Hallowed Knights: Ghosts of Demesnus

by Josh Reynolds

  Gardus looked up from his work. A short, thin man stood watching him. He was dressed simply, if richly, in a heavy coat of dark leather, lined with eiderdown, and a shapeless hat of otter fur. A brooch of silver, decorated with a spray of feathers, was pinned to the side of the hat. He leaned on a cane of dark wood, carved with shapes reminiscent of the harvest, and had a short sword sheathed on one narrow hip.

  ‘They tell me you accosted several of my employees.’

  Gardus set aside the bulrushes and stood. The sellswords twitched, some reaching for their weapons. But the newcomer did not so much as flinch.

  ‘You’re a big fellow, aren’t you?’ he asked. He glanced back at the sellswords and waved them back. ‘Bigger than these.’

  ‘And with a sword to match.’ Gardus let his hand drop to the pommel of his runeblade. The newcomer nodded.

  ‘So I see. I am Sargo Wale.’ Wale bowed shallowly, one hand on his hat to hold it in place. ‘You might have heard of me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You are new to the city, then?’

  ‘No.’

  Wale frowned. ‘How curious. I should have thought I would have heard of a fellow of your… vigour. And you certainly should have heard of me. My ships line the wharf. My grain and my orchards feed the city, and keep Demesnus from sinking into the mire, like so many of our neighbours.’

  Gardus crossed his arms. ‘Nonetheless, your name does not ring familiar.’

  ‘May I have yours, then?’

  Gardus made to answer, but something held him back. ‘No,’ he said finally.

  Wale smiled and shrugged. ‘Ah well, no matter. I’ll just call you friend.’ He set his cane down and leaned on it, one thin hand atop the other. ‘I am here to speak to Carazo. Where is he?’

  ‘Inside. Sleeping.’ The old priest had used up what little energy he had leading his people in another hymn. The last Gardus had seen, Dumala had been bullying the old man into laying down somewhere. ‘He is ill.’

  Wale sighed, and peered up at the sky. ‘They all are. This place… it is not healthy. Perhaps in time. But not now.’ He thumped the street with his cane. ‘The soil is sour, you see. It needs a firm hand to till it, and turn out the stones. You know whereof I speak?’

  Gardus said nothing. Wale continued, as if he had. ‘I own this land. I bought it, fair and true, from the council. They were glad to be rid of it.’ He frowned. ‘I will turn it into something useful. Another orchard, perhaps, or maybe even a park. The soil is still sweet, beneath the sour. Or it can be made so again. With a bit of effort.’

  Gardus looked him up and down. Wale’s smile widened. ‘You think me a liar, sir? Why, I’m no scion of the bulrushes, come from money and privilege. I came here from Aqshy, without a single coin to my name. But I knew how to work the soil.’ He held up his hands. They were scarred and muscular. ‘These hands were worn bloody on handle of plough and haft of scythe, my friend.’ He turned them over, studying them. ‘I bargained with treekin and waged war on beasts, to carve out my first fields. And I paid well, and was paid, for the privilege of feeding this growing city. I’m a man of the soil, me. I take what it offers, and give back, when I can.’ He gestured with his cane. ‘Nothing more.’

  ‘Your men tried to hurt one of the people living here,’ Gardus growled, tired of Wale’s patter. ‘And not for the first time, if what they say is true.’

  Wale’s smile vanished. ‘And you believe them?’

  ‘I have no reason not to.’

  ‘My apologies. Were they a friend of yours?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then less reason still to involve yourself in matters that don’t concern you.’ Wale peered up at him. ‘Step aside, and we’ll say no more about it.’

  Gardus crossed his arms. Wale blinked, but recovered quickly. He glanced back at his men, and then shook his head. ‘Ah, well. One must learn to endure what comes.’ He looked at Gardus. ‘Is it money, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mm. Something else?’

  ‘I want you to leave.’

  ‘And so I will. But I will return.’ Wale looked up at the hospice. ‘This place is mine, now. By right, and by law. They can’t stay here. Better for everyone if they move along.’

  ‘Because you wish to turn this place into something useful.’

  Wale shook his head. ‘For their own good. For the good of the city.’ He took off his hat and ran a hand through thinning silver hair. ‘This was a place of healing, once. A long time ago. Now, it’s a graveyard. It needs tending, and not by sickly wretches, coughing out prayers, and spreading their ills to honest folk.’ He slapped his hat back on his head and looked at Gardus. ‘I know what you are, friend. I’ve been to Hammerhal, aye, and Azyrheim as well, if you can believe it.’

  ‘Then you know these will not be enough to move me, if I decide to stand here.’ Gardus indicated the sellswords with a sweep of his hand. A gesture of bravado, but necessary. The sellswords had the look of men who’d just realised that they probably weren’t going to be paid.

  Wale nodded thoughtfully. ‘And yet, I own this land. Mine by right, you see?’ He held his hand out. ‘You’re like a stone, sitting in my field. I can try to dig you out…’

  ‘Or you can go around me.’

  Wale smiled thinly. ‘Never been one for that. But, never been one to tempt the gods, either.’ He hunched forward, leaning on his cane. ‘I expect that you came here for a reason, my friend. I expect that reason has to do with them inside. Maybe you can move these stones, where I can’t.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I came here today to drive them out once and for all. I have warrants from the Rushes, allowing me to use whatever methods I deem best.’ He twitched his cane towards the sellswords. ‘I’m a simple man, friend. I use what tools are to hand. But I wouldn’t say no to a bit of help.’

  ‘You want me to get them to leave.’

  ‘You’d be ensuring their safety. Sigmar’s law is on my side, and I’d rather not water this ground in blood.’

  Gardus’ hand dropped to the hilt of his sword. ‘If I say no?’

  Wale smiled sadly and shrugged. ‘Then these fellows will earn their pay.’

  ‘And if I stand against them?’

  ‘Then they’ll die, I imagine.’ Several of the sellswords blanched at this. Wale continued, ‘But I will have what I’m owed. Even if I have to involve the Rushes, and the city guard.’ He frowned. ‘I’ll hire an entire freeguild regiment, if that’s what it takes. So, you have to ask yourself – am I the stone, or the man who’ll move it?’

  Gardus said nothing. Wale sighed and peered up at the darkening sky. ‘I’ll give you until evensong tomorrow. After that, I’ll do what must be done.’ He turned away. ‘As, I imagine, will you.’

  Gardus watched the sellswords drift away, as their master departed, in ones and twos. They wouldn’t go far. And they’d be back, in force. Possibly with help from the city guard, if Wale had been speaking the truth. Gardus had little reason to doubt him.

  Mortals like Wale were becoming more common, as Sigmar’s influence spilled out into the wider realms. They remade the land in Azyr’s image, whether they meant to or not, taming the wilderness and helping the cities of men grow. Gardus had seen it before, and had even aided it, once or twice. That was the Stormcast Eternals’ purpose, after all. To drive back the dark, so that the light of Azyr might flourish. To make new what was old.

  Men like Wale were necessary, in that regard. They consecrated the ground the Stormcast cleansed in blood and fire, and sowed the seeds for the harvest to come. They raised the cities and rebuilt the roads. Without them, all that warriors like Gardus had achieved would soon fall back into ruin.

  But necessity was not always just. He remembered other men, like Wale, from his life as Garradan. Men who wanted lepers burned, and the sick herded onto
barges. Men who wielded necessity as a shield, for their own fear and greed.

  He turned, and looked up at the ruins of his hospice.

  ‘Sigmar guide me,’ he murmured.

  ‘They will return tomorrow at evensong,’ Gardus said, as he watched Dumala and others fill bowls of soup for the hungry.

  ‘And we will be here to greet them,’ Carazo said. They stood in an antechamber, watching as the pilgrims took their evening meal. Soup and hard, crusty bread, donated by a sympathetic baker. ‘Saint Garradan will provide. As he always has.’

  ‘What if he wishes you to leave?’

  Carazo looked at him. ‘Has he spoken to you, then, brother?’

  Gardus looked away. Carazo sighed, and went on. ‘Wale never showed an interest in this place until we moved in. Then he decided he needed it.’

  ‘And the Rushes gave it to him.’

  Carazo nodded. ‘Of course. We are lepers and beggars and fanatics. They don’t want us here. But our numbers grow, and they fear what others might say if they turn us out. We are not the only followers of the twin-tailed comet in this city, though most worship the Everqueen, these days.’

  ‘So they hand the problem to Wale.’

  Carazo laughed, but it quickly turned into a cough. ‘Wale has done much good for the city. I admit that.’

  ‘And you haven’t,’ Gardus said. Carazo shrugged.

  ‘What is the measure of such a thing? We preach, sometimes, to those who wish to hear. We tend to the sick among us. We sit out of sight, and pray and sing. We are peaceful, as Saint Garradan was peaceful. But like him, we will fight to defend this place, and our way, if we must.’

  ‘I doubt he would want that.’ Gardus looked at the old priest. ‘Why stay?’

  Carazo coughed and dabbed at his bandaged features with a rag. ‘The Saint called us here, though we know not why. So we came, and we found a sort of peace in this place.’ He looked at the statue. ‘I will not leave, until I know why the Saint called me here.’

  ‘Nor will I,’ Dumala said firmly. She offered Gardus a bowl of soup.

  He waved it aside. ‘It is not a question of allow,’ he said. ‘They will come, and there is little you can do to stop it.’ He looked around. ‘Wale has the Rushes on his side. He has the law.’ The words tasted bitter, even as he said them.

  ‘And we have a higher law,’ Carazo said. He made the sign of the hammer. Gardus’ reply was interrupted by the sudden scream of an infant. He turned, to see a woman trying to quiet her child, to no avail.

  Gardus stepped over to her. ‘Let me,’ he rumbled. The woman stared up at him, fear in her eyes. Gardus held out his hands. ‘Please.’

  She looked at Carazo, who nodded. Gingerly, she held out her child, and Gardus took him. He lifted the infant, and rocked him gently, quieting his screams. The woman smiled, the exhaustion on her face easing slightly. ‘He is quiet,’ she said.

  ‘I remember when I, too, was a child,’ Gardus said softly. ‘All men were children once, and in need of comfort.’

  ‘Some might say we still are,’ Carazo said.

  Gardus smiled gently. ‘Yes.’ The infant had quieted, and he handed the boy back to his mother. ‘He is colicky. A warm bath may help.’

  Dumala stared at him. ‘How do you know that?’

  Gardus looked at her. ‘Know what?’ He turned to Carazo. ‘If you will not leave for your own sake, think of this child – and of the others here. Think of Dumala.’

  ‘I told you – I will not leave,’ she began, but Carazo silenced her with a look.

  ‘Perhaps you are right. But it is not a decision I can make lightly. I must pray.’ He raised his hands, and the others fell silent. ‘We all must pray, and seek answers from Saint Garradan. If it is his will that we go – if it is Sigmar’s will – we will go. But we must pray.’ He looked at Gardus. ‘Will you pray with us, brother?’

  Gardus nodded, after a moment. ‘I will.’

  Perhaps in prayer, he would find the answers he sought.

  Gardus snapped alert.

  He could not say why, but something had drawn him from his meditations. He glanced at Dumala, and saw that she was sleeping beside him. So were Carazo and the others. Prayer had given way to slumber as the night wore on.

  He rose, wondering if Wale’s men had come early. If so, he would greet them. Quietly, he padded from antechamber to antechamber, searching for the source of the disturbance. But he found nothing, saving the sick and the lost, sleeping fitfully. Did they dream of him, of the man he had been?

  Garradan… please…

  He turned. ‘I hear you,’ he said softly. ‘I have always heard you. But when will you tell me why you call out to me?’

  Garradan… we need you…

  He paced through cold corridors, his breath billowing in the chill. Mortals huddled for warmth, shivering and coughing in their sleep. This place was not good for them. They did not light fires for lack of fuel. They had no food, save what could be scavenged. And yet they stayed, in defiance of all common sense.

  Garradan… help us…

  His hands clenched into fists. Into weapons. Light flickered in an antechamber. Silently, he moved towards it, his every instinct screaming now. Warning him. There was a smell on the air. A sickly smell, worse than any other, but familiar. One he had smelled before, in places men ought not to go.

  Garradan… Garradan… Garradan…

  His name beat on the air like the wings of a dying bird. It brushed across the edges of his hearing with painful flutters. He ducked beneath an archway, and the ill light washed over him, filling the antechamber. Men and women lay asleep on pallets, tossing and turning.

  Something abominable was coiled about them.

  Gardus stopped, a prayer caught in his throat.

  The thing looked up at him with more faces than mouths, and more mouths than eyes. It was at once a slug and a cloud and a serpent – no, a nest of serpents – a scabrous, shimmering wound in reality. A thing that should not be. Tendrils of glistening mist wound about the sleepers, pulsing red, and Gardus knew that it was feeding on them in some way. Like a vampire, it drew the life from them, and took it into itself.

  Time seemed to slow. His hand fell to his sword. It reared, like a snake readying itself to strike, and unfurled in some awful way. Its mouths moved.

  Garradan… Garradan… Garradan…

  ‘No,’ Gardus said. Light rose from his flesh, a clean light, and the thing shrank back like a startled beast. The whispers were mangled into moans as it squirmed away from him, slithering into the dark. He followed it, moving quickly.

  Was this why he had been drawn here? All this time, had he been haunted in truth, and not just by memories? He did not know. All he knew was that the thing – the daemon of plague and murder – held in itself the souls of innocent and damned alike. It slithered away from him, crawling on withered hands, its faces twitching and gaping. He could hear the voices in his head. A silent storm of whispers and moans. Anger, fear and pain, merging into a dolorous hammer stroke – a pulse of unsound that reverberated through the air, undetectable, save by one with a shard of the divine grafted to their soul.

  The ground glistened with grave-light where the daemon-spirit passed, and Gardus could smell the sourness it left in its wake. The earth sickened in its presence, and the air became miasmatic. It was no wonder so many of Carazo’s followers were ill.

  The daemon-spirit stopped in what had once been the central chamber of the hospice. As Gardus followed, it began to come apart like a cloud caught by a breeze. In slips and tatters, it sank down into the broken soil, until there was no sign it had ever been at all. Gardus sank to his haunches at the point of its disappearance. Tentatively, he pressed the palm of his hand to the ground. He could feel it, somewhere below him. Like water rushing beneath the earth. Burrowing down, down to… what?

&nb
sp; He looked around the chamber. He noted the fire-scarred stones and the ugly, fleshy growths that clung to the blackened timbers that pierced the broken ground like talons. As was the way in Ghyran, life had returned with a vengeance. Tapestries of green hung down the broken walls, rippling gently in the night breeze. Overhead, the shattered remains of the dome of glass had turned a filthy brown, from neglect. Sigmar’s face was hidden beneath a mask of grime. Thin pillars of starlight fell across the chamber like the bars of a cage.

  He heard rubble shift, behind him. He glanced back, and saw Dumala.

  ‘When I awoke, you were gone,’ she said. ‘I thought…’ She shook her head. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘What is this place?’ he asked, as he stood.

  ‘They buried them here. All of those who died when the hospice burned.’ Dumala joined him, her arms wrapped tight about her. She shivered slightly, her eyes wide. ‘You can still feel it. That’s what Carazo says.’

  ‘Feel what?’

  ‘What happened here.’ Dumala looked up at him. ‘Can you feel it?’

  Gardus did not reply. He stared at the ground, a sick feeling growing within him. All the dead… How long had they been trapped down there, in the stifling dark? Broken souls, changing, made into something else by pain and fear. By a plague that had been more than mere sickness. A plague of the soul, as well as the flesh.

  How long had they festered until the scent of new life, new souls, had drawn them questing from their pit. A new thing, born in blood and darkness, and hungry. So hungry.

  He felt Dumala flinch away from him, as if startled. Belatedly, he realised that he was shining. Starlight shimmered over him and from within him, turning the greens and browns of the chamber to silver. Dumala had fallen to her knees, hands clasped in prayer. Tears streamed from her eyes and her mouth moved wordlessly. Gardus stepped back, trying to dim his radiance. To hide the light once more. But it was hard. Something about this place, this moment, called out to it, and the light… the light answered.