by Warhammer
At the thought of the Wild Harvest priestess I rubbed absently at the thick ring of sigmarite around my neck. I didn’t know much about what she was capable of, but somehow I doubted there were too many skaven capable of getting the drop on her.
Of course, I could think of one or two.
With a sigh I turned back to the fire, as if I might find truth there.
Barbarus was just avoiding me.
I was wondering what that made me. Was a god without worshippers just a fickle power in the aether? Could an orator without an audience still be said to have a gift with words, or was he just another madman in a realm full of them with a penchant for talking to himself? I was the Bear-Eater. A force of nature. A gale from Azyr. I wasn’t a man, I was a totem. With Sigmaron itself barred to me, what was that worth? The knights of my own chamber could not abide my presence. A totem to whom? Was burnishing my legend amongst the mortal folk of the other seven Mortal Realms enough for a champion of my stature?
I thought about it for a time, then shook my head.
Even with the great outpouring of souls following the opening of the Gates of Azyr – the reverse migrations of the displaced over a hundred years – the population of Azyrheim alone was still greater than the entirety of the other seven Mortal Realms combined. I had no interest in being half a hero. I was Hamilcar Bear-Eater. All in, or nothing at all. The thought of adapting to my new condition barely even occurred to me. I would find Ikrit and see myself made whole: I would be the hero of Azyrheim again.
I glanced again at Barbarus. Afterimages from the fire swam about the Errant-Questor like phoenix feathers. Sigmar had warned me that other divinities had despatched champions of their own to capture Ikrit.
He might have mentioned that some of his own warriors were amongst them.
I frowned across the clearing.
Ikrit would face judgement in Azyr, as Sigmar had tasked me. If Barbarus, Brychen or anyone else wished it otherwise, then they’d soon learn why the name ‘Hamilcar Bear-Eater’ was interchangeable with boldness and resolve across half the known realms. Hyish and Ulgu still being largely unexplored at this time…
‘You keep looking at him.’
Without my noticing, Brychen had emerged from wherever she had wandered off to after the battle and creaked down beside me. I’d assumed that the priestess had been offended by the fire and found somewhere in the wood to sit. She was a tree-worshipper, after all. But she stared into the smoky offering with a rapacious fascination, as though there was something affirming at play in the consumption of dead wood by the flame.
The Jerech that had been sitting there shifted out of her way, suddenly interested in the murmured conversation going on to his other side.
The priestess turned to me, her eyes a luminescent green.
‘Why?’
I could have just ignored the question, and probably should have, but it wasn’t in my nature to keep quiet on a subject – particularly when the subject was myself.
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ I said.
‘The old wood does not understand why it must burn.’ She glanced in the direction of Aeygar. ‘The sheep does not understand the eagle.’
‘Good for them.’ I thought about it. ‘I suppose.’
‘We are neither wood nor sheep. I am the woodsman. I am the shepherd. And you…’ She looked at me archly. Shadows stretched down from her chin and the arms folded over her knees as she straightened, leaving her skin oddly discoloured. Like a browned leaf. ‘You are not a thing of nature at all.’
I grinned. ‘Hardly. I’m the walking extension of a god, an avatar of the Eternal Storm. There is nothing more natural than Hamilcar Bear-Eater in this wood tonight.’
‘Sigmar’s impression of what is natural, perhaps, but there is nothing “eternal” in the Gorwood. There is only predator and prey. And even that can never be constant. Infirmity. Calamity. This is what nature is, and what it brings.’ She sighed and turned back to the flame. ‘There is always something bigger, younger, fiercer. Dominance is illusory, and always temporary.’
‘You’re talking about Ikrit,’ I said.
She hissed. ‘Even after the loss of the Maiden we thought that we ruled these woods. The brayseer and his predecessors never troubled us in our own lands. Then the warlock came, killing and enslaving. He was the fire that strikes in summer. He was the predator that enters new territory and finds no rival there.’
‘Until now,’ I said.
‘Praise Sigmar!’ declared Hamuz, to much cheering and clapping from the Jerech.
Brychen smiled sweetly. Like a poisonous flower. Her teeth were black and sharpened to points.
‘You remind me of my brother,’ she said to me. ‘He thought the seasons turned around him as well.’
‘He told me something similar,’ I smiled, rubbing thoughtfully at my beard, pulling out the occasional stringy bit of stelx. ‘You haven’t told me yet what you’re doing out this far from the Nevermarsh.’
‘The skaven burned down our temples, massacred my people, murdered my brother. The Maiden teaches us hardship, but the warlock goes too far. The fields have been burned, the weeds have flourished, but now it is the reaping time.’ She clenched a fist, her wooden armour creaking. ‘I have drawn Ikrit’s roots this far, and soon I will pull him from the earth that harbours him.’
‘You as well, then?’ I said, casting another glance at Barbarus and Nubia.
So much for the solitary life of the Knight-Questor.
I leaned in closer to the priestess. ‘You weren’t sent after Ikrit by a god, were you?’
‘The Maiden doesn’t ask. She takes. And those she leaves behind grow all the taller and stronger for it.’
I could think of another good reason why the Maiden wouldn’t be asking any more favours, on account of her dying in my arms years before, but I took the priestess’ point.
‘Good,’ I mumbled. My quest was complicated enough with just Sigmar and Grungni’s Smiths involved. Once the likes of the Everqueen and the Undying King started throwing their champions into the mix then I just knew things were going to get difficult for me. This would be prescient, as it turned out, but a tale for another time. ‘Maybe, then, we can help each other.’
‘Maybe we can.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve had any luck finding him yet.’
‘If I had then we would not be talking. There are times when it feels as though he has been swallowed by the realmsphere. His power distorts the ghurlines, like a great eagle upon a tree that cannot bear its weight. I see the realm bowing and the leaves where they fall, but of the beast itself, nothing.’ Her voice grew angry. ‘I had been hoping to shadow one of his war bands, to unearth some clue in their idle chittering and their careless spoor, but so far…’ She glanced between Hamuz and me. ‘Then someone killed them all.’
Hamuz began to chuckle before it dawned on him that the priestess might not be joking. He coughed and slurped on his qahua.
‘In perseverance we endure,’ Brychen sighed. ‘I will find another claw of the great beast to follow. There is no shortage, if you have the eyes to look.’
Aeygar issued a muted caw of agreement.
‘We were journeying to Ikrit’s lair,’ I said, frowning at the aetar’s siding with the Wild Harvest priestess.
‘You would be wasting your time,’ said Brychen. ‘I wished to retrieve my brother’s body and return him to our hearth trees, and so ventured inside myself after I had dealt with you.’ She spoke so straightforwardly, you could almost overlook the fact that she was talking about driving a spear through my neck. Almost. ‘I found no trace of him there, or of Ikrit, only a handful of skaven still lurking in the darkest burrows. I slew them all.’
‘I think he’s still there,’ I said. I thought of the vision I had had back in Sigmaron, of pulsing, liquid darkness. Cocooned. Buried. ‘I th
ink he’s hidden somewhere, recovering his strength.’
The princess issued another quiet crow.
‘That’s right,’ I said, waving my finger at the priestess. ‘He’s not in the Gorwood. Not with the entire strength of the aetar scouring it for him.’
‘You understand her?’ Brychen asked, surprised.
‘Can’t you?’
‘Of course I can. I am just surprised that you appear to be able to.’
Ignore the bird-thing. Listen to the Gorkai.
I blinked, looking around for the source of the voice.
‘What did you say?’
‘Lord?’ said Hamuz. I happened to be facing his way.
Was I hearing things now? Was this the next stage of my deterioration until gibbering infirmity and dissolution took hold? I frowned down into the fire and resolved that I would never pass out of the realms that way. I would capture Ikrit and see myself restored, or I would fail in the most spectacular manner I could achieve.
‘Never mind.’ I glanced across at Brychen. ‘How far is the mountain from here anyway?’
‘A few days,’ said Brychen. ‘But I can move through woodland and marsh as you cannot. For your army? Weeks. Maybe more.’
‘Princess Aeygar can cover that ground more swiftly than you can,’ I said, feeling the need to defend my quest’s honour.
‘And yet she cannot bear the entirety of the Blue Skies,’ said Barbarus, turning slowly to face the campfire. Stormcast hearing is uncannily keen. ‘Nor can we leave them here to the skaven while you continue on your quest.’
In actual fact that was exactly what I’d been planning on doing, but I couldn’t very well argue for it now and let Barbarus look like the hero.
‘You’re right, of course.’ I bit my lip, as though thinking. ‘You should remain here with them. Your wings are damaged, and I suspect that we will be too heavy for Aeygar to carry both of us.’ I saw the shadowy outline of the princess’ beak open, as if to say something, and so hurriedly carried on. ‘If we leave at first light then Aeygar can have us there and back again before nightfall. You’ll not even notice we were gone, brother.’
‘If this is some ploy to claim all the glory for yourself…’ Barbarus growled.
I put my hand over my heart in a convincingly wounded ‘who, me?’
‘You can’t go alone,’ said Hamuz.
‘I’m touched by your concern, but it’s misplaced. There’s nothing in this realm that Hamilcar Bear-Eater cannot handle, but, should there be something…’ I turned towards the looming shadow of the princess. ‘Well, they will have Aeygar to deal with.’
The princess cawed, menacingly.
‘I’ve not seen the tunnels you’re talking about, lord, so with all due respect, do you think the aetar will be able to join you below? If it’s all the same with you, then I will join you.’
I should have just said no. I know that. The Freeguild captain had no place where I was planning on going, but where others took providential signs from timely storms and falling stars, I have always seen my god in the heart of his people. He was bold enough to want to come, so let him come. Who was I to deny such honest courage?
And I couldn’t say that I would not appreciate having someone to talk to on the way.
‘I will go too,’ said Brychen.
‘I thought you said it was a waste of time?’
‘And it will be. But with an aetar’s wings it will not be a waste of much time. And if I did miss something, if there is any chance at all, then it is worth that much.’
I felt a chittering in my ear and turned again towards the fire.
Nothing but shadow awaits you there, Bear-Eater. I am long scurried.
I focused on the flames until my eyes started to tremble. I kept my voice low. ‘Who are you?’
Fire flickering. A crackling laugh.
The better part of your soul.
‘Who is that?’ said Brychen.
I blinked, disoriented, and looked up, but it seemed that the priestess had been talking to Hamuz, rather than hearing the strange voice that spoke to me. In answer, the Jerech captain turned his shoulder to show off the glassmark glittering against the scarred muscle of his bicep.
‘My daughter,’ he said.
‘You have a daughter?’ I said.
‘Yes, lord.’ Hamuz brightened even as he said it. ‘She will be seventeen this winter.’
‘In Jercho?’
‘No, my lord. She was born here. I met my wife in Azyr. She is Gorkomon, in temper if not in blood.’
The men around the campfire gave knowing chuckles.
Suddenly I did not feel so at one with them as I had. Even in my life before this one I had never been blessed with children. It was not something I could share with them.
‘We’ve been in the Gorwood seventeen years?’ I said.
The Jerech chuckled, assuming I was joking.
My gaze drifted back to the fire. It was not speaking to me now. I had never, before that moment, truly considered that my actions could have… consequences. I wondered what would become of Hamuz’s family because he had chosen me over Frankos of the Heavens Forge?
What would Vikaeus and the Knights Merciless do?
Better to go back-back. Surrender yourself.
‘It’s a long time since I heard from my conscience,’ I murmured to myself. ‘But I don’t remember it speaking like a skaven.’
‘Bear-Eater?’ said Brychen.
I could tell from her concerned tone that she sensed something amiss with me, but her sense would have probed no deeper than that surface ripple. The gods alone held the power to fashion mortal souls, to shape them into forms more useful or pleasing to their designs as you or I might work leather or clay, but not even they possess the art to peer inside and know a soul. I was getting the feeling that my soul was somehow scattered between two bodies, mine and Ikrit’s, but it was still just one soul, impermeable to even the most gifted of scryers.
Ignore me, then. I do not want-need you now. But do not squeak-say you were not warned.
‘He’s there,’ I told her, staring a challenge into the heart of the fire. ‘I know it.’
Chapter twenty-three
It looked so different, I almost missed it.
Things appear different from on high than they do for those with little choice but to view it all from the ground. To recognise that is to be halfway towards understanding the apparent diffidence of the gods. Perspectives shift. Boundaries vanish. Impenetrable crags and impassable swathes of forest become flattened smudges, merging into an endless obscurity of indefinable features and the occasional nebulous shadow. What threw my eye most, however, was the indifferent passage of time. The last time that I had glimpsed the outside of Ikrit’s mountain lair it had been buried under a blizzard. To see it now, swaddled in long grasses and wild flowers, violently coloured and straining for every drop of sunlight and insectile attention, was unnerving. As if I’d closed my eyes for a moment in winter and opened them again in spring.
‘There,’ said Brychen, pointing.
The priestess was wedged in behind me, gripping my armoured thighs with hers. Her hair had been bound with thorns, but still whipped out behind her, holly leaves rustling over the barky lattice of her living plate. Directly below us, a string of great lakes shimmered against the mountain’s side like polished armour. They clung to the slope in perverse defiance of whatever native force should have had them gushing into the Nevermarsh.
‘I was just about to say that,’ I said.
Aeygar gave an amused shriek.
‘These lakes are what remain of the ice forests, where Malikcek hunted you after your escape,’ Brychen explained. ‘The warmer months are short on the mountain, and the trees wait them out in this molten form.’
‘I see no sign of skaven,’ screamed Hamuz, from
the back.
The captain and his retainer, Nassam, sat further down Aeygar’s neck. Despite a few false starts in which one or both of them had almost fallen off as soon as Aeygar had spread her wings or lifted a foot, and some hair-raising episodes immediately after take-off, the two men had become reconciled to their terror over the hours it had taken us to over-fly the Nevermarsh. Nassam had even become relaxed enough to remember how abhorrent he found Brychen’s living armour and green flesh, and experimented with loosening his lock around her chest every once in a while.
‘They are gone. As I said,’ said Brychen.
‘The lair was below ground,’ I yelled back. ‘Beyond the lightning collectors that Ikrit had built over his apotheosis chamber, I don’t remember seeing anything up here.’
‘Then where are the collectors?’ said Hamuz.
I made a non-committal snort. ‘After five years in the Ghurlands, probably distributed between the bellies of every bird, mite and beast from here to Excelsis.’
‘That only proves my point,’ said Brychen. ‘The warlock has gone and the wild has reclaimed his lands.’
‘Not if the collectors had already done what he’d built them to do,’ I replied, a barely audible mutter in the wind of Aeygar’s flight.
Brychen remained quiet.
‘So what do we do, lord?’ shouted Hamuz.
‘We go in.’ Even if Ikrit was not here, and I was more certain than ever that he was, then he would have left something behind, some telltale piece of metal or arcana that to the eyes of Sigmar or Ong would tell the story of what was done to me. Or so, in my ignorance of such matters, I prayed. I patted Aeygar’s neck plumage and pointed to the silvery lake at the top of the necklace-like chain. ‘Take us down, princess. But not too close.’