by C. L. Werner
Nagash stepped between Neferata and Makvar, pointing outward with his staff. ‘When the War of Bones looked uncertain, Mannfred prepared this refuge for himself by pulling the city of Dyre deep beneath the ground.’ He drew their attention away from the scene below – or was it above? – them and to that which stretched away across the roof of the cavern. As far as could be seen, the streets and houses of a crumbling settlement were visible, the crypt itself standing within a great cemetery. ‘The lives of Dyre fed his power even as their souls were bound into the hidden moon he wrought for himself.’
Makvar had already overcome his surprise at the strange vista. He pointed at the fortress the swarms of skaven struggled to penetrate. ‘That is Nachtsreik? It seems we must hurry if we would find Mannfred before the ratkin.’ As he spoke, a section of the black walls was brought down by a great ball of corrosive gas hurled against it by a monstrous catapult.
A dry chuckle rattled from Nagash. ‘These walls have withstood the hordes of Chaos for many lifetimes. Every stone is steeped in blood, and the mortar made from bone. They are imbued with the same magic that feeds Mannfred’s moon. If the walls are brought down they will restore themselves. Speck by speck, they will draw themselves back.’ The Great Necromancer was silent for a moment, contemplating the scene below. ‘If the enemy were to bring sufficient force to bear, they might break the old spells long enough to get inside. Mannfred realised this when he left his refuge. Now that he’s returned, it is possible the enemy is aware of it and will stir themselves to greater effort.’
‘How do we get inside?’ Makvar asked.
Nagash leaned out from the doorway. As he did so, Neferata noticed that his cloak fell upwards, drawn towards the floor of the cavern. ‘We cross the city,’ he stated. Thrusting a bony claw, he indicated a slender tower that stabbed up from the mammoth fortress. The narrow window that opened just below its roof was only a few feet below the suspended streets of Dyre.
‘With a retinue of Prosecutors, we could cross that distance without delay,’ Makvar said, shaking his head. He stared at Nagash for a moment. ‘You desire to see how resourceful we are.’
‘Before entering any battle,’ Nagash said, ‘it is wise to know the capabilities of your allies.’
The moment he stepped out from the crypt, Huld found himself falling towards what had seemed the roof of the cavern. It was a simple matter to arrest his fall, unfurling his sigmarite wings to keep himself aloft. Reorienting himself to the strange geometry of Mannfred’s stronghold was another matter entirely. The eerie sight of Dyre’s streets inverted and hanging from the roof of the cavern was confusing enough, but when he drew close to the abandoned city, he found himself being pulled towards it rather than the true floor of the cavern. Whatever arcane spells governed the crypt exerted their influence across the rest of Dyre. Huld suspected it was some residue of the magic Mannfred had employed to drag the city below the earth, but the nature of that magic and its limitations were things beyond his knowledge and experience. The city appeared to be more than suspended in space, but in time as well, locked in that moment when it had been captured by the Mortarch.
He didn’t need to understand the Mortarch’s sorcery. He only had to overcome it. Makvar was depending on Huld, and that meant their entire mission was in the balance. It did no good to bemoan the conniving nature by which Nagash had arranged this test of the Stormcasts. As Makvar had pointed out before, whatever ordeals they had to endure to bring the undead into battle beside them at Gothizzar, the Anvils would overcome them.
Keeping just beyond the pull of Dyre, Huld flew towards the desolate sprawl of what had once been the city’s harbour. The spells Mannfred had used even captured part of the sea adjoining the city. Huld could see the weird reflection of the red moon shining from the suspended pool. Ships dangled from the frozen water, their masts and sails jutting out at weird angles as the pull from below fought to wrest them from the opposing pull emanating from the ceiling. It was towards these ships that Huld climbed, preparing himself for the instant when he would be drawn towards the ships rather than away from them, turning his climb into a dive. When he landed on the deck of a trireme, it was a descent of such ungainly awkwardness that he prayed none of his fellow Stormcasts were able to see him. That the most likely observer was Makvar at the door of the crypt only made the sense of embarrassment more pronounced.
Hunting across the decks of the ship, Huld inspected the thick coils of rope heaped beside the gunwales. Choosing the stoutest mooring line he saw, he drew a length between his gauntlets with a savage grip. His eyes studied the rope with dour scrutiny, watching for the slightest fraying of the cord. Only when the Knight-Azyros was convinced it would hold did he draw the heavy stack of rope away with him as he spread his wings and leapt back into the air.
Navigating the sorcerous inversion was even more difficult with the heavy rope in his hands, but it was a feat Huld was able to accomplish without the cord becoming tangled in his wings. He knew he would have to repeat the performance several times in his labours and made careful calculations about the best way to manage the manoeuvre. Of particular interest to him was the border between the drag from the ground and the pull from the suspended city. He saw how the phenomenon could be harnessed to serve the Anvils.
Huld flew back to the crypt, the rope trailing after him. By pulling it along the edge of the competing gravitational influences he was able to negate much of the burden, only that portion actually in his hands weighing him down. The rest snaked out along the border, levitating in the grip of the oppositional forces. Another complex mid-air contortion of his body and the Knight-Azyros was back in the crypt, proud to make his landing with much more finesse than he had before.
‘Your idea will work, Lord-Celestant,’ Huld said as he saluted Makvar. He proffered his commander the end of the rope he carried.
‘We will secure this length here,’ Makvar said, handing it off to Brannok.
The Knight-Heraldor looked at the cord with some surprise. ‘It is much hardier than I expected.’
Huld nodded. ‘Dyre appears to be caught in the very moment Mannfred dragged it from the surface. There are carriages standing in the streets, stalls lining the market place, boxes and barrels stacked along the quays.’ He looked towards the deathly shape of Nagash. ‘Everything is just as it was, as though the population had withdrawn into their temples for some religious observation and will be back at any moment. It is disturbing to understand that they are gone.’
‘It is their life-force that shapes the magic of Mannfred’s redoubt,’ Nagash told him. ‘Without the extraction of their spirits, this place wouldn’t exist. The most potent spells are those that demand the greatest sacrifice.’
‘I wonder if Mannfred offered these people a choice,’ Brannok said.
A cold snarl rose from Lord Harkdron. ‘The cowherd doesn’t ask the opinion of cattle. Mortals cannot be expected to understand the struggle against Chaos. They cannot look beyond their own brief existence, their own fears and pain to truly see the war for what it is.’
Vogun stepped between the two, silencing Brannok’s retort. ‘You are wrong, Harkdron,’ he told the vampire. ‘Perhaps you haven’t seen the fire of defiance that can burn in a mortal heart because you’ve sought to quench it under a shroud of subservience. We have fought in lands throughout the Mortal Realms. I can attest to the valour of men, how they can be inspired to fight on even when the outcome is hopeless. How they will willingly sacrifice themselves if their belief in victory is great enough.’
Harkdron laughed. ‘I will believe such courage exists when I see it for myself.’ His laughter fell away when he felt Neferata’s disapproving eyes on him. He sketched the merest apology to Vogun and withdrew to the recesses of the crypt.
Huld turned away from his observation of the exchange when Makvar asked a question of him. ‘How far do you think the rope will reach?’
The Kn
ight-Azyros leaned from the doorway, pointing across the graveyard to the tile roof of a stonemason’s workshop. ‘I will need to secure the first line to that building. From there I can draw a second over to the market square. In total it will need four separate lengths to reach the tower.’ He paused, then gestured at the suspended line, explaining the phenomenon. His suggestion was that the Stormcasts could use the cord to pull themselves along, flipping themselves around once they were clear of the crypt so that they would be walking across the streets of Dyre rather than hanging above the cavern floor.
Makvar had another idea. Unbuckling his sword from his belt, he held the weapon across the cord, gripping its sheathed length by either end. He made a tentative sliding motion with it. A sigmarite blade was far stronger than mere steel. It would bear his weight without warping. Quickly, he explained his idea to Huld. ‘We will make better time if we slide down the ropes. If anyone gets into trouble, he can flip around as you suggest and let himself drop to the street. A far better prospect than plummeting down into the cavern.’
Huld nodded, inspired by the wisdom of Makvar’s plan. ‘I will secure each end of the rope so that they describe an arch. It shouldn’t be difficult to find appropriate heights to anchor them.’
‘Admirable strategy,’ Nagash said. He waved his skeletal claw towards Neferata. ‘Assist my Mortarch and her attendants across. I shall await you in Nachtsreik.’ Without another word of explanation, the Great Necromancer walked out from the crypt. Huld was stunned to see him glide across the cavern, a glowing nimbus of spectral energies billowing all around him. The skeletal morghast archai he had conjured into being leapt after their departed master, flying towards the distant tower on their tattered wings.
‘His magic is such that he could have carried all of us across,’ Huld heard Neferata say.
‘Perhaps he needs to conserve his powers,’ Makvar said. ‘He has expressed concern that when we find Mannfred your fellow Mortarch may not be so agreeable as we might hope.’
Huld found that prospect far from cheering. After all that he had seen, the thought of any being which could provoke caution from the Great Necromancer was a daunting one.
The morbid energies of Nachtsreik spilled across Nagash, soaking into his skeletal frame and seeping into his malignant spirit. Truly the castle Mannfred had built for himself was a thing of impressive horror. The few details of its construction he had revealed to Makvar’s knights were but a sampling of the atrocities that had given it shape. He could hear the shrieks of the souls bound into the foundations of the castle, envision the chained victims lying in their holes, watching as each stone block was lowered into the pits, listening to the screams of those who perished ahead of them.
Blood and terror, these were the true bricks and mortar of Mannfred’s redoubt. The souls of all those entombed within and beneath its walls were the force that guarded his stronghold against conquest. Nagash could feel the necromantic energies dripping from the stones around him, rivulets of blood that pooled upon the floor before evaporating back into the aethyr. Apparitions winked in and out of his vision, struggling to manifest yet always sucked back into their stony prisons.
Far below, he could see the verminous skaven trying to batter their way through the walls. The bones and debris of the many armies that had besieged Nachtsreik before them lay scattered about the cavern. For an instant, Nagash was tempted to stir the rotten carcasses and set a legion of skeletons loose in the midst of the ratkin. The enmity he bore the skaven was almost primordial, cascading back into the Age of Myth and beyond. Massacring them would be a delight, but at the same time, a frivolity. The slaughter could contribute nothing to his greater design.
Nagash gazed out across the suspended streets of Dyre. The ingenuity of Makvar and his knights reminded the Great Necromancer of the great failing that settled into the bones of his creations. Even the highest of the undead lacked the inspiration and enthusiasm of mortal minds. The luxury of time dulled their sense of immediacy. They were slow to conceive new ideas, slower still to adopt them. Time after time, they would fall back upon the same strategies they had employed before, like corpse-moths locked into the same migration. Of all his disciples, only the Mortarchs had any real ability for innovation.
The Stormcasts slid down the lines, gliding across the cavern high above the swarming hordes of skaven. They displayed no hesitation, no fear of the hazards they courted as they made their way towards the tower. Whatever doubts they had were subsumed to the demands of their mission. It was a degree of obedience absent even in Neferata’s vampire knights.
Truly, Sigmar had unlocked methods of resurrecting the life-force that were far different than those Nagash had crafted. The black art of necromancy devoured all it claimed. Something of the identity was lost, a spark of essence that refused to linger in the reanimated husk. Sigmar had found a way around that, a way to maintain the vibrancy of the soul while expunging all fear and doubt. Instilling an almost unshakable loyalty and obedience.
Nagash considered his past encounter with Stormcast Eternals. He had failed to learn all he needed on that occasion, but it had served to make him more aware of where his observation should be focussed. The might of the Stormcasts was something he had to quantify before he could properly fit them into his plan to purge his realm of Chaos.
The Great Necromancer turned from the window. Makvar would reach the tower soon. Then the search for Mannfred’s sanctum would begin. Nagash was interested to see how quickly the Anvils could penetrate the shroud of illusion his errant Mortarch had woven around himself. Would they fall prey to the phantasms conjured by his necromancy, or would they be the first to uncover the vampire’s secret refuge?
Chapter Twelve
The moment Makvar climbed through the tower window, he was struck by a sense of lurking menace. Clambering down from the rope, descending the face of the tower, he had felt as though the very stones were trying to push him away, to send him hurtling to the floor of the cavern. When he looked at his gauntlets he found them slick with blood that evaporated before his eyes.
‘The blood is the life, son of Sigmar,’ Nagash’s voice rose from the gloom within the tower. The fleshless Death God drew one of his claws across the wall, gore dripping from his bones. ‘Mannfred has gone to great pains to invest his refuge with a life of its own.’
‘I doubt the pain was his,’ Makvar observed. He leaned back out the window, watching as Brannok began his own descent. ‘Mannfred has worked great evil in other realms. It fell to our brethren, the Hallowed Knights, to bring an end to his infamies.’
‘Forcing him back to this refuge,’ Nagash stated. ‘Your brothers are to be congratulated for sending my errant child back to me.’ The Great Necromancer stepped towards Makvar, his morghast bodyguards following him across the barren room. ‘A fearsome foe will be just as fearsome when set against the enemy. Bear that in mind, Lord-Celestant. Whatever discord there may be between Mannfred and the Stormcast Eternals, remember that he is no friend of Archaon.’ He waved his staff at the dripping walls. ‘The might of the Mortarch of Night will be a great asset in taking Gothizzar from the hosts of Chaos.’
‘But will he see it that way?’ Makvar wondered. ‘As you’ve said, it was Stormcasts who drove him from the Realm of Beasts to seek refuge in Nachtsreik.’
Deep within the hollow sockets of Nagash’s skull, a flash of fiery light briefly blazed. ‘He will obey,’ the Great Necromancer said. ‘It is his choice what condition he is in when he submits, but he will submit in the end.’
Makvar turned away, helping Brannok as the Knight-Heraldor reached the window. He clapped the other Anvil on the shoulder as the warrior gained his footing. ‘Help the others through,’ he told Brannok. ‘This fortress is immense and I suspect Mannfred will have concealed his sanctum with great care.’ He looked back towards Nagash. ‘Unless your powers can narrow our search.’
Nagash clapped the end of his s
taff against the floor. Ribbons of ghostly energy snaked away from the relic, crackling across the ground and shining up the walls. ‘Mannfred has soaked this castle in so much necromatic power that its vibrations crash together in deafening discord. With time, I would of course be able to extract his presence from the clamour that surrounds him. I could follow the signature of his magic back to whatever hollow he’s found for himself.’ He thrust his skeletal finger towards Makvar. ‘You have told me that your mission is urgent, that the God-King will need my legions soon. If that is the case then we shouldn’t tarry over rituals and spells.’
‘How are we to find Mannfred then?’ Makvar asked.
The Great Necromancer gestured at the stone steps leading down from the tower. ‘By defying the tricks and traps with which he guards himself. By using your remarkable abilities to uncover his hiding place.’
Makvar looked back to the window, watching as Brannok helped Neferata into the tower. The vampire queen looked alarmed by what she had overheard. Makvar wondered what kind of tricks and traps she anticipated her fellow Mortarch to have laid to ensnare those who trespassed within Nachtsreik.
Lord-Castellant Vogun was the first to descend the narrow steps which wound down through the tower. He held his warding lantern before him, its purifying rays burning through the cloying darkness ahead of him. The phantasmal blood dripping from the walls sizzled as the light struck it, vanishing in greasy puffs of smoke. Bodiless shapes woven from naught but shadows and malice fled from the Celestial glamour, their moans of pain and protest echoing through the dank corridors. Torn stalked just ahead of his master, snapping and snarling at the more tenacious apparitions before they could draw near to Vogun. The ghosts retreated from the gryph-hound, fading into the walls and floor before his beak and claws could strike them.