Hammers of Sigmar

by Darius Hinks

  Drusus lands just a few feet away with his remaining Prosecutors and they drop to their knees in silent genuflection.

  The faces of my men may be hidden, but their nobility is not.

  I sit taller in my saddle and lift my chin. The barbarian in my soul slips away.

  ‘Look at them,’ I say, levelling Grius at the red knights. ‘How different they are from us. Can you feel their hunger? Their desp­eration? These aren’t men, but animals, scrapping for dominion over a debased pack. They fight for power over their kin and to hold these broken lands for their own. They fight for everything that is meaningless.’

  Zarax starts to pace beneath me, pawing at the ground, sensing that the battle is about to begin.

  ‘But you, my sky-born brothers,’ I say, raising my voice. ‘You fight for truth.’

  They bring their hammers down against their shields, filling the night with sparks and noise.

  ‘And for Sigmar!’ I roar as we advance.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Menuasaraz-Senuamaraz-Kemurzil

  (Mopus)

  ‘Curse Boreas,’ I say, slamming the palm of my hand on my desk. Dead insects tumble away from my fingers and dust fills the air. ‘How dare he wait so long to come back here and then try to fill my head with his religious nonsense? After all I taught him, how can he have fallen for a creed? And then try to drag me down with him?’

  The Carrion Princes are watching from the shadows as always, and they drift a little closer as I shove back my chair. I try to rise from my desk and collapse onto the floor. Damp, pulpy books soften my fall and I break into a furious, hacking cough.

  Skinless finger bones dig into my arms as the princes help me back onto my feet. I cling onto one of them for a moment, trying to stand straight, gripping a cold, dusty humerus as my legs tremble beneath me.

  The princes whisper inside my skull. You need to eat.

  ‘Food?’ I laugh. ‘I’m no animal.’

  I reach out and rummage through an old cabinet until I find a vial of sapphire-blue liquid. There are a few flies drifting in it but I pick them out and gulp the philtre down. Warmth rushes through my body and I slowly start to recover.

  I shoo the princes away and stagger over to a mirror. It’s thick with dust and obscured by a mound of annotated skulls, but once I’ve cleared a space I manage to see myself for the first time in months. I feel a little calmer – I could almost pass for one of my skeletons. My skull grins out from behind its thin covering of white skin. I’m everything that an ascetic scholar should be. No gaudy gold armour for me, just a few simple robes and enough flesh to keep my mind working. There was a time when Boreas would have understood such asceticism, but not now. Anger and hurt drives me to drink another philtre. My eyes start to burn the same blue as the liquid and my heart pounds an irregular rhythm.

  ‘I always knew Boreas would return,’ I say, ‘but not like this – not to mock and accuse. How could he throw his lot in with brutish soldiers when I could have shown him the mysteries of the cosmos? How can he believe in Sigmar’s ridiculous doctrine?’ The more furious my words, the more I know that I’m lying to myself. I’m angry because I’m afraid he might be right, afraid that I’ve wasted all these years.

  I shake my head, trying to rid myself of this infuriating self-doubt. It irks me that I’m not able to continue studying, but I can’t banish the memory of his faith. I stumble across the room, barging past the princes and knocking over towers of books. The Kuriat is on my desk, still thudding patiently. I pick it up and stare at its hardened, shrivelled arteries.

  ‘Boreas has been made a fool of. This thing has no power as a weapon. What did he hope to achieve?’

  Then why did you take it from him?

  ‘Because the wretched fool cared for it more than anything! Because I wanted to hurt him.’ I realise how small-minded and ridiculous I sound, but it just makes me even more furious. I put the lump of meat back on my desk and try not to think about it.

  ‘If that really is Sigmar’s great army,’ I continue, ‘why would he send them to the Crucible of Blood? Why is the Kharvall Steppe of such importance to him? There are countless other strongholds he should strike first if he means to unseat the Dark Gods.’

  I turn to the princes. ‘What else do we know of the Crucible of Blood?’

  Very little. Your scribes have searched every text. They’re all curiously quiet on the subject. One of the princes waves at the gruesome illustration of daemons boiling in blood. We know nothing more than that.

  ‘There must be more. Something is happening here. This is all significant. I know that Boreas is not really a fool. I taught him too well for that. There must be something I’m missing.’

  What about Giraldus?

  ‘Giraldus?’ I frown with distaste as I recall the pompous old bloodsucker. ‘He’s a third-rate scholar and a first-rate fool.’ I picture the deluded vampire as I last saw him, parading around Nagash’s court in the ornate, decorative armour of a grand noble. ‘He claims to be a king, but he behaves more like a spoiled little prince.’

  As a mortal, he dwelled on the Kharvall Steppe. He was indeed a king. He was not always Nagash’s puppet. When he ruled, there was still a city where the Crucible of Blood now stands.

  It annoys me that I didn’t know this myself, but I mainly feel relief. I can’t abide not having a thread with which to unpick a puzzle. My mind whirls with thoughts of Boreas, daemon-filled skulls and gleaming, noble armies.

  ‘Ready our legions,’ I say suddenly, looking around for some clothes. ‘Prepare the Coven Throne.’

  They reply at once, filling my head with panicked questions. I can’t help but laugh. ‘Yes, my old friends. I may lack Boreas’ martial zeal, but I know when I need to act. Whatever’s happening at the Crucible of Blood needs to be stopped, or at least controlled. I can feel it as surely as I feel Boreas’ knife in my back. Giraldus will tell us what he knows and he will lend me his swords.’ I grab my rune-inscribed staff from beneath a moth-eaten fur. ‘And then I’ll make sure we can continue our work here in peace. I won’t let Boreas or his soldiers ruin everything with their wretched ideologies and faith. I will not have war thrust upon me by Sigmar.’

  I stagger through the fane, clambering over my wonderful collections and starting to warm to my task. My purpose has always been to cheat death, but if I need to deal a little of it out, then so be it.

  By the time I emerge into the drizzle my army is already must­ered. I can’t help but smile when I think of Boreas’ boasts. This is an army. The power of the philtre pounds in my chest as I survey it. The entire valley has been painted white by the gleaming, fleshless skulls of my long-dead spearmen. While my enemies thought I was sleeping, I summoned a host that lesser scholars could only dream of. Countless thousands of warriors stare back at me in unflinching silence, bound by the impenetrable wards tattooed on my skin. Every one of them clutches a rusting, prehistoric weapon and wears fascinating scraps of armour. Their shields and hauberks display the design of myriad cultures. This is archaeology in the form of a lethal, fearless host.

  Pacing before them is my greatest prize, a morghast – a winged giant of bone and metal, bleeding light from its armoured ribcage. I stole it at great risk from my supposed regent, Nagash, and it makes an incredible sight. It towers over the spearmen at eight or nine feet tall and it holds a pair of enormous, machete-like swords that predate even the fane. Its fleshless bones are lit up by screaming, tormented spirits. In fact, the entire host is shrouded in a pale green ocean of swirling figures, all bound to me by the same tattooed glyphs. For many years we kept a head count, but recently it has become impossible. Even my hordes of scribes and clerks cannot record the vast numbers arrayed before me. My army numbers in the tens of thousands; that’s all that matters. Has anyone ever assembled such a host? I can’t believe they have.

  The princes materialise from the mi
st, hauling my chariot behind them – the Coven Throne, a relic of an ancient race, charged with the life force of their countless victims. It billows towards me on a storm of death-magic, drawn by diaphanous horses and a tempest of spirits. Ghosts lift me up like an offering and present me to the chariot. The blazing tumult envelops me and, as I take my seat, it turns to face the numberless hordes below. I hold my staff aloft and spirits whirl upwards, filling the valley with noise and light. The ranks of skeletons say nothing as the Coven Throne lifts me over their heads, but, as I give the order to advance, the sound of their feet falling is like the boom of thunder.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Menuasaraz-Senuamaraz-Kemurzil

  (Mopus)

  Shyish: the realm of ageless, boundless, grandeur. What became of you? There was a time when every one of the underworlds contained wonders beyond the imagination of the living. Now they are a collection of broken shells. The iron-clad boot of Chaos has crushed the wonder from my home. I have been hidden away for so long in the fane that it shocks me to see how far Khorne’s reach has extended. The horizon is a spine of bristling towers.

  Your studies have served you well, say the princes, looking back at me from their skeleton steeds at the head of the chariot.

  I nod. ‘There are few left who still have knowledge of the back ways through these lifeless groves.’ Just a few hundred feet from the flanks of my army, Khorne’s armour-clad monsters are scouring the landscape for something, anything to destroy.

  They are blind to your passing.

  I feel a swell of pride as I hear the respect in the spirits’ voices.

  ‘An open mind is hard to suppress.’ I grimace at the lumbering brutes that are trying to crush all the wonder from my world. ‘And a closed mind is easily confused.’ I glance at my pale legions of spearmen. ‘We’ll show our face once we reach Giraldus, but not a moment before. And, as long as he sees sense, we’ll be gone before they know we were there.’

  Giraldus always had a penchant for grand displays of power but now, as we approach his fortress, I see how he has been diminished. His fortress was once a mountain of iron-hard bone, warped into solid, squatting towers and thick, hunched buttresses, but the sight that greets me now is far less impressive. The walls have been shattered by countless assaults and the colossal gargoyles are slumped and broken. His vampiric sentries still man the walls, wearing their distinctive winged helmets, but they’re a tiny fraction of the army that once marched beneath Giraldus’ banner. Still, I can’t help but feel a little respect. Almost every inch of this land has been flattened by Khorne’s armies, but Giraldus stands defiant.

  ‘How has he survived?’ I ask, turning to the princes.

  Sorcery and courage. At the first sign of Khorne’s armies he severed his link with the land. His fortress is here today but tomorrow it will be gone. He stays long enough to strike a quick blow, then leaves. His luck can’t hold out much longer though. The spirits hesitate. They say he is very proud. What if he refuses to help?

  I scowl. ‘He may only be here for today but that would be long enough for me to teach him a little humility.’ I wave my staff at my army. ‘That ruin could not withstand this for an hour. Still, I have no desire to waste my energy fighting Giraldus. I will find a better way to convince him.’

  I give an order and the morghast lifts into the sky, filling the night with a cry torn from beneath the rain-drenched sod.

  As my army pours from the shadowy hills, the full size of it is revealed. I wonder what Giraldus must be thinking as this dread host surrounds his crumbling walls. I nod to the princes and they pull my Coven Throne down towards the palace’s towering gates.

  They open before we reach them, revealing a ridiculous fanfare of gaudy, fluttering banners and a column of ornately armoured knights. They’re all long dead, of course, even Giraldus himself, but they’re dressed as lordly, mortal knights. Their black armour is polished to a dazzling sheen and their rictus grins are hidden behind tall, winged helmets. Only Giraldus, riding proudly at the front, has his face on display. A life of murder and unholy pacts has kept his skin intact, but even the thick rouge on his cheeks can’t mask his antiquity.

  He’s one of the few lords who has not fallen to Chaos, whisper the princes.

  I’m unimpressed. ‘Look at that makeup and finery. Even after so many centuries of life he’s not learned to discard the baser plea­sures. He could have used all that time devoting himself to study.’

  Try to suppress your distaste. This will be so much quicker if you don’t have to kill him. Try to at least–

  I wave the princes to silence as Giraldus approaches.

  ‘Menuasaraz,’ he says, performing an elaborate bow on the back of his horse. As he moves, his armour clatters with icons and medals, filling the night with jaunty music. ‘It’s rare to see you abroad.’ His voice is as inhuman as the cry of the morghast.

  He makes no mention of the huge army circling his home but I can hear the outrage in his voice.

  I nod in reply. ‘You’re looking well, Giraldus.’

  He recognises the mockery in my voice and lights flicker deep in his hollow eye sockets. ‘What brings you to my door?’

  I steer the Coven Throne closer and signal for my skeletal honour guard to remain behind.

  Giraldus follows my lead and we meet, alone, in the centre of the road. The spirits that haunt my army have filled the night sky with vaporous robes and, as we dismount and approach each other, we’re bathed in green light.

  ‘I seek your advice,’ I say.

  His expression remains wary as he studies me. ‘From what I hear, there can’t be many questions you can’t answer by looking in your own library. What has dragged you from the fane?’ He narrows his eyes. ‘Perhaps I’m not the only one who’s been hearing strange rumours.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard rumours, Giraldus – rumours of golden knights purporting to carry the might of Sigmar in their hammers.’ I feel my irritation growing as I say it out loud. ‘An army come to rid us of Chaos.’

  ‘It’s more than that,’ he replies. ‘They say these knights are fragments of Sigmar himself – avatars of his will.’

  There’s a flicker of excitement in his eyes and I can’t hide my disbelief. I wave at the ruined landscape. ‘Giraldus, you’ve been trying to throw off this yoke for centuries and look where it’s got you. Do you really think a few gold hammers will turn back the legions of the Dark Gods? And if they did, what love do you think they would have for us? True wisdom means nothing to religious zealots. They’d probably see us as tomb robbers and necromancers.’

  Giraldus grips the gilded handle of his sword. ‘What did you want to ask me?’

  I curse my lack of control as I realise he’s almost as much of a zealot as Boreas.

  ‘What do you know about the Nomad City?’ I ask.

  He laughs, surprised by my change of tack. ‘The Nomad City? What makes you ask me that?’

  Before I can reply he draws back his shoulders. ‘No matter. I’m not ashamed of my past. Yes, necromancer, I was born on the Kharvall Steppe, your books have not misled you. I lived in the shadow of the Nomad City, but that was long ages ago. Have you really braved this journey to ask me about the adventures of my youth?’

  ‘Sigmar’s knights are heading for the Nomad City. That’s where they mean to strike – there’s a shrine of some kind, a brass skull called the Crucible of Blood. Of all the places they could attack, why choose that particular site?’

  At the mention of the crucible he looks so pained that I think he might turn and leave. Then he shakes his head. ‘Forgive me. I have no love for the Blood God, Menuasaraz. If you’ve found a way to hurt him, I would be glad to help. What do you want to know?’

  ‘I want to know what the crucible is.’

  ‘It’s a monument to a tragedy, Menuasaraz. You have unearthed a great pain in uttering that name in fr
ont of me.’ He closes his eyes for a moment, then continues. ‘When Khorne’s legions began spreading across the steppe, the lords of the Nomad City demanded that we stand together against them. They said that it was crucial that their city didn’t fall.’ I notice a hint of emotion in his voice – shame perhaps.

  ‘But you didn’t aid them?’

  He glares at me. ‘I’m no coward, but I’d been studying the obscure arts for a long time by then. I was consumed by my desire to uncover the secrets of Shyish. I was so obsessed by my studies that I barely registered what was happening to my kingdom.’ He waves at the bone-clad peaks that surround us. ‘I knew there was a finer, less transient world than my own and I could think of nothing but reaching it. Some of my subjects tried to save the Nomad City, but I paid them no heed – I had my eyes on something greater.’

  I nod. ‘To survive and continue learning is an honourable goal.’

  ‘So I thought.’ He sounds either angry or ashamed.

  ‘What is the Crucible of Blood? Why would Sigmar care about it? Why would he send his army there, rather than to one of the great Chaos strongholds? Or some other shrine?’

  ‘Because it’s more than just a shrine. I know because I witnessed its creation. I was almost ready to leave when Khorne grew tired of the Nomad City’s insolence. He sent a powerful general…’ His voice becomes unsteady. ‘A being from Khorne’s own realm. It was like an army trapped in a single body. It dwarfed even the giants who guarded the Nomad City, but it couldn’t defeat them. Even from the very edge of the steppe I could see the battle. It raged across the heavens – three times the daemon attempted to level the city, smashing the walls with an axe as big as the watch­towers, and three times it failed. The titans wouldn’t yield. I realised then that I should have gone to help them, but it was too late.’