‘Your confidence is heartening to hear, Helios,’ Balthas said, somewhat sourly. Helios Starbane was lithe and graceful, even in his armour and robes. There were some who whispered that the swordsman had not been forged of mortal stock, but something rarer. Studying his lean, otherworldly features, Balthas could almost credit the rumours. ‘But I must decline. There are more important matters to attend to.’
‘Impossible,’ Helios said. ‘Poetry is writ in our very substance. What are we but motes of the divine, songs of heaven and loss, wrenched loose and encased in wrath and sigmarite?’
Miska shook her head. ‘Enough. Now is not the time for poetry, Helios.’
‘I disagree. When better than now? Where better than here?’
Miska looked at Helios, her face set in a disapproving expression. ‘Remember your place, swordsman.’
Helios bowed his head, respectfully contrite. ‘My place is at your side, as ever, mage-sacristan. Where you go, I follow. What you command, I fulfil.’
Miska snorted and gestured. ‘Go and take your place, then.’ Helios laughed softly and straightened, pulling on his helmet as he did so. Miska looked at Balthas. ‘The same goes for you, lord-arcanum. Your place is above. Your brothers await on the observation platform.’ She hesitated. ‘Remember what I said, Balthas.’
Balthas frowned. ‘I will, sister. But see to yourself.’
She gave a terse nod and turned away to take up her place with the other mage-sacristans. Balthas watched her for a moment, thinking about her warning. In truth, he’d felt ill at ease all day. As if something were coming, and he wasn’t prepared. He looked at the Anvil and saw that it was growing white-hot.
As one, the mage-sacristans raised their staves. With a single voice, they cried out a word in a language dead for uncounted aeons, that of the twelve lost tribes of Mallus. The word shivered on the air, and the temperature dropped precipitously. Then, the ferrule of every staff struck the floor with a sound like a meteor strike. As the echoes of that crash reverberated outwards, an answering thunder rumbled, somewhere far above.
Balthas stepped back as azure lightning, freed from the soul-mills, speared down from the glass dome overhead. It struck the Anvil and burst, spilling over the sides and trickling through the tiers. The glare of the impact cast long shadows, and Balthas was forced to look away, his vision filled with sparks.
The apotheosis had begun.
Chapter five
Necroquake
In the Shadeglens of Hammerhal-Ghyra, dead shapes lurched through the gloom. They were packed so close together that they seemed almost a solid wave of shadow, rolling through the trees that marked the ancient burial gardens. A slash of silver parted the wave and cast back broken bodies. ‘Push them back,’ Aetius Shieldborn roared. ‘Lock shields and advance.’ The Liberator-Prime of the Steel Souls Chamber smashed a root-infested corpse from its feet and stamped on its skull, ending its struggles.
As one, the silver-clad Hallowed Knights to either side of him brought the rims of their shields together, forming an impenetrable bulwark against the frenzied corpses stumbling towards them. The dead were stymied, for the moment.
He glanced over his shoulder. Behind him, the remaining caretakers of the Shadeglens huddled, shocked and fearful. The mortals were clad in robes of green, and where their flesh was visible, it bore the knotwork tattoos of those who had pledged their spirit to the Everqueen, Alarielle. He frowned and signalled a nearby Liberator with a twitch of his hammer. ‘Serena, take Mehkius and three others – get the mortals out from underfoot. Reform a second wall, ten paces to our rear.’
‘Aye, my lord.’ Serena stepped back smoothly. The warriors to either side of her slammed their shields together, closing the gap instantly. She called out to Mehkius and the others, who repeated the manoeuvre with drilled precision.
As they escorted the mortals through the ivy-shrouded marble columns that denoted the northern entrance to the Shadeglens, Aetius turned back to the enemy. ‘Who will hold until the last dawn breaks?’ he cried.
‘Only the faithful!’ his warriors roared out in unison.
Aetius nodded in satisfaction. He could taste something sour on the wind – something that originated from further away than the deadwalkers scrabbling at the embossed face of his shield. Strange undulations of amethyst light made the night sky ripple in abominable ways. Hammerhal-Ghyra shook to its foundations, gripped by some unknown cataclysm. The echoes of collapsing stones and the screams of uprooted trees choked the air.
And the dead – the dead were everywhere. They clawed out of the blessed soil of the Shadeglens, or pounded on the walls of the crypts and mausoleums of the Azyrite necropoli of the southern districts. Shrieking ghosts crawled across the sky, and worse things stalked the deep shadows. It was as if the rule of life had been overturned and all the underworlds emptied. Aetius cursed as a deadwalker sought to tangle itself about his legs. He brought the edge of his shield down, separating its head from its neck.
‘Advance,’ he bellowed, as he kicked the head aside. The Liberators took a single step forwards, shields still locked. The line of deadwalkers staggered. Before they could recover, or those behind could press closer, Aetius struck the inside of his shield with his warhammer. The bell-like peal sang out over the line. ‘Again,’ he roared. His warriors took another step, and another, as steady as a millstone.
Deadwalkers fell, crushed beneath the Hallowed Knights’ tread. But for every one that was pulped, three more surged forwards, silent and hungry. Aetius slammed his hammer against his shield again, and to his ears the ringing was unpleasantly akin to a funerary bell. He glanced upwards and felt a chill race through him as he saw the stars writhe and blink out, one by one.
As if Azyr itself were swallowed by the dark. He shook the thought aside. ‘Hold the line, brothers and sisters – hold, until this cursed night ends and day comes again!’
In the Chamber of the Broken World, Balthas climbed to the semicircular observation platform, where his fellow lords-arcanum waited. Some, like Tyros, he had known for centuries. Others, like Knossus Heavensen, were newforged, with less than a century to their name. Heavensen, clad in the golden war-plate of the Hammers of Sigmar, greeted Balthas with a terse nod. Balthas returned the gesture and turned away to watch the proceedings below.
Tyros laughed, witnessing the exchange. ‘Still sore, then, I see.’
‘I have no idea as to what you’re talking about.’
‘I wondered why you’ve been burying yourself in the library more frequently. They say Heavensen is close to finding that which we all seek.’
‘Good. The sooner it is found, the sooner a cure might be devised.’
‘And all glory once more to our brothers in gold, the stars of our lord’s eye. Vandus, Ionus, Blacktalon and soon Knossus – names of legend.’ Tyros’ tone was teasing.
‘Much like Gardus or Tornus,’ Balthas replied, more sharply than he’d intended. ‘All of whom we have seen broken down and reassembled on that Anvil.’ He pointed down, to where the Anvil steamed after the most recent lightning strike. ‘I welcome my brothers’ victories, for they are the stepping stones of my own glory.’ He paused. ‘Though, in your case, I might make an exception.’
Tyros laughed. Envy was an unknown to him, but he recognised Balthas’ ambition well enough to gently mock it. They all had it, to some degree – the need to prove themselves, to grasp the subtlest arts, to show the God-King that they were worth the sacrifice he had made on their behalf. A shard of Sigmar’s own divine essence was in each of them – in every Stormcast Eternal. Their lord diminished himself, so that his people might have a chance to win the final victory.