‘I want to know from where, how, and the numbers they bring,’ I say. ‘So that I can know where best to stand and how long I will need to spend killing.’
‘The local tribes speak of a skaven lair,’ Xeros muses, his eyes turning inwards. ‘Somewhere to the far south, across the Nevermarsh.’
‘I do not care where they come from. Only where they are now.’
‘I have seen nothing, but I will send word to Lord-Castellant Akturus. Perhaps he has seen something in the labyrinth that will look different in light of the lady’s news.’
The Lord-Castellant of the Anvils of Heldenhammer is a grim soul without a shred of humour to his name, but the most brutal, indomitable warrior I have ever seen. Endless patrols of the gloom that surrounds the Azyr Gate seem to content him while I rule as Sigmar’s regent over these lands. It is a division of labour that suits me equally well.
‘Send him word,’ I agree.
‘What are you doing?’ Vikaeus asks as I move around the table to follow after Broudiccan and Frankos.
I do not answer.
A Lord-Relictor of the Hallowed Knights I had once known, a man almost as quick to judge as Vikaeus, had once asked what madness called me to the role of Lord-Castellant. I am impatient, intemperate and afflicted by the curse of the wanderer. Indeed, I am firmly of the opinion that no cause was ever best served by waiting. But one trait I do hold in common with the Lords-Castellant of Sigmar’s hosts – the determination to defend Sigmar’s people, and to safeguard his realm with every weapon I can bring to bear.
Outside of the keep, nets and timber scaffolding cling to every surface that is, was, or is meant to be even remotely vertical. Hammers beat on nails while children shriek, the sounds alike to those of the aetár that dwell above. New cabins rise from the ashes of the old beastman yurts, faster almost than the masons and carpenters can physically assemble them. The scents of dung and sawdust follow men about their business like begging urchins. There is a living anarchy to the frontiersman spirit that I, champion of the cosmic order, ordinarily find ironically pleasing.
But not today.
Every child’s cry is directed to me as a warning. Every effluent channel and lumber wain is a menace that draws my eyes and sets my heart to beating. I bare my teeth as I survey it all.
Vikaeus is never wrong.
Not all Lords-Veritant are created equal. All serve as the seekers and purgators of Chaos in their own unique way, but Vikaeus’ gift for prophecy is known throughout the Stormhosts. Thinking of the vision she described troubles me more than I would willingly let it.
As I clatter down the stone steps to the gatehouse, a group of tonsured Listeners in soft, muted robes try to shush me.
A fortress did not come by a name like ‘the Seven Words’ without a long story behind it. It is hewn from the Gorkoman, Ghur’s highest peak, and the seven winds of power, from enigmatic Hyish to the blackest Ulgu, all blow across its battlements. In ancient times, Listeners travelled from across creation to kneel in blustery contemplation of the state of the realms. Now only a dozen or so dare the pilgrimage. Most are human, all from Sigmaron, and they listen not for the purity of the calling but for the military advantage to be gleaned from far-flung wars in distant realms. The last word, as always, belongs to Azyr. The celestial realm does not speak from the sky, for its power is bound and channelled to the dolmen of stone, metal and runecraft that lies deep within the mountainous foundations of the fort. Realmgates are to the realms what roads and rivers are to the petty empires within them, and the Azyr Gate is the second most important function for the Seven Words.
I briefly consider asking the monks if they found disturbances less frequent under Uxor Untamed, but manage to resist on this occasion. There are more pressing things on my mind than baiting the Order.
‘Hamilcar!’
I look over my shoulder to see Vikaeus following me. She ignores the mortals’ admonishing looks.
‘You cannot search under every home and flagstone.’
‘I will, if that is what it takes.’ Shielding my eyes from the mountain sun, I look up to the sturdily made, if old, ballista tower that stands bestride the main gate. ‘Barbarus!’ My voice could carry over a dozen battlefields, and there is not tumult in this world to drown it out when I have a mind to be heard. The Knight-Venator turns from the view to look down to me.
His armour is decorated with feathers from a score of different birds and beasts. His folded wings crackle with frustrated Azyrite power.
‘Is there anything out there?’ I ask. Barbarus shrugs and shakes his head. I gesture up to the hard blue sky. ‘Fly up. I would hear of anything untoward.’
With a nod of his beaked helm, the Knight-Venator flings back his wings. A thunderclap of godly power fills with the seven winds and drags him skywards.
‘It is not enough to run about like painted grot from a forest fire,’ Vikaeus snarls, watching Barbarus glimmer upwards. ‘We need to take time. Think. Corral the civilians into safer areas and conduct a more thorough search.’ She brandishes her staff, the star-born lantern swaying. ‘With Akturus’ and Xeros’ support, I will uncover the skaven’s plot and drive them into the light.’
I frown. An idea begins to form in my mind. ‘There is never enough time.’ Even as I think it through, I am striding through the wheel-rutted muck towards the gates.
Men crawl over it, hammering and sawing. One half of the gate is braced with wooden scaffolds and wedged shut with timber blocks. At my approach, they look up in surprise. I wave them down. ‘Send the men home, Danneil,’ I say, addressing the shift foreman by name, for I know them all. Workmen hurry by me as I lift the locking bar and throw it easily aside.
‘Sweet light of Sigendil,’ Vikaeus curses.
The clarion ring of Frankos’ battle-horn startles the roosting aetár to flight, its wing-shadow darkening my face as I glance up. The crowds, already made aware that something is amiss by the presence of their Lord-Castellant, three ill-tempered gryph-hounds and one of Sigmar’s dreaded Chaos-hunters, murmur uneasily at the winged omen.
I turn to Vikaeus.
The sun strikes her armour, ricocheting bolts of silver and gold. Her eyes burn as they meet mine. Not with a zealot’s fire but with a blinding cold that no hardship could ever quench.
We could not be more dissimilar.
‘Conduct your search, Lord-Veritant.’ I feel the impulse to clasp her shoulders in my hands and bid her rich hunting, but my arms wisely refuse to place my hands in such peril. Instead, I pull affectionately on Crow’s beak. ‘Aid the Lord-Veritant’s search. Behave with her hounds.’ I turn back to Vikaeus. ‘I will give you time.’
Before she can ask what I intend, I push through the single working gate and step out onto the rocky berm that extends in a half-circle from the gatehouse.
Distance. Scale. All of it falls from me as if the bottom has come away from the world. A duardin skybridge arcs from the shoulder of the Gorkoman to the peak of the next. No rope or strut supports it, just a single jaw-dropping arch of mottled granite. Clouds race below, like rapids at the bottom of a deep gorge, churned up by the protruding rock of lesser peaks. The winds tears at me, as if to drag me with them, making a storm of my long hair and beard.
I walk to the bridge and peer across.
The far side is hidden by the arch of the skybridge and hazed by distance, but still, no army will cross unnoticed by Barbarus’ Vanguard Chambers and the Freeguild Regiments that man the walls.
The berm is unpaved yet mostly smooth. Its slope is imperceptible to the eye, but enough to see most siege engines rolling to the precipice. Scrubby vegetation and goat trails cling to the fortress walls until the mountain becomes too sheer.