‘A weakness in our defences.’ Knossus turned, studying the arcanogram carved into the street. A flicker of relief passed through Vale. They didn’t know about the money, then. Then he realised what the lord-arcanum was saying.
‘Oh. Ah.’ Vale glanced up at the walls. ‘Has something happened?’
‘A long time ago, I fear,’ Knossus said. He extended his staff and gently pushed Vale back a step. ‘My warriors and I shall join the defence of this place. See to your men, lieutenant. The enemy is coming, even now.’
Vale felt a cold slither of fear and turned away. Kurst followed him. ‘Is he right?’ Vale asked. Kurst snorted.
‘You only have to stand atop the wall to see that much. The eldritch glow on the horizon grows closer with every passing night. The winds wail, carrying the groans of deadwalkers. Listen, fool – hear them?’
Vale stopped. He’d never thought about it before, but Kurst was right. He’d been hearing the sound for days without knowing what it was – a dull, somnolent groaning. Like the rumble of distant thunder. He shuddered and ran a hand through his hair, trying to think. Gomes stumped towards him. ‘Should I dismiss the lads?’
‘Yes, but double the watch.’
Gomes blinked. ‘They won’t like that.’
‘I don’t give a damn,’ Vale snapped. ‘You heard him – they all heard him – something is wrong.’ He swallowed. ‘The wall won’t hold.’
‘Then we shall be the wall,’ Kurst said. He thumped his hammer into his palm. ‘We shall build it with steel and silver, or, failing that, with our bodies.’
Vale shared a look with Gomes. ‘Right. Yes. Obviously.’ He turned away, watching as the Stormcasts set up some sort of massive ballistae, near the entrance to the courtyard, where the two portcullis pathways intersected. Others, carrying heavy crossbows, were climbing up to the parapets, to join the mortal soldiers on duty there.
‘What is he doing?’ Gomes muttered.
Vale looked and saw Knossus gesturing ritualistically over the section of the arcanogram that ran through the gatehouse. Motes of corposant bristled about his hand as he moved it back and forth over the silver runnels. Light danced across the purple sands, and the air flickered with something like a heat mirage.
Ghostly images wafted into being about the lord-arcanum. Vale saw a stooped figure – an older man, worn sharp by life and heavily scarred, wearing the uniform of a Glymmsman – raise a breacher-spade over the sands and thrust it down.
Gomes cursed softly. ‘I know that face. That’s Vorgen Malendrek. The Hero of the Southern Gate…’
Vale looked at him in confusion. ‘Who?’
‘Before your time, lad,’ Kurst said, flatly. ‘Captain of Fifth Company. Or he was. He warded the southernmost gate during Vaslbad’s attack on the city, and held Undst Keep against the Slender Knight.’
‘Why haven’t I heard of him?’
‘He survived, didn’t he?’ Gomes said, grinning. ‘Nobody likes it when heroes survive.’ He leaned over and spat. ‘But he vanished not long ago. Everyone thought he’d been taken in the night by a gheist.’ He peered at the image. ‘What is he doing with that spade?’
The image flickered eerily, as the breacher-spade came down again and again. Kurst hissed. ‘The blessed salts – he’s digging them out!’
Vale stared at the image in horror. ‘If the salts are gone…’
From the wall, he heard the winding call of a war-horn. He jerked around, eyes wide. The horn blared again, the echo of its warning shuddering through the rain. The image of Vorgen Malendrek vanished, as the lord-arcanum looked up. Vale heard shouts and cries of alarm. A man hurried to the edge of a parapet. ‘Deadwalkers, sir! Thousands of them.’
Vale felt his stomach fall into his boots. Mouth dry, he looked at the lord-arcanum. The Stormcast nodded, and Vale was suddenly glad for his presence.
‘It begins,’ Knossus said.
The gutters of the Gloaming were overflowing with rainwater when Elya arrived. It had started slow, but the bottom had fallen out of the clouds somewhere between Fish Lane and Scratchjack Alley. Now alarm bells rang from the high places of the slums, warning the inhabitants that the city was under attack, or soon would be. The clamour of desperate shopkeepers hammering boards over doors and windows mingled with the sounds of looting, and the cries of those with nowhere to go. Weapons rattled in the dark, and horses whickered in growing nervousness.
Black Walkers stood on every corner, ringing their own bells and calling out the names of gods who were no longer listening, if they ever had in the first place. Flagellants wandered the streets, lashing themselves and screaming pious maledictions at those who gave way before them. The Glymmsmen were nowhere in sight, and it was left to local roughs and bravos to take charge. This they did with brutal efficiency. Streets were barricaded with whatever was to hand. Those seeking the dubious safety of these ramparts were stripped of what little of value they had, and put to work reinforcing the barricades.
Elya fought her way through a crowded street, liberally applying her elbows and feet, trying to reach the rickety exterior stairs that led up to the rooms she shared with her father. A man cursed as she stamped on his instep, and hopped back. She darted through the opening and winnowed swiftly through the forest of legs. Hands grabbed at her, for what reasons she couldn’t say, but none managed to catch her.
The slums weren’t safe anymore. They were never safe, really, but even less so now. The cats had told her what was coming, what they could feel on the air. Like a storm in the offing, and not one they could survive out in the open.
When storms came, cats sought high, dry places. There was only one place like that, in easy distance. As she started up the stairs, she glanced west and saw the dome of the Grand Tempestus rise over the city. Even at night, through the pall of rain, it was visible. Others would be heading there, looking for refuge. She had to hurry.
Things shattered on the street, hurled from the rooftops by roof-runners or vandals. She heard singing from one of the rooms as she passed by an open window. A sad song, slow and maudlin. There was smoke on the wind – something was burning, even in the downpour. A fire had raged through part of the Gloaming the day before. Deadwalkers, people had said. And the Leechbane. But no one knew for sure.
Elya didn’t want to know. One brush with the Leechbane was enough. She reached her window. The doors of their rooms had been boarded over since the night her mother had died. The window was the only way in and out. She paused and glanced back.
Someone was screaming, somewhere close by. A long, drawn-out wail of denial that sounded barely human. And maybe it wasn’t. She shivered and slunk over the sill.
‘Halha, I’m back,’ she said, softly. She caught a glint of silver, and saw her guest standing close to the window, tense, blade in hand. The trader woman’s yellow robes had been discarded and replaced by dark ones, to better hide her identity. Her gold had been scattered in Elya’s secret caches throughout the Gloaming, in payment for allowing her a place to hide. After checking to see whether or not she’d been bitten, obviously.
Halha relaxed as she recognised Elya. ‘You weren’t gone very long,’ she said. She had a curious, lilting accent, like most folk from Gravewild. As if they were half-singing, all the time.
‘Is he…?’ Elya whispered, glancing towards the cot.
‘Asleep,’ Halha said. She sheathed her dagger. ‘Still asleep. He moaned a few times, but did not stir otherwise.’ She glanced towards the window. ‘What is going on? Those bells – what do they mean?’