Champion of the Gods

Chapter seventeen

Lord-Veritant Vikaeus swept into the keep like a cold wind. The Dracoth she rode padded over the cracked flagstones with the cool deliberation of an alligator returning to water. Its scales were the blue of Celestial hoarfrost, its armour white, tack and harness glittering in the torches that burned sporadically in the handful of sheltered sconces about the disarming chamber. With cold-blooded patience it surveyed the weapons benches and alcoves, and the chipped stone columns that lined the east wall. I hid behind the farthest column and tried not to breathe. While the Dracoth satisfied itself, two Concussors in the frost-white bastion plate and silver trim of the Knights Merciless drew in alongside. They had their lightning hammers drawn and their Sigmarite Shields raised. They all had their helmets fitted. That confirmed my worst suspicions.

The Knights Merciless donned their war-masks only when in hostile lands, or in the dispensation of Sigmar’s justice.

They were here for me.

Vikaeus swung one foot out from the stirrup and slid down the Dracoth’s scaly flank, landing in a clump of sigmarite that she never­theless made graceful. Drawing her abjuration staff from its saddle sleeve, she left a lingering hand on the beast’s jaw as she turned to scour the chamber’s crannies with habitually suspicious eyes.

The sight of her stole the breath from my lungs, even reaching into my veins to pick their pockets too. My blood felt thick. The pounding of my heart left an echo in my head. Part of me was tempted to hand myself over there and then, simply to know what it would feel like to have my gaze returned. I had to physically put my hand on my breast and push myself back into hiding.

‘I am sorry, Cryax, I know. But this is not Sigmaron. You will have to remain here.’ Vikaeus turned to the two Concussors. ‘I will not be long.’ With that, she turned and strode away, behind another column and out of my view.

‘Welcome back, Lady Vikaeus,’ came another voice that I couldn’t see the owner of from where I was hiding. A mortal by the sound of it, a woman, and walking towards the Lord-Veritant from the door to the main halls. ‘The lords Frankos and Akturus await you in the High Hall.’

‘That is swift. Good. What I have to say to them is urgent.’

Her footsteps thudded further into the obscurity of the keep, and I felt myself breathe easier with her gone. I glanced back to see the two Concussors still idling by the open gate where Vikaeus had left them.

‘Strike,’ I swore.

As I watched, one of them slid from his saddle and approached Vikaeus’ Dracoth. The Paladin caught its bridle armour almost playfully in one hand and whispered something that I assumed to be reassuring in its ear. What words might reassure a Dracoth I had no idea, and less interest in knowing.

Only the purest of spirit or the noblest of purpose could hope to tame a child of Dracothion.

Naturally, then, the Celestial beasts had never had much truck with me.

Cryax swung its armoured head towards me and snorted, a preternatural cold freezing the moisture in the air and causing it to fall as ice.

I drew quickly back out of sight, armour clanking softly on stone, cursing under my breath.

‘Strike it until it sunders.’

I was tempted to just march up there and bluff my way through, on the off-chance that Vikaeus had not shared the reasons for her pursuit of me with her Extremis Chamber. A few self-congratulatory backslaps and a bellowed welcome here and there had seen me this far through the keep, after all – but somehow I doubted whether the Knights Merciless would fall for it as readily as the keep’s mortal soldiery and servants had. And the longer I thought about it, which is why thinking for too long about anything is rarely a good idea, the more I appreciated that Vikaeus would have had no need to explain why she was hunting me in order to let her warriors know that she was hunting me.

They were called the Knights Merciless for a reason, after all. A Knight-Excelsior might burn an innocent’s house down to destroy a corruption in the wood or the stone, but only a Knight Merciless would make sure the innocent was still inside.

Lacking a better option, other than trying to force myself through the arrow slits, which hardly qualified as better, I was about to follow through on that first impulse and brazen it out when I saw the mortal steward that had just admitted Vikaeus walking towards me.

I looked quickly around and saw the smaller door behind me that led to the servants’ stairs.

‘Dracothion’s breath.’

The woman walked past my hiding place without noticing me and continued on to the door. She was clad in the purple doublet and trews and steel breastplate of an armed retainer of the Astral Templars. Not all Stormhosts had the same custom of taking on the best and the fiercest of the mortal Freeguilds – in fact, most didn’t – but we always saw it as a way of keeping alive certain traditions that would have eventually died if they had been left in the care of the immortals. It was obvious to me that, consciously or not, most selected men and women that reminded them in some way of themselves. This woman was grey-haired, but there was a firmness of muscle to her still and a martial pride in her carriage. I knew her, or a younger version of her.

‘Nalys,’ I hissed. The name arrived with me just as she pulled on the latch. One of Barbarus’ chosen ones. Prideful then, fearless and loyal.

‘Lord Ham–’ she began, before my hand could smother her mouth. ‘Why are you hiding in a corner of the disarming chamber?’ she hissed, after I’d drawn my hand away.

‘The ways of the Stormcast Eternals are not for mere mortals to follow,’ I said, smiling. As I’d hoped she smiled along, assuming that it was just me fooling about at one of the other chambers’ expense, as usual. ‘I need you to do something for me, Nalys.’

The retainer straightened. ‘Name it, lord.’

‘See those warriors out there?’

The mortal craned her neck back around. ‘The Concussors. Yes, lord.’

‘I want you to tell them that Vikaeus’ audience with Frankos and Akturus is going to take longer than she had expected. Tell them to stable the Dracoths and return here to wait for her when they are done.’

‘And is it going to take longer, lord?’

‘The trick to making people believe in you is to believe in yourself, Nalys.’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘Believe it…’

‘Yes, lord. I will, lord. Her audience is going to take longer than expected.’ Sucking in a big breath, the armsman stuck out her chin and marched back towards the front gate.

I was counting on the fact that the Knights Merciless, like most Stormcast Eternals, would have forgotten the retainer’s existence the moment she had stepped out of their eye line. With any luck they wouldn’t notice that she was coming from the servants’ stair, whereas Vikaeus had departed by the main doors. I crossed my fingers. I was probably worrying over nothing. They probably wouldn’t even recognise she was the same woman as before. I watched from hiding as Nalys relayed my message. After a brief back and forth, which my heart spent most of firmly in my mouth, they turned their mounts about and headed back into the wind.

I grinned as I watched them leave.

Stormcast Eternals, and exalted heroes like the Paladins of the Exemplar and Extremis Chambers are the worst for this, have always underestimated the worth of the mortals amongst them.

I crossed Nalys’ path as I made for the now unguarded door. She winked at me. I thumped the sign of the comet against my breastplate. And then we were off on our separate ways.

The low sun and stinging wind stabbed my eyes the moment I stepped outside.

To my right, the two Concussors were leading Cryax and their own mounts by the bridles towards the stables. Built by visiting duardin masons in the Azyri style, and to Dracothion scale, the stone outhouse looked more like a fortress than the keep it was attached to. It was well kept, but empty. Quiet, save for the desolate scratch of a single stable boy’s brush. Neither the Imperishables nor the Bear-Eaters – nor the Heavens Forged, apparently – benefitted from the might of any Celestial beasts in their number. The stables had been constructed on Vikaeus’ order.

To my left, the rock of the Gorkomon rose sheer and impenetrable, breaking through the Seven Words’ meandering inner fortifications, buildings clinging to it all the way down to the outer walls and the Morkogon Bridge.

The front door.

My way out.

I hurried down the granite steps and through the inner bailey, waving casually to the duty watchmen, who waved cheerfully back as I ran under the portcullis and into the wards. I clattered down worn steps. Hurtled along fiercely sloping streets. Street vendors and townsfolk, beggars and urchins, haunted-looking souls that must have been war refugees from the Gorwood outposts; they clogged the narrow lanes like moss in a gutter. None of them so much as pulled a leg out of my way as I barrelled through them. Quite the opposite, in fact.

‘Hamilcar is here!’

‘Praise Sigmar for you, Hamilcar!’

‘Tell the vermin that the Ward of Akenfel sent you with their blessings, Hamilcar.’

Akturus or Vikaeus would have walked down the same streets and found them suspiciously deserted, but for me the crowds came in force. At every street corner they mobbed me. Out of every pile of stones dedicated to Sigmar or Gorkamorka, or to the scores of local deities to wind and tree whose worship persisted, they flocked. Under the warmed terraces of every blacksmith and brownsmith and shoer of horses, they rejoiced in my name.

‘Hamilcar. Hamilcar. Hamilcar.’

I cast a furtive glance back towards the keep.

My plan to slip out of the fortress unnoticed was not exactly falling within the vague outline I had plotted for it.

Responding to the acclaim with a painted grin and the occasional flexed bicep – for some appearances need to be maintained – I pushed through the adoring crowds as quickly as I could. I waded through a hundred or so well-wishers, gathered outside a building fronted with the emblem of the Grand Conclave where soldiers and officials were parcelling out food, and onto the one real road in the Seven Words, which the first occupiers from Azyr had endearingly called the Bear Road. The cobbles were broken and clotted with weeds, flanked by crumbling stonemasonry that rolled down the steep incline towards the gatehouse. Beyond that massive piece of stonework, designed and built by Lord-Ordinator Ramhos of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer, the horizon bristled with peaks. The dark stone and crag ice of the Morkogon loomed largest, its goliath bulk studded by the occasional stray cloud.

I got my first glimpse of Frankos’ Heavens Forged.

If the Vikaeus that Ong had conjured for my interrogation in the Forge Eternal had spoken a word of truth then there were upwards of a thousand Stormcast in the Seven Words, and by the looks of it half of them were on the Bear Road. At least a hundred and fifty Heavens Forged and their retainers marched up and down the wide road, coming in and out of larger buildings that the command echelon had apparently requisitioned to serve as garrisons and district command posts. The frontages had been draped in anvil and lightning bolt heraldry. The battlements positively glittered with amethyst and gold.

A smaller, grim-looking detail of Liberators and Judicators stood behind a stockade at the near-end of the road, towering over a small crowd of jeering townsfolk.

‘This is our home,’ screamed one, a young woman with mud streaks on her face.

‘Those driven from the Gorwood are found homes by the conclave representative, or by the temples, while we are thrown out of ours,’ shouted another, to much grumbling assent.

‘Where is Frankos of the Heavens Forged?’

‘Where is the justice? Where is Sigmar?’

Squaring my shoulders, I strutted towards the stockade. ‘What’s going on here?’

The Liberator-Prime was a huge man in shining amethyst plate that looked as though it had never seen use in battle. His hair was long and red, his beard wildly unkempt. Both straggled in the wind. He had probably gone unhelmed in an attempt to put the mortal townsfolk more at ease. A worthy effort, if undermined somewhat by his divine stature and heroic build.

‘It’s Frankos’ orders,’ he grunted, chewing on the words and spitting them my way. ‘He needs barracks for a strengthened garrison on the main gate and outer walls, as well as the roads cleared for the movement of reinforcements.’

‘I wasn’t talking to you, brother.’

‘Sigmar bless you, Hamilcar,’ one of the men cried. ‘Sigmar bless you!’

Someone in the crowd wept.

‘I am sure a compromise can be reached.’ I turned back to the Liberator-Prime. ‘I will escort these good folk as far as the gatehouse, let them collect whatever sundry belongings they have left in their homes. When they see the necessity of what our worthy Lord-Celestant does, I have no doubt they will be obliging.’

I studied the Liberator-Prime’s barbarian features, but it wasn’t a face I recognised. Some of the new blood with which Sigmar had founded the Heavens Forged, then. He must have been either newly struck (for the realms had not stopped producing heroes with the advent of the Age of Sigmar) or from a retinue shifted wholesale from some other broken chamber to Frankos’ nascent command.

He looked uncertain.

‘You don’t think you’d be better used on the wall, than stood here guarding against your own people…?’ I left the question hanging.

‘Wullas,’ he grunted. ‘My name is Wullas. Hearthshorn.’

‘Well, I am Hamilcar. You will have heard of me.’

I made to push past, but the Liberator stood stubbornly in my way. My pauldron banged into his breastplate, and I watched him visibly recoil, the same surge of emotions as I had earlier seen on Frankos defacing his barbarian features. The Judicators beside him turned their heads sharply towards me. The Justicars have always had a keen sense for the evil in a man’s soul, bettered only by the gryph-hounds and Celestial dragons of Azyr. Whether that is because men and women with such an attunement are chosen for the role, or because the ability was an ingredient of their forging, I don’t know. Nor do I much care. Whatever the reason, they sensed something in me, sensed it more keenly even than Wullas Hearthshorn who was retreating, horrified, from my touch. Both of them snatched up their skybolt bows.

I felt my expression blacken.

I have never been quick to anger, not in any life that I recall, but I felt something in me rage at the warriors’ disrespect.

‘Do you not know who you face, new-forged? I fought the Barrel Kings during the Cleansing of Azyr, and spoke for the Stromfels Gargants when Sigmar himself demanded their strongholds burned. I was there as the first of the Astral Templars set foot in the Ghurlands. I fought in the Gnarlwood, and won glory there when more than half of our brothers fell. I fought single-handed against the Mortarch of Night. I slew the Great Red. I freed the untainted lands beyond the Sea of Bones from a soulblight curse and unified them all under Sigmar’s banner. One hundred thousand soldiers and wealth unseen in the Mortal Realms, united in common cause by my word.’ I tapped my boot on the cobbles. ‘You are receiving this belated education on the very street that bears my name.’ I shoved him back, sending him stumbling. ‘Who am I?’

‘Hamilcar!’

The answer came not from my own lips, but as a throaty cheer from the scores of townsfolk that had congregated in the street behind me. More, I saw, were wandering in from other streets to see what the commotion was about.

‘Who am I?’ I yelled again, spittle flying from my mouth.

‘Hamilcar!’

‘Who is the chosen son of the God-King?’

‘Hamilcar!’

‘Who goes wherever he damn well pleases, and ruination come to those who disagree?’

‘Ham-il-car!’

The people screamed boisterously. A few of the bolder men and women threw stones that banged off the Astral Templars’ armour. I was left with the distinct feeling that this discontent had been fermenting for quite some time before I had stuck my boot in it.

‘Seize him,’ Wullas bellowed to his retinue. ‘On the orders of Lord-Veritant Vikaeus.’

‘Wha–?’

There was a fluttering of wings and I looked up sharply as an aetherwing with the silvery white colouration of the Knights Merciless flew overhead in the direction of the keep.

‘Of all the Lords-Veritant in Sigmaron, Sigmar had to send this one,’ I snarled, watching it go.

Wullas drew his warblade from its sheath.

I backhanded him across the jaw before I knew what I was doing. He reeled back, and I looked at my fist in astonishment.

I had no idea why I had just done that.

‘You would draw against your own, brother?’ I said, backing steadily away.

‘I know not what daemon inhabits your skin, Bear-Eater, but you are not one of mine.’ He grunted something to the Judicators who lowered their bows. ‘Vikaeus insists you be captured alive.’

‘Good of her.’

‘I doubt that it’s mercy.’

‘You don’t know the half of it.’

Wullas gestured to his Liberator retinue and started towards me, sword upraised. ‘With me, brothers. Kill him only if you must.’