Chapter One
To silence the dirge
The sound of the Dirgehorn hung over everything.
Here, so close to the source, it was almost a physical pressure, beating upon the minds and souls of the Stormcast Eternals who fought their way through the crooked, fungus-slick trees and overgrown fen of Rotwater Blight.
The call of the Dirgehorn was in everything, reverberating from every stone and stump, quavering in the fly-blown air like an unending groan. The hideous sound of it rolled on and on, each note slithering into the next. It was a wave of pure discord, sluggish and flat, carrying with it despondency and gloom. It was a constant drone that shivered along on the wings of flies and miasmic breezes, withering trees and cracking rocks. Where it passed, green leaves turned black and the very stones sprouted quivering boils and buboes.
The sylvaneth had been put to flight by its mournful note, clutching at their heads with palsied fingers as their bark-like flesh grew cracked and pale. Those who had made Rotwater Blight their home fled deeper into the forests to escape it, and the land echoed with the sounds of their flight. Dryads shrieked and wailed as they staggered through the swampy forest, adding to the already horrid din, and squealing forest spites filled the air, flickering like fireflies as they hurtled away from the maddening pulse.
But while the treekin fled, the Stormcasts plunged into the teeth of that droning sound, determined to silence it or perish in the attempt. Retinue after retinue, brotherhood by brotherhood, they slogged on, through stinking mire and dying glade, pitting lightning-forged hearts and souls against the blaring call of Nurgle. Liberators and Retributors marched in ordered phalanxes along the mould-spotted trails and were guided by winged Prosecutors, who braved the fly-choked air to steer their kin to firmer ground. The Decimators’ weapons glowed with cold fire as they carved a path towards the Dirgehorn’s call, hacking through thick vines that sprayed viscous sap and clutching branches that writhed like serpents as they fell.
The Steel Souls, a Warrior Chamber of the Hallowed Knights, led the way. Their panoply of war gleamed silver and rich gold, while their shoulder guards and heavy shields were of deepest regal blue. The Steel Souls were not alone in their march — others shared their burden. Warrior Chambers from the Astral Templars and the Guardians of the Firmament both fought their way through Rotwater Blight alongside the Hallowed Knights, their Decimators joining those of the Steel Souls at the point of the spear.
The Stormcasts had borne the wailing call of the artefact known at the Dirgehorn for many miles and days of marching, braving horrors undreamt of. They had struggled through belching quagmires and hillocks of dead insects. The bubbling morass of the Greenglow Lake stretched to the west of the armoured host, splitting the land like an open wound. To the east, the thick forests of the Blight rose wild and forbidding. The sky overhead was the colour of an infected wound, and a choking wind blew from the east.
Everywhere Lord-Castellant Lorrus Grymn of the Hallowed Knights looked, it was as if the land was dying. He strode alongside the column, accompanied by the furry, feathered shape of his loyal gryph-hound, Tallon. His heavy halberd lay across one broad shoulder, and he kept a firm grip on its haft, ready to swing it into position at a moment’s notice. He held his warding lantern high, casting its light across the ranks of warriors as they marched. The fortifying glow burned off the layers of filth that caked the armour of his brethren, returning it to a glorious lustre, as was fitting.
The Hallowed Knights had been the fourth Stormhost to be founded, the ranks of their Warrior Chambers filled with the faithful of the Mortal Realms. Their only commonality was that each had called upon Sigmar’s name in battle and had been heard, and that each had shed his mortal flesh in the name of a righteous cause. The Steel Souls were the best of them, tried and tested and found worthy in the fires of war. But not without cost, Grymn thought.
Yes, the Steel Souls had paid a heavy price. Lord-Celestant Gardus, the one who had given them their name, was gone, lost through the realmgate known as the Gates of Dawn, leaving his warriors bereft of his leadership. It had been Gardus who had led the first strike into the wilds of Ghyran so that a permanent path to Azyr might be opened. It had been Gardus who had been sent to ensure that Grymn and the rest of his Warrior Chamber might descend upon the Jade Kingdoms to reinforce their brothers. It was not to be, however.
Despite the aid of the Astral Templars, and the last minute intervention of the warglades of the mysterious sylvaneth, Gardus had been forced to destroy the realmgate and had perished in the act. Damn you, Gardus, Grymn thought, not for the first time. It was even as the Lord-Relictor of the Steel Souls, Morbus Stormwarden, had said. The sage had seen Gardus’ fall in his dreams and had come to Grymn with his concerns. But too late.
And now Gardus was gone. The best of them. The one who had been, up to this point, Grymn’s only equal on or off the field — a man with whom he had been proud to stand shoulder to shoulder against the foes of Sigmar.
The Steel Soul had not died as a Stormcast ought and returned to the great forges of Sigmaron, there to be remade by the hands of the God-King himself. Instead, Gardus had thrown himself into the Realm of Chaos, locked in combat with a greater daemon. No soul returned from those hell-realms.
Not even one made of steel, Grymn thought. Angry now, he turned his thoughts to the present. They had a duty to fulfil and they would meet it no matter the cost. The Dirgehorn would be silenced. Of this Grymn was confident. But he knew that while the artefact had sorely afflicted the inhabitants of these wooded realms, it was not the sole cause of their pain.
Flies droned and swamp-sludge bubbled as rotted boughs creaked in the unnatural pall that marked the places where Nurgle’s influence had eclipsed that of the Realm of Life’s rightful ruler. Chain-throttled oaks moaned wordlessly about them and forest spirits struggled helplessly in the mires of Nurgle’s making. The Stormcasts who fought across the ever-shifting landscape of Ghyran were doing what they could to free the Jade Kingdoms from the clutches of the Plague Lord, but they could not do it alone. Sigmar had sent representatives to find the Lady Alarielle, in her seclusion, and re-establish old ties, but as far as Grymn knew they had all returned to Azyr empty-handed.
Alarielle had, like Sigmar himself, existed for untold aeons, and there were murals in Sigmaron dedicated to her. The largest and greatest of these showed Sigmar waking the Radiant Queen from her centuries of slumber, and the two throwing back the forces of darkness together. Once, she had been the God-King’s ally. Once… but not for many years, since the powers of ruin had swept through the Mortal Realms and the great celestine Gates of Azyr had slammed shut, sealing the Realm of Heavens off from the rest of the Eight Realms. Now those gates were open once more, and Sigmar had stretched forth his hand to old and new allies alike, so that together they might throw off the chains of monstrous tyranny.
A good dream, if as yet unproven, Grymn thought.
‘Lord-Castellant!’
Grymn looked up as the silver swooping form of Tegrus of the Sainted Eye, Prosecutor-Prime of the Steel Souls, gestured towards the shore of the lake. Grymn cursed as he saw several Stormcasts stumble towards the dark waters.
‘Tallon — go!’ he said urgently as he hurried towards the warriors. The gryph-hound chirped and bounded away. The animal slid between the Stormcasts, snapping and shrieking, stopping them in their tracks long enough for Grymn to reach them. ‘Back, you fools, get away from the water,’ he roared.