Curious, she crept towards the window. It was one of hundreds, set into the base of the roof, below the immense glass dome that looked down on the nave. The windows were small circles of stained glass, meant to let in coloured shafts of light. Now, they were all covered in frost, so thickly that she thought it a wonder that they didn’t crack.
The glass bled cold, and her breath frosted the air. The thing on the other side grimaced at the sight of her and began to twist itself in knots. It had maggots where its eyes ought to have been, and its teeth were nothing but sharp splinters.
But it had been a person, once. A man, she thought. No, a boy. It spoke to her, too fast and sounding like it couldn’t catch its breath. The words tumbled over one another, and she couldn’t make sense of them. It pressed broken fingers to the glass, and hoar frost spread wherever it touched. She hesitated, and then reached out, placing her fingers against the glass. It was so cold it burned.
The nicksoul stopped talking. It stared at her with its squirming gaze, and she could almost feel those maggots gnawing at her own eyes. She blinked and looked away. It hissed, not like a cat, but like a Mere-eel – a wet, guttural sound. ‘He is coming,’ it rasped. ‘He knows you, and he is coming.’
A cat climbed up onto her shoulder and growled, tail lashing. The nicksoul jerked back, as if it’d been stung. Elya turned, something telling her to look up. The dome overhead was dark, and things that might have been stars flickered in that darkness.
But they weren’t stars.
Stars did not scream.
‘They’re flocking like crows,’ Mara growled, pointing her maul towards the dome at the top of the Grand Tempestus. ‘Should we do something?’
‘And what more would you have us do, Sequitor-Prime?’ Balthas said, flatly. ‘Turn from the enemy in front of us, to face another?’ He glanced back at the temple and shook his head. ‘Besides, if Miska and the others have done as I commanded, the nighthaunts will not be able to enter the temple – not easily, at least.’
‘Small comfort to those within,’ Mara said, turning back to the battle before them. She ducked her head as a deadwalker slammed against her shield. She braced herself and swept her maul beneath the rim of her shield, shattering the corpse’s legs. As it fell, she stamped on its skull, putting an end to its struggles. But there were more behind it. There were always more. So many that they threatened to swamp the battle-line.
‘I do not care about their comfort. Only that they survive.’ Balthas thrust his staff forwards, and unleashed a crackling bolt into the corpses clambering at the Sequitors’ shield wall. ‘And that we survive.’
‘Better odds of that now that the Gravewalker has arrived,’ Mara said. She indicated the other side of the plaza, where Lynos Gravewalker’s warriors had emerged, to launch their own attack. Balthas had seen his plan immediately. The lord-celestant had intended to catch the dead between their chambers and scatter them.
But that was proving more difficult than Balthas had hoped. For every deadwalker that fell, half a dozen spectres seemed to take its place, hurling themselves against the shields of the Stormcasts. Lynos’ lines were beginning to falter as their momentum stalled. Unlike the rotten corpses that packed the plaza, the nighthaunts were calculating foes. They had a dark animus of their own, though they were as enslaved to the will of their creator as the deadwalkers were.
With his storm-sight, Balthas could see the faint glow of the souls they had once been, before the winds of Shyish had inundated them, twisting them all out of sorts. Flickering embers of amber, of jade and even azure were caught in a tangled shroud of amethyst – so dark it was almost black. Trapped by the magics of the ones who had drawn them up from their deaths. The sight of those magics made his skull ache, and he longed to unravel those black skeins.
Threaded amongst this heaving shroud were crackling striations of cerulean – the soulfire of the newly arrived warriors. Balthas winced as he watched a jagged bolt of lightning slash upwards. The mage-warriors of the Sacrosanct Chambers could weather such an assault, thanks to their mystic training. He often forgot that other Stormcasts lacked that training. They were at a disadvantage when it came to combating the aethereal hosts of Nagash.
But there was something else there. Something that taunted the edges of his storm-sight. He felt it on the wind, like the refrain of a half-forgotten song. It pulled at his attentions, distracting him from the battle. The blotch on the aether – it crashed against his senses, demanding that he face it. And suddenly, he knew what it was.
He could feel it now, at the edge of his perceptions. Like a storm that had turned back on itself. Somewhere, in the confusion, the soul of Pharus Thaum awaited him.
Decision made, Balthas raised his staff. ‘Porthas, Mara,’ he shouted. ‘Lock shields and advance. They present their flank – let us bloody it, and show them why we were chosen to bear the mantle of Sigmar’s wrath.’
‘As you will it,’ Porthas growled. ‘Shields up, brothers and sisters.’ At his command, his Sequitors moved forwards one pace, shoving back the deadwalkers before them.
Balthas swung his staff out, indicating the deadwalkers. ‘Quintus, clear the path.’
On the steps of the temple, the Castigators fired their greatbows over the heads of the Sequitors. A chain of crackling energy washed through the deadwalkers’ ranks, and the Sequitors bulled forwards, into the teeth of it. The aetheric energy washed harmlessly over their war-plate as they forced burning deadwalkers aside, trampling those that fell.
Slowly, in disciplined fashion, the Sequitors dressed their ranks, falling into a wedge. Porthas led the way, a half-step ahead of the others, his greatmace whirling. Balthas followed, after signalling to Gellius and Faunus. The two engineers swung their ballista around and fired into the ranks of the dead that stood between the Gravewalkers and the warriors of the Sacrosanct Chamber, clearing the path.
‘Advance. Let nothing stay you. Not even death.’ Balthas gripped his staff tightly, and overhead, thunder rumbled. Somewhere ahead of him, something was waiting. And he intended to meet it.
Pharus felt the hint of something familiar – a scent, a sound, something else – brush across his consciousness, but flicked it aside. His sword crashed against that of the lord-celestant, and the facets of shadeglass flared amethyst. They spun in a wide circle, trading blows. His opponent was skilled, but Pharus had passed beyond skill.
‘I know you, I think,’ he said hesitantly, as they broke apart. ‘I know your voice, your gaze…’ The battle surged around them, and lightning snapped at the skies. More souls lost. ‘You are as I was, aren’t you? A slave. A pawn.’
‘Silence, grave-maggot,’ the lord-celestant rumbled. ‘The dead will not speak.’
Their blades crashed together again, and Pharus forced his opponent back a half-step. The lord-celestant grunted in shock. ‘Sigmar aid me,’ he growled.
Sigmar does not listen. Sigmar cares nothing for him, or you.
Pharus forced the lord-celestant back another step, the words ringing in his head. ‘Sigmar cares nothing for you.’
‘Lies!’ Their blades crashed together again. The battle around them seemed to slide into the distance.
You are condemned, so that he might play the conqueror once again.
‘How many times have you died? How many times have you seen warriors perish and return, lessened?’ Pharus snarled the words, hurling them like javelins, the voice beating in his brain, as the lord-celestant reeled back.
‘You know nothing, spectre,’ the lord-celestant said. ‘You are a hollow thing, made in the image of a hollow god.’ Pharus hesitated, staring into his opponent’s eyes. He wanted to tear them out and deny the contempt they held.