Other figures wearing combat helmets and carapace armour came to stand beside the tall, greatcoated man. They looked at Bas with a mix of anger, curiosity and surprise. Their wounded comrade was already being attended by another soldier with a white field-kit.
‘Gentlemen,’ said the tall man. ‘Unexpected as it may be, we have a survivor here. Child or not, I’ll need to debrief him. You, however, will press on into the town as planned. Sergeant Hemlund, keep channel six open. I’ll want regular updates.’
‘You’ll have ‘em, commissar,’ grunted a particularly broad-shouldered trooper.
Bas didn’t know what a commissar was, but he guessed that it was a military rank. The soldiers fanned out, leaving him and the tall man standing beside Syrric’s body.
‘Regrettable,’ said the man, gesturing at the dead boy. ‘Psyker or not. Were you two alone here? Any other survivors?’
Bas didn’t know what a psyker was. He said nothing. The commissar took silence as an affirmation.
‘What’s your name?’
Bas found it hard to talk. His throat hurt so much from fighting back his sorrow. With an effort, he managed to croak, ‘Bas.’
The commissar raised an eyebrow, unsure he had heard correctly. ‘Bas?’
‘Short for Sebastian… sir,’ Bas added. He almost gave his family name then – Vaarden, his father’s name – but something made him stop. He looked down at the blood-slick knife in his right hand. His grandfather’s knife. The old man’s name was acid-etched on the blade, and he knew at that moment that it was right. It felt right. The old man had made him everything he was, and he would carry that name for the rest of his life.
‘Sebastian Yarrick,’ he said.
The commissar nodded.
‘Well, Yarrick. Let’s get you back to base. We have a lot to cover, you and I.’
He turned and began walking back down the street the way he had come, boots clicking sharply on the cobbles, knowing the boy would follow. In the other direction, fresh sounds of battle echoed from the dark tenement walls.
Bas sheathed the knife, bent over Syrric’s body and closed the boy’s eyelids.
He whispered a promise in the dead boy’s ear, a promise he would spend his whole life trying to keep.
Then, solemnly, he rose and followed the commissar, taking his first steps on a path that would one day become legend.
The Last Charge
Andy Hoare
At the close of the first millennium after the unification of fair Bretonnia, in the year the men of the Empire measure 1974, the coastal regions of the Old World and far beyond were laid waste by a fell scion of Naggaroth, the beastlord named Rakarth. How many thousands were slain by his monstrous hosts is not written, for few who witnessed his attacks lived to tell the tale. Port after port, city after city was crushed beneath the clawed feet of the vile abominations the beastlord herded into battle, those not devoured by his war hydras and black dragons enslaved and dragged screaming back to the Land of Chill.
Rakarth’s age of destruction culminated in an unprecedented attack upon the fair land of Bretonnia, beloved by the Lady and defended by the stoutest of hearts. Heed the tale of the city of Brionne, beloved of Duke Corentin…
The city of Brionne slumbered fitfully beneath a night sky that seethed with ghostly luminescence. On nights such as these, so the Daughters of the Grail warned, the wastes far to the north of Bretonnia howled with the raw power of forbidden sorceries. The lights, so they said, meant that killers were abroad, men and other, darker creatures, roaming far and wide in search of slaughter.
The people of Brionne knew not to look upwards at the boiling energies, nor to meet the gaze of the eyes that glowered from the actinic depths. They knew from the stories told to them as children not to heed the lies uttered by the unreal lips that formed in the roiling, lambent clouds of balefire. Far better, the people of Brionne knew, to lock the bedchamber doors, shutter the windows, snuff out the candles and take what mortal comfort they could beneath the sheets. And well they might, for none could know for sure if the world would still be standing when dawn came.
But one man refused to take to his bed. Corentin, celebrated, among other titles, as the Paladin of Maelys, the Marcher-Lord of the Silver Plain, Defender of Fort Adeline, Champion of Gaelle’s Virtue and Duke of Brionne, refused to be cowed by what he regarded as nothing more than an unusual storm. Even as violet-hued illumination flickered and pulsed outside his castle walls, Corentin stalked the dusty, candle-lit passages, long past the hour when any servant or courtier would be about to attend him. Wearing but his breeches and his sword belt, Corentin approached the inner sanctum of his castle, the Grail Shrine deep within its stone heart. Pausing to appreciate the solidity of the centuries-old, oak doors, he set a hand upon each handle, bowed his head, and entered.
The shrine was lit by golden light, cast by filigreed lanterns that had never been allowed to burn out since the day the city of Brionne had been founded. In the half-light, Corentin saw the familiar scenes carved in stone across every surface. Miniature architecture, impossible to render in true scale, reared overhead, populating the shrine with fantastically intricate tabernacle palaces. Tomb chests lined the walls, topped by stone effigies of long-dead knights in saintly repose, every one of them kin to the duke.
Corentin drew to a halt before the high stone altar, upon which was mounted a golden cup with deep, twinkling rubies mounted on its flanks. The vessel glowed with a light that was nothing to do with the lanterns all about, for it shone from within the very metal of this holy relic of times long gone. Even after so many years in service to Bretonnia, Duke Corentin was humbled before the symbol of all that he and his fellow knights fought for. It was not the grail, of course, but a grail, one of many sacred embodiments of the land and the people who dwelled within its borders.
The duke drew his gleaming sword and grunted as he went down upon one knee before the altar, the sword set before him point down. He was a powerfully built man, but he was far from young. In his youth he had been lithe and agile, in his majority as solid as an ox. Now, his muscle was softening and his former vigour deserting him, a little more each day. But still, he refused to cower like lesser men, regardless of what powers might be abroad this strange night.
When finally he was down, his good knee pressed hard into the cold flag stone of the chapel floor, Corentin looked upwards towards the grail. How many times had he done so, he pondered? How many battles had he begun by entreating the Lady of the Lake for victory? Dozens, he mused. Scores. Perhaps even hundreds. Truth be told, the battles Corentin had fought had started to blur into one another, as if his whole life had been but one long, bloody war against the innumerable enemies of Bretonnia. He supposed it had been, but he knew it must soon come to an end.
‘Not yet,’ Corentin said, his voice low and gruff, and somehow out of place in the sanctity of the grail shrine. The lanterns cast dancing light across the intricate architecture, the stone effigy of one of his ancestors seeming almost to stir as the light and shadow shifted across its surface. ‘Let not the glory of service be done yet…’
The lanterns flickered once more, and the duke felt the air stir about him. It was as if a gust from the chill night without had found its way through the winding passages, through the heavy oak doors, and into this most holy sanctum at the heart of his castle.
A heavy sense of foreboding settled over Corentin’s heart. The duke feared no enemy, whether man, beast or abomination, for he had faced all in battle and cut them down with equal contempt. Rather, he knew dread, the notion that soon he might be forced by the advance of years to put up his lance once and for all, and to surrender himself to infirmity or senility. Anger waxed inside him as that thought took hold, and he grit his teeth in denial.
‘No,’ he growled, his voice far too loud for his surroundings. ‘I implore you…’
The light upon the altar redoubled, and through eyes misted with tears, Duke Corentin watched in stunned awe as
the grail flared into pure, white illumination. Faith and adoration swelled within his chest as he knew that the Lady heeded his words and that, in some manner, she was here with him now, inside the chapel.
Knowing that the Lady of the Lake would hear him, Duke Corentin aloud spoke his heart’s most secret desire.
‘Lady,’ he implored, his head filling with visions of past battles. ‘Grant me one last, glorious moment. One last foe to banish in your name. One last battle to fight before the night draws in and claims me.’
The lanterns flickered once again, and the chapel grew chill. The cold seeped through the very stones, and into Corentin’s body.
‘Grant me an enemy to face,’ he pleaded, the clamour of battle audible, if faint, over the crackle of the candles burning in the lanterns.
Screwing his eyes tightly shut as he bowed his head in abject supplication to the Lady, Duke Corentin felt the air stir at his back and he knew without doubt that another had entered the shrine. A scent met his nostrils, a rich and intoxicating mix of heady perfume and untouched skin.
‘My lord,’ a sweet, lyrical voice sounded from behind him. ‘Do not ask this.’
A stab of anger flared in the duke’s heart, but it was dulled by the presence at his back. He lifted his head and opened his eyes, immediately averting his face from the blazing white light streaming from the altar.
‘Who…?’ he stammered, scarcely daring to dream that he might be in the presence of…
‘I am not her, my lord,’ the voice said, and Corentin detected a familiar accent, if one made lilting by an alien manner. ‘Please,’ she insisted. ‘Face me, my lord.’
The duke did as he was bid, rising on legs made unsteady by more than just age. Before him stood a woman, or a girl, he could not tell which for her features were truly ageless. Quite beyond that, her face was all but impossible to fully perceive, as if its details would be forgotten seconds after looking away, and so he dared not risk doing so. He recognised her as a damsel, a Daughter of the Grail, one of the blessed handmaidens of the Lady of the Lake, and as such a prophetess, miracle wielder and holy woman beyond compare. To the people of Bretonnia, such women – for no male ever returned having been called to serve the Lady – were but a step away from their patron deity, and their words were those of the Lady herself.
‘Then who?’ the duke stammered, unable to comprehend how this stranger had walked into the shrine at the very heart of his castle. ‘Who are…’
‘I come in answer to your prayer,’ the damsel said, starting towards the altar. As she walked, the long, girded, white shift that was all she wore ghosted behind her as a gossamer mist evaporating in the morning sun. He averted his eyes as her soft form was silhouetted through material made transparent by the silver glare. At the altar, she turned to look back upon him.
But the gaze that shone from her ageless eyes was ill matched with the gentleness of her body. Of a sudden, those eyes were fathomless and dreadful, regarding Duke Corentin as a god standing in judgement over a mortal soul.
‘You would answer my prayer?’ he said, scarcely able to believe that it could be true. ‘You would grant me one last glory before I die?’
The damsel did not answer straight away, but turned her face towards the shining grail, her long, dark hair stirring as if caught in a gentle breeze. Her fathomless eyes stared unblinking into the white light, before she turned to regard him once more.
‘I come not to grant your heart’s desire,’ she stated. ‘But I would warn you of the consequences of what you crave so.’
‘Consequences, my lady?’ the duke replied. ‘I care not for consequences. I have fought every foe this cruel world has set before me,’ he continued. ‘I have defeated them all. What warning have you for me?’
The ghost of a smile touched the damsel’s delicate lips, and she regarded the proud duke as if he were some boastful, callow and inexperienced youth bragging of the glory he would win upon the field of battle. Her eyes softened, and in an instant the dreadful power that had shone from them was gone, replaced by mortal, and very human, sorrow.
‘I can offer you no counsel, my lord,’ she said. ‘For the Lady knows that you, above all others, are truly wise in matters of war and state. But any man would be wiser still to know what not to ask.’
Frustrated, the duke replied, ‘Mock me not, my lady, for I am not one for riddles like those who treat with the fey. Am I to have that which I so desire?’
The damsel sighed, and replied, ‘Would you have your prayer answered, my lord, even if it spelled your doom?’
‘I would.’
‘Then you shall have it. You shall have that which you most desire.’
That night, Duke Corentin dreamed such dreams as no man could imagine. He relived every one of the battles he had fought over a lifetime of war. For a while, he was back at the Deliverance of Quenelles, following Master Joffre on that first, mad charge into the greenskin horde. Then he was bearing the standard at the Siege of Trantio, then cutting down the traitors as they turned against the River Tarano, the crossing suddenly impossible thanks to the blessings of the Lady. Then it was Castle Darkheart, the sight of the dead rising before the King’s lines striking dread into his old heart just as it had three decades earlier. Deep in the Irrana Mountains, Duke Corentin had saved Carcassonne from the largest Skaven swarm witnessed in living memory, though the lord of that dukedom had uttered scarcely a word of thanks.
For what seemed like hours, the battles flashed and boiled through feverish dreams, most blurring together, others standing out above the rest. The Battle of the Lagoon of Tears; the Siege of the ruined fortress of Vorag; the ill-fated Errantry War that scoured the Plain of Bones but in the process lost the king’s war banner. Battles against every foe known to man, and some of which man had no knowledge, came to him. Barbarous greenskins, cruel dark elves, the savage and blasphemous men of the north, the pernicious mercenary-princes of Tilea and the petty barons of the Border Princes. All of these foes and more he had faced upon the field of battle, and whatever foul magics or cunning stratagems they had employed, Corentin knew that every one of them could bleed, and therefore die. And all the while, the blessed presence of the Lady of the Lake stood by, just beyond perception, watching over the bold deeds performed in her name and that of her land and all its people.
The duke awoke with a start, the silken sheets damp and cold with sweat. His bedchamber was dark, the candles long burned down, but the wan light of dawn edged the heavy shutters on the lancet windows. The clamour of war still echoing in his ears as the dreams receded, Corentin rose from his bed and crossed the stone floor to the windows. Opening the shutters, he looked out across the city of Brionne, his heart filled with the foreshadowing of something dreadful.
The morning sun was barely over the horizon, and its golden rays turned the pale sandstone of the city’s soaring spires into shining needles made of glowing precious metal. From his window, the duke looked down upon the densely clustered rooftops, which were punctuated by dozens upon dozens of the impossibly delicate spires, the sharp conical roof of each one adorned with long pennants that fluttered in the morning breeze blowing in from the Great Ocean. Corentin’s gaze followed the towers as they marched towards the distant city walls, a sea mist making the most distant ghostly pale in the morning air. Beyond the high walls, the sea was barely visible at all, and the horizon all but invisible.
A flash of nightmare strobed across the duke’s mind, a spectre from the fevered dreams that had haunted him throughout the night. He heard once more the distant roar of some mighty wyrm-lord from the dawn of time, and pictured its writhing form skewered upon his blessed lance. The roar grew louder, resounding not from the mists of time and nightmare, he realised, but from those creeping in from the Great Ocean. His breath catching in his throat and his blood freezing in his veins, the duke realised that the fog was not the remnants of the nighttime sea mist, yet to burn off in the morning sun. It was, in fact, a fresh mist, its tendrils creeping
in from the ocean, writhing and questing like the tentacles of some vast, sea-spawned kraken…
‘To arms!’ Duke Corentin thundered from his bedchamber window as he leaned outwards over his castle. ‘Muster the household!’ he shouted into the marshalling yard below as the low droning of some ancient horror blared from the creeping fog. ‘Call out the militia!’
‘War is come!’ he bellowed, his blood pumping with a heady cocktail of battle lust and horror. Let them come, he prayed as he turned at the sound of his attendants entering the bedchamber. Whoever they may be, let them come, and know the cold taste of Bretonnian steel.
‘The elves of Naggaroth,’ said Duke Corentin’s chancellor as the two men stood atop the walls of Brionne, the city’s army mustered at the ramparts. The duke was resplendent in his ornate battle armour, its every plate burnished to a silvered finish and adorned with golden grail and fleur-de-lys icons. Nearby attendants bore his helm, his lance and his shield, while a groom in the yard below struggled to control his mighty steed.
The duke did not need telling just who this foe was or where they had come from. He had faced them many times and knew well their cruel ways. Indeed, the fine lattice of scars etched into the flesh of his belly told of the cruelties the dark elves, as they were known, were wont to inflict upon those they captured in battle. Those who had tortured Corentin in the aftermath of the Battle of the Deeping Moon had paid gravely for their sins, the duke turning the tables upon them having escaped captivity and returned with a vengeful army.
The enemy had come from the sea, stalking from the creeping ocean mists to surround the walled city of Brionne. That mist lingered still, and the dark form of a Black Ark loomed in the distance like an iceberg made of solid rock or a mountainous island thrown up by the sea overnight. From the cavernous sea-docks of the vast city-ship, hundreds of landing vessels had delivered thousands upon thousands of dark elves to the shore, the black-clad warriors forming into regiments and taking position on the plains surrounding the city. For miles all about, the lands were covered with the dark, serrated forms of the dark elf cohorts, vile banners snapping in the breeze and shrill horns blaring.
Hammer and Bolter Year One Page 131