Soul Wars

Chapter eighteen Gravewalkers

It had all gone very wrong, very quickly, Vale thought.

Gomes was dead, torn apart by cackling gheists. Most of his men were dead. Those that weren’t had fallen back from the courtyard, leaving the enemy to the Stormcasts. Now they took cover in shattered storefronts and behind overturned carts of the streets past the gate, watching as powers beyond them clashed. Vale sat, his back to a stone wall, his sigmarite sigil clutched in his hands, whispering every prayer he knew. It was only one, really, but he wasn’t certain of the words, so he tried several versions.

He’d been too young to serve during Vaslbad’s assault on the city, but he’d fought deadwalkers before. They were dangerous, but you could put them down with steel and fire, if you were careful. But this was something else. Something worse. Gheists crawled along the rooftops and circled in the air like birds of prey. They reached through stone and wood as if it weren’t there, and could pluck out a man’s heart in a trice. Honest steel did nothing, and silver wasn’t much better.

Vale heard a shout and saw the black-armoured form of the Vulture lurch into motion. The warrior-priest’s hammer snapped out in a looping blow, and a gheist fell away. The spirit crumbled to dust and tatters. Kurst stomped forwards through its drifting remains, his croaking voice raised in a battle-hymn.

‘Up – up, you sons of Sigmar,’ the warrior-priest snarled, as he smashed another gheist aside. ‘Up, you gentle princes of Azyr! There is work to be done. Fasten your hands to the plough, and turn the soil – cast the dead back, and bury them deep! Up, you cowards and fools, up and look to the stars – there is courage there, if there be none in your gizzards!’

He reached down and jerked Vale to his feet. ‘Draw your sword, captain, or I’ll crack your skull here and now. Time to put in honest effort for your pay.’

Vale shoved the priest away and drew his sword. He didn’t quite extend it between them. ‘I’m no coward, but what good is steel against these things?’

‘It is better than the alternative,’ Kurst said. ‘And it’ll do well enough against those.’ He pointed his warhammer at the inner gateway, where a line of Stormcasts had locked their shields against a flood of groaning deadwalkers. The corpses clawed at the armoured warriors, pressing them back through sheer numbers. ‘Get the men up, Vale – we’re needed.’

Vale swallowed and nodded. The Vulture was right. The northern mausoleum gate was his responsibility. Whatever else, he didn’t intend to make a bad showing – he had his prospects to consider. He turned and, in what he hoped was a suitably heroic tone, shouted, ‘Men of the Third – on your feet! Sigmar’s chosen require aid.’

‘Let someone else help them, then,’ a soldier shouted back.

‘Unfortunately for you, Herk, we’re the only poor bastards around,’ Vale snarled, grabbing the dissenter and dragging him out of hiding. ‘Our only choices are to fight or die. And I don’t plan on dying anytime soon. Now get moving, or I’ll send you to Elder Bones myself!’ He shoved Herk into the street and looked around. ‘That goes for all of you. Up, or I’ll give you to the Vulture – up!’

The men closest to him rose, if reluctantly. There was no time to see if it was all of them, and there was nothing he could do about it if it wasn’t. ‘Get moving,’ he shouted. Vale let the Vulture lead the way, allowing room for the warrior priest’s huge hammer. A Stormcast glanced back as they approached, and Vale saluted.

‘You handle the gheists, my lord. We’ll handle the corpses–’

Vale’s bravado disintegrated along with the Stormcast. The warrior crumbled to flashing sparks of azure light as Vale watched, wide-eyed. A sword – as black as night and shining like wet glass – retracted, and a grotesque, iron helm appeared. Eyes like balls of balefire met his, and Vale stepped back, trying to scream but ­unable to find his voice.

The warrior, wrapped in black iron and grave-shroud, turned, almost lazily, and cut down another Stormcast. Lightning flashed, but didn’t go far. Something hunched and horrid cast rusty chains about the warrior’s soul, ensnaring it. Vale thought he heard the trapped soul scream in horror and despair.

‘Blasphemy,’ Kurst roared, striking at the hunched thing. His blow caught it on its warped helm, and it spun, smashing at him with its chains. Howling spirits rushed at the priest, obscuring him from view, though Vale could hear him cursing. More spirits boiled through the gateway, followed by shambling deadwalkers. The gheists ­hurtled away, streaking through the streets to either side of him. His relief was short-lived, as the deadwalkers lurched towards the line of Freeguild soldiers, groping blindly.

‘Hold – hold fast,’ Vale stuttered to his men, hacking at a deadwalker. His soul felt like ice in him, as he watched the dark warrior slay another Stormcast. How could such a thing be fought? How could it be faced?

He shook himself, trying to concentrate on the threat he could fight, rather than the one he couldn’t. The deadwalkers were just as deadly as the gheists, and they were more interested in him than the spirits seemed to be, at the moment. He could hear the screams of the men on the walls, and still in the courtyard. They wouldn’t last long, even with the Stormcasts there. ‘Hold them back,’ he shouted, chopping a deadwalker off its feet. Its icy fingers tore strips from his sleeves and left rotten smears on his breastplate.

More gheists streaked overhead, their wails digging into his eardrums. Dozens of them, then a hundred. Until the sky was all but blotted out by rotting, tattered shapes. There was a sound like bird wings flapping against the wind, as they kept coming. They passed through the walls as if they weren’t there, and squirmed into the buildings on the other side of the street. He heard screams, but ignored them. The street was a tangle of confusion. More and more deadwalkers were pushing out into the street beyond the gatehouse. There were bodies slipping and falling all around him, men dying, corpses twitching and lurching. He ignored it all. The only thing that mattered was the dead thing in front of him. ‘Keep fighting,’ he screamed, trying to spot the Vulture.

A man beside him yelled as a deadwalker bore him to the ground, jaws champing. Vale kicked the corpse in the head and bisected its skull when it turned on him. ‘Get up, Doula.’ He hauled the soldier to his feet.

‘We can’t hold them,’ Doula gasped. ‘There’s too many.’ Vale shoved Doula towards the others – pitifully few of them now.

‘Fall back, all of you. Fall back! We’ll regroup at the lych-gate. Regroup…’

Something grabbed him, and he screamed. ‘Shut it, boy,’ the Vulture rasped. The old man looked like death warmed over, and his armour was coated with hoar frost, but he’d survived his brush with the nighthaunts. ‘Call them back. Got to hold the line. Got to–’

He grunted. Vale looked down. The tip of a blade jutted from between the plates of the old man’s armour. It was retracted with a wrench of metal. A gust of frosty breath emerged from his lips as he sagged against Vale. A tall figure, dressed in archaic war-plate and bearing a staff with a lantern atop it, looked down at him. The flame of the lantern burned with an ugly light that threatened to sap the strength from Vale’s limbs.

‘Have you heard the voice of Nagash, little mortal? Can you feel his hand upon your shoulder?’ the nighthaunt intoned, its voice shuddering through Vale. ‘Shall I speak of what awaits you, at the end of the last, long night? Would you hear the voice of Omphalo Dohl?’

Vale shoved Kurst’s dead weight aside and turned to run. A Stormcast staggered across his path, clutching at his neck, lightning bleeding between his fingers. The warrior collapsed to his knees, losing cohesion. The hunched thing, wrapped in its chains, swooped down like a bird of prey, pouncing on the warrior’s soul as it jetted upwards.

Before it could capture its prey, however, a streak of lightning cut across its path, driving it back. Vale turned and saw a gryph-charger rear up over him, its talons dragging a gheist from the air. From its back, Lord-Arcanum Knossus roared out an incantation, and another gheist was reduced to a cloud of ashes. ‘Back, grave-maggots. Back, shadows! This city belongs to the living.’

Vale ducked as gheists shot past him, towards Knossus. Lightning seared the air, immolating spectres and deadwalkers alike. Something caught his leg. He raised his sword, before he realised it was Kurst. The old priest was still alive, somehow. ‘Thank Sigmar,’ Vale began, as he reached down. The old man groaned and caught at him. His eyes were empty and white, like the belly of a fish. His grip tightened, and Vale stumbled. Kurst fumbled for his throat, jaws wide – impossibly wide.

‘No!’ Vale hacked at the dead man’s neck, nearly severing his head. From all sides, more dead hands clutched at him. He turned, slashing his sword out, lopping off fingers and tearing wounds in the bodies of his former subordinates. As he fought his way clear, towards Doula and the few remaining survivors, he saw the dark, shroud-clad warrior stride away through the carnage, followed by the hunched thing and the lantern-bearing nightmare.

‘Fall back,’ Vale shouted, as he hurried towards his men. ‘The northern gate is lost. Fall back!’

‘What about the lord-arcanum?’ Doula asked, face pale.

Vale tossed a glance towards the gatehouse, where the fighting still raged. He could hear the snarl of lightning and the screech of a gryph-charger. But the dead were pouring through, and they were too few to stop them.

‘Sigmar help him,’ Vale said, turning away. ‘Sigmar help us all.’

Lord-Celestant Lynos swept his runeblade out and sent a deadwalker’s head tumbling away. The dead were pouring into the city. Gheists and spectres swirled through the streets, shrieking and cackling. Worse, those who died in their attacks were invariably drawn to their feet and set against those who’d failed to save them.

All along the city’s central artery, the Anvils of the Heldenhammer fought to protect the citizens still fleeing from the outer districts, towards the presumed safety of the inner. A tide of panicked humanity flooded the wide street, pushing and shoving, as a horde of deadwalkers harried them on all sides. Lynos could hear the thunder of artillery, as the great cannon batteries of the Ironweld fired at something outside the city.

‘Lock shields and hold,’ Lynos bellowed. ‘Form a corridor – every mortal life preserved is one less walking corpse we must face later.’ Shields locked together at his command, and two walls of black sigmarite suddenly lined either side of the avenue. Judicators took up positions behind the bulwark of Liberators, their bows humming.

‘Pragmatic as ever, my lord,’ Varo Tyrmane called from close by. The captain-general of the Glymmsmen sat astride a night-black destrier, surrounded by his black-clad bodyguards. The heavily armoured mortals carried great, two-handed blades, edged with silver and blessed by the Grand Theogonist. More soldiers in the uniform of the Glymmsmen were attempting to control the crowd, and keep the evacuation as orderly as possible.

‘What news, Tyrmane? Are your warriors holding?’ Lynos shouted, hefting a deadwalker with his blade and hurling it aside. ‘I hope you haven’t come to tell me that you’re calling for a retreat already.’

‘No retreat, my lord. The Glymmsmen will hold, until the lord-arcanum commands otherwise. I merely came to provide aid in the evacuation efforts. My men here can protect the civilians, if yours can keep the deadwalkers penned at the other end of the avenue.’

‘We can,’ Lynos said. He lifted his hammer and signalled to the closest cohort of Liberators. The Liberator-Prime raised his own weapon in acknowledgement, before slamming it against the rim of his shield in precise fashion. The cohort stepped out of line as one, raising their shields and pressing the shuffling dead back. This action was repeated along the line, as each cohort advanced in turn, forcing the deadwalkers back. Judicators trotted in their wake, loosing volley after volley at the rear ranks of the dead.

At their best, Stormcasts functioned with mechanical precision. Each cohort fought in synch with the others. Unfortunately, the dead were equally disciplined, in their own way. Not like a mechanism, but like a single organism. A single mind, peering through a thousand eyes and reaching with a thousand hands.

But that mind could be distracted. Lynos glanced towards the cohort of Decimators who acted as his bodyguard. He clashed his weapons together, catching their leader’s attention. ‘Ocarius, dispersed formation. Time to fight as heroes and earn the songs the mortals sing about you, brother.’

‘Finally – I’ve been waiting for this,’ Ocarius growled. ‘Up, axe-men – there is a forest of hands and teeth in need of clearing.’

Lynos fell in step with Ocarius and led the wedge of Decimators through the shield wall. They crashed into the seething masses of the dead and set to work. Great axes flickered out in a sharp rhythm, hacking through legs, spines and shoulders, as the Decimators steadily advanced and spread out, each warrior carving his own path through the dead. And the deadwalkers responded in kind, turning on this new threat and away from the shield wall.

By dispersing themselves, they lessened the pressure on the shield wall, allowing the cohorts that made it up to focus on isolating and despatching the thickest knots of deadwalkers. Thus was the strength of a horde turned back on itself. At least temporarily.

He heard a shout of warning from above and turned to see a pack of dead beasts – wolves, or perhaps jackals – loping towards him. He dropped to one knee and brought his hammer down on the street, rupturing the cobbles. Lightning sawed through the cracks in the surface of the street, and a cleansing flame enveloped the pack of rotting curs. Lynos looked up as the winged form of a Stormcast Prosecutor swooped low overhead. ‘My thanks for the warning, Sleekwing,’ he called out.

Galen Sleekwing dropped from the air, his twin hammers ­snapping out to send deadwalkers tumbling. He spun, moving smoothly, clearing space with his crackling wings. The feathers could slice through flesh and bone as easily as any blade. Above, Sleekwing’s warriors sped across the avenue, sending hammers of aetheric energy whirling into the packed masses of the dead. The Prosecutor-Prime fought his way towards Lynos, until they stood back-to-back. ‘That’s not the only warning I bring, my lord,’ he said. ‘The northern mausoleum gate has fallen. Lord-Arcanum Knossus is pulling back.’

Lynos hesitated. ‘Orius?’

‘Holding the eastern mausoleum gate, still. There’s only one breach, but the dead are assaulting everywhere along the wall. The arcanogram does little to hold back deadwalkers, especially in these numbers. It’s as if the desert has vomited up every corpse buried beneath the sand. Even Vaslbad’s army wasn’t this big.’

‘One breach is all they need.’ He turned, scanning the avenue. ‘But there’s more to it. The deadwalkers are a distraction – meant to keep us occupied.’ He looked up.

The nighthaunts streaming through the skies weren’t attacking, not in any concentrated manner. Most of them seemed intent on going somewhere. Worse, up the street, towards the outer walls, he could see more deadwalkers, shambling not towards the battle, but the heart of the city. ‘Where are they going?’ Sleekwing said.

‘The Grand Tempestus,’ Lynos said.

‘Back! Fall back, if you value your lives – this foe is beyond you,’ Balthas roared. Mortal soldiers streamed past him, retreating to the Grand Tempestus. He was a voice of authority, and they obeyed quickly. Deadwalkers clambered over or through the barricades, their moans rising and mingling with the shrieks of the nighthaunts who hurtled in all directions through the rain-swept air.

The dead had come upon them suddenly. First the nighthaunts, pouring through Glymmsforge’s high canyons of stone like a flock of hungry crows. Then, following more slowly, the deadwalkers. Most were sun-blasted, sand-scoured carrion. Others were fresher, wearing torn uniforms, the blood still wet on the wounds that had slain them.

The nighthaunts slipped through barricades and even shields as if they weren’t there, killing with abandon. The Freeguild soldiers were little match for the spectres, especially in such numbers. Those on the rooftops had died first, plucked into the dark sky and dashed to the cobbles below. Or, worse, they simply vanished – leaving behind only their screams of agony. Even the duardin weren’t immune.

Balthas glanced west, where the warriors of the Riven Clans faced the dead from behind high shields, with shot and thunder. The duardin had formed three squares of wide, rectangular shields wrought to resemble the faces of dragons. Drakeguns bellowed through specially designed slots in the mouth of each ‘dragon’, filling the air with fire and silver. As nighthaunts swooped down from above, warriors waiting behind the gunners hefted rune-embossed shields, creating a makeshift roof over the gromril square.

But for every weak spirit that scrabbled ineffectually at the raised shields, a cackling spectre reached down and tore at the warriors beneath. Already, the outermost squares were buckling as the duardin were forced to defend themselves against the chainrasps and chatter-gheists that slithered across the cobbles, beneath the arc of their guns.

A war-horn echoed from within the centre square, and the duardin began to retreat. Unlike many of his folk, Juddsson was no fool – he wouldn’t waste lives on a losing proposition. The duardin would retreat up the steps of the Grand Tempestus and reform on the portico, as the Freeguild were already doing.

Balthas thumped Quicksilver’s flanks, and the gryph-charger darted through the field of silver corpses, carrying them to where Fosko led the rearguard in holding back the dead. The old officer was shouting curses as he plied his blade like a butcher’s cleaver. ‘Hold them back, you worthless sacks of cats’ meat,’ he shouted hoarsely. ‘First man to take a step back without my order gets my steel in his belly.’

Spears of Aqshian flamewood thrust into the horde, as Glymmsmen braced massive pavise shields against the wall of rotting meat that pressed against them. The spears shattered skulls and snapped spines, dropping twitching deadwalkers to the cobbles. Fosko and those soldiers not wielding spears finished off those corpses that were still moving. It was efficient, if brutal, but the sheer number of the enemy was beginning to tell. As Balthas drew close, a soldier was dragged screaming through the shield wall and torn apart by the groaning corpses. What was left of him began to twitch almost instantly. Soon, it would rise and join the charnel legion.

Balthas could taste the necromantic energies permeating the throng, like a sourness at the back of his throat. It had become a war of attrition, and only one side was replenishing its forces. The Freeguild and the duardin were leaving too many bodies behind as they fell back. The mortals had become a hindrance, rather than a help.

Even so, they had helped him to gauge the strength of the enemy. This was no sortie, no random herd of corpses, but an all-out attack. And that meant the enemy he had been sent here to fight was upon them. ‘Pull them back, Fosko,’ he snarled, jerking on Quicksilver’s reins. ‘You’ve done your duty – now let me do mine.’

He thrust his staff up and gave the signal. From the portico came a roar as the celestar ballista sounded its fury. Streaks of blue-white energy arced over the heads of the retreating mortals, and where they landed, chain-explosions of arcane energy ripped through corpse and gheist alike. As Gellius swung the ballista around, taking full advantage of its wide field of fire, Faunus readied bolts for loading. Balthas knew from experience that they could manage an impressive rate of fire, even by the standards of the Conclave of the Thunderbolt.

In the momentary lull that followed, he urged Quicksilver forwards, into the mass of dead flesh. The gryph-charger shrieked as he bore a corpse down and snapped its spine. Overhead, the nighthaunts roiled, some swooping towards the lord-arcanum, screaming. Balthas raised his staff and called down the wrath of the storm.

Lightning fell from the sky to leap from spectre to gheist, rending the bodiless spirits asunder. As falling ash mixed with the rain, Balthas swept his staff out, crushing a deadwalker’s skull. As it fell, he murmured a transmutive incantation and transformed the flesh and bone of the deadwalkers around him to purest silver.

He turned in his saddle and spotted Fosko and his remaining men falling back, past the first battle-line of Sequitors. Porthas moved to cover their retreat in his own inimitable fashion. The Sequitor-Prime roared and swung his greatmace out, casting deadwalkers into the air. ‘Come then, come and set yourselves in the path of the storm. See what it profits you!’ He bellowed an order, and his warriors fell in behind him, creating a wedge of sigmarite, with Porthas as its point. He strode into the melee, greatmace swinging.

With every thunderous impact, deadwalkers were reduced to drifting cinders. Nighthaunts swooped towards him, wailing. Porthas set his feet and swung. A gheist exploded into rags of smoky effluvia, banished from the Mortal Realms. ‘Shields up,’ Porthas snarled. With a rattle, soulshields were angled to protect the Sequitors from the nighthaunts trying to pounce on them from above. Ghostly weapons bounced harmlessly from the shields, and the nighthaunts retreated in disarray.

As they fell back, Quintus shouted, and his Castigators fired. Aetheric energies burst upwards, as the bolts slammed into the ground beneath the nighthaunts. Several of the spectres were disincorporated by the blazing energies.

Balthas turned Quicksilver back towards the Grand ­Tempestus. ‘Porthas – cover the Glymmsmen’s retreat,’ he shouted, as the gryph-charger leapt over the heads of the Sequitors. ‘Mara, advance ten paces and set shields – hold until Porthas is clear.’ He galloped towards the temple, trusting in his subordinates to do as he’d ordered. They would clear back the deadwalkers and nighthaunts, before retreating themselves.

The surviving Glymmsmen were reforming near the steps. Fosko was shouting orders, gathering his soldiers into defensive squares. Nearby the duardin survivors had done much the same, warding their kin as they retreated up to the portico. Their shield wall was more precise, but Balthas could sense their agitation. He urged Quicksilver towards them, ignoring their glares and discomfited grumbling. ‘What is it?’ he demanded, without preamble. ‘Something is amiss.’

‘Our thane is injured,’ one of the duardin growled. ‘One of those spirits damn near plucked his heart from his chest.’

Balthas slid from Quicksilver’s back. ‘Take me to him.’

The duardin grunted and led Balthas through the shield wall, to where several duardin crouched over another, clad in rich robes and silver-plated gromril armour. Balthas recognised Grom Juddsson, though the duardin looked the worse for wear. His flesh was pale, almost translucent in places, and his breathing laboured. He clutched at his chest, and his eyes were squeezed shut.

Balthas sank down beside him. His storm-sight showed him the extent of the injuries done to the burly duardin. They weren’t merely physical. Whatever sort of spirit had attacked him, it had left traces of itself on his soul – a sort of spiritual frostbite. If not treated, it could eat a mortal hollow in a few days, or even hours.

‘Which one are you, then?’ Juddsson gasped. ‘Hard to tell with those helmets.’

‘Balthas.’

‘I don’t know you.’ Juddsson arched his back and grunted in pain. ‘Feels like there are rats in my chest, trying to claw their way out,’ he growled.

‘I can help you with that. But it will hurt.’

‘It already hurts.’

‘It will get worse.’

Juddsson’s grin wasn’t quite a rictus, but close. ‘Manling magic?’ he gasped. The other duardin murmured in distaste and glowered at Balthas.

‘Of a sort.’

Juddsson laughed harshly and lay back. ‘Do it. I’ll not die on my back, from wounds I can’t even see.’

Balthas placed his palm on Juddsson’s chest and murmured an incantation. The aether contracted around him. The air sparked and writhed, as thin rivulets of corposant ran down his staff and along his arms into the chest of the wounded duardin. Juddsson bucked. ‘Hold him down,’ Balthas snapped.

Two duardin dropped down, gripping their leader as he writhed. Balthas kept his hand in place for another moment, until the lightning seemed to illuminate the duardin from within. Then he ripped his hand clear, drawing the flickering energies out. A puff of blackness burst from Juddsson’s lips as he went limp.

‘You killed him,’ a duardin growled, lifting his weapon. Others followed suit.

Balthas ignored the implied threat and rose to his feet. ‘He’s not dead. And he’ll stay that way if you get him into the temple. In fact, all of you fall back. You can do nothing more here. Go.’ He hauled himself back onto Quicksilver, as the duardin slid Juddsson onto a shield and carried him up the steps. The last few ranks of their warriors followed, after a final volley with their drakeguns at the approaching deadwalkers. Balthas signalled to Fosko. ‘Fall back with the duardin into the Grand Tempestus,’ he called out. ‘We shall hold here.’

Fosko shook his head. ‘This is our duty as well,’ he shouted back. He flinched as the celestar ballista roared again, and streaks of blue fire pierced the air.

‘And it is my duty to deny the enemy resources. Your men will only add to the enemy’s numbers. Fall back. This is our war, now.’ Balthas spoke flatly and forcefully.

Fosko grimaced, but nodded.

Balthas turned back to the plaza. Porthas and Mara’s cohorts backed towards the steps, shields facing the foe. Quintus and his Castigators were arranging themselves into a volley-line. They fired bolts into the nighthaunts that drew too close, scattering them before they could mass.

‘More of them than I’ve ever seen,’ the Castigator-Prime said, as Balthas drew close. ‘It’s as if they’re all being drawn here by something, my lord. And the aether – it’s twitching.’

‘Something is drawing near. This attack is but the preamble.’

Quintus hefted his greatbow and tracked a skull-faced gheist as it raced down towards the Sequitors. He waited until almost the last moment before firing. The gheist was ripped apart, and the resulting snarl of lightning played across the battle-line, reducing several deadwalkers to ambulatory torches. ‘Let it come. We will despatch it, whatever it is.’

‘Your confidence is appreciated,’ Balthas said. He stiffened, as the aether spasmed and tensed. Quicksilver squalled, disturbed. He twisted around in his saddle, searching. Nighthaunts clustered thickly about one end of the plaza, as if awaiting something or someone. More and more of them were gathering on the rooftops and in the shadows. These were not mere chainrasps, but spectral stalkers and reapers, strong with the stuff of death.

‘It’s an army,’ Mara called out, as she and Porthas hurried towards him. Their cohorts stood arrayed before the steps in a solid wall of sigmarite, facing the shuffling mass of deadwalkers that was slowly approaching. ‘Two armies, if you count the deadwalkers.’

‘The corpses are a distraction,’ Porthas said, glancing back. ‘Keeping us occupied, until something worse arrives.’ He tensed. Balthas felt it as well. They all did. Like a cold wind, wailing through the hollows of their souls.

Balthas straightened in his saddle. ‘You are right. And I think that it has.’

Pharus strode over the bodies of mortals he might once have fought alongside in life. Indeed, he had fought alongside them. They and their fathers, and their fathers’ fathers. How many years had he spent enslaved by the tyranny of the cold stars? How much blood had he spilled in the defence of a lie?

He stepped into the plaza, surrounded by ravenous gheists. They clutched at him, like fearful penitents seeking comfort. But he had none to give them. Contrary to his former assumptions, the dead were not silent. Indeed, they were a riot of noise. The spirits floating in his wake murmured and whispered to themselves and each other without ceasing. They had only grown louder after the living had retreated. Like hungry animals, denied a taste of meat.

He glared up at the Grand Tempestus, looming over the plaza, picking out the weak points in the ancient walls with instinctive ease. It was a solid edifice, and warded against his kind, but there was a way in. There was always a way in. He had learned that much, in his former life. But there were other obstacles to consider.

A wall of fire – or something as good as – separated him from his goal. It blazed cobalt, and he found it hard to look at for long. There were warriors in the flames. Stormcasts, but not any he was familiar with. Like the ones they’d fought in the northern gatehouse. ‘They wait for us,’ he intoned, with a certain amount of satisfaction.

‘They defy us,’ Rocha said, at his elbow. She ran a bloodless thumb along the edge of her axe, her features twisting from glee to grimace as the floating skulls of her victims caught at her hair, or the noose about her neck, gibbering recriminations. ‘They seek to stop the inevitable. Hubris. They will be judged and found wanting.’

Pharus glanced at her but said nothing. Once, he might have challenged such certainty. Now, he cared only that she make good on that promise. She existed only to make good on it. As he existed only to do as Nagash willed.

He looked down. The bodies of dead Freeguild soldiers lay at his feet. ‘Awaken them, Dohl. Draw them up. We will need an army to overwhelm them.’

‘What Sigmar has abandoned, we shall remake,’ Dohl murmured, from behind him. As the light of his lantern washed across the broken bodies, they began to twitch and moan. Something like mist seeped upwards from them, and things that might have been faces or limbs twisted within it. ‘Thus the light of Nagashizzar calls to the wicked and draws them from their undeserved rest, so that they might shed their sins in honest labour.’

‘Were they wicked, then?’ Pharus asked. But he knew the answer. There was evil in even the most innocent of men. A kernel of darkness that might flourish, given time. Soldiers might be worse than most – or better than some.

Dohl gave a sad laugh. ‘If the light calls, what is wicked in them will answer.’ Misty, stretched shapes, like shrouds caught on a breeze, rose around him as he floated after Pharus. Newborn gheists rose from the bodies, whimpering and howling. Soon, the corpses would join their other halves, stumbling mindlessly in the wake of their own tormented souls. ‘They seek refuge on sacred ground,’ Dohl continued. ‘Can you feel it? The heat of Azyr rises from those cursed stones. I cannot bear it.’

‘You will bear it. You must. They cannot be allowed to hold us at bay. The way into the catacombs is below the cathedral. We must open the path and soon.’

‘Impatience is a vice of the living,’ Dohl said, studying the cathedral with almost mocking solemnity. ‘You would do well to cast such things aside. What is time to such as we?’ He looked at Pharus, his eyes glowing dully within his helm.

Pharus stared at him. ‘What?’

‘Time is a part of eternity, and eternity is a slave of time. Each moment drips into the next with a dim monotony, and eternity stretches across epochs.’ Dohl studied him with ghastly eyes. ‘For the living, there is no difference between moment and epoch. They are like beasts of burden, bowed beneath a weight they do not understand.’

Pharus shook his head. ‘But the dead know different, do they?’

‘We perceive the weight for what it is. We see, and in seeing, understand. And in understanding, we are driven painfully sane.’ Dohl looked up at his lantern. ‘The light of truth burns away all the comforts of madness, leaving the stark face of the thing, stripped bare of illusion.’ He bowed his head. ‘To be dead – truly dead – is a glorious thing. It is given to us to bear witness to the clockwork of infinity. You should rejoice.’

‘I feel no joy.’

Dohl looked at him. ‘You will, in time. Not that pale sensation that afflicts the living, but the true joy. The joy of knowing your ultimate place, without doubt or fear. This is the truth of the Corpse Geo­metries. The black formulae, which encompass all things.’

Pharus twitched, annoyed by the creature’s apparent need to spout philosophical musings at every opportunity. What did such mutterings matter to such as them? But he said nothing. Let Dohl blather. Let them all chatter and weep and whisper as much as they liked, so long as they fulfilled their purpose.

A horn blew suddenly, echoing out over the cathedral grounds. The nighthaunts began to shriek and wail in agitation. The stones reverberated with the force and fury of the sound. As the echoes faded, Pharus heard the crash of boots on cobbles. A moment later, a battle-line of Stormcasts marched out from between the buildings on the opposite side of the plaza.

His hand fell to the hilt of his sword, and he could hear the sands shifting in the hourglass. And something else, as well… A rattle of bones and the slow, stentorian chuckle of a god on his throne.

A volley of crackling arrows arced over the heads of the newly arrived Stormcasts, and struck many of the milling cadavers that crowded the plaza. Bodies fell for a second time, blackened and smoking. But others pressed forwards over them, lurching now in the direction of the newcomers.

‘Fellgrip. Attend me,’ Pharus croaked. He looked at Rocha, who floated nearby. ‘You as well. Their leader is mine. Carve me a path, executioner.’

Rocha grinned, displaying her broken teeth. ‘It would be my honour, sweet lord.’ She launched herself towards the approaching Stormcasts with a wild shriek. A clamouring of chainrasps followed her, until the air was choked with them.

Pharus looked back at Dohl. ‘Continue your ministrations, Dohl. Call up more souls. Keep the rest of our foes hemmed in. They wish to defend that temple, let them. But do not let them come to the aid of the Gravewalker.’

Dohl inclined his head. ‘As you will it, my lord.’ His gaze flickered strangely, and Pharus hesitated. Was there amusement there, in the dead man’s voice? He turned away, drawing his blade. The sands raced through the hourglass as he swept the sword out and flung himself towards the enemy.

The wave of nighthaunts crashed over the Stormcasts, shrieking and howling. Some among these spirits bore heavy scythes, or rang great bells and wailed hymns extolling Nagash’s eternal glory. Sigmarite shields held against the sweeping blows of the scythes, but only for a few moments before the blessed metal parted, and the rust-streaked blades bit into the warriors behind.

Rocha led the reapers in their harvest, her great single-bladed axe rising and falling in mighty arcs. She was laughing, as she fought, but Pharus could make out the tears of blood streaking her countenance. Crackling arrows hissed towards her, only to shudder to pieces as the disembodied, chattering skulls of her victims interposed themselves.

The Stormcasts’ shield wall bowed, as the nighthaunts spilled over it, and past. Pharus followed more slowly, watching as chainrasps pulled down a struggling warrior and thrust their crude weapons through the gaps in his war-plate. That he might once have known the warrior’s name gave him little pause as he gestured to Fellgrip. ‘Take him.’

The jailer gave an eager hiss as it flung itself on the dying warrior. Heavy chains slammed down. The Liberator’s helm crumpled as Fellgrip finished what the chainrasps had begun. As the warrior’s soul erupted upwards, Fellgrip swept its chains out, ensnaring the lighting before it could escape.

Pharus had seen to it that Fellgrip collected as many Azyrite souls as possible since they’d breached the gate. The jailer’s chains shook with imprisoned souls, and Pharus could hear them screaming, if he bothered to listen.

They scream only because they do not understand. They do not see. But they will come to do so, as you have done. All are one in Nagash.

‘Nagash is all,’ he rasped, as his sword licked out and danced across the back of a Liberator’s neck, killing her instantly. ‘All are Nagash.’ He whirled, chopping through the upraised arm of the warrior behind him. The Stormcast sagged back, and Pharus thrust his blade through one of the eye-slits of the wounded warrior’s helm.

Yes. Free them, Pharus. Help them escape the cage Sigmar has built around them.

‘I will help them,’ he snarled, tearing his sword free. As he left the soul to Fellgrip, a heavy blow caught him on the side of the head. His helmet was torn free in a burst of celestial radiance, and he wavered where he stood. Snarling, he turned and slashed at his attacker. Their swords connected with a harsh scrape, and Pharus saw his opponent for the first time – the lord-celestant of the enemy forces.

Their eyes locked. The shadow of half-forgotten memories fell over him. In his mind’s eye, he saw a hard face, worn to sharp edges by a century of duty. Another slave of the stars, bound in chains of light. One who had once been as close as a brother. A name floated just out of reach, and he snarled in frustration. He knew this warrior – so why could he not remember his name?

All useless things are discarded. What purpose does such a little memory serve?

Pharus hesitated. He felt a hand clap against his shoulder. He heard a great, bellowing laugh – rare, that, for Lynos – was that his name? – almost never laughed. He felt the weight of his lantern, shining with all the glory of–

Their blades sprang apart with a screech of steel. He dodged a wild sweep of his opponent’s hammer and backed away. He bent and reclaimed his fallen helm. As he placed it over his head, he felt his doubts recede.

He lunged, blade raised.