Mannfred gestured wearily towards the priestess.
‘Kill the woman,’ said Mannfred. ‘Break the machine. Ransack the room. Whoever presents me with the Witchglaive of U’hor can count upon a thousand years of my esteem.’
The vampiric knight nearest to the machine hastened to obey.
Settrus’ grip on Mannfred’s forearm suddenly tightened, forcing the Mortarch to look him in the eye.
‘That which Sigmar forbade shall never be wielded.’
Mannfred dangled the Lord-Celestant like a piece of meat. ‘And how do you intend to prevent it, nameless wretch?’
‘I… command you… die.’
With his one free arm, the Lord-Celestant reached up and thrust a hand into the cosmic orrery.
His scream, then, was the first and last time I ever heard him raise his voice.
The spinning spheres took his hand off at the wrist. His head snapped back, and he howled. Blue fire erupted from the mouth and eye slits of his helmet. The breath of Dracothion. The Apotheosis fire of the Stormcast Eternals. Mannfred dropped him with a scream of his own. He flapped his hand, flinging droplets of metal from what had previously been a gauntlet all over the floor. But Settrus did not fall. He hung there, cruciform, like a Celestian Vortex, lightning spitting from him as his body dissolved. Where bolts struck the Penumbral Engine it juddered. The room spun. Suddenly I was standing. My halberd in the other hand. Mannfred dragging himself backwards towards the door. Another bolt hit. Another leap forward. I was on the ground. Mannfred on top of me, red-eyed and bestial, ripping at my gorget with his teeth. An arcai dashed Nassam into the wall. The next moment the Jerech was beside me, putting bullet after bullet into Mannfred’s body. My memory was in pieces. Settrus was the only constant to that room then as Sigendil is to us all. Lightning poured out of him. His cries grew. He was no longer a man, nor even the shape of one. He was lightning. The fires beneath his helmet began to waver.
And still, he would not submit.
‘He is not strong enough for this,’ I heard Ansira shout over the storm.
‘Watch!’ I yelled back. ‘Settrus is the strongest soul I know. He can survive any–’
With a final scream the Lord-Celestant broke apart.
Lightning sprayed to the eight corners of the cosmos. Blood knights dropped instantly to ash. Morghasts lost their animating power and became lifeless bone. Mannfred crumpled like a set of clothes with no wearer, red steam rising off his bones as lightning arced across the Penumbral Engine, bored into the walls, and made the entire mountain shake.
I took a rather nasty sunburn too, let me tell you.
‘Settrus?’ I bellowed.
But he was gone. Really gone. Deep down, I knew that. Broken into a billion pieces to feed the Penumbral Engine with a few lost and stuttering seconds of faith. Grungni himself could hammer at what was left of him, but until Khorne grew tired of blood, nobody was putting him back together after that.
‘His power was a gift,’ Ansira wept.
What she must have endured to keep the Penumbral Engine running for so many centuries was brought home to me with Settrus’ end. I was awed by it. Had my muscles not been so stiff I might have bent the knee, as Nassam had been wise enough to do from the outset.
‘If Sigmar could have driven the engine with his own power then he would have.’ She shook her head. ‘So much sacrifice.’
‘It is all right, my lady. I have it from here.’
I advanced unsteadily to where Mannfred scrabbled in a pool of his own blood and howled like an injured wolf.
‘No,’ she said, sadly. ‘You don’t.’
I glanced back to see her ease Nassam’s protective arm from hers and then lift herself far enough to ease back into her iron chair.
‘No, my lady. You don’t have to.’
After seeing for myself what had happened to Settrus, I understood what the Penumbral Engine demanded of her.
I took a step towards Mannfred, halberd up like a sealing spear.
‘You can win this battle,’ she said, crossing her arms over her chest with a clink of chain, ‘but Sigmar would keep this fortress forever.
‘Only I can do that,’ said Ansira.
And closed her eyes.
‘… We all serve Sigmar in our own way, you see, each according to our strengths. Not even the Stormcast Eternals. Hah. Yes. Not even me. And what was that at the back there? What became of Mannfred…? Were we talking about Mannfred?’
About the Author
David Guymer’s work for Warhammer Age of Sigmar includes the novel Hamilcar: Champion of the Gods and the audio dramas The Beasts of Cartha, Fist of Mork, Fist of Gork, Great Red and Only the Faithful. He is also the author of the Gotrek & Felix novels Slayer, Kinslayer and City of the Damned and the Gotrek audio dramas Realmslayer and Realmslayer: Blood of the Old World. For The Horus Heresy he has written the novella Dreadwing, the Primarchs novel Ferrus Manus: Gorgon of Medusa, and for Warhammer 40,000 The Eye of Medusa, The Voice of Mars and the two Beast Arises novels Echoes of the Long War and The Last Son of Dorn. He is a freelance writer and occasional scientist based in the East Riding, and was a finalist in the 2014 David Gemmell Awards for his novel Headtaker.