‘The Lord-Veritant comes bearing the seal of the God-King himself with orders for your capture and return to Sigmaron,’ said the Prime evenly, as though we were having this discussion over ale. ‘She impressed upon us the commandment to return you alive.’
‘Good luck with that, brother.’
‘It is for your own protection.’
‘She said that, did she?’
‘Indeed. She told us of how your spirit has been spoiled by sorcery most foul, and that you will surely deteriorate and perhaps perish if you are not soon returned to the care of the Six Smiths.’
I thought of the flashes of anger I had been experiencing since my return to Ghur. My unexplained feelings towards Vikaeus. The thawing of my memories.
I shook my head fiercely.
‘Never!’
‘She said that you might not be of your right mind.’
‘What does Vikaeus know of my mind anyway?’
There was a snap of Azyr power as a stormcall javelin exploded from the raw aether and into the Prosecutor-Prime’s gauntlet. It hummed forcefully. I glanced back. The rest of the retinue circled a short distance away, four winged warriors accompanied by an amethyst-and-gold figure infused with the unmistakeable cobalt halo of a Knight-Azyros. Another holy warrior with a damned lantern. The Prosecutor-Prime turned his head to follow my gaze, then turned slowly back. His mask was blank. He didn’t say anything. But I could tell very well that he knew exactly what I was thinking, and why, and that he was offering me this one last chance.
‘You heard what happened when I used my own lantern then?’ I said.
He nodded. ‘I happen to believe that Vikaeus is correct in this. You started a riot. Did you know that elements of the Freeguild have barricaded themselves within some of the outer wards and are refusing to recognise any higher authority unless it is you?’ His mask emitted an exasperated sigh. ‘If the skaven are anywhere close then they will attack soon, and in full force. You may have doomed the Seven Words with your actions, Hamilcar. But if you surrender to me now, talk these misguided captains down from the calamity they rush towards, then you have my oath that no harm will come upon you.’
With a grunt, I broke open another handhold and pulled myself up. It was quite probably the last I had the strength to make, but surrender just wasn’t in me. The Imperishables could catch my unconscious body when my strength gave and I fell. Not a moment before.
The Prosecutor-Prime shadowed me effortlessly.
‘It’s not that I doubt your oath, my friend,’ I wheezed. ‘I know Akturus well enough to know that he’d sooner break his own fingers than his word, and I am sure his warriors would do the same.’
‘In the heartbeat of a zephyrgayle.’
‘What I doubt, however,’ I said, my voice raising to a shout, ‘is that you have the slightest inkling of what awaits me in Sigmaron.’
‘It is Sigmar’s will.’
‘To the Great Nothing with Sigmar’s will!’
The Prosecutor hissed, taken aback. ‘Very well, then.’ The javelin crackled as he drew it back for the cast.
I turned my back and gritted my teeth against the expected pain.
A screech tore through the freezing air and I tensed, expecting to find myself pinned to the mountain by a lightning bolt, but instead a winged shadow fell across me, followed by a metallic scrape and a human scream. I looked back to see the terrifying form of an aetar eagle knight with the Prosecutor-Prime clutched in one of his talons. The Stormcast’s javelin snapped back into non-existence as he threw all his strength into fighting his way free, only to be summarily dashed against the mountainside. I felt the crunch of his impact through my fingers. I watched his wings fizzle out and held on tight to the rock face as his crumpled body plummeted by me.
The aetar beat its wings, almost ripping me off the mountain, as it shrieked a challenge. The turbulence scattered the remaining Prosecutors, but they had been drawn from the greatest heroes in the Mortal Realms, and belonged to a chamber renowned for its phlegmatism. They were already summoning javelins to hand, and fighting for height. A beam of Celestial starlight lanced from the Knight-Azyros’ beacon and across the eagle knight’s armour. It did absolutely nothing. I, however, winced at even that close a glimpse of the heavens.
The aetar snatched the Knight-Azyros up in its beak.
‘Release him, heathen bird!’ Lightning leapt from a Prosecutor’s casting arm, the stormcall javelin exploding into rainbow hues against the spell-wards knit into the eagle knight’s mail.
The aetar delivered another piercing shriek, this time mocking, even muffled as it was by the Knight-Azyros struggling to drive open his beak.
Sigmar, but the aetar were so much more impressive in the air.
‘Go higher, brother. Higher.’ The Prosecutors called out to one another as they circled the great beast, like starving dogs around a white lion. ‘Anubus. Grab the Bear-Eater and fly. We will shield you.’
Another lightning bolt scalded the eagle knight’s beak. Shrieking in rage, it raked for the Prosecutor with its talons. The Stormcast dived, but the aetar were the kings of this sky, and there was nothing nimbler or fiercer with wings. Claws the length of swords nicked the Stormcast’s harness and ripped a fistful of glowing feathers from his back. The warrior screamed as he pinwheeled towards the Seven Words, trying desperately to gain flight without half of one wing.
His brothers hesitated, torn between grabbing me, fighting the eagle knight and rescuing their comrade.
Then another devastating shriek rang out of the higher crags.
Two more proud aetar in splinted mail and bladed claws appeared in the sky above us, growing very large, very fast.
The eagle knight already in the fight tossed the Knight-Azyros contemptuously aside. His harness had been buckled in the aetar’s beak and it struggled to ignite, trailing lightning as he tried to deploy his wings.
That seemed to settle it for the Prosecutors.
Without a word to me or to each other, the three remaining warriors tucked in their wings and dropped after their falling comrades.
I laughed fiercely as I watched them become specks and then vanish.
‘I always knew that Augus had my b–’
A scaled foot the size of a door flattened me to the rock face before I had much chance to get carried away. Then it clawed me out, excavating a few hundred pounds of shattered rock along with me. Beating its wings hard, the aetar drew me from the mountain and into the air. I swung in the eagle knight’s talons, watching as the stones and debris drained through its claws and dissipated into the great gulf of nothing between me, the wind and the Seven Words. My first instinct was to fight.
I felt that to be an instinct worth suppressing on this occasion.
‘Where are you taking me?’
The eagle knight issued a deafening shriek.
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I should have known.’
Chapter twenty
The fortress eyrie of the aetar. A soaring bastion of rustling motion and constant noise. And I was the first of my kind to see it. Or so I thought at the time.
The great eagles nested in hollows gouged out of the high walls by aetar claws, made homely with found things. Scraps of cloth. Fur. Feathers. Even bits of armour. I counted hundreds, far more than I would have expected to find given the dozen or so knights that King Augus had been so loath to loan me for the battle against the brayseer. With a hundred aetar knights, Augus could have owned this region of the Ghurlands, from the southern tracts of the Nevermarsh to the mysterious Sea of Scales beyond the mountains to the far north – had he wanted it. They chirped and cooed in their roosts. Scratched their claws. Nibbled at the rock. Ruffled their feathers. Flapped their wings in annoyance and in pleasure. Boisterous young males, identified by their smaller beaks and straighter claws, pinwheeled through the air before their roosts, coming together in collisions of heads, explosions of feathers and squawking. If anyone came away from these displays a winner, I wasn’t sure who, but the pointless bravado struck a chord with me nonetheless.