by Warhammer
‘Never,’ he replied, out loud. There was a cracking, scraping sound, and he half turned before the daemon could reply.
A femur was scraping through the barrow’s frozen dirt, as though tugged by an invisible string. Vanik realised that all of the shattered bones around him had begun twitching and rattling – they were coalescing, each one reknitted by whatever sorcery animated the tomb’s guardians. A pathetic necromantic trick. Even as he realised what was happening, the Frost King twitched. Its other eye socket ignited with deathly illumination once more, and it reached out with its one remaining skeletal hand, gripping the side of the sarcophagus.
Free me, Nakali reiterated. It is the only way we can escape this place.
‘No,’ Vanik said again, even as the reanimated barrow-guards began to rise around him, bones crunching and clacking. He had heard a noise from outside the tomb. A familiar scrabbling of claws on icy dirt.
The entrance to the barrow burst inwards, old stone and grave-dirt cascading down around the creature that had forced its way inside. It was a massive beast, moving on all fours and clad in thick barding, as though it were a Freeguild warhorse.
But it was not a warhorse.
It was his steed, Tzatzo.
The creature shrieked and lunged with her elongated, quill-studded head, her twin sets of serrated fangs clamping over the skull and upper ribcage of one of the barrow-guards. It came apart with a snap of splintered bone, and the rest of it turned to dust in her jaws. Tzatzo shrieked again, furious at having found neither flesh nor blood on her prey.
Vanik sheathed Nakali, but the blade snagged and snarled against the aelf-hide scabbard, and it took what felt like an eternity for him to break his grip and remove his gauntlet from its hilt. Had he grasped it with the bare skin of his palm, he doubted he would have had the strength to ever release it again.
Nakali snarled, but Vanik ignored the daemon – his mind was his own again. He moved to Tzatzo’s side and from there past the broken remains of the barrow entrance. The Chaos steed was screaming and snapping, her great fangs breaking apart the skeletal guardians while their blades slid from her flanks, unable to pierce either her armour or her reptilian hide.
‘Come!’ Vanik snapped at her. The Frost King had fully recovered itself and was approaching from across the tomb, the sword of one of its guards in its bony grip. Tzatzo snorted in disgust and turned, a violent hind-leg kick sending more bones scattering across the barrow. Finally, she cantered outside.
Snow was still descending, swirling thicker than ever. He grasped Tzatzo’s mantle and put a foot in one stirrup, pulling himself up into the saddle. He could hear ethereal screeches in the air, and the drumming of hooves. In the distance, barely visible through the snow and darkness hemming them in, he made out mounted figures emerging from the other barrows and cairns surrounding them – spectral horsemen, come to avenge the insult he had dealt their master. His pride stung, he felt the mad desire to turn his steed and face the oncoming warriors. To his surprise, it was Nakali who dissuaded him.
Don’t be a fool, the daemon snarled. Nakali clearly had no desire to run the risk of remaining an immortal prisoner of the Necris.
Vanik overcame his ennui and turned Tzatzo right, back down the winding track. There was little enough time as it was – delay any longer, and claiming the sword would count for nothing.
Below, in the heart of the valley of the Necris, the hunters had become the hunted. The screams of burning villagers had turned into the icy howls of the disembodied – the newly dead had risen.
Vanik came upon the scene as his retinue, the Eightguard, re-formed in the centre of the village’s remains. The hovels surrounding them were ablaze, lighting up the snow-streaked darkness all around and providing the illumination that was driving the shadows back and keeping the small war party alive.
The dead were assailing them from all sides. Though the bodies of the villagers were charred embers, the necromantic energies that wreathed Shyish had already resurrected their spirits. The pallid, ethereal things were now shrieking down at the Chaos knights, kept in check only by ensorcelled blades and the flames that had consumed their corpses, which they seemed to fear.
Vanik rode in amongst the melee, Tzatzo blowing hard, her thick muscles bunched in rage. The spectral riders were close behind, unimpeded by the snow or the rocky earth of the high hills. Seeing their lord thundering into the light of the fire, the Eightguard opened their circle, admitting him into their midst. As they did so, a clutch of the wailing phantoms swooped from the darkness above, out of the ash and snow, their screams making the living warriors’ ears ache.
Vanik tugged Tzatzo round hard, sawing on the steed’s chains, and brought up his shield. The things that had once been the villagers were nightmarish, their ghostly forms echoing images of sloughing flesh, liquefied organs and hideously burnt faces. Ethereal flames clung to them as they dived down, talons flaring with witchfire that reached for the Chaos knights.
One crashed into the pilgrim’s shield with the force of a duardin’s greathammer. He grunted but held, trusting in the warpsteel to repel the undead sorcery. The apparition burst apart around the thick metal, leaving it blackened and scorched but failing to pass through. The howls of the other spirits redoubled as the Eightguard resisted them, their Chaos-blessed blades capable of harming the otherwise incorporeal nightmares. The True Gods would not abandon their servants so readily.
‘Is it done, lord?’
Vanik twisted in his saddle. Shielded at the centre of the circle of riders was his retainer, Modred. The youth was wearing no greater protection than a black leather doublet and plain cap, and was sat astride a wild-eyed, nameless nag. Both rider and mount were dwarfed by the towering armoured warriors surrounding them.
‘It is,’ Vanik said curtly. ‘The blade is mine. You have looted the village?’
‘We have, lord,’ Modred said, indicating the small chest strapped across the nag’s rear. He cringed as another spirit screamed overhead, trailing witchfire.
‘And a living prisoner?’ Vanik demanded. ‘You saved one from the fire?’
‘Yes, lord,’ answered one of his knights, his bannerman, Kulthuk. The Black Pilgrim realised that the body of one of the villagers had been slung over Kulthuk’s saddle, unconscious.
‘Then let us be gone,’ he said, urging Tzatzo towards the track that led from the blazing village. ‘Skoren Blackhand has already claimed his prize, and there is no more time for us to waste. There is no glory in this place. Only death.’
With phantoms shrieking at their heels, Vanik and the Eightguard lashed their steeds towards the dawn.
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This book is dedicated to Martin Morrin,
who helped me to take my first steps upon the Red Path...
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.
Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Akim Kaliberda.
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ISBN: 978-1-78030-795-4
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Table of Contents
Cover
Backlist
Title Page
Warhammer Age of Sigmar
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
About the Author
An Extract from ‘Scourge of Fate’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license
Table of Contents
Cover
Backlist
Title Page
Warhammer Age of Sigmar
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
About the Author
An Extract from ‘Scourge of Fate’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license
Table of Contents
Cover
Backlist
Title Page
Warhammer Age of Sigmar
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
About the Author
An Extract from ‘Scourge of Fate’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license