‘Which can only mean that Sigmar foresees this city enduring the brunt of whatever is coming,’ Lynos said flatly. It had been almost a week since the second Sacrosanct Chamber – this one bearing the colours of his own Stormhost – had arrived. As yet, the lord-arcanum – Balthas, Lynos thought he was called – had avoided him. He suspected he knew why. Pharus had not yet been reforged. In fact, none of those who’d died in the necroquake had.
One way or another, Lynos intended to bring the lord-arcanum to task and get some answers. Orius nudged him. ‘Smoke,’ the other lord-celestant said. He pointed. ‘The northern district.’
‘The Fane of Nagash-Morr,’ Knossus said, without looking.
Lynos peered in the direction of the smoke. ‘I thought it sealed not long after the cataclysm. Has some fool attempted to reopen it?’
‘Not fools. Worshippers. Mortals who believe in the lie of Nagash’s benevolence. They seek his protection from the dead.’ Knossus sighed. ‘Perhaps for them, there is safety there. But the Undying King is our enemy, and he can be allowed no foothold, however benign, in this city. I ordered Lord-Veritant Achillus and Lord-Arcanum Balthas to clear it, and bring the temple down, stone by stone.’
‘I should have been there,’ Lynos growled. He felt a pulse of frustration. This was his city, when all was said and done. The responsibility was his.
Knossus looked at him. ‘You cannot be everywhere, brother. The deed is done, or soon will be.’ He sighed and looked out over the Mere. ‘I forgot… I forgot how beautiful it was.’ He spoke so softly, Lynos almost didn’t hear him. Then he sighed again and turned. ‘Come. I came to collect you both. It is time to hold what might be our final council of war, before things reach the end.’
‘Is it so close, then?’ Orius asked, looking towards the desert. The horizon had grown steadily darker as the days passed, and the nights seemed longer.
‘Closer than we know,’ Knossus said, solemnly. ‘Come, brothers. The others will be waiting. We must ready Glymmsforge for war.’
‘I dislike burning temples, brother,’ Balthas said, as he and Lord-Veritant Achillus climbed the stone steps to the council chambers of the stormkeep. The fortress of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer crouched at the city’s heart, within sight of the Shimmergate. It was a squat, black edifice, built for chilly efficiency rather than grandeur. Balthas approved.
There had been more to do, after the necromancer’s death. The tasks seemed endless. Mystic wards to be strengthened and places of ill-repute searched. Ghosts to lay and bodies to burn in cleansing fire.
‘Even ones devoted to Nagash?’ Achillus asked, not harshly. He had become less surly after the battle with the necromancer. Not friendly… but tolerable.
‘They were doing no harm to any but themselves.’ Balthas shook his head. ‘Also, I mourn the loss of their libraries – those who spend their time in the company of the dead have long memories, and keep good records.’
‘They will rebuild,’ Achillus said. ‘They always do.’ He sighed. ‘Peaceful as the adherents of Nagash-Morr are, they are still a warrior-cult, and dedicated to a god we are now at war with. Sooner or later, they would have made the wrong choice.’
‘To serve their god, you mean?’ He thought of the mortals, standing disconsolate as their place of worship was erased in mystic fire. They had not resisted – indeed, they seemed to have expected it. The priests, in their amethyst robes and with their faces painted in ash and dust, had calmed the crowd. They had spoken of inevitability and acceptance. Of how all things died, and death was not the end.
‘To make war on ours,’ Achillus said. He looked at Balthas. ‘You are new here, lord-arcanum. You do not understand the ways of Shyish. The ebb and flow of this realm is unlike any other. This is the realm of a god who – at his best – is inimical to all that we represent. We cannot allow him a foothold here, in this enclave of Azyr. Not now. Perhaps not ever again.’
‘You say that as if you think this war will end with the status quo restored,’ Balthas said. ‘Nagash has upended the status quo. Things will never be the same.’
‘All the more reason to burn his fanes and scatter his worshippers, then.’ Achillus stopped, one step above Balthas. ‘This is the red edge of the frontier, Balthas. Here, the influence of our god wanes as another grows. We do what we can to shine Azyr’s light here, but some shadows are too persistent, even for us.’ He gestured to the lantern atop his staff, its soft blue radiance washing over the stones around them.
Balthas stared into that light for a moment. Then he looked away. ‘You are correct, of course. The thought of all that knowledge – going up in smoke…’
Achillus snorted. ‘If you think they allowed us to destroy anything of any real value, then you are not half the sage people claim.’ He turned and began to ascend once more. ‘I’ve burned that temple eight times in the past eighty years, brother. They keep rebuilding it. And they invite me to the first service they hold, each time.’
Balthas paused. ‘Do you go?’
‘Every time.’ Achillus laughed. A moment later, Balthas joined him.
The council chambers rested at the heart of the stormkeep. A circular space, it was dominated by a map of the city. The map was the height of a man, and nearly as long as the wall to which it was affixed, showing every alleyway and beggar’s gate in Glymmsforge.
It had been drawn with a care and precision beyond that of any human cartographer. Only duardin draftsmen were so precise, for all that they disliked the use of such ephemeral materials. Their mapmakers preferred metal and stone to ink and parchment. Similar maps stretched nearby. One was of the known regions of the underworld of Lyria, while the other was of the Zircona Desert and the outposts along the Great Lyrian Road.
There was no table, no chairs. A rough-hewn bench occupied one wall, and a number of stools were scattered about, for the use of mortals. A few ragged battle-banners covered what the maps didn’t, and other trophies hung here and there – skulls taken from great beasts, mostly. By and large, the Anvils of the Heldenhammer put little stock in trophies.
Flickering storm-lanterns hung from the rafters, casting a cerulean light over the chamber. Balthas saw the two lords-celestant, Lynos Gravewalker of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer, and Orius Adamantine of the Hammers of Sigmar, studying the map closely and conferring in low tones with a mortal soldier, wearing the mauve and black of the Glymmsmen. The Freeguilder held a war-helm, wrought in the shape of a skull, beneath one arm, and his close-cropped hair was crimson.
‘Varo Tyrmane, Lord-Captain of the Glymmsmen,’ Achillus said, softly. He indicated a burly duardin sitting perched on a stool nearby. ‘And that’s Grom Juddsson, representative of the Riven Clans.’ Juddsson was clad in rich robes and fine war-plate, and his beard was oiled and curled into tight ringlets, threaded with silver. He stared pensively at the map, gnawing on the stem of a pipe.
Tyrmane and Juddsson weren’t the only mortals present. A representative of the Collegiate Arcane, clad in fine purple robes, stood off to the side, murmuring instructions to the bevy of scribes surrounding her. A group of Freeguild officers, wearing the uniforms of several regiments other than the Glymmsmen, spoke quietly in one corner.
Balthas recognised some of them – a captain of the Silver Company, out of Chamon, with his pristine white doublet and polished armour; a line-sergeant of the Ironsides, a gun-company normally contracted by the Ironweld Arsenal; and a boyr of the Sons of the Black Bear, a lance of knights from the northern baronies of Azyr. The knight was the biggest of the three, his bearskin cloak making him seem massive next to the others.