‘You are not listening to me. There is no defence. Not out here on the wynds. You will return to the Lingering Keep. All of you, living and Unburied. You have a few hours to prepare for the journey and perform the necessary rites.’ The prince looked around the room. ‘The Barren Points is one of the largest citadels in the princedom. You have hundreds of Unburied here, contained within those twelve cocoons. Thousands, maybe. I will not risk losing them.’
Aurun sat up in his chair, trying to shrug off the grim atmosphere Volant had created. ‘It’s impossible,’ he said, raising his voice. ‘We cannot move the Unburied.’
Volant’s eyes flickered and the arms of his chair creaked. ‘In a matter of hours you will be besieged. Mordants will butcher you, and then they will destroy the Separating Chambers. Every soul in this fortress will be lost.’
Aurun was horrified by the prince’s bleak manner. How could someone so unambitious, so lacking in faith, rule Morbium? He wondered if this despair and defeatism were the cause of the entire problem. ‘You do not understand, your highness. It’s not possible to move the Unburied. And even if it were, there would be no need.’
Prince Volant stood, his expression rigid as he loomed over Aurun, his massive frame all the more impressive in the tiny confines of the room. ‘Every noble in Morbium has done as I ordered. Everyone has headed for the Lingering Keep. Only you have failed to obey. Only you have remained out here on the wynds, far from my reach, endangering the souls I have entrusted to you. Why is that, Aurun? And why have we had no word from you during all this time? Is there something you wish to hide?’
Aurun stood to face him. ‘Are you accusing me of treason, your majesty?’
‘Why are you still here?’
Aurun shook his head, biting back his rage. Then he waved to the door. ‘Let me show you.’
The innermost coils of the fortress were like the chambers of a shell, spiralling and shimmering as they plunged deeper beneath the surface of the Eventide. The prominents had not been built by tools and hands but by the sorcery of an earlier age, when the gods still fought together against the Ruinous Powers and their supplicants could harness even the most violent aether currents. They were bone constructs, pale, translucent vessels woven from the air and suspended in a lifeless sea.
As the prince’s attendants rushed through the streets, their torches quickly became superfluous. The ivory light radiating from the walls grew stronger as they approached the heart of the Barren Points. The chill grew the further they descended, and the damp air tasted of salt. Aurun led the way with Prince Volant at his side. Ahead of them went the elderly priest, Corsos, with a phalanx of Gravesward, their armour shimmering in the bone-light.
At each intersection they were met by a pair of priests clad in the white robes of their order, but Corsos waved them away with his bone staff, muttering prayers as the guards admitted them into the fortress’ innermost districts. Finally, they reached a building even grander than the previous ones, constructed of the same intricately carved bone but blazing so brightly that Corsos squinted as he pushed the doors open.
They entered a vast circular hall with curving, spine-like columns that stretched up the walls and disappeared into a blazing inferno of amethyst light. The glare was so great that it was only just possible to make out the shapes of twelve cocoons hanging overhead. They were enmeshed in a labyrinth of pipes, chains and cables, all of which were shimmering.
Prince Volant strode into the middle of the hall, his iron-shod boots clanging across the bone floor as he looked up into the light.
‘The Barren Points are unlike any other prominent,’ said Lord Aurun, waving up at the machines. ‘The Unburied are bound into the walls. The twelve caskets are part of the foundations. These engines were designed by the Kharadron at the dawn of the princedom.’
Volant shook his head. ‘Do you think I don’t know my own princedom, Aurun? Did you think I knew nothing of how the Barren Points were designed? Remove the Unburied from these machines.’
‘But, Prince–’ began Aurun.
Volant spoke over him. ‘There is no other way. Get everyone you can out of the city, then remove the Unburied from their cradles. There will be time to flee the fortress before it sinks.’
Aurun was too furious to respond, so Corsos spoke up on his behalf.
‘Prince Volant, forgive me, but there is no way to remove the Unburied from the machines. The devices are alien and ancient. Their workings are a mystery even to the Unburied themselves. Only the duardin who built this hall could remove them. If we abandon the Barren Points, we will be abandoning the Unburied.’
Volant stared at him, then turned towards one of his own priests.
The man looked panicked. ‘Dontidae Corsos is learned in matters concerning the Unburied. If he says it is so, then it must be so.’
Prince Volant was silent for several moments, gazing up at the machines and the cocoons embedded in them. ‘How many are there?’ he said eventually, his voice much quieter than before.
‘Unburied?’ said Lord Aurun. ‘In all twelve cocoons? There must be over a thousand.’
Volant closed his eyes.
Aurun tried to hide his triumph. ‘Your highness. We are prepared for this. We have sent everyone away who is not needed. This fortress is ready for war. We are ready for whatever the mordants can throw at us.’
Volant’s voice sounded hollow. ‘Show me.’
They marched from the Separating Chambers, and ten minutes later they were clambering up onto the ribs of the fortress, causing a noisy commotion as white-robed priests and black-armoured Gravesward dropped to their knees, whispering prayers as the prince passed by.
Once they had reached the battlements, Prince Volant inspected the defences, striding up and down the lines of men. He towered over them like a demigod, reordering the troops and repositioning the war engines.
‘It is a fine sight,’ said Corsos, speaking quietly in Aurun’s ear as they surveyed the ranks of knights. Reinforcements from other prominents had been arriving all day, and it was the largest muster either of them had ever seen. As well as the knights, there were lines of archers dressed in a lightweight version of the black Gravesward armour, with white plumes on their caps in place of the feathered robes worn by the knights.
Aurun nodded, but his eye kept coming back to Prince Volant’s knights. Volant had positioned them directly above the main gates into the fortress, and as they formed into ranks, Aurun was near enough to see how savagely they had been attacked. Gravesward armour was made of thick, lacquered leather, treated so cunningly that it formed into plates as hard as steel. But it had not been strong enough to protect the prince’s men. Their wing-shaped shields were dented and their armour was torn, exposing deep, bloody wounds.
‘How can mordants do that?’ he asked as the prince returned to stand at his side.
‘What?’
Aurun nodded to the wounded knights. ‘What weapons do they use that can tear through our armour?’
Volant shook his head. ‘No weapons. Only naked fury. They are deranged. It gives them unnatural strength.’
Volant looked around, frowning. ‘Where are the rest of your men?’
Aurun nodded, trying to hide his pride. ‘This is barely a third of our reserves, Morn-Prince. I have deployed the bulk of our army out on the wynd.’ He nodded to the gatehouse barring the road, about half a mile out from the city gates. ‘The approach to the fortress is only a hundred or so feet wide. There will be a bottleneck. My men will be able to hold the mordants back for as long as we need in such tight confines.’ He smiled. ‘Meanwhile, my archers will butcher them. They will never even reach the fortress.’