My eye was drawn to Vikaeus herself, the shape of her unarmoured figure, as if hypnotised by an arcane rune in some tome of secrets. I found myself studying her face, noticing, as I had somehow failed to notice before, the freckles that spread across her nose and cheeks like the constellations of my mortal sky.
‘What?’ she asked, testily.
I blinked, taken aback, having somehow managed to forget there were three other Stormcasts and a demi-god in the room with me.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘Nothing?’
She watched me through narrowed eyes, clearly expecting something more from me than that. I fidgeted on my seat, which was suddenly no longer as comfortable as it had first looked. ‘I was… wondering what brings you to the Forge Eternal?’ I said, because the only sure form of defence is all-out attack. ‘What calls a Lord-Celestant, Relictor, and Veritant away from Sigmar’s wars?’
‘They’re here at my inviting,’ said Ong, and despite being the only one seated amongst a group of warriors twice his size, the Smith dominated the room like an unsheathed blade. ‘I’ll be asking the questions. But these three…’ Ong raised a hand from his lap, gesture enough to identify and quell the three Stormcasts stood about him. ‘They know you best. They’ll help me be the judge of your answers.’
‘Know me best? These three?’ I gave a derisory bark. ‘Hardly! Ramus and I fought together once, a hundred years ago. Zephacleas? He and I have barely crossed paths since Sigmar unleashed his first storm. He had some walkover at Mandrake Bastion or somewhere like that.’ I waved my hand dismissively, which brought a wry chuckle and an eye-roll from the Beast-Bane. Of Vikaeus, I said nothing, which she noticed, and glanced at Ong with a frown. ‘Where are my Bear-Eaters?’ I declared, changing the issue and throwing up my hands as if I had just then run out of patience. ‘Where are Frankos and Broudiccan? Where is Thracius or Barbarus, Kanutus or Brakka?’
Vikaeus and Zephacleas shared a look.
‘There are gaps between these bars,’ I growled. ‘I can see you.’
‘The Bear-Eaters are not available,’ said Vikaeus.
‘What could be more important than deciding the fate of their Lord-Castellant?’
‘They fight on without you, believe it or not.’
‘I don’t believe it! Don’t tell me your much-prophesied vermintide is actually happening at last?’
‘My abilities are not on trial here, Hamilcar,’ Vikaeus answered with a sigh.
‘Trial?’ I rose out of my chair and kicked it from under me. I pointed an accusing finger at Ong. ‘Give me a trial by combat or none at all. Come on, Smith, what do you say? Man versus god, give it your best try.’
‘The Bear-Eaters aren’t your concern just now,’ said Ong, calmly, and his voice had the same effect on me as a bucket of cold water would have on a hot blade. Belligerence rose off me like steam and I sagged forwards onto the bars, dispirited. ‘Tell me what happened after you left the Seven Words.’
‘You couldn’t get even that much from Xeros and the others?’ I said.
‘Just answer my question.’
With an exaggerated sigh, I told them. Of the alliance I’d struck with the aetar, impressing King Augus with my head for heights, my casual attitude to the authority of the God-King, and my ability to swallow an eighteen-inch-long ringtail worm (a delicacy, apparently) without chewing. There were certain details I thought it best to haze over. No one needed to know, for instance, how my impending honour bout with Akturus Ironheel had brought forward my departure by a week or two, saying only that the two Freeguild regiments that had been ready to march at the time were more than adequate to the task.
‘Do you know how many of the nineteen hundred that marched with you returned to the Seven Words?’ asked Vikaeus, softly. If I’m honest, I hadn’t thought about it. I lifted my eyebrows to invite her to tell me. ‘Less than five hundred, led by Captain el-Shaah.’ The name meant nothing to me, but I knew how to bluff it, and did.
‘A good man and a good soldier,’ I said, squeezing a tear from my eye and rubbing it on the back of my hand. I sniffed and raised the damp fist in the rough direction of Sigendil. ‘Praise Sigmar that he wasn’t taken from us too soon.’
‘He demanded I mobilise another regiment to go after you,’ said Vikaeus.
‘The noblest of Sigmar’s people, the Jerech.’
‘Akturus was going to lead it.’
That one caught me off-guard. ‘Akturus Ironheel?’
‘I dissuaded him.’
I frowned at her. ‘You know how long I spent in that lair, don’t you?’
‘What happened when you brought Kurzog and Manguish to battle?’ said Ong, hammering that line of questioning down.
‘They outnumbered us three to one,’ I said, ‘and had a good position, on top of a hill surrounded by marsh. I went in first.’
‘Of course you did,’ said Ramus.
I cracked a grin. If there’s one thing I like better than a good battle, it’s talking one. ‘So as I said, we were outnumbered five to one…’
I told them how I slew Manguish the Bloatlord in single combat, sparing no details and creating a few more where embellishment alone seemed insufficient to the story at hand. I spoke of the timely arrival of the aetar to turn the battle in our favour, and of the skaven ambush that swung it decisively back against us again; how Augus had quit the field and abandoned us in the wake of Queen Ellias’ death. Zephacleas and Ramus both scowled at that, but Vikaeus simply nodded as if this were not news to her. The aetar had always regarded the Stormcast Eternals of the Seven Words with a blend of indifference and distrust – a step up from Beastlord Uxor who had occupied the fastness before us, but only a small one. Their disinterest had bred a certain disillusionment on our own side, and it had only been my urging and persistence that had made an alliance possible. Akturus had been against it from the start. As had Vikaeus.
‘You never saw the ambush coming?’ Vikaeus asked.
‘That’s why they call it an ambush,’ I explained with exaggerated patience.
‘You didn’t scout around the hill or the surrounding marsh before committing two whole regiments and your entire warrior chamber to a full-frontal attack?’
I shrugged, making it look nonchalant. ‘I didn’t have much daylight left. You know how it can be in Ghur, you think you’ve got an hour and then suddenly the sun’s galloping over the horizon.’ Zephacleas was nodding sagely, as I knew he would. ‘I couldn’t give Kurzog the chance to slip away under cover of darkness.’ Coming off the top of my head as it did, I was fantastically proud of that justification. I was hardly going to tell them that Broudiccan had argued for sending Illyrius and his Vanguards around the hill and I’d overruled him in favour of a straightforward head-on assault. ‘I would have done the same thing,’ said Ramus.
‘And I,’ said Zephacleas.
‘It is certainly in his character anyway,’ said Vikaeus, with distinctly milder praise than the others.
‘This took place before his capture,’ said Ong.
‘You make it sound like my fault,’ I said.
‘Why you?’ Vikaeus asked.
I spread my arms theatrically in a ‘who else?’ sort of gesture that had Zephacleas covering his mouth to smother a laugh.
I winked at him.
‘They did try to take you personally during their earlier attack on the Seven Words,’ said Vikaeus.
‘Stop trying to call it an attack.’ I waggled my finger at her. ‘You can’t say your prophecy came true that easily. It was a raid at best, and I was the only one that did any real fighting.’ I had challenged the entire horde to single combat and won, sort of, which did more for my reputation around the fortress than every other triumph before that put together. ‘I was just in the right place at the right time.’ Now I thought about it, though, Ikrit had spouted some nonsense about choosing me because I was predictable and easily trapped, but I decided to keep that to myself.