Soul Wars

Chapter nineteen Broken Souls

Elya climbed through the stone canopy of the Grand Tempestus. As she climbed, she listened with half an ear to the babble of panicked humanity rising from below. Her father was somewhere among them, trying to crawl into a bottle. Maybe his last.

She’d left Halha with him. The trader seemed eager for something to occupy her time and was keeping Duvak from making a mess of things, or getting into a fight. Normally, that responsibility was Elya’s, but it was hard to sit and do nothing but watch her father pickle himself and talk about people who weren’t there anymore.

People were screaming and crying. The air throbbed with tension, and the sounds of battle from outside were only making things worse. She’d had to climb to get away from it. There were many people, in too small a space, despite the fact that the nave of the temple was as wide as a city boulevard, and almost as long.

She paused, watching as soldiers took up positions among the pillars and statues. Their commander shouted hoarsely, directing them with his blade. The duardin she saw were more subdued, but they readied their shields, making improvised bulwarks between the centre of the temple and the main doors.

Elya watched for a time, and then continued to pick her way across the stone carvings, as light as the cats that watched her progress from above and around her. They were scattered throughout the temple, seeking someplace safe and warm to wait out the storm.

Above her, a cat hissed suddenly. She froze as something passed across the face of a nearby window. A shape that wasn’t a shape. She could hear the nicksoul gibbering as it slithered across the glass, scrabbling ineffectually at it, for the glass was blessed and it couldn’t get in. It sounded like the mad men who sat on the corners and talked to people who’d died in the last siege. Just words, words, words and none of them making any sense.

Curious, she crept towards the window. It was one of hundreds, set into the base of the roof, below the immense glass dome that looked down on the nave. The windows were small circles of stained glass, meant to let in coloured shafts of light. Now, they were all covered in frost, so thickly that she thought it a wonder that they didn’t crack.

The glass bled cold, and her breath frosted the air. The thing on the other side grimaced at the sight of her and began to twist itself in knots. It had maggots where its eyes ought to have been, and its teeth were nothing but sharp splinters.

But it had been a person, once. A man, she thought. No, a boy. It spoke to her, too fast and sounding like it couldn’t catch its breath. The words tumbled over one another, and she couldn’t make sense of them. It pressed broken fingers to the glass, and hoar frost spread wherever it touched. She hesitated, and then reached out, placing her fingers against the glass. It was so cold it burned.

The nicksoul stopped talking. It stared at her with its squirming gaze, and she could almost feel those maggots gnawing at her own eyes. She blinked and looked away. It hissed, not like a cat, but like a Mere-eel – a wet, guttural sound. ‘He is coming,’ it rasped. ‘He knows you, and he is coming.’

A cat climbed up onto her shoulder and growled, tail lashing. The nicksoul jerked back, as if it’d been stung. Elya turned, something telling her to look up. The dome overhead was dark, and things that might have been stars flickered in that darkness.

But they weren’t stars.

Stars did not scream.

‘They’re flocking like crows,’ Mara growled, pointing her maul towards the dome at the top of the Grand Tempestus. ‘Should we do something?’

‘And what more would you have us do, Sequitor-Prime?’ Balthas said, flatly. ‘Turn from the enemy in front of us, to face another?’ He glanced back at the temple and shook his head. ‘Besides, if Miska and the others have done as I commanded, the nighthaunts will not be able to enter the temple – not easily, at least.’

‘Small comfort to those within,’ Mara said, turning back to the battle before them. She ducked her head as a deadwalker slammed against her shield. She braced herself and swept her maul beneath the rim of her shield, shattering the corpse’s legs. As it fell, she stamped on its skull, putting an end to its struggles. But there were more behind it. There were always more. So many that they threatened to swamp the battle-line.

‘I do not care about their comfort. Only that they survive.’ Balthas thrust his staff forwards, and unleashed a crackling bolt into the corpses clambering at the Sequitors’ shield wall. ‘And that we survive.’

‘Better odds of that now that the Gravewalker has arrived,’ Mara said. She indicated the other side of the plaza, where Lynos Gravewalker’s warriors had emerged, to launch their own attack. Balthas had seen his plan immediately. The lord-celestant had intended to catch the dead between their chambers and scatter them.

But that was proving more difficult than Balthas had hoped. For every deadwalker that fell, half a dozen spectres seemed to take its place, hurling themselves against the shields of the Stormcasts. Lynos’ lines were beginning to falter as their momentum stalled. Unlike the rotten corpses that packed the plaza, the nighthaunts were calculating foes. They had a dark animus of their own, though they were as enslaved to the will of their creator as the deadwalkers were.

With his storm-sight, Balthas could see the faint glow of the souls they had once been, before the winds of Shyish had inundated them, twisting them all out of sorts. Flickering embers of amber, of jade and even azure were caught in a tangled shroud of amethyst – so dark it was almost black. Trapped by the magics of the ones who had drawn them up from their deaths. The sight of those magics made his skull ache, and he longed to unravel those black skeins.

Threaded amongst this heaving shroud were crackling striations of cerulean – the soulfire of the newly arrived warriors. Balthas winced as he watched a jagged bolt of lightning slash upwards. The mage-warriors of the Sacrosanct Chambers could weather such an assault, thanks to their mystic training. He often forgot that other Stormcasts lacked that training. They were at a disadvantage when it came to combating the aethereal hosts of Nagash.

But there was something else there. Something that taunted the edges of his storm-sight. He felt it on the wind, like the refrain of a half-forgotten song. It pulled at his attentions, distracting him from the battle. The blotch on the aether – it crashed against his senses, demanding that he face it. And suddenly, he knew what it was.

He could feel it now, at the edge of his perceptions. Like a storm that had turned back on itself. Somewhere, in the confusion, the soul of Pharus Thaum awaited him.

Decision made, Balthas raised his staff. ‘Porthas, Mara,’ he shouted. ‘Lock shields and advance. They present their flank – let us bloody it, and show them why we were chosen to bear the mantle of Sigmar’s wrath.’

‘As you will it,’ Porthas growled. ‘Shields up, brothers and sisters.’ At his command, his Sequitors moved forwards one pace, shoving back the deadwalkers before them.

Balthas swung his staff out, indicating the deadwalkers. ‘Quintus, clear the path.’

On the steps of the temple, the Castigators fired their greatbows over the heads of the Sequitors. A chain of crackling energy washed through the deadwalkers’ ranks, and the Sequitors bulled forwards, into the teeth of it. The aetheric energy washed harmlessly over their war-plate as they forced burning deadwalkers aside, trampling those that fell.

Slowly, in disciplined fashion, the Sequitors dressed their ranks, falling into a wedge. Porthas led the way, a half-step ahead of the others, his greatmace whirling. Balthas followed, after signalling to Gellius and Faunus. The two engineers swung their ballista around and fired into the ranks of the dead that stood between the Gravewalkers and the warriors of the Sacrosanct Chamber, clearing the path.

‘Advance. Let nothing stay you. Not even death.’ Balthas gripped his staff tightly, and overhead, thunder rumbled. Somewhere ahead of him, something was waiting. And he intended to meet it.

Pharus felt the hint of something familiar – a scent, a sound, something else – brush across his consciousness, but flicked it aside. His sword crashed against that of the lord-celestant, and the facets of shadeglass flared amethyst. They spun in a wide circle, trading blows. His opponent was skilled, but Pharus had passed beyond skill.

‘I know you, I think,’ he said hesitantly, as they broke apart. ‘I know your voice, your gaze…’ The battle surged around them, and lightning snapped at the skies. More souls lost. ‘You are as I was, aren’t you? A slave. A pawn.’

‘Silence, grave-maggot,’ the lord-celestant rumbled. ‘The dead will not speak.’

Their blades crashed together again, and Pharus forced his opponent back a half-step. The lord-celestant grunted in shock. ‘Sigmar aid me,’ he growled.

Sigmar does not listen. Sigmar cares nothing for him, or you.

Pharus forced the lord-celestant back another step, the words ringing in his head. ‘Sigmar cares nothing for you.’

‘Lies!’ Their blades crashed together again. The battle around them seemed to slide into the distance.

You are condemned, so that he might play the conqueror once again.

‘How many times have you died? How many times have you seen warriors perish and return, lessened?’ Pharus snarled the words, hurling them like javelins, the voice beating in his brain, as the lord-celestant reeled back.

‘You know nothing, spectre,’ the lord-celestant said. ‘You are a hollow thing, made in the image of a hollow god.’ Pharus hesitated, staring into his opponent’s eyes. He wanted to tear them out and deny the contempt they held.

He is blind, the voice said. Blinded by the light of Azyr, as they all are. They see only the light, not what it hides.

‘He uses you up, burning away memory and soul,’ Pharus said. ‘What will remain of you, in the end?’ Hatred swelled up, subsuming uncertainty. ‘You will be nothing,’ he said. ‘A husk, clad in black.’

‘And what are you?’ the lord-celestant spat.

‘I am a thing of purpose,’ Pharus said. ‘And I will have justice.’ The Stormcast hesitated. Pharus battered aside his blade, just for an instant, and swept his sword out, quickly. The black blade chewed through sigmarite, ripping and tearing the armour plates with fell strength. It darted, adder-quick, to pierce the flesh within. The lord-celestant groaned and sank back, blue lightning snarling around the edges of the wound.

Pharus reversed his blade and lifted it in both hands, ready to plunge it down into the lord-celestant. To finish him. But he hesitated. ‘No. You’ll not escape that way. I’ll make you see the truth. And then we will fight beside one another.’

One thrust will be enough to hold him. Trap him. Quickly!

‘Fellgrip – attend me! I have a task for you, jailer.’

The Spirit Torment drifted forwards, chains rattling like laughter. The lord-celestant struggled to rise, but Pharus set a foot on his chest and pinned him in place. He raised his blade high, for the killing thrust. ‘You will see what I have seen and you will join me. There is no other choice.’

‘There is always a choice, creature,’ a voice thundered behind him. ‘Even in the blackest shadow, there is a speck of light.’

Pharus turned and saw an immense, silvery, feathered shape bulling towards him. Chainrasps scattered like leaves in a wind as the gryph-charger bounded through their ranks. Lightning crackled about the head of the rider’s staff. Something in Pharus flinched back from that blue radiance, as he turned to face this new opponent. The rider wore the black and gold of the Anvils of the Helden­hammer, but his war-plate was more ornate than that of Lynos – even so, he was familiar, somehow. As if they had faced one another before. The rider bellowed a single word, and a chain of lightning spat from the head of his staff.

It struck a chainrasp and leapt from phantasm to phantasm, causing the lesser spirits to spasm and jerk in seeming agony. They squalled like injured beasts as the celestial energies played about the links of their chains, and tore their aethereal forms to rags and tatters. The gryph-charger loped through their dispersing remains. It crashed into Pharus and knocked him sprawling.

Pharus made to clamber to his feet, armour creaking. The gryph-charger reared up over him, shrieking angrily. Its claws slammed down, tearing through his war-plate. Amethyst lightning sparked out through the ruptures, and the beast twisted aside with a yowl of pain. Pharus slashed out, driving the beast back. His blade bit into its flank, and a heavy hoof hammered into his hip, staggering him.

The rider twisted about and drove the ferrule of his staff down, into the side of Pharus’ head. Pharus reeled, his spirit shuddering within his war-plate. Azure lightning crackled, and pain exploded within him. The gryph-charger turned, lashing out with hooves and claws. Chainrasps swirled about steed and rider like angry hornets.

Pharus retreated, trying to escape the terrible radiance bleeding off the rider. Images crashed through his head, insistent and painful. He saw the newcomer standing before him, shouting his name, and the awful, yawning tunnel of stars overhead. He felt the play of lightning – as hot and as agonising as the real thing – and the sudden lurch, as he fell upwards and away, caught in a cosmic wind. He shook his head, hoping to clear it.

Ignore him. He is nothing.

He saw the wounded lord-celestant clambering to his feet, as a phalanx of Liberators broke through the chainrasps and formed up about their wounded lord. He snarled in frustration and tried to side-step the gryph-charger. His prey would not escape him. ‘Rocha – aid me, executioner!’ he called out.

‘A pleasure, my sweet lord,’ Rocha shrilled, as she hurtled past, overhead. Her great axe licked out, cracking against the rider’s staff. The souls of those she’d slain clambered over her opponent, clawing at him. The gryph-charger squalled, as its rider hauled on the reins and turned to face Rocha.

With his opponent distracted, Pharus launched himself at the Liberators, and his sword purred as it chopped through sigmarite shields. He felt strong as he cut them down. Their lightning washed through him, and the cerulean sparks became amethyst as they played across his war-plate.

Yes. Free them. Collect the tithe. Claim their souls in the name of the Undying King.

The Stormcasts fought valiantly, but he cast them aside with ease. Strength flooded him, and in the facets of his blade, he saw the reflected unlight of the black sun. It was as if Nagash stood at his shoulder, whispering into his ear.

Rejoice, for you are nothing more than a blade in the Undying King’s hand, and his foes shall fall before you, like wheat before the reaper’s scythe.

The last Liberator sank to one knee and was battered aside. Then, there was nothing between him and his quarry. Pharus gave the lord-celestant no chance to speak. He lunged, sword held low, and drove it through his opponent’s midsection. The force of the blow carried them both, and the Stormcast slammed into the base of one of the statues that lined the plaza like silent observers. Pharus leaned forwards, driving the blade in deeper, until it bit into the stone.

Yes. Take him.

‘Surrender,’ he said, his voice a hoarse croak.

‘N-no,’ the lord-celestant gasped, clutching at him. His helmet had been knocked from him by the force of the impact, and his bare features sent distracting moths of memory fluttering across Pharus’ mind’s eye. His eyes still blazed, but more weakly now than before.

‘Yes. You will see the truth, as I have.’ Pharus made to twist his blade, to finish his task, but hesitated. Something in him raged, slamming against the bars of its cage. ‘The truth,’ he said again. Then, more softly, ‘Do you know what it is?’

There is only one truth, Pharus Thaum. There is only one end, to your path.

‘S-Sigmar,’ the dying warrior said. Pharus wondered if the lord-celestant was answering his question, or merely pleading with the one who had sent him here to perish.

Pharus twisted the blade and put an end to his quarry’s struggles.

‘No. Not Sigmar. There is only one truth, and it is Nagash.’

Balthas felt, rather than saw, Lynos’ demise. As he twisted in his saddle, he saw a crackling coil of lightning streak skywards, only to be drawn, with a scream of tortured energies, into the chains of the crooked, hunched spirit he’d noticed earlier.

‘No,’ he said, shocked to his core by the sight. He’d known it was possible to trap a Stormcast’s soul, but to see it happen… For a moment, he sat frozen. Then he heard Porthas shout a warning and felt his opponent’s axe grate against his back. The chipped blade tore through his cloak and drew sparks from his back-plate.

The force of the blow knocked him from the saddle, and as he struck the ground, his staff rolled from his grip. The ghostly executioner rose up over him, cackling wildly, lifting its axe in both hands. ‘Come, Fellgrip,’ it shrieked. ‘Here is another soul for you.’ The axe hissed down.

A greatmace blocked the blow. Porthas slammed his shoulder into the nighthaunt, knocking it aside. ‘No,’ the Sequitor-Prime rumbled. ‘No more souls.’ He turned, whirling his greatmace up, and brought it down on the plaza. Lightning erupted from the cobbles, driving back the swarming gheists, if only for a moment. Balthas took the opportunity to get back to his feet.

Around them, the battle had devolved into confusion. Nighthaunts crawled over Stormcasts, pulling them down or slowing them long enough for the deadwalkers to do so. Lightning burst upwards again and again, as more warriors fell.

Worse, more deadwalkers were pouring into the plaza. Where they were coming from, Balthas didn’t know, but they were closing in on the Castigators on the temple steps, despite the impressive rate of fire produced by Quintus’ warriors.

As he snatched up his staff, he caught sight of the dark-clad spirit who’d killed Lynos. The armour it – he – wore was baroque and tattered, hanging off a body and limbs that were barely there. The blade in his hand was black, and gleamed like glass.

As if sensing his attentions, the creature turned to meet his gaze. The world seemed to slow and dim. The crash of lightning became a drawn-out rasp, and the screams of the dying and the dead merged into a great roar. Balthas was unable to look away as the creature began to stride towards him, moving normally despite the slowed nature of everything around them. Balthas could hear the rattle of tattered armour and the crackle of the purple lightning that seethed beneath it. ‘I know you,’ the creature said. Its voice boomed like thunder, drowning out all other sound.

That voice was familiar – painfully so. Balthas had heard it before, in the Chamber of the Broken World, echoing in his head as it did now. He had known the moment was coming, but there had been no way to truly prepare for the shock of it.

The thing before him was a blight on the aether – a storm, caged in shadows. The wrongness of it made his senses ache. It flickered eerily, moving out of synch with the world around it. It was a thing that should not be, the essence of one god enslaved by another. Within the confines of its monstrous helm, its features bled and shifted – first human, then a bare skull, then something in between.

‘I know you,’ it – he – said again.

Balthas raised his hand, and tried to draw the lightning to it. ‘And I know you, Thaum,’ he said, as weak energies flickered about his gauntlets. ‘I name thee Pharus Thaum, and bid thee–’

‘Silence,’ Thaum hissed, suddenly in front of him. His face stretched and wrinkled like canvas, lightning-scarred bone peeking through ravaged flesh. It was like a too-small mask, pulled over something horrid. Balthas took a step back as their eyes locked, and he saw…

Screaming, Thaum fell and fell and fell…

A child’s face, a girl… Elya…

A God of Death, tearing him asunder and remaking him…

A tide of fell spirits, sweeping up towards the Shimmergate, towards Azyr…

Thaum shrilled in pain and twisted away, breaking contact. ‘You,’ he rasped. ‘You hurt me before. You tried to make me something else – tried to take who I was…’

‘No, I tried to help you – Sigmar tried to–’

‘I said be silent.’ Thaum spun, sword raised. The black blade slashed down, slowly, so slowly, but as inevitable as nightfall. In its facets, Balthas thought he saw a skeletal face, leering at him, its eye sockets blazing amethyst. And that face was reflected in Thaum’s own – no longer that of a man, but a skull, stretched and warped as if something were growing within it. And he knew then what his failure meant.

‘No!’

Porthas struck Balthas, slamming him aside, breaking the spell. As Balthas fell, he saw the blade part Porthas’ helm like paper. The Sequitor-Prime toppled away, body shattering into starlight and lightning. The crooked spirit – the jailer-thing – swooped on the rising soul, chains clanking.

Enraged, Balthas instinctively caught hold of the aether and drew it taut. ‘You shall not have him,’ he roared. He slammed his fists down and lightning exploded upwards, driving back the spirits that pressed close all about him and sending the jailer-thing fleeing, its twisted form alight. Thaum too staggered back, shrieking in pain as the lightning tore at him.

Balthas rose and swept out his hand, ignoring the pain of the storm as it raged through him. Lightning punched Thaum backwards, sending the creature rattling across the plaza. Before he could pursue, a blow caught him across the back, knocking him to one knee. He heard the familiar cackle of the axe-wielding spectre, as it swept about him like a serpent readying itself to strike.

The axe came down, nearly taking his head off. He lunged awkwardly to the side, moving swiftly, trying to put some distance between them, so that he could employ his magics. He caught sight of his staff and shoved a deadwalker aside as he made to reach it. He whistled sharply, hoping that Quicksilver was still alive and able to hear him.

The spectre pursued him, the ghostly skulls swirling about it gibbering and muttering. ‘I know you,’ the spectre hissed. ‘One like you took my prince from me – drew him up and bound him in star-iron. Made a false king of him and set treacherous thoughts in his head. Theft. Treachery. By these crimes, and a thousand others, have you been judged. And the sentence – death!’

Balthas turned and interposed his staff. He caught the blade of the axe as it descended, and the storm surged through him, cascading across the weapon and up into its ghostly wielder. The spectre screamed, not in triumph this time, but agony.

A moment later, the axe exploded into white-hot shards. The spectre flew backwards, form blurring and rippling as the celestial energies coursed through it. The creature plummeted to the street, its smoky form shredded and coming apart. It clutched at itself in agony, as the broken shards of lesser spirits clustered about it. These parasitic phantoms shot towards him as he approached.

He heard a screech, and Quicksilver pounced on one of the phantoms, the aetheric energies curling about his beak and talons allowing him to pull the dead thing apart as if it were living prey. Balthas stepped past the gryph-charger, closing in on his would-be executioner. The spectre tried to rise, its form tattered and fading. ‘I will not… where is he… where is my prince?’ it shrilled, lunging at him, ragged claws extended. ‘Tell me!’

Balthas thrust his staff out, like a spear. The nighthaunt shuddered as the end of the staff punched through its chest. It clutched at him, and in that moment, the madness seemed to clear from its eyes. ‘Tarsem,’ it whispered. Balthas sent a pulse of aetheric energy through the staff and the nighthaunt came apart with a small, sad sigh.

Dead hands clutched at him as he pulled himself into the saddle, and tore at Quicksilver’s fur and feathers. The gryph-charger snarled and lashed out, crushing the deadwalkers. But more pressed forwards. Lightning erupted upwards across the plaza, as Stormcasts were pulled down by the dead.

‘They die as slaves. They will be reborn as something better.’

Balthas twisted in his saddle, as the words stung his ears. Pharus Thaum approached slowly, surrounded by chainrasps. Despite the din of battle, he could hear the ghostly warrior’s words clearly. Smoke rose from Thaum’s armour, but the creature seemed ­otherwise unharmed.

‘As you will be reborn. As I was.’

‘This is not rebirth,’ Balthas spat. ‘This is a mockery.’

Thaum laughed, and for a moment, it was as if another voice, deeper and greater, echoed him. ‘It is justice. In death, I was redeemed. My eyes were opened to the truth of things. I see now that I fought in service of a lie. In service to a false king. And I have returned to cast down his works, and salt the earth.’

‘And I will stop you.’

‘You cannot stop the inevitable,’ Thaum roared. He surged towards Balthas, blade raised. Balthas lifted his staff, and light blazed outwards. The air contracted and suddenly gleamed gold as a wall rose up, separating them. Thaum’s blade struck the conjured wall, cracking it, but Balthas had bought himself a few moments.

He cast his voice into the air, knowing the aether would carry it to the ear of every Stormcast. ‘Sequitors – fall back to the Grand Tempestus. All others – draw the enemy off, fall back into the surrounding streets. The battle will not be won here. I will buy you the time you need to disengage, but move swiftly.’

As he spoke, Balthas caught at the aether, his anger at the deaths of Lynos and Porthas – at his own failure – giving him focus. His fingers bent, and the air grew hot. He spat a single word, in the Igneous dialect of Aqshy. It reverberated through the thickening atmosphere. The rain around him turned to steam as he raised his staff.

Then, as one, every deadwalker in sight burst into flame. Not the orange fire of Aqshy, but the cobalt blaze of Azyr – a cleansing flame, rather than a devouring one. The fires of the stars themselves, focused through his will. As the azure conflagration blazed upwards, consuming and purifying, the nighthaunts drew back. The ragged spectres fled before the threat of the fire, and those that were too slow or too weak were immolated along with the deadwalkers.

The golden wall dissipated, as Thaum finally broke through it. He roared in pain as the blue flames swirled up around him and set him alight. His form wavered and he quickly retreated, with a last, parting glare at his tormentor. It would take more than flames to slay such a spirit, Balthas knew. Perhaps it would take more power than he possessed.

‘But it will be done, regardless,’ he growled. Just not here, he knew. Not now.

There was no salvaging this fight – the formulas of battle had irreparably broken down. A new strategy was called for.

As he urged Quicksilver back towards the Grand Tempestus, he flung out his staff, drawing the currents of aether to him. Where Quicksilver ran, the dead burst into cleansing flame in his wake, creating a corridor of purifying flame for the Sequitors to follow through.

Nearing the steps, he saw Quintus’ Castigators falling back towards the portico, as nighthaunts swirled about them. More gheists had fallen on the celestar ballista, and Gellius and Faunus were struggling to keep the weapon intact and firing. A hunched reaper drove its scythe blade through Faunus, and was consumed in the engineer’s apotheosis. Gellius roared a curse and lashed out with his maul, destroying another spirit, even as his partner’s soul was ripped upwards, back to Azyr.

‘Quintus – pull back,’ Balthas said, trusting in the aether to carry his words. ‘We are coming.’ The Castigators fired another volley and began to stream up the steps, smashing aside nighthaunts with blasts of cerulean force.

As Quicksilver reached the steps, the heavy doors to the temple were flung wide and Miska led Helios and his Celestors out onto the portico. The mage-sacristan tore one of the spirit-bottles from her hip and sent it hurtling towards a knot of gheists. It struck the stones and exploded, releasing a frenzied storm-spirit. A crackling cloud of lightning zigzagged through the nighthaunts, reducing them to burnt particles, before at last escaping into the aether.

Helios and his warriors advanced across the portico at a stately pace, leaving crackling footprints of lightning in their wake. Celestial energies crawled across their armour, leaping out to cascade across the Castigators who retreated past them. Nighthaunts swooped towards the newcomers, cackling and screaming. The Celestors moved as one, creating an interwoven net of blows that reduced the howling chainrasps to sizzling ash. Lightning sawed out in a devouring fury from between their weapons, to lick through the air before contracting back.

Wherever the nighthaunts went, the lightning was there, reaching out to entangle and burn them, before retreating between the blades and staves of the Celestors. As this crackling display held the gheists’ attentions, Mara led the remaining Sequitors onto the portico and through the doors of the Grand Tempestus, followed closely by Gellius, his ballista across his shoulders.

Balthas galloped past Helios, calling out as he did so, ‘Efficiently done. Now fall back.’ The Celestors fell in behind him and followed him through the great double doors. Balthas hauled on the reins, turning Quicksilver about in time to see Miska stride after Helios. She slammed her staff down, and the doors slammed shut behind her with a rolling boom. She nodded.

‘The Grand Tempestus is sealed, lord-arcanum. No spirit will enter.’

Balthas was about to reply, when a sound echoed through the entry hall. The harsh scrape of many dead hands, clawing at the doors. The light of the storm-lanterns seemed to dim as the sound grew louder, and was joined by a piercing susurrus of babbling voices.

Miska stared at the doors for a moment. Then looked back at Balthas. ‘They will not enter easily, at least,’ she amended.

‘For the moment, that will be enough,’ Balthas said. ‘It will have to be.’

Pharus stared at the doors of the Grand Tempestus, idly tracing the scorch marks on his war-plate. ‘Balthas Arum,’ he said. He did not know why he knew the name, but he did. Something in him laughed as he said it, as if at an old joke, now mostly forgotten. ‘Balthas… Arum…’ The name sounded wrong, somehow. As if it were a lie.

What is a Stormcast but a lie made flesh? A false promise, given substance by hollow faith. Stolen souls, caged and warped into new shapes by a trickster god. And who tried to do the same to others, in a parody of their deceitful master…

Again, the sour laughter came and this time, it rose through him and escaped his lips unbidden. He laughed low, loud and long, glory­ing in the certainty which gripped him.

Yes, you see now. You have bested them. They are naught but shadows.

‘They are but shadows,’ he said. He was close, now, and nothing – not his former brothers, not this Balthas Arum – would keep him from fulfilling his purpose.

‘It is good to see you so pleased, Pharus. I feared you would find no joy in your purpose, as happens to so many who are bent to the great wheel.’

Pharus turned. ‘My Lady of All Flesh,’ he said, bowing. ‘What news?’

‘Glymmsforge burns,’ Crelis Arul said, with some satisfaction. She rested atop her palanquin, her wolves growling softly as they gnawed on something wet and red. ‘Malendrek wages the war he has dreamed of, and Yaros ensures that he is free to do so. As I have ensured that you are able to fulfil your desires.’ She gestured to the remaining deadwalkers, as they pounded at the doors of the Grand Tempestus. ‘Have they served you well?’

‘They performed their function satisfactorily.’

She pressed her hands together. ‘Oh, excellent. It makes my heart sing, to hear you say that.’ She turned, as if scenting the wind. ‘As it sings to hear the call of butchered meat. I can feel them waking up… My children. They see with new eyes, and hunt with new hunger. I must go and gather them.’ She stroked a wolf’s skull and looked down at Pharus. ‘Will you accompany me, oh knight?’

‘I will not,’ Pharus said. He knelt beside the spot where the lord-celestant had perished. He could hear the warrior’s soul howling as it rattled in Fellgrip’s chains. Soon, his brother would know the same peace he did. So why did that thought bother him so? He pushed it aside, as the voice in him whispered in satisfaction. ‘My duty is here, in this place. This is why I was remade.’

Arul laughed softly. ‘Is it, now? How wonderful to have such a clarity of purpose.’

Pharus glanced up at her. ‘And do you not? Does dead flesh not beseech you to raise it up, as the souls of the living call to me and ask for their freedom?’

‘I think you were a thing of singular purpose, even before Nagash reshaped you. But we shall speak more on it, later. Once the city is ours, and the Shimmergate shakes with the tread of a million corpses.’ She gestured, and her palanquin turned away. ‘Fight well, Pharus Thaum. Our master stands at your shoulder, and you would do well not to disappoint him.’

Rest assured, you shall not. So long as you perform your function.

‘I will not fail.’ Pharus watched her depart, and then looked back at the Grand Tempestus. It called to him. Not the temple itself, but what lay beneath it. He looked down and picked up a Stormcast helmet, laying smouldering upon the stones. He looked at its stern features, seeking something familiar. Had he known the one who wore it? Would he know their face, if he saw it again?

‘What now, my lord?’ Dohl asked, drifting towards him. As ever, the guardian of souls was trailed by a flock of chainrasps, all murmuring and twitching in the light of Dohl’s lantern. Pharus felt his growing unease fade.

‘Let Malendrek rip the city’s belly open. We go for the jugular.’ Pharus stared into the scowling countenance of the mask. Sigmar’s face. ‘He makes us wear his face,’ he said. ‘As if we are but pieces of him, shed from the whole.’ He cast the helmet aside.

Nagash and Sigmar. Apotheosis and dissolution.

The sun and its shadow, the voice murmured.

‘The God-King seeks to blind you, to make you see as he sees,’ Dohl said, as he drifted alongside Pharus. ‘To convince enough souls of a lie is to make it the truth. But we stand firm. Nagash is all, and all are one in Nagash. He is the absolute, and the end. He is justice in an unjust universe.’ Dohl lifted his lantern, and chainrasps gathered about him, seeking the hollow comfort of his light. ‘He is vengeance for the innocent and punishment for the guilty. In Nagash, order is restored, and the madness of existence broken to the wheel of fate.’ Dohl’s voice rose to a sibilant groan, echoing over the shattered courtyard.

Nearby nighthaunts joined their voices to his, until a solid wave of mournful noise washed over the temple. Pharus swept his sword out in silent command. Nighthaunts drifted towards the temple, singly and in groups. If there was a weakness, they would find it. One gap, one chink – that was all Pharus needed.

He glanced down at what was left of Rocha’s axe, lying scattered across the plaza nearby. It still smouldered from the lightning. He felt no regret over the spirit’s fate. That had been her purpose, and there was nothing more to it. When a piece of the mechanism broke, it was stripped out, without sentiment. As he would be, if he failed.

But he would not fail. Nagash commanded that the Ten Thousand Tombs be opened, and Pharus would do so, whatever or whoever sought to bar his path. ‘As Nagash wills,’ he said, softly, ‘so must it be.’