I got my first glimpse of Frankos’ Heavens Forged.
If the Vikaeus that Ong had conjured for my interrogation in the Forge Eternal had spoken a word of truth then there were upwards of a thousand Stormcast in the Seven Words, and by the looks of it half of them were on the Bear Road. At least a hundred and fifty Heavens Forged and their retainers marched up and down the wide road, coming in and out of larger buildings that the command echelon had apparently requisitioned to serve as garrisons and district command posts. The frontages had been draped in anvil and lightning bolt heraldry. The battlements positively glittered with amethyst and gold.
A smaller, grim-looking detail of Liberators and Judicators stood behind a stockade at the near-end of the road, towering over a small crowd of jeering townsfolk.
‘This is our home,’ screamed one, a young woman with mud streaks on her face.
‘Those driven from the Gorwood are found homes by the conclave representative, or by the temples, while we are thrown out of ours,’ shouted another, to much grumbling assent.
‘Where is Frankos of the Heavens Forged?’
‘Where is the justice? Where is Sigmar?’
Squaring my shoulders, I strutted towards the stockade. ‘What’s going on here?’
The Liberator-Prime was a huge man in shining amethyst plate that looked as though it had never seen use in battle. His hair was long and red, his beard wildly unkempt. Both straggled in the wind. He had probably gone unhelmed in an attempt to put the mortal townsfolk more at ease. A worthy effort, if undermined somewhat by his divine stature and heroic build.
‘It’s Frankos’ orders,’ he grunted, chewing on the words and spitting them my way. ‘He needs barracks for a strengthened garrison on the main gate and outer walls, as well as the roads cleared for the movement of reinforcements.’
‘I wasn’t talking to you, brother.’
‘Sigmar bless you, Hamilcar,’ one of the men cried. ‘Sigmar bless you!’
Someone in the crowd wept.
‘I am sure a compromise can be reached.’ I turned back to the Liberator-Prime. ‘I will escort these good folk as far as the gatehouse, let them collect whatever sundry belongings they have left in their homes. When they see the necessity of what our worthy Lord-Celestant does, I have no doubt they will be obliging.’
I studied the Liberator-Prime’s barbarian features, but it wasn’t a face I recognised. Some of the new blood with which Sigmar had founded the Heavens Forged, then. He must have been either newly struck (for the realms had not stopped producing heroes with the advent of the Age of Sigmar) or from a retinue shifted wholesale from some other broken chamber to Frankos’ nascent command.
He looked uncertain.
‘You don’t think you’d be better used on the wall, than stood here guarding against your own people…?’ I left the question hanging.
‘Wullas,’ he grunted. ‘My name is Wullas. Hearthshorn.’
‘Well, I am Hamilcar. You will have heard of me.’
I made to push past, but the Liberator stood stubbornly in my way. My pauldron banged into his breastplate, and I watched him visibly recoil, the same surge of emotions as I had earlier seen on Frankos defacing his barbarian features. The Judicators beside him turned their heads sharply towards me. The Justicars have always had a keen sense for the evil in a man’s soul, bettered only by the gryph-hounds and Celestial dragons of Azyr. Whether that is because men and women with such an attunement are chosen for the role, or because the ability was an ingredient of their forging, I don’t know. Nor do I much care. Whatever the reason, they sensed something in me, sensed it more keenly even than Wullas Hearthshorn who was retreating, horrified, from my touch. Both of them snatched up their skybolt bows.
I felt my expression blacken.
I have never been quick to anger, not in any life that I recall, but I felt something in me rage at the warriors’ disrespect.
‘Do you not know who you face, new-forged? I fought the Barrel Kings during the Cleansing of Azyr, and spoke for the Stromfels Gargants when Sigmar himself demanded their strongholds burned. I was there as the first of the Astral Templars set foot in the Ghurlands. I fought in the Gnarlwood, and won glory there when more than half of our brothers fell. I fought single-handed against the Mortarch of Night. I slew the Great Red. I freed the untainted lands beyond the Sea of Bones from a soulblight curse and unified them all under Sigmar’s banner. One hundred thousand soldiers and wealth unseen in the Mortal Realms, united in common cause by my word.’ I tapped my boot on the cobbles. ‘You are receiving this belated education on the very street that bears my name.’ I shoved him back, sending him stumbling. ‘Who am I?’
‘Hamilcar!’
The answer came not from my own lips, but as a throaty cheer from the scores of townsfolk that had congregated in the street behind me. More, I saw, were wandering in from other streets to see what the commotion was about.
‘Who am I?’ I yelled again, spittle flying from my mouth.
‘Hamilcar!’
‘Who is the chosen son of the God-King?’
‘Hamilcar!’
‘Who goes wherever he damn well pleases, and ruination come to those who disagree?’
‘Ham-il-car!’
The people screamed boisterously. A few of the bolder men and women threw stones that banged off the Astral Templars’ armour. I was left with the distinct feeling that this discontent had been fermenting for quite some time before I had stuck my boot in it.
‘Seize him,’ Wullas bellowed to his retinue. ‘On the orders of Lord-Veritant Vikaeus.’
‘Wha–?’
There was a fluttering of wings and I looked up sharply as an aetherwing with the silvery white colouration of the Knights Merciless flew overhead in the direction of the keep.
‘Of all the Lords-Veritant in Sigmaron, Sigmar had to send this one,’ I snarled, watching it go.
Wullas drew his warblade from its sheath.
I backhanded him across the jaw before I knew what I was doing. He reeled back, and I looked at my fist in astonishment.
I had no idea why I had just done that.
‘You would draw against your own, brother?’ I said, backing steadily away.
‘I know not what daemon inhabits your skin, Bear-Eater, but you are not one of mine.’ He grunted something to the Judicators who lowered their bows. ‘Vikaeus insists you be captured alive.’
‘Good of her.’
‘I doubt that it’s mercy.’
‘You don’t know the half of it.’
Wullas gestured to his Liberator retinue and started towards me, sword upraised. ‘With me, brothers. Kill him only if you must.’
Chapter eighteen
You’ve never seen a Stormcast Eternal at full tilt. I see it on your faces. You’re thinking of the armoured warriors you are familiar with, mortal knights in iron plate. Don’t. Cast the image of such encumbered warriors struggling towards battle from your mind. We are something other. Imbued with the might of the Cosmic Storm. Elevated by a spark of the Celestial divine. We are capable of feats no mortal being could contemplate, matching blades with the greater daemons of Chaos, or sprinting in full plate and panoply as though girded by nothing but the lightning of our creation. The closest mortal analogy for being in the path of such a warrior is to be a foot soldier before a heavy cavalry charge. Put yourself in that place. The ground shakes. You feel it in the wall of your gut. Fear takes you. All the lies you have been told, all the lies you have allowed yourself to believe, taking up your meagre arms and joining a war fought between gods, they are exposed for what they are, burned away by the Light Celestial. There is nothing you can do. Not against this. Stand firm and die. Flee and die. This is above you. It is greater.