Elite eagle guard, their beaks and feathers decorated with fearsome war paint, flew endless loops about the eyrie. Dozens more roosted under the foot of the cleft, ruffling their wing feathers like old campaigners shaking rain from their cloaks.
And, perched on a berm of rock – less a few feathers than when I saw him last, greyer about the eyes, more sinewy in pinion and claw, but no less majestic in splinted mail and royal crown – was King Augus himself.
He spread his wings in greeting, one lord of his people to another, and called.
Bringing us into one of the many petitioners’ perches that protruded from the royal eyrie, the princess dipped her head to her father. He cawed in greeting. Aeygar bobbed her head lower and, taking the hint, albeit reluctantly, I dismounted.
I patted her neck in gratitude and looked around. The perch wasn’t much, but the aetar are massive birds and it was more than enough for me to stand on. And if nothing else, I do have a head for heights.
‘Hamilcar?’
Sat at the base of the perch was a familiar winged figure.
Barbarus. Self-proclaimed King in the Sky.
The feathers stuck in the Knight-Venator’s hair looked in even wilder disarray than usual, and the paint on his dark skin had been allowed to run. Even Nubia, the indigo-feathered star-eagle perched on the scuffed sigmarite of his pauldron, looked unusually ruffled. No doubt anticipating the eventual downfall of the Seven Words, his helmet had been wedged in amongst the collage of Augus’ pickings, the reddish-brownish (I never did look into the exact name for the colour) plume of the Bear-Eaters spilling over a brass chalice decorated with jewels and what looked like a troggoth-skin rug.
He stared up at me as though he was seeing a nighthaunt.
From the look of him, they visited him often.
‘Is it really you?’ he murmured.
‘Would Sigmar forge two of these?’ I spread my hands demonstratively and grinned, but it faltered at his dishevelled state. ‘What happened to you? Why aren’t you wearing the white of the Heavens Forged?’
The Knight-Venator scratched at the claw marks on the rock between his thighs, reluctant to meet my eye. ‘Sigmar did call me to the muster, but I refused it. I refused to forsake the aetar, not after what we led them to on Kurzog’s Hill. Perhaps it was partly out of grief for you, but Augus’ loss moved me. I swore to him that he’d have vengeance, for you and for Ellias, and bring the skaven responsible back here to be eviscerated at the king’s pleasure.’ His words scratched to a whisper. ‘I became Errant-Questor.’
I didn’t quite know what to say.
‘It’s been five years, brother.’
We were both silent a while.
I cleared my throat.
‘Find anything?’
He glared, but was unable to hold it. His eyes slid off me.
‘You seem different,’ he said.
It was the least offensive thing that a Stormcast Eternal had said to me since the tree priestess, Brychen, had stabbed me in the neck. It came from a place of defeatism and self-absorption, but I was touched all the same.
Before I could think of anything to add, Augus issued a piercing shriek and thumped his wings.
Aeygar straightened in her perch, as did the attending eagle guard. I followed their example and straightened my back and shoulders. Barbarus, however, simply sat where he was, face down, Nubia fussing about him in an erstwhile attempt to render the Errant-Questor respectable.
The king slowly raised then stamped his feet, head bobbing and weaving as he hawked and cried.
I heard a tapping sound and turned to see Nubia pecking at Barbarus’ gorget.
‘He says that he had heard our kind could not stay dead,’ Barbarus translated, wearily, his gaze fixed glassily on whatever place it had exiled itself to. ‘He says that it is against nature and the laws of Ghur. He says…’ He snorted, a smile threatening to crack his haggard features. ‘He says that he will make an exception in your case as even before the Man-God remade you in his image the… the…’ He frowned over some untranslatable sequence of swaying head motions and croaking squawks, ‘the taker who stalks the sky above the sky could not lay its claws on you.’
I dipped my head, defacing that show of modesty only somewhat with an enormous grin.
‘You flatter me,’ I said.
Augus turned his shining, plate-like eyes to me. His beak opened soundlessly. The feathers at the back of his head bristled.
‘He says he thought for many risings and settings about what he would do with you when you returned.’ The aetar king emitted a hiss that caused his throat to tremble. ‘You who spoke so eloquently of kinship, you who persuaded his queen and daughter that the fight against Manguish and the brayseer was his fight.’
Aeygar cut in with a shriek and a wing-flap, but her father silenced her. His shriek was louder. His wingspan greater.
‘We are both hunters,’ I said, when they had quietened enough for me to be heard. ‘Sometimes the beast gets you.’
The king’s eyes caught the waning sunlight. A flash of amber, alien and inscrutable.
‘He says he likes you,’ said Barbarus. ‘That was what stayed him from turning his wrath on the Seven Words. That and… and my oath to him.’
I thought of the strength I’d seen gathered in the eyries below us, remembering how neatly just one of Aeygar’s eagle guard had despatched an entire Prosecutor retinue and a Knight-Azyros.
I decided that Augus and the aetar were the sort of enemies that the Seven Words could do without.
Augus shuffled along his perch.
‘He says that it didn’t matter anyway,’ said Barbarus. ‘Even with the Legion of Bloat destroyed and the Blind Herd defeated, the skaven will scour your fortress bare with no help from him. He has seen many stake their claim to the fort below.’
‘You know about the skaven?’ I asked.
For all of Akturus’ scribery and parchmentcraft, the Lord-Castellant of the Imperishables had been able to tell me precious little of the skaven’s numbers, whereabouts, or intentions.
Augus cawed.
‘He says he sees much that our own winged scouts cannot,’ Barbarus said, and frowned, properly, at the not-so-implicit criticism of his skills. ‘They range further. Their eyes are sharper. They are at home in the sky where ours will always pine for the earth.’ He snorted, animated, briefly the arrogant King in the Sky I’d known before all of this. ‘Or so he believes.’ The king hopped on the spot, launching into a blistering tirade. ‘He says the skaven are more numerous than any mud-dweller army he has tracked before. Dust on the wind. Their attack will come in days. The Seven Words will fall.’
Barbarus turned to face me directly. His eyes were ringed by dark circles that I had initially, and mistakenly, taken for kohl. ‘He is most certain.’
‘And will the aetar help?’ I said, addressing my words to the king.
He gave a throaty caw.
‘He asks why he should.’
The aetar made some grating noises and bob-gestures that Barbarus was slow to translate.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Place names and people,’ said Barbarus, giving his head a shake and forcing Nubia to hop across to the opposite pauldron with an aggrieved chirp. ‘They don’t always translate easily. The best I can come up with is “Ice-Queen” and “Tomb-Snake”.’
‘Vikaeus and Akturus,’ I said, after a moment’s thought.
‘He says that in spite of his warnings, they encroach too far on his eyries. Every day he must chase off more of their winged knights. He likes you, Hamilcar. You always respected him and what was not yours to control. Those now in charge below do not. Cannot.’ Barbarus’ expression became cloudy. ‘Sigmar seeks only to take, to remake all that he finds in the way that he sees as heavenly. As he did with you. He says he doesn’t like Vikaeus or Akturus. They are Sigmar’s things. They know only the storm.’