Soul Wars

by Josh Reynolds

  The presence of the intruders had thrown off the delicate balance of the pyramid’s function. He could feel it, in the curdled marrow of his bones. They had polluted it somehow, tainted his Great Work. That had been their purpose all along. He could see it now – an antithetical formula, let loose among the Corpse Geometries, to gnaw at the roots of his perfect order. An artificial miscalculation, meant to break him.

  Always, they sought to despoil the order he brought. Always, they made sport of his determination. They sent their servants to cast down his temples, and inflicted a hundred indignities upon his person. Again and again, they drove him to the earth, chaining him in one grave after another. They set stones upon him and sought to bury him where he might be forgotten forevermore. The laughter of the Ruinous Powers shook the pyramid, and shadeglass fissured all about him.

  They thought him beaten. They thought that once more he would be cast down into a cairn of their making, to be safely ignored until the next turn of the wheel. Anger pulsed through him, and amethyst light flared from the cracks in his bones.

  He was not beaten. And he would never be buried again.

  ‘Stand not between the Undying King and his chosen course, little gods,’ Nagash said. ‘Nagash is death, and death cannot be defeated.’ As he spoke, his thoughts raced through the structure, seeking a way to compensate for the damage. He was too close to fail now. There must be a way. There was a way. He merely had to divine it.

  Skeletons were caught up in a grave-wind, disassembled and reconstructed as Nagash took shape at the points of greatest stress – many Undying Kings rose up, a hundred eyes and a hundred hands, driven by one will. These aspects of him set their shoulders against collapsing archways, or braced sagging walls. ‘I will not be undone. Not again.’ The words echoed from the mouths of each of his selves, as they fought against the pyramid’s dissolution. A chorus of denials.

  Shadeglass cracked and splintered as the oscillation sped up. Blocks of vitrified sand shifted and split, sliding from position to crash down around him. But still, the Black Pyramid revolved. Nagash reached out with mind and form, seeking to hold the edifice together through sheer determination. Despite his efforts, sections peeled away and crumbled to dust. Passages collapsed, pulverising thousands of servitors.

  The core twisted as if in pain. Cracks raced along its length, leaking tarry magic. The mechanisms of rotation ruptured and burst, hurled aside by the core’s convulsions. Skeletons were dashed against the walls, or sent tumbling into the depths of the pyramid. Nagash ignored all of this, focused on containing the magics that now surged all but unchecked and unfiltered through the structure. The power burned through him, threatening to consume him. But he held tight to it. His Great Work would not be undone. Not like this.

  ‘I will not be defeated by vermin. I will not be humbled by lesser gods. I am Nagash. I am supreme.’ His denial boomed out, echoing through the pyramid. Through the eyes of innumerable servants, he saw Shyish fold and bend like a burial shroud caught in a cold wind. Wild magic raced outwards, across the amethyst sands.

  Across the realms, a rain of black light wept down from the convulsing sky. A million forgotten graves burst open. In vaulted tombs, the honoured dead awoke. Spirits stirred in shadowed bowers and hidden places. Nagash roared wordlessly and drew the power to him, refusing to let it escape. It was his. And he would not let it go. Let the realms crack asunder, let the stars burn out, let silence reign. Nagash would endure.

  He could feel the realm buckling around him, changing shape, even as the dark gods laughed mockingly. Reality itself shook, like a tree caught in a hurricane wind.

  Until, all at once, their laughter ceased.

  And in the long silence that followed… Death smiled.

  Chapter two

  Glymmsforge

  FREE CITY OF GLYMMSFORGE

  The sun set over the city of Glymmsforge.

  The sky darkened, turning a deeper purple than Elya had ever seen before. Something about it chilled her, and she looked back to the heaps of refuse she’d been sorting through. She had to be quick, else the nightsoil men would catch and beat her. It had taken her days to recover last time.

  Elya was small, thin and dark. Ten winters, or maybe eleven, but looked eight. Her clothes were loose and oft-mended. She went through the refuse with an experienced eye, picking through what had been dumped by vegetable sellers and butchers. She found a lump of fish meat and tossed it to one of the cats that hunted alongside her.

  There were a dozen cats in the alleyway, eating scraps or hunting the vermin attracted by it. Most were the small, black cats native to Shyish, but some were strays from other realms - large, spotted hunters from Ghur, and sleek, almost hairless mousers from the sandy wastes of Aqshy, the Realm of Fire.

  Wherever humans went, so did cats. They were as deadly an escort as ever padding through the dim streets. They loved Elya and had since the cradle. She knew this as well as she knew the sun would rise and the dead would walk. As she knew that the sky should not be purple. She glanced up again, chewing on something that was only a bit mushy. It wouldn’t be enough, but it was something. A cat meowed, and she stroked it. The big, brindle tom flashed a scarred lip as it rubbed against her.

  The cats were worried. She could feel it. It was as if they sensed something on the wind. ‘Is it a storm?’ she asked, softly. Sometimes sandstorms whipped through the streets. If she was caught away from home by one, she’d have to seek shelter wherever she could find it. ‘I could go down to the catacombs. Pharus would understand.’

  The tomcat meowed again, as if in agreement, then abruptly stiffened and hissed. Elya heard the clatter of a nightsoil cart approaching and darted from the alleyway, followed by the cats. She heard a shout behind her but didn’t stop.

  Elya ran through the concentric streets, trying not to think of the sky or how hungry she was. She followed the cats, trusting them to lead her along safe routes. She ran barefoot, her soles toughened by days at play on walls and rooftops of the Gloaming. The cobblestones were warm underfoot, for the moment. As night fell, however, they would become like ice.

  Around her, the city woke up for the evening. Sprigs of icethorn and mistletoe were hung upon doorframes and silvered mirrors set in windows. Lamplighters, clad all in black and wearing protective posies of strong-smelling herbs, lit the lanterns that hung above every archway and lintel. Her father, Duvak, would be among them, she hoped, earning money they desperately needed. If he hadn’t crawled into a jug of wine and forgotten his duties.

  She caught sight of Freeguild soldiers, in the mauve-and-black uniforms of the Glymmsmen, on their evensong patrol. Some carried long, sharpened stakes of Aqshian flamewood, just in case, while others carried mirrored shields or handguns loaded with salt-and-silver shot. The people of Glymmsforge knew well the dangers of the night and had long since made them routine and ritual both.

  The cats led her through one of the twelve great market squares around which life in the city often seemed to revolve. She sprang over a nightsoil cart, eliciting a shout from the collector, and ducked through a vegetable stall, snatching a pallid carrot as she went. She was hungry, and stealing food wasn’t really thievery.

  Munching on the carrot, she leapt up onto the display board of a spice stall and danced through the bowls of spices without tipping over a single one. The cats ran alongside or ahead of her, streaking through the evening crowd.

  While a few stones were tossed in her direction by angry market-goers, no one dared bother the cats. Not for no reason was a proud mouser a part of the city’s amethyst-and-sable heraldry. Cats were among the most powerful of the city’s defences. Besides keeping out vermin, they could detect the things that were not there. Many a haunting shade or alleyghast had been revealed by the warning hiss of a cat.

  Elya followed the cats into a cul-de-sac, one of thousands in this district. Above her, windows clattered shut for t
he evening, and the smells of holy herbs and braziers of gloomweed filled the air. Somewhere, she could hear the clangour of iron funerary bells, and she knew that the Black Walkers were about and on patrol.

  She scrambled behind an abandoned cask as the noise grew louder. A line of shuffling figures came into sight, passing the mouth of the cul-de-sac. The Black Walkers wore dark sackcloth and heavy hoods of the same, hiding their features. Strange sigils had been chalked onto their robes and hoods, and the heavy chains they wore clattered and clanked as they brushed across the cobbles. The funerary bells they rang made the air tremble, as they sang a slow dirge in some language she didn’t recognise. She didn’t emerge from hiding until the last of them had vanished, heading west towards the mausoleum gate.

  Her father called them priests, but she didn’t know what god they served. Azyrites seemed to detest them Elya, born in Shyish, was wary of them. In better days, her father had often told her stories of how the ghosts of dead gods haunted their ruined temples, and how some men still worshipped them, in secret places. Elya shivered. The ghosts of men were dangerous enough. She looked down at the brindle tomcat crouched beside her. ‘We need to go down,’ she said, as the sound of bells faded.

  The cul-de-sac sloped downwards. The buildings to either side grew higher, as if trying to escape the shadows of the streets around them They almost blocked out the sky, which had turned the colour of a bruise. The cats led her to the back wall, where dark thorn brambles and gloomweed grew wild, creeping across the cracked stones. She followed them through the brambles and into a crack in a wall, squeezing slightly, scraping her shins and banging her head. Behind the crack was a tunnel of sorts, a place where the stones leaned against one another in haphazard fashion.

  Water collected here, running in chill rivulets between the stones. The dark swallowed her. It was cool and damp. The sounds of the marketplace and the clangour of the bells were muted. All she could hear was the constant drip of the water and the purring of her four-legged companions.

  They led her around and down, through dark passages and cramped stairwells, into the deep catacombs. Elya scampered through the maze of forgotten rooms, through flooded cellars and beggar-warrens. She had made the journey a thousand times before, and felt none of the fear one might expect as she descended into the dark.

  Elya liked the catacombs. They were far away from the bustle of the city. She liked the long, silent avenues that stretched for miles on end. She could wander for hours among the great mausoleums that had been carved into the sides of the curving tunnels and among the hills of crypts, one set atop the next, stretched up, up and up. Or down, down and down, depending on your perspective. She passed freely through the mirrored passages and the webs of silver chain that kept the unquiet dead at bay.

  But most of the dead were at peace here, in the dark. Even so, mortals weren’t allowed down here. Pharus said so. He lived down here, in the dark. He had only come up to the light once, that she could remember.

  But she didn’t like to think about that day. Her mind shied away from it, away from a red memory, full of sound and fury.

  The cats stopped. So did she. She dropped to her haunches, watching the dark ahead. The walls moved, down here. Things were never the same way twice. Sometimes, she’d scared herself by walking into her own reflection, or found herself trapped in a tunnel that was no tunnel at all, but instead a construct of canvas and clever angles. The guardians of the catacombs liked to play tricks. But the cats always knew where they were and warned her.

  The big, brindle mouser with the scarred lip hissed softly. Elya flattened herself and scuttled off the path. A moment later, the tromp of heavy feet sounded in the dark. Armour rang against the stone, as clear as the bells of the Black Walkers. But these warriors served a living god, rather than a dead one.

  From her hiding spot, she watched the giant warriors, clad in black war-plate and bearing weapons such as a mortal man might struggle to lift, stride down the path. Stormcast Eternals were a common enough sight in Glymmsforge. They guarded the city from danger - both above and below. These wore heavier armour than the ones she usually saw, decorated with morbid totems that made her skin crawl, and they carried heavy, two-handed hammers.

  She felt a thrill of fear. The Stormcasts were frightening, though not in the same way as the Black Walkers. They were like statues come to life, too big and too strong not to evoke nervousness. But they meant no harm, she knew. Not to her, at least.

  The two warriors stopped, just opposite her hiding place. They spoke to one another in low tones that set her bones to vibrating. Then, one turned and stared at her hiding spot. She held her breath.

  ‘I see you, child,’ he said, in a voice like crashing rock. He sounded disapproving.

  ‘I wasn’t hiding,’ she called out.

  ‘That is good to hear, given how poor a job you made of it.’ He sank to his haunches, reaching one enormous hand out to a cat that rubbed itself against his greave. The animal accepted the touch with dignified grace and then ambled away, tail flicking. ‘There are more of them today.’

  Elya stepped into the open, holding the brindle tom in her arms. The cat glared at the Stormcasts as if they were rivals, rather than giants. ‘They’re keeping me company,’ she said, with a hint of pride. ‘They’re my carters.’

  ‘Your…?’ the crouching Stormcast said, in confusion.

  ‘She means courtiers, Briaeus,’ the other interjected. ‘She thinks she is their queen.’

  The brindle tom snarled. Briaeus ignored the animal. ‘Pharus told us you were not allowed down here, girl. Come, I will escort you to the entrance.’ Briaeus reached for her. Elya flinched back, clutching her cat to her chest. The tom snarled again, and other nearby cats wailed in warning. The Stormcast paused.

  ‘Perhaps you should let her go, Briaeus,’ his companion murmured.

  Briaeus glanced back. ‘Our orders.’

  Elya seized her chance. She dropped the cat and darted past Briaeus’ outstretched hand, as swift as her limbs could carry her. He rose to his feet and made as if to lurch after her, but his companion stopped him His words rumbled after her as she ran.

  ‘Let her go. Pharus will deal with her.’

  ‘This is a waste of time,’ Gomes said, raising his lantern. The light washed across the path ahead, and long shadows stretched away into the sandy wastes outside the city.

  The walls of Glymmsforge rose high above the small troop of Glymmsmen, soaring up into the black. From outside, Lieutenant Holman Vale could make out the irregular craters that scarred their surface - signs of the many sieges the city had endured.

  More evidence of past wars littered the waste ground that sloped away from the walls. The mouldering wreckage of ancient siege engines loomed like lonely trees, and broken stones dotted the sands. Vale barely remembered the last war - he’d been a child. Gomes did, though he rarely spoke of it, and only when he was in his cups.

  ‘There’s no one out here. No one alive, anyway. And if they are, what of it?’ Gomes continued. He was squat and broad, and his black-and-mauve uniform was untidy. But the blade he held in his other hand was well cared for.

  ‘If they are, we must do our duty, sergeant, and see that they make it into the city safely,’ Vale said, glancing at the men who followed him He’d brought five, including Gomes. It didn’t feel like enough, now that they were away from the gates.

  It was too quiet out here. There were sprawling shanty towns clinging to the city walls to the south and the west, but none nearby. Too much blood had been spilled here. He cleared his throat. ‘After all, can’t have people camping in the spoil grounds all night, sergeant. That’s dangerous.’

  ‘And it also means they don’t pay our private toll, eh, lieutenant?’ Gomes said. Several men chuckled. Vale nodded.

  ‘Exactly, sergeant. Everyone pays the toll, if they want to come through our gate.’ Vale glanced ba
ck at the sloped walls of Glymmsforge’s northern mausoleum gate. The mausoleum gates were strongholds unto themselves - dodecagonal bastion-forts, jutting from the compass edges of the city. Each was composed of twelve overlapping, triangular bastions, laid out in a semi-radial pattern from the curve of the wall. And each was manned by a company of Glymmsmen. In the case of the northern gate, it was Vale’s company.

  Vale was young, with a newly bought commission weighing him down. His family were traders - beer, mostly, though some silks and spices - with more money than influence. That was set to change, though, if Vale’s father had anything to say about it. Vale had taken a posting with the Glymmsmen, while his sister had entered Sigmar’s service. If all went well, in a few years the Vale name would rival that of the city’s other leading families.

  If all went well. If a deadwalker didn’t feast on his guts, or a gheist didn’t stop his heart. There would be promotions aplenty in his future, even if Captain Fosko didn’t look as if he was going anywhere, anytime soon. He frowned at the thought. Fosko was old and hard and fixed in his place, like one of the gargoyles that adorned the city’s walls. Worse, he was happy where he was.

  ‘I know that look,’ Gomes muttered, glancing back at him. ‘Thinking about old Fosko, sitting in his warm quarters, sipping tea, while we’re out here in the dark and cold?’

  ‘Hoping he stays there,’ Vale said, annoyed by his subordinate’s perspicacity. ‘Otherwise we won’t be collecting any private tolls at all tonight. Where are these traders of yours? You said they came this way.’ It wasn’t unusual for people to duck out of line and seek an easier - or cheaper - way into the city. But only the foolish did so at night.

  ‘I said someone said they might have,’ Gomes corrected, testily. ‘No one on duty saw them. One minute they were in line, the next they weren’t. We’re stretched thin on the gate - old Fosko wants men walking patrol, not searching people for contraband.’