of worm-eaten wood and a blade of rusted metal with a terrible bite. Other wraiths came skimming over the sands, their corpse-light shining from the tiny jewels of other creatures’ lives.
The first wraith raised its weapon, and bore down on the prince. Moving with the grace native to all aelves, Maesa sidestepped and with a single precise cut, sliced the spirit in two. It screamed its last, the shreds of its soul sucked within the Song of Thorns. Another came, swooping around and around Aelphis and Maesa before plunging arrow-swift at the prince. Maesa was faster, and ended it. The Song of Thorns glowed with the power of the stolen spirits.
More wraiths were coming. A chorus of shrieks sounded from every direction. The undead burst from the sand, they swooped down from the sky. The watchdogs of Nagash were alert for thieves taking their master’s property, and responded to the alarm with alacrity.
‘Quickly, Shattercap!’
Maesa slew another, and another. The Song of Thorns was anathema to things such as the wraiths, but there were hundreds of them gathering in a tempest of phantoms. The spite scrabbled at the ground, his earlier finesse gone as he shovelled Ellamar’s life sands into the glass.
‘Be careful not to mix the grains!’ the prince shouted, cleaving the head of another wraith from its owner.
‘I am trying!’ squeaked the spite.
‘I cannot fight all these things,’ said Maesa. He was right. Now the wraiths saw the danger the Song of Thorns posed, they turned their attacks against Aelphis and Shattercap, and it took all of Maesa’s skill to keep them from harm. Aelphis reared and pawed at the wraiths, but all he could do was deflect their weapons from his hide. When his hooves hit their bodies, they passed through, leaving wakes of glowing mist.
‘I have it all!’ said Shattercap, ducking the raking hand of a wraith. He slammed closed the lid atop the hourglass.
‘You are sure? You have checked the compass?’
‘Yes!’ squealed Shattercap.
The prince danced around the stag, snatching up hourglass and compass in one hand while killing with the other. Shattercap leapt from the sand to the prince’s arm. Maesa jumped onto the back of the stag, cutting away the head of a scythe in mid-air, then reversing his stroke as he landed in the saddle to render another phantom into shreds of ectoplasm.
Aelphis reared. Maesa slashed from left to right. Braying loudly, the stag leapt forward.
Invigorated by Ghyran’s waters of life, Aelphis ran as fast as the wind. The wraiths set up pursuit, and more streamed from the depths of the desert to join them. Maesa slew all that came against him. He cried out when a scythe blade nicked his arm, numbing it with the grave’s chill. The wraiths screeched to see his discomfort and they closed in for the kill, but Maesa yelled the war cries of his ancestors and fought on.
It seemed as if the great stag flew. The wraiths were outpaced. Their dark shapes were left behind. No more came from the wastes.
Aelphis ran on. Light grew ahead. The vastness of the Sands of Grief were coming to an end. Desert of a more ordinary sort blended into its edges. At last, Maesa came to a place where dawn stood still upon the edge of the world, and pale sun lit upon his face. At the margins of a wadi, dry grasses rattled in the wind – life had returned. They had gone far from the lines of sk
eletons and their ghoulish mines. Maesa brought Aelphis to a stop.
The stag snorted. Froth lathered his skin. He shuddered from antlers to tail, spraying foam across the rocks, then settled, and blared out his throaty call in pleasure at their escape.
Maesa held up the hourglass. He looked with wonder at the indigo sand within.
‘The first part of the task is done,’ he said. ‘With this, when Ellamar returns, she will not age. She will be forever at my side.’
‘Yes, my master,’ said Shattercap. ‘But the Lord of Undeath will not rest until he has brought you to account for your crime, and we must find a way to steal her back from whatever place she languishes within first.’
‘Let Nagash’s servants come,’ said Maesa. He sheathed the Song of Thorns. It vibrated with strange warmth from its feast, passing its strength into him. ‘I will be ready. You did well, Shattercap. You are learning.’
‘Learning to be good?’
‘Learning to be useful. Goodness comes later.’
‘Thank you, kind prince,’ said the spite. He snuggled down into Maesa’s hood. But though his words were fawning, his heart retained a little flinty wickedness. His tiny fist was clenched. In it he held a single grain of Ellamar’s soul dust, kept for himself.
Unaware of his companion’s thievery, Maesa set his joyous face into the dawn, and rode out full of hope.
SHADESPIRE: THE MIRRORED CITY
by Josh Reynolds
Amidst the ruins of the once-great Mirrored City, ex-Freeguild soldier Seguin Rayner and his allies seek secrets – but even if they retrieve them, can they ever escape Shadespire?
Find this title, and many others, on blacklibrary.com
The Witch Takers
C L Werner
Mangled bodies lay stretched under the blazing desert sun. Puddles of blood glistened in the light. The gory litter lay scattered in a patch of carnage dozens of yards wide, broken weapons and severed limbs half buried in the scale-like metal sands of Droost.
In the very midst of the havoc, an ugly pit yawned. The piles of sand and broken stone marked it as a recent excavation. The jumble of old bones and rusted armour strewn about the opening served as silent testament to the callous looting of the uncovered tomb.
‘Tal, is there anything down there?’ The question was voiced by a tall and powerfully built woman. Long locks of deep golden hair peaked out from under the hood of the white cloak Esselt wore. There was an expression of deep concern on her well-defined features. Her gloved hands kept a firm grip on the immense silver-bladed greatsword she held at her side.
In response to Esselt’s query, a man emerged from the shadowy tomb. He was more compactly built, wolfish in form and a few inches shorter. He, too, wore a white cloak, though it was now greyed with the dust and grit of an ancient grave. His face had a pinched, almost hungry look to it, his moustached lip drawn back in irritation. Keen eyes studied the broken stones where robbers had smashed their way into the crypt. With a sigh, Talorcan shook his head.
‘Nothing, Esselt,’ he declared. He waved his gloved hand at the bodies strewn all around them. ‘Vulture scum they may have been, but they were very thorough. I don’t think there is so much as a strand of hair they didn’t drag out of there.’ He stepped over to one of the corpses, a body more complete than some of its mutilated companions. With the edge of his boot he kicked it onto its side. As it rolled over, a brand on the dead man’s forehead was revealed. A single hieroglyph depicting the slouching figure of a hyena.
‘The brand of thieves,’ Esselt observed. ‘The same as the man we found in Skra Voln.’ A hardness swept into her voice. ‘This is where the murderers came from.’
Talorcan inspected the ground, carefully noting the disturbances in the sand. ‘Only one set of tracks lead away from here. From here to Skra Voln… and the massacre.’ As he made his study of the bodies, he began removing objects from them. A bronze breastplate, a jewelled dagger, rings and necklaces. From one man’s fingers he pried away a vicious-looking sword.
‘Grave robbers who argued over their plunder,’ Esselt growled. ‘After murdering their comrades, the rest must have gone to Skra Voln to slake their bloodlust.’
‘Only one set of tracks,’ Talorcan reminded her. ‘When we reached Skra Voln, except for the herdsman who discovered the massacre, there was only one set of tracks going into the village.’ He turned the sword around so that Esselt could see what he had discovered. The grip of the sword was formed from a gnarled curl of bone, but its pommel was fashioned from blackened steel.
Instinctively, Esselt drew back, alarm shining in her eyes. She recognised the grisly symbol the pommel had been shaped into. None of the witch takers of the Order of Azyr were unaware of the Skull Rune, emblem of the Chaos God, Khorne.
‘Grace of Sigmar, Tal!’ Esselt cursed.
‘This is the madness of the Blood God,’ Talorcan said, gesturing at the carnage around them. ‘Looks like this tomb was something more than the robbers bargained for. The grave of some champion of the Dark Gods. When they broke in here, they unleashed something. Some infernal force that provoked them to… this.’
Esselt shook her head. ‘And the victor carried his murdering frenzy with him to Skra Voln. Praise the God-King the evil died with him.’
Talorcan was looking at the collection of grave goods he had removed from the thieves. Every body had yielded up something. ‘When we examined the branded corpse in Skra Voln, there was nothing that was remarkable about him. No treasure that could have come from this tomb.’
‘No,’ Esselt said. ‘There was nothing. Only the tattered rags he was wearing.’ She looked at the pile of loot Talorcan had gathered. ‘Every man had his share. The thief at the oasis should have had something.’
‘But he didn’t,’ Talorcan stated, a haunted look stealing into his eyes. He suddenly dashed across the sands to where they had hobbled their animals. The demi-gryphs squawked in protest as he rummaged through the saddle bags. Finally, he found what he was looking for: a big metal flask with a dragonhide stopper. He returned hurriedly, removing the stopper from the flask and dousing the pile of grave goods with its contents. Metal and jewels began to smoke and bubble as the alchemical concoction spilled onto them.
‘We will destroy this filth,’ Talorcan said. ‘Then we must make haste back to Skra Voln.’ He gave Esselt a grim look. ‘I fear I followed the wrong trail. I wanted to see where the killer came from. I did not think to follow any trail leading away from Skra Voln.’
‘You believe someone survived the massacre?’ Esselt asked.
‘A survivor or someone who came upon the scene before the herdsmen did,’ Talorcan said. ‘Either way, whoever it was took something.’
‘The killer’s share of the treasure,’ Esselt stated, watching as the other plunder was swiftly reduced to a molten puddle. ‘Some cursed relic from a heretic’s tomb.’
Talorcan nodded, looking across the havoc around them. ‘Something from the grave of a champion of the Blood God. Something damned by the filth of Chaos. Something that could possess a man and make him ferocious enough to commit such atrocities. Something that may pass its curse along to whoever carries it.’
Esselt shaded her eyes as she looked across the vast dunes of Droost. To her it was like watching a sea of crawling silver. The blazing sun shimmered across the thin scales of metal that composed the sand. Despite the heat, a chill swept through her as she watched the wispy haze that rose from the hot ground.
‘It looks like water,’ she said, leaning around in her saddle to speak with Talorcan.
‘Many a traveller has thought so,’ Talorcan said. ‘Drawn on by the mirage. Parched brains imagining the illusion of rivers and lakes just beyond their reach.’ He shook his head. ‘A terrible end for anyone.’
‘And if I were to get lost out here?’ Esselt nudged him in the arm. ‘Don’t say you couldn’t fin
d me, Tal. You’re almost as much a part of the desert as the dust-vipers.’
Talorcan was pensive a moment. ‘I might find you,’ he said. ‘But it would have to wait until the Order’s business is finished.’ He drew back as Esselt tried to swat him. ‘I’m only warning you to stay close until our work is done,’ he laughed.
‘When our work is done, you won’t have much to laugh about,’ Esselt promised, patting the greatsword sheathed along the side of the saddle.
Talorcan smiled. ‘An assignation then,’ he said. ‘I’ll hold you to it. You might have the advantage with that gargant-sticker of yours, but never forget that I fight dirty.’
Esselt gave him a sharp look. ‘You also cheat at cards. But if we’re going to discuss all of your faults we’ll be out here until the rainy season.’
Talorcan bowed in defeat and turned his eyes back to the landscape before them. From atop the summit of a scaly dune, he gazed out across the crawling desert and the rippling haze. They were no strangers to the great wasteland that encompassed the Khanate of Arlk. The cloaks that covered them were fashioned from the porous hide of the dune-jackal and bleached to a brilliant white to better defy the sun’s heat. The talons of the demi-gryphs they rode were swathed in thick moccasins to keep them from sinking into the scaly sands. A third demi-gryph followed close behind them, the creature’s beak muzzled by a mask of steel chain so that it could not twist its long neck around and snap at the burden lashed across its back – a keg of stout Varthian blackoak filled with water from the River Chael.
The witch hunters were silent for a time, intent upon their study of the surroundings. When the silence was broken, it was Esselt who spoke, her voice edged with frustration. The tomb of the Chaos chieftain and the massacre of Skra Voln were many days behind them, yet still their quarry was beyond their reach. ‘They cannot have gone much farther, Tal,’ she declared. ‘By the Light of Azyr, we should have come upon them already.’
Talorcan kept his eyes roving across the dunes, watching the rippling heat rising from the scaly sands. ‘By the Light of Azyr, we will find them,’ he said. ‘Skill and determination can lead a hunter only so far. After that it becomes a test of faith.’ One of his hands released its hold on his demi-gryph’s reins and pointed across the dunes. ‘There. Do you see? Where the mirage falters?’
Sacrosanct & Other Stories Page 24