‘I can hear something else,’ Pharus said. He touched his sword. ‘It echoes, with every swing of this blade – a single voice, calling out of the deep places. Urging me on.’ He looked at her. ‘Do you hear it as well?’ Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he added, ‘What does it say to you?’
‘If you were wiser, you would not ask that question.’ She looked towards the distant city. ‘We all hear it, and it tells us all different things. It whispers to us in our own voice, but it is his.’ She turned to him. ‘You know this.’
‘Arkhan said that the Undying King would always be with me.’
Arul nodded. ‘As he is with all of us.’ She tapped her arm, where the ripped flesh had sloughed back together. ‘Inside us. Watching through our eyes, listening with our ears. We are him, and he is us.’ She folded her hands, as if in prayer. ‘As all things will be, in time.’
‘Yes.’
Pharus heard a sound, as of waves crashing against the shore, and an unnatural wind kicked up, casting the sand about in all directions. He looked up. Shrieking chainrasps were hurtling towards the city on a wave of eldritch energy. Among them were scythe-wielding wraiths and heralds of disaster, tolling deadly bells. Malendrek was at their head with his host of spectral riders, riding high, like foam on a cresting wave.
Pharus knew at once that Malendrek was seeking to claim the glory for himself. That need drove the Knight of Shrouds. Arul clucked her tongue. ‘So impatient, that one.’
Pharus did not reply. Instead, he sped back, to where he’d left Dohl and the others. If Malendrek intended to enter the city tonight, then Pharus would be right there with him.
As Nagash had commanded, so must it be.
The deathstorm had begun.
Chapter seventeen
Deathstorm
The wind whipped along the spires and buttresses of the northern mausoleum gate and set the lamps to flickering, when Lieutenant Vale got word that the lord-arcanum was on his way. He didn’t know what that meant, but rolled out his men for inspection. With the rest of Third Company being deployed elsewhere, that left his section in sole charge of the northern mausoleum gate. There were enough warm bodies to man the walls – just. The city’s forces were stretched thin everywhere.
The men came with much grumbling and the clatter of kit being hastily pulled on. None of them wanted to be outside their gatehouse-barracks on a night like this, and he didn’t blame them. The nights were getting longer, and there was a purple fire on the horizon. Bad omens clustered thick, wherever you looked. And worst of all – it was raining.
‘Get in line, get in line,’ he hollered, as he splashed through the mud. A hundred men or more could comfortably line up single file in the courtyard.
Wide avenues of cobblestones ran through the courtyard, stretching from the pair of massive portcullises that were set into the high walls between the largest bastions. Once, those avenues had been crowded by columns of refugees, traders and pilgrims. Now, they were empty of everything save the overturned carts and makeshift barricades Captain Fosko had ordered set up before his departure. Storm-lanterns hung from nearby posts and support beams, casting a watery blue light over the proceedings. ‘Boots on, breeches up, you jack-a-ninnies,’ he shouted, slapping his gauntlets against his thigh as he strode down the line.
‘I’m not sure that I’m drunk enough for this,’ Sergeant Gomes said, upending his flask. Vale glanced at the squat figure of his second in command. ‘Stow the flask, Gomes,’ Vale said, but quietly. ‘Kurst is coming this way. I’ll never hear the end of it if he sees you with a flask pressed to your lips.’ The warrior-priest was his section’s disapproving shadow, assigned to them by Captain-General Varo Tyrmane himself, the better to keep his men’s blades blessed and their souls relatively intact.
‘Oh joy, the Vulture shows his beak,’ Gomes muttered. Vale frowned, but didn’t chastise his sergeant. Kurst did resemble a carrion-bird, and an ugly one at that; a thin, gangling man, clad in loose black robes and out-sized black armour, with baroque decorations of stylised bones and scythes. He was bald, save for a fringe of lank, colourless hair that spilled down the back of his scrawny neck. His face was pinched in a permanent expression of disapproval, and he thumped the head of his warhammer into his palm repeatedly as he stalked the line of assembled soldiers.
‘I’ve always wondered where they dug him up – he must be sixty turns of the wheel if he’s a day,’ Gomes said. ‘You can practically smell the grave-mould on him.’
‘A man like that doesn’t get older – just nastier,’ Vale said. ‘And that’s not grave-mould. I’ve heard he doesn’t bathe. Says it weakens the ligaments.’
Gomes chuckled. ‘One good smack and he’d go to dust, ligaments or no.’
‘Feel free. But not when I’m around.’
Gomes gave a gap-toothed grin. ‘Worried about your prospects, lieutenant?’
‘Not just mine,’ Vale said. ‘I– Hsst. They’re here.’
The Stormcasts arrived, the lord-arcanum at their head. Knossus Heavensen made for an impressive figure, sitting astride his massive gryph-charger. Vale had grown up around Stormcasts, but he felt himself somewhat awestruck by the gold-clad warriors of the Sacrosanct Chamber as they marched into the courtyard.
Gomes took another surreptitious slug from his flask. ‘They say he’s really young Knossian Glymm, come again to defend the city he saved from Vaslbad the Unrelenting.’
‘He’s a Stormcast. They were all once someone else. Now be quiet.’ Vale swallowed and stepped forwards, one hand on the hilt of the blade sheathed at his side. He caught sight of Kurst, doing the same. The warrior-priest stared at the Stormcasts with almost feverish intensity. As if they were living saints, or gods made flesh. He cleared his throat. ‘Welcome, lord-arcanum. Would you like to inspect the troops?’
He realised how inane the question was, even as it left his lips. The lord-arcanum looked down at him, gold helm running with rivulets of rain. Then he looked around. Vale knew he was taking in the state of the courtyard. Vale closed his eyes, silently cursing himself for not ordering the men to make things ready for inspection.
‘I stood here, once before,’ Knossus said, his voice echoing through the courtyard. ‘It seemed larger, then.’ He looked down at Vale. ‘You are in command?’
‘Lieutenant Holman Vale, my lord. Third Company.’ Vale gave the traditional salute – two thumps and a wave – and tried to stand as straight as possible. ‘I have the honour of warding this place.’
‘Do you know who is interred here, Lieutenant Vale?’
‘I… I’m afraid not, my lord. Before my time, rather.’ Vale glanced around and saw Kurst nearby. He gestured hastily, and the warrior-priest smirked.
‘Orthanc Duln, the Hero of Sawback,’ Kurst murmured helpfully. Vale grimaced. He had no idea who that was, or even where Sawback was. Ghur? It sounded Ghurdish. Vale looked up at Knossus and smiled weakly.
‘There we have it – Orton…’
‘Orthanc Duln,’ Kurst corrected.
Vale shot him a glare. ‘Right, yes, sorry, Orthanc Duln.’
Knossus chuckled, and the sound nearly turned Vale’s bowels to water. ‘Your youth excuses you, lieutenant. So long as you do your duty, it is no sin. The Celestial Saints are remembered by Sigmar and we who serve as his hand, and that is all that matters.’ He slid from the saddle with a crash of sigmarite. Even on the ground, he loomed head and shoulders over Vale.
‘Why – ah – to what do we owe the honour of your presence?’
‘There is a problem.’
Vale froze, wondering if they’d found out about the pilfered wages. Or worse. There was no telling what Gomes got up to in his free time. He’d heard rumours of extortion, and local shopkeepers paying protection, to keep non-existent deadwalkers at bay. ‘P-problem?’