HAMILCAR
The Hardest Word
(David Guymer)
From the maelstrom of a sundered world, the Eight Realms were born. The formless and the divine exploded into life.
Strange, new worlds appeared in the firmament, each one gilded with spirits, gods and men. Noblest of the gods was Sigmar. For years beyond reckoning he illuminated the realms, wreathed in light and majesty as he carved out his reign. His strength was the power of thunder. His wisdom was infinite. Mortal and immortal alike kneeled before his lofty throne. Great empires rose and, for a while, treachery was banished. Sigmar claimed the land and sky as his own and ruled over a glorious age of myth.
But cruelty is tenacious. As had been foreseen, the great alliance of gods and men tore itself apart. Myth and legend crumbled into Chaos. Darkness flooded the realms. Torture, slavery and fear replaced the glory that came before. Sigmar turned his back on the mortal kingdoms, disgusted by their fate. He fixed his gaze instead on the remains of the world he had lost long ago, brooding over its charred core, searching endlessly for a sign of hope. And then, in the dark heat of his rage, he caught a glimpse of something magnificent. He pictured a weapon born of the heavens. A beacon powerful enough to pierce the endless night. An army hewn from everything he had lost.
Sigmar set his artisans to work and for long ages they toiled, striving to harness the power of the stars. As Sigmar’s great work neared completion, he turned back to the realms and saw that the dominion of Chaos was almost complete. The hour for vengeance had come. Finally, with lightning blazing across his brow, he stepped forth to unleash his creations.
The Age of Sigmar had begun.
A mural of the two-headed orruk war-deity, Gorkamork, covers the rock in age-blanched chalk. Beneath, the granite is stained with black, yellow and faded pinks, the marks left by a succession of lords of destruction and Chaos. Gorkamork is the largest but not the most recent. Several layers of runes and glyphs adorn the mural, proclaiming the greatness of their lord and his god, but none of them claim this throne room now.
The visiting Lord-Veritant looks up at the painted wall, disapproving. But I like the wall. It is a tapestry of my enemies’ defeats, a thousand years old, and there is something about it that reminds me of my mortal home.
When Vikaeus is Lord-Castellant of the Seven Words, she can decorate as she pleases.
‘Do not haunt my doorway, Lord-Veritant,’ I say. ‘I will stand for no ceremony here.’
‘The doorway is not yours, you self-aggrandising fool. You guard it for Sigmar. Like a dog.’
With a scrape of her boot and a wind-ruffle of a cerulean cloak, she turns to me. The phrase ‘Ice Queen’ leaps unbidden into my mind.
I do not immediately disavow it.
Her armour is the white and blue of the Knights Merciless. Her mask is an expression of bitter spite, which I am relieved to see she carries underarm. The Knights Merciless are known for donning war-masks only when in hostile lands, or in the dispensation of Sigmar’s judgement. Her long black hair is drawn back from her forehead and worn in a tail. Her skin is like marble, though no artisan of Azyr ever worked on a material so hard.
I beckon impatiently.
Her footsteps clank on bare stone as she walks down the aisle towards my throne. A pair of gryph-hounds with beaks clad in blessed sigmarite, their neck scales picked out with runes of abjuration, snarl at her heels. My own companion, Crow, uncurls from the beastman pelts piled at my feet and barks a warning that echoes between the crumbling arches and columns.
It appears that even our hounds share a mutual dislike.
‘What brings a Lord-Veritant to the House of the Seven Words? Chaos retreats on every front, for Hamilcar Bear-Eater is as decisive as he is vigilant.’
She halts ten strides away and plants the staff bearing her Lantern of Abjuration, the symbol of her office, into the ground with a resounding clang.
‘I have crossed the Chamonic Gate and been admitted to the crucible pools of Molybdenos. I have spoken with the Prophet Argent, and conferred with the oracles of the Sigmarabulum. I have seen a skaven as old as the world, his paws in the secrets of the gods. His tail is a serpent of probing shadows and in my visions I see it winding close about Sigmar’s neck.’
I scratch my bearded chin. It is oft remarked that Sigmar and I share a likeness, and it is true, the resemblance is uncanny.
‘So why come here?’
‘I see a rising vermintide. It begins here. And I have seen you, Hamilcar. You appear in my visions most frequently of late.’ I smile importunately, but she douses it with a frown like ice water. ‘I see you caged in a storm of unholy lightning, screaming as you are broken, piece by piece.’
I lean back, the totems and trophies that bedeck my purple war-plate clinking as I shift position. ‘You are certain it is me? You are certain it is my fortress?’
‘Even if my visions were less clear, then yes. Now I am here, I am sure. I can feel the taint of the rat-men under my skin, Lord-Castellant.’
I glance up to the Lantern of Abjuration, a cage of comet ice that encircles the top of her staff.
‘They are here already,’ she continues. ‘Though I know not where, nor how they mean to enter a bastion of Sigmar.’
‘My fortress is impregnable,’ I say with irony, glancing up at the mural and its long legacy of capture and loss. I grasp the arms of my throne, rising from the seat in a creak of heavy armour and hanging mail. Crow yawns and stretches, and I kick him good-naturedly from under my feet. He chews at my greave in turn.
‘With me, Lord-Veritant.’
I throw aside the broken doors, still damaged from when I hurled the previous Castellant from his throne room, and stride out into the hall.
Rubble litters the old tiles, though most of it has been swept into messy piles away from the central aisle. The walls gape onto wispy clouds, and the occasional dash and shade of an aetár, the great eagle-kin, startles the gryph-hounds. The seven mortal winds whisper with seven mortal voices.
Down innumerable flights of duardin-cut stairs, Vikaeus and I find our way to the calefactory that the knights of the Bear-Eaters have commandeered for their own.
The chamber has no windows. Skins of beastmen and animals are thrown over the floor, the table and the backs of chairs. The hearth is cold, but simply being out of the wind is enough.
My second, Decimator-Prime Broudiccan, pauses, mid-sentence into an exaggerated tale about his battles with the sankritt on the Sea of Bones, a jug of something warm in his scarred and tattooed fist. His chair scrapes as he stands. Frankos and Xeros Stormcloud, clad in black armour and bands of skeletal decoration, both look attentive.
‘Rally the Stormhost,’ I command Frankos.
The Knight-Heraldor rises immediately. Dragging his battle-horn from the table, he hurries from the chamber. Broudiccan glances at Vikaeus, but does not ask. His knotted brow knots all the harder. The Decimator is a man of grave heart and few words, which is why he serves me so well.
‘Muster the mortal levies,’ I tell him.
‘What shall I tell them?’
‘That Hamilcar stands with them.’ I hold out my hand and Broudiccan, with a rare smile, picks up my halberd from the rack and tosses it to me.
‘That will please them,’ he says, nodding respectfully to the Lord-Veritant before following Frankos out.
‘What is it, Hamilcar?’ Xeros asks, but his dark eyes rove between Vikaeus and me.
‘A vermintide is coming, Lord-Relictor,’ says Vikaeus. ‘I came from Sigmaron with all haste, but the attack may come at any time.’