‘He denies you, Pharus Thaum. You are a useless thing.’
‘That’s not my name!’ Pharus tore himself free and lashed out at his captors, until his knuckles were bloody and exhaustion gripped him. He clambered free and started to wade away from the voices, the thunder and the churning. He had to escape. To get away. To… to… what? A carrion bird flapped alongside him, easily keeping pace. It cocked one black eye at him.
‘It is the only name you have now,’ the bird croaked. ‘The name he gave you. The name on your tomb. Embrace it, and I will give it meaning. Bow, little spirit, and you will have justice. That is my oath to you. Bow, and I will give back all that he has taken.’
Crude stones erupted from beneath the bones, and Pharus staggered back. They rose all around him, like the bars of a cage. He spun, and the black echo of him, trapped in the flat panes of the stones, spun with him. The reflection changed as it moved through the stones, shedding its mortality to become a hulking engine of divine wrath. ‘No,’ he begged. ‘No, do not make me, please.’
‘It is inevitable,’ the carrion bird cawed, from its perch atop one of the stones. ‘Rejoice, for you have found true purpose. All are one in Nagash, and Nagash is all. Bow, Pharus Thaum, and find new meaning.’
Pharus backed away as a massive gauntlet, the colour of midnight, emerged from the stone. The rest of the armoured figure followed, lurching across the bones that cracked and crumbled beneath its tread. As it reached for him, it seemed to lose all cohesion, becoming a tarry mass. Pharus twisted away from it, but the bubbling substances splattered across him. It burned, and he screamed. He tore at his own flesh, trying to scrape away the steaming tar. But his desperate movements only spread the substance.
‘Bow, and become greater than that which was lost. Bow, and see again the faces of the forgotten. Bow, and justice will be yours.’
Pharus sank to his knees, still screaming. He tipped forwards, abasing himself, as the pain ate away at him. He screamed their names, though he thought he had forgotten them, and heard them crying out in welcome. Or perhaps mourning. Nagash’s voice filled him like cold fire, burning him inside as he was burned out.
‘Yes. We shall have justice for the wrongs done to us, you and I. This is my will, and so shall it be. Now sleep, and be made whole.’
Pharus felt the ground beneath him begin to rise. The stones – no, not stones, he saw now, but the tips of great black talons – drew close, folding over him, entombing him. He was caught fast, burning and screaming, as he had been on the Anvil.
Burning, and becoming.
Chapter seven
Fires of War
Sigmar Heldenhammer, God-King of Azyr and Lord of the Storm Eternal, looked out over the burning ruin of the Sigmarabulum and bowed his head. For a moment, he’d thought he’d heard something. A voice, crying out in the wilderness, seeking his aid.
But that was nothing new. A thousand voices cried in his ear with every moment. Too many to hear them all clearly. Some prayed. Others wept. There were few he could aid in any tangible way. But this one had been different. Louder, somehow. Before being suddenly silenced, as if by a great wind.
He stood at one of the huge cracks that gaped in the walls of the Chamber of the Broken World. Through it, he could see the full extent of the devastation that afflicted the great citadel-ring. Smoke rose towards the stars in spindle-legged shapes, and fire boiled up from cracked foundries. Strange shimmers of heat folded across entire districts, hiding them from view. Lightning flashed as the dead were put to rest.
He could taste the after-echoes of the great cataclysm, still resonating outwards. For all he knew, into universes undreamed. Everything stank of death. Every stone and star was soiled by the energies that had surged up from Shyish. The realms still shuddered, their very substance threatened by the sudden realignment of ages-old patterns. And still, aftershocks radiated upwards, as he suspected they would for some time.
Even Mallus had been affected. The dead world was gripped by tectonic disturbances such as it had not suffered in centuries. The fires in its core blazed, threatening to consume even more of the remaining surface, and the storms of broken souls that swept eternally between the poles had grown in ferocity. Sigmar half expected it to rip itself from its place in the heavens and cast itself down. But some things were beyond even Nagash.
There was no question that the God of Death was the author of this upheaval. It had originated in Shyish and shaken the Tree of Worlds from root to bough. ‘Nagash,’ he said softly. Then, more loudly. ‘Nagash. Always Nagash.’
Nagash. The Undying King. Brother and betrayer. Sigmar saw again the great cairn where Nagash had been imprisoned, its stones piled by unknown hands, and heard a voice, whispering in the dark. Unafraid, he had torn at the stones until his hands had wept starlight. When Nagash had reached out, Sigmar had held out his hand. And for a time, that had been enough.
But that time was long past, and almost forgotten.
Unaware of what he was doing, he raised his fists and slammed them out against the edges of the crack. Stones hewed from comets cracked, as lightning snarled about his clenched fingers. The fists came up and drove out a second time, with piston-like force, further shattering the walls and cracking the floor beneath.
Sigmar stepped back, as the ancient stones crumbled away and fell from sight. Rage undimmed, he fought to control himself. It was like trying to wrestle a storm into a box, but he’d had aeons of practice. Long past were the days when his fury might shake the heavens, or flood the lands below. He was a different god now, to the one he had been. Arrogance had been burned out of him by the fires of shame.
‘But some things never change, eh?’ he said, half to himself. ‘And some gods are as foolish as they were millennia ago.’ He turned to the golden-armoured figure standing behind him. ‘Let this be a lesson to you, Knossus Heavensen – some things never change, no matter our desires.’ He noticed the paleness of Knossus’ tattooed features and the stiffness of his posture, and realised belatedly that the lord-arcanum was disturbed by his display of anger. ‘Do not fear, lord-arcanum. My anger is not directed at you.’
‘I did not think it was, my lord.’ Knossus spoke with all due reverence, and bowed. He had his helmet clutched under one arm and his staff in the other hand. His war-plate was marked by signs of battle and stained with ash. Knossus and his warriors had fought for hours alongside other Sacrosanct Chambers to recapture those souls that had escaped from the soul-mills and rampaged across the Sigmarabulum.
Sigmar grimaced. ‘Do not bow, Knossus. I require no worship from you.’ He looked past the lord-arcanum. The Chamber of the Broken World was being repaired, but slowly. He had prevented its collapse, but the cataclysm had damaged more than just the walls and pillars. At the heart of the chamber, the Anvil had at last returned to normal, shedding the purple miasma that had clung to it.
Knossus straightened. ‘I know, my lord. But I give it freely.’
Sigmar looked down at him. ‘Perhaps I should have clad you in silver, instead of gold.’ He smiled as he said it, but Knossus took the statement at face value.
‘If such be your will, my lord.’
Sigmar sighed. ‘It was a jest, Knossus.’
A brief smile played across the lord-arcanum’s features. ‘I am aware, my lord.’
Sigmar laughed, and somewhere far away, thunder rumbled. He clapped Knossus on the shoulder, nearly knocking the Stormcast from his feet. ‘Good. Now tell me what there is to be told.’ He turned back to the crack in the wall.