Seeing my summons, he dismissed the huddle of mortal officers that surrounded him, then hurried over. One of the soldiers stuck with him. It was the captain I’d seen back at the river, laughing at my joke.
Frankos greeted me with a firm handshake and boyish ebullience, nodding energetically to Xeros and then Broudiccan. He unclasped my forearm to motion towards the mortal captain. ‘You remember Hamuz el-Shaah, Captain of the Jerech Blue Skies?’
‘Of course,’ I lied.
The Blue Skies – named not, as I’d originally thought, for their perpetually sun-drenched desert homeland, but for the disposition with which they went to war – I did remember. They were the oldest Freeguild regiment in my service and the largest in the Seven Words, and had followed me loyally since Jercho. From the city states of the Sea of Bones to the drakwolds of Shyish in pursuit of the Mortarch, Mannfred von Carstein. To Azyr in failure. Then back to Ghur for the Gorkomon campaigns. A century of near-constant war. They had picked up men from all over in that time, but still drew their elite formations and officer class exclusively from the Lands of the Unsetting Sun. Hamuz was one such. His skin was a hard brown. A glassmark, a Jerech skin art that involves inserting thousands of small bits of glass into the skin to create an image, caught the light from the bare skin of his forearm. A woman’s face. A wife in their younger days, perhaps. Or a daughter. The golden handle of a quartz longsword glittered in an ugly sheath of Gorwood leather.
Crow clacked his beak from behind my legs as the man approached me. Hamuz gave the gryph-hound a wavering half-smile before dropping to one knee before me and lowering his gaze.
‘My lord.’
‘Up,’ I said, though in truth I’ve always enjoyed the mortals’ adoration.
The man stood and looked, eyes wide. ‘The men of Jercho wish the honour of fighting alongside you, lord. As they did at Nicassa, and at the Sunless Citadel, and in the siege of the Seven Words.’
So that was where I recognised him from.
‘Only the bravest and best are worthy of such high honour.’ I grinned at him and put my hand on his shoulder, bowing him under the weight. ‘So your men’s place is surely at my side.’
Hamuz quickly lowered his face. ‘We’ll not let you down, lord.’
‘I know.’ Still smiling, I turned to Frankos. ‘Your thoughts?’
‘It will be a fight, lord, but to strike a final blow against Chaos in these lands?’ The Knight-Heraldor looked earnestly up at the hill. ‘It has to be worth it. You will not find a man here who does not feel the same as I.’
‘It’s true, lord,’ said Hamuz. ‘This is our home.’
‘Hah! You are half a world from home, Hamuz.’
‘I don’t ever expect to see Jercho again, lord. Our home is where you say it is, and we’re ready to die for it.’
I felt warmth spread through my chest.
Keep your sigmarite-clad legions, your Extremis Chambers with their Dracoths and their Stardrakes. Keep the might and authority of Ghal Maraz. Keep it all. I have no need for any of it. It’s the faith and valour of men like Hamuz el-Shaah that hold the line against the forces of Chaos.
‘And I am here so that you don’t have to make that sacrifice.’ I nodded to Frankos. ‘Let them know we’re here, Knight-Heraldor.’
‘Gladly, lord.’
Frankos unclasped his war-horn from its bracket on his thigh-plate. It was as long as his arm, ivory, the features of a snarling beast picked out in gold and purple tanzanite. He lifted the mouthpiece to the slit in his face-plate and blew.
The sound was almost too sonorous and deep to be heard with mortal ears. It was the forewarning of a tremor beneath the earth, the build-up of pressure before a storm. It was a vibration in my belly, an ache and a joy upon the small bones of my ears. The swamp grasses bent. The snow eddied. Ice cracked where it had formed. The hide banners of the beastmen and the fly screens of the Nurglites fluttered in the sudden gust of sound, and their raucous chants and music fell silent.
Satisfied that I had their attention, I took a few squelching steps forwards, drew my halberd, and planted it firmly in the ground.
I took a deep breath.
‘Who leads this army?’
‘Hamilcar!’
The roar came unequivocally from nineteen hundred mortal throats, fifty Astral Templars thumping their gauntlets on their armour or beating weapons against shields. I spread my arms as if their acclaim were a mantle that a chamber serf could set upon my shoulders, and turned my face towards the foulsome host before me.
‘Hamilcar will take this hill!’ Leaving my halberd quivering in the mud I pointed towards the ranks of blightkings encircling the base of the hill. ‘You all know me. You know me by name and by my reputation in these lands and you know that I will do this. Spare us all the time and the sweat. Kurzog! Manguish!’ I barked the names. ‘Test the favour of your gods in battle with me here, now. If either one of you can best me, then my men will return to the Seven Words and trouble you no more. My word upon the might of Sigmar and the retribution of His hammer, your warriors will have the same amnesty when you fall.’
‘Four thousand warriors of the arch-enemy and you would spare them?’ Xeros hissed behind me. ‘They shall be scoured from the Nevermarsh. The ground they have soiled with their tread must be burned and salted lest blight fester there and again take root.’
‘Have you never heard of Tornus the Redeemed?’ I whispered back.
For it is important to remember that not all beastmen were born such. Most were simply men and women on the wrong side of a realmgate when the doors were sealed, twisted by the magic of Chaos, and few of them willingly.
The Lord-Relictor snorted. ‘You are not the Celestant-Prime.’
I looked over my shoulder, seeing Hamuz watching me, and winked. ‘That you know.’
‘The Celestant-Prime is taller,’ said Broudiccan.
My expression blackened. ‘He is never taller.’
‘I don’t think they are coming, lord,’ said Frankos.
With a parting glare I turned from Broudiccan to survey the hill. The beastmen shuffled apprehensively, huffing and snorting. My bluster, and their leaders’ unwillingness to answer it head on, had clearly dented their enthusiasm for the fight. There were no more jeers. The disc-riders zipped back and forth over a silent throng. Only the blightkings looked unmoved by the exchange, sagging mutely into their shields as though they intended to remain there whether we fought a battle today or not.
‘They are spineless cowards, as all followers of Chaos must be,’ I bellowed. It’s not true, of course, but it gives men confidence to hear the likes of me say it. Xeros, however, was nodding profoundly. ‘It falls on us to go to them then, and show them the courage of fighting men.’ I tugged my halberd free of the ground and raised it high. ‘But be wary. The ground is soft and I would hate for any of mine to lose a boot.’
A chuckle rippled through the crescent formation as men hitched up their gear to march.
‘Sound the advance, Frankos,’ I ordered.
‘Yes, lord.’