Calys took a slow breath as the spectre was consumed. She looked at Verga and gestured with the hammer. ‘Go and help Faelius.’
A voice echoed down from above. ‘A well-struck blow, sister.’
Calys looked up and saw Lord-Relictor Dathus watching her. He stood atop a set of stairs that led nowhere above, set in an open space between crypts. The steps curved up and then around and back down in a stony loop, winding through the crypts. As he descended, the upper steps swung away, and a false archway, resembling a crypt opening, crashed down in its place. Dust sifted down across her armour, and a sudden breeze from somewhere washed over her. She grimaced. There were always mysterious draughts and smells down here, and Calys had yet to become inured to them. Sometimes, she wondered if Pharus had ever grown used to the stench and the damp before… She pushed the thought aside.
‘I have struck better,’ she said as Dathus reached the bottom. The lord-relictor had been gone for several days, conferring with the new commander, Lord-Arcanum Knossus, as well as Lord-Celestant Lynos and the others in charge of the city’s defences. ‘Any news?’ she asked, resting Faelius’ hammer across her shoulders. ‘About Lord-Castellant Pharus, I mean.’
‘None,’ Dathus said. ‘I am sorry, Calys. Knossus had nothing to share in regard to his fate.’ He looked out over the sea of tombs and grunted. ‘He had nothing at all to share, in fact. Other than that the necroquake reached Azyr itself, and shook the pillars of the heavens.’
Calys felt the cold weight of dread in her belly. ‘Azyr…’
‘It endures, as ever. Be at peace, sister. The God-King would not let the realm fall now, not after all this time.’ Dathus shook his head. ‘Though, to hear Knossus tell it, it was a close thing. Even the Anvil of Apotheosis was affected, if only for a short time.’ He looked at her. ‘We live in dangerous times, sister. Come. Walk with me a spell.’
Calys fell into step with the lord-relictor, after retrieving her blade and checking on Faelius. The Liberator had already recovered somewhat, and she returned his grandhammer. As they walked, she signalled to Tamacus and the others, alerting them to the nighthaunt’s destruction. They would continue to sweep this section, hunting for any other lingering spectres that might be lurking in the tombs.
The path inclined upwards as she and Dathus walked along the avenue, and the mausoleums to either side grew sparse. Statues loomed out of the dark, staring down at them with unseeing eyes. Soon, they were walking along a stretch of path that took them towards the Ten Thousand Tombs.
The ground shuddered beneath her feet as unseen sections peeled away with a scrape of stone and clouds of dust, swinging out and up or down. New twists and turns were added to the path ahead, and from behind came the rumble of a new wall sliding into place. The outer catacombs were always in motion these days. Those dead things still loose in them wandered the confusing tangle of passages, unable to escape.
She heard a shout from overhead and saw the arch of a bridge drift towards its new position. A cohort of Stormcasts stood atop it, braced against the shuddering of the stone. As the bridge locked into place, they strode across it, shields raised against whatever awaited them in the dark beyond. ‘It never ends, does it?’ she said.
‘Duty never does.’
She looked at Dathus. ‘What news from above?’
‘The same, but worse,’ Dathus said. ‘The city is in upheaval. It is all we can do to keep it in hand. The dead rise in greater numbers, and every day, refugees bring word of fresh horrors rising from oases and slipping down out of the high crags. Every restless soul in Shyish has been stirred to wakefulness, and all of them thirst for the blood of the living.’
‘None have slipped past us,’ Calys said, firmly.
Before Dathus could reply, there was the sound of scrabbling at the entrance to a nearby tomb. It was a sound that had become all too familiar to Calys of late. The stones cracked and crumbled, as if something were trying to dislodge them. Calys made to draw her blade, but Dathus waved her back. He set his hand on the face of the tomb, and a blue radiance played across the cracks. ‘Sleep, child of death,’ the lord-relictor growled. ‘Your time is not yet arrived.’
The scrabbling faded, as if the occupant of the tomb had resumed its fitful slumber. Dathus stepped back, allowing a nearby group of mortal priests to go about their duty. They would re-bless the tomb, and that which lay within, anointing it with sacred unguents and marking it with sigils of warding, as they and their predecessors had done for almost a century. Calys doubted it would hold for long, despite their efforts.
‘That happens too often for my liking,’ she said.
Dathus turned away from the tomb. ‘The constant fluctuation of the catacombs causes stress fractures in the stonework – a hazard of Pharus’ cleverness.’
Calys nodded. Any spirits that escaped would be confused by the eternally shifting underworld, and easily trapped. But that same shifting allowed some to escape in the first place. Luckily, those that most often did so were the easiest to recapture. She suspected that too had been part of Pharus’ design.
A shadow passed over them, as an archway bridge swung out over the slope of tombs and graves. Dust rained down in a constant patter, dulling her war-plate. She strode to the edge of the slope, walking across the roof of a crypt that jutted out over the abyss below.
From this highest point, the catacombs somewhat resembled a massive orrery of interlocking stone rings. Mausoleums and crypts clung like barnacles to each ring, as well as the tumbledown slopes that filled the gaps between. The great mechanisms that controlled the movement of the catacombs hung suspended in great orbs of stone, which hung directly over the Ten Thousand Tombs.
Dathus joined her, his eyes following hers. ‘I’ve set a guard on them, just in case. They have orders to activate the final sequence, should it appear that the tombs are in danger of being opened.’
Calys frowned. The sequence would collapse the catacombs, burying them forever. But destroying the catacombs would almost certainly destroy Glymmsforge as well. Not immediately, perhaps. But the reverberations of such an act would ripple outwards, weakening streets and foundations. Not even duardin craftsmanship would survive such devastation. ‘It won’t come to that,’ she said firmly.
‘The dead are remorseless,’ Dathus said. ‘And we must stand ready to deny them this place, whatever the cost.’
‘Why do they hate us?’ The question slipped from her lips before she could stop it.
‘They do not,’ he said, after a moment. ‘Not truly. Nor, I think, does Nagash. To hate, one must care. And the God of the Dead cares for little save himself.’ He looked out, over the edge of the crypt. ‘Sigmar delights in us, as he delighted in our fathers and their fathers. Our creations, our courage, even our hubris – it delights him.’
‘A funny word, that, to use in relation to a god.’
‘But fitting.’ Dathus looked at her. ‘It is said by some, among my brotherhood, that the realms spin in eternal opposition – one pulling against the other. Azyr pulls against Shyish, Ghyran against Ghur, Hysh against Ulgu, and Aqshy against Chamon. Each the mirror image of the other, some in subtle ways, others more obvious. And as Azyr and Shyish stand in opposition, so too do the gods. Sigmar is the beginning and Nagash, the ending.’ He gestured, and a spark of lightning danced across his knuckles and palm as he turned his hand, this way and that. ‘But Nagash is a greedy god and seeks to be both beginning and end. So he raises the dead from their sleep of ages and sends them to attack the living.’