He turned, seeking Malendrek. He saw the Knight of Shrouds locked in battle with a golden-armoured Stormcast lord, mounted on a screeching gryph-charger. Dark blade crashed against lightning-wreathed staff, as armoured warriors and mortal soldiers struggled against growing numbers of nighthaunts. The gheists slid through the walls of the gatehouse as if it were no more substantial than water. Some burst into flame as they breached the walls, but most endured and launched themselves gladly at the living.
Pharus took a step towards the duel, wondering if he ought to aid Malendrek. Something murmured within him, and he turned, spying the gate. It crackled with azure energy as well, but not so potent as that which banded the city. The light kept out nighthaunts, but the gates and the walls held out everything else.
He raced towards the heavy portcullis, blade held low. He had destroyed the gates of Fort Alenstahdt; he saw no reason he couldn’t do it again. But as he made to strike them, bolts of crackling energy slammed into the ground around him from above. He looked up to see a trio of Stormcasts on the parapet, levelling heavy crossbows. One fired, and he swept his blade out, bisecting the mace-like bolt.
The resulting explosion knocked him backwards. Aetheric energies clawed at his substance, and he howled in pain. As he forced himself to his feet, he heard the clatter of sigmarite from behind him. He whirled, barely managing to interpose his blade between himself and a blow that might have sent his spirit shrieking back to Nagashizzar. Three Stormcasts, wielding shields and heavy mauls, closed in on him. He parried a blow, only to be knocked sprawling by another explosive volley from above. The three Stormcasts converged on him as he rose, trying to keep him away from the gate.
He cast about, seeking some sign of Fellgrip or Dohl. Where were they? Had they not made it past the light, as he had? A maul slammed down, and he twitched aside. Corposant flared, and he felt it burn. Snarling in frustration, he slashed out, and a Stormcast sagged back, body reduced to crackling motes of energy.
Pharus heard a scream from above and risked a glance. One of the Stormcast archers plummeted to the ground, body coming apart in strands of lightning. He saw Rocha chop through the sternum of another, her axe parting sigmarite in a burst of amethyst heat. She tore her weapon free and drifted down to stand between him and his opponents.
‘Attend to the gate, knight. Let an executioner ply her trade.’ Rocha raised her axe in challenge. ‘Come then, iron-souls. Come and let me judge you.’
The first warrior lunged, maul snapping out. Rocha twisted aside, as weightless as a shadow. Her axe drew black sparks from the warrior’s shield, and the force of her blow drove him back several steps.
‘You, who took my betrothed from me, on our dying day, and then again when the Undying King might have returned him to me,’ Rocha howled as he strode towards the portcullis. Her words beat on the air like the tolling of a funerary bell. ‘He was mine, promised and owed, and you took him!’
Pharus turned, leaving her to it. He slashed his blade across the silver chains that connected the portcullis to the ground, parting the metal like paper. Lightning flashed, and crawled across him. He could feel a weight press down upon him from all directions, and heard a voice murmuring on the air – prayers or imprecations, he could not tell which. There was a saint entombed somewhere in these stones, a corpse infused with the lie of Azyr’s strength.
He drove his sword into the wood of the gate and grasped the portcullis. It was marked with protective sigils, and his hands smoked and steamed as he took hold of it. With a hiss of effort, he began to force it up. Blue flame spilled across his armour as he did so. A lesser spectre would have been destroyed utterly. Even one like Dohl or Rocha would have been consumed. But Pharus was not like them. He had felt the fires of Azyr before, and persisted. As he would persist now. The flames spread, licking at his substance.
He turned, catching the edges of the portcullis on his shoulders, forcing it above his head. He could hear the mechanisms that controlled it shattering somewhere above him, and cries of panic from the mortals set to guard it. Sparks rained down, as pulleys snapped and chains spilled from their alcoves to puddle on the ground.
He left the ground, rising, pushing, forcing it up and up, so that the stones of the gateway cracked and burst. Below, he saw Rocha push the Stormcasts back, step by step, with the fury of her assault. Her voice echoed over the screech of bending metal. ‘You took him and clad him in silver so that he did not know me, and I will have justice.’ She spat the words at them, as if they were arrows. ‘I will take what I am owed in blood, until he is returned to me. My prince of the Fourth Circle…’
A Stormcast lunged for her, and she spun with a shriek, her jaw unhinging like that of a serpent. Her axe crashed down, splitting the warrior’s shield and removing the arm that it was strapped to. The Stormcast staggered back, but had no time to fall before the axe licked out and removed his other arm. He slumped back against a support beam, blood pumping into the dirt. His companion darted towards the executioner, deceptively swift despite his bulk. His maul crashed down with a snarl of radiant energies, and Rocha shrieked in pain.
Pharus hesitated. Some spark of the man he had been urged him to go to her aid. A warrior aided his comrades.
But you are not a warrior. You are a tool. Tools perform their function, and nothing more.
Yes. Rocha’s function was to fight for him – to perish once more, for him. And his was to crack the city wide, so that it might feel the full fury of Nagash.
With a howl of his own, he forced the portcullis up and wrenched it forwards. Stone shattered, and the twisted remnants of the portcullis were ripped from the gateway, to slam down into the courtyard below. Still burning, Pharus dropped and caught the hilt of his blade. He tore it loose in a burst of splinters, spun and slashed out.
The shadeglass blade cut easily through the thick wood, and the gates came apart with a mournful groan. They crashed away in a cloud of dust. The reverberations echoed through the courtyard. He dropped to one knee, his form smouldering. A moment later, the first of the deadwalkers emerged from the cloud and shambled past him. Then another and another.
He heard cries of alarm from the mortals and shouts from the Stormcasts, as this new threat confronted them. Pharus rose to his feet, an island of shadow amid a sea of dead flesh. A sea that would drown Glymmsforge and even Azyr, in time.
Thus, Nagash has commanded.
‘Thus it will be done,’ Pharus intoned.
Then, hand on his sword, he followed the rest of the dead to war.
Chapter eighteen
Gravewalkers
It had all gone very wrong, very quickly, Vale thought.
Gomes was dead, torn apart by cackling gheists. Most of his men were dead. Those that weren’t had fallen back from the courtyard, leaving the enemy to the Stormcasts. Now they took cover in shattered storefronts and behind overturned carts of the streets past the gate, watching as powers beyond them clashed. Vale sat, his back to a stone wall, his sigmarite sigil clutched in his hands, whispering every prayer he knew. It was only one, really, but he wasn’t certain of the words, so he tried several versions.
He’d been too young to serve during Vaslbad’s assault on the city, but he’d fought deadwalkers before. They were dangerous, but you could put them down with steel and fire, if you were careful. But this was something else. Something worse. Gheists crawled along the rooftops and circled in the air like birds of prey. They reached through stone and wood as if it weren’t there, and could pluck out a man’s heart in a trice. Honest steel did nothing, and silver wasn’t much better.