Chapter twenty-two
The War of Heaven and Death
‘We should not have let her go alone,’ Miska said. Calys had already vanished among the sliding corridors of mausoleums. She could hear the crash of Gellius’ ballista and the all-consuming rumble of stone. Lightning flashed to the south, tearing holes in the dark. The dead were close. She reached down, touching the spirit-jars hanging from her belt, making sure they were close to hand. She looked at Balthas. He didn’t reply. He stared back the way they’d come, as if entranced by the sounds of battle.
She turned to the lord-relictor, Dathus. ‘Go. Muster who you can. Ring the bells, call every warrior, Stormcast or mortal. I fear they will be needed.’
‘And what about you?’
‘We came to defend this place. And that is what we will do. We will delay them. Give you the time you need. Go, brother! Ring the bells! Sound the call to war. And leave us to do what we were made to do.’
Dathus hesitated. Then, he nodded and turned away, heading north. He barked an order, and his warriors followed him at a trot. They soon vanished into the gloom that shrouded the avenue, leaving behind only the echo of sigmarite ringing against stone. Satisfied, Miska turned back to Balthas.
‘I was wrong,’ Balthas said, so softly that she almost didn’t hear him.
She looked at him. ‘About what?’
Balthas caught hold of Quicksilver’s saddle and hauled himself up. ‘I thought I could choose the moment. But it chose me, instead. Chose us.’ He looked down at her. ‘I thought we were to meet them in the open, Shyish against Azyr, on the black rim of the world. There was a… a resonance to it. But instead, the moment comes upon us here, in the middle of a forest of crypts. The final clash comes, not over ancient tombs, but over a child’s soul. Do you understand?’
He sounded so annoyed that she could not help but smile. ‘I do. I wondered why you were so insistent on bringing her. And if you’re asking my opinion, well, I would rather fight to preserve a single living soul than ten thousand dead ones.’
He gave a disgruntled sigh. ‘I think I would as well.’ Balthas straightened in his saddle. ‘Gellius and Mara are buying us the time we need to get into position. The aether swims and surges. The foe will come this way. And we will meet them. Head to head, and soul to soul.’ He lifted his staff. ‘Castigators to the fore. Sequitors, make ready to advance. Miska…?’
‘Aye, Grave Warden?’
‘I want Pharus. Clear me a path.’
She nodded serenely. ‘We shall provide you a fitting honour-guard.’ She turned and signalled to the remaining Celestors. They were gathered behind the Castigators, kneeling, their heads bowed. As they prayed, small sparks of lightning danced across them.
They rose at her gesture, and she joined them. Memories of a time half-forgotten rose. Of the rattle of shields and the call to war. The feeling of running across the taiga, beside a hundred others, racing to meet the enemy. It was a good feeling, that. She smiled.
‘Come, brothers. Let us be as the storm wind, and wipe this place clean.’
Pharus stood unmoving as the broken crypts crashed around him, scattering the chainrasps. Another large explosion bit a chunk from the avenue, casting gheists back into the slide of the avalanche. Pharus followed the trajectory and swept his sword out, pointing. ‘There – take them,’ he howled.
He sprang up the incline, racing towards the spot he’d indicated. He could feel the heat of the magics that gathered there. Explosions gnawed at the crypts around him, but he avoided them with ease. He saw the ballista mounted atop the roof of a semi-collapsed crypt, and the other warriors below – Judicators, he thought. No. They weren’t Judicators. These were something else. Reeking of magic.
He raced towards them, but a wall of shields interposed itself with a crash. The shields blazed with celestial light, forcing him to stop short. He stepped back, letting chainrasps flow past him. Some were consumed as they struck the shield wall. Others were torn asunder by the crackling mauls the Stormcasts wielded. But some got past. They crawled over the living warriors, seeking any gap in their war-plate.
He heard the clangour of funerary bells, as a flock of reapers swept through the air, down towards the warriors. The great scythes slashed down, cutting into ensorcelled war-plate in a burst of sparks. Stormcasts fell back, raising their shields to block this new attack. But one of them lunged forwards, out of the press, her maul swinging down.
Pharus avoided the blow, and it shattered part of a nearby statue with thunderclap force. His blade snaked out, scraping a scar across the face of her shield. She retreated. Pharus pursued, his blade held low. He did not waste words on her. The shield was suddenly limned in blue fire, and he shied back, momentarily blinded.
He heard the crackle of the maul as it looped towards him, and ducked away. The radiance of the weapon burned him as it passed by. Half-blind, he drove her back with a wide sweep of his blade. Light washed over him, clearing his eyes. He saw Dohl rise up behind her, and his tomb-blade sweep down. The warrior staggered, and Dohl finished her with a blow from his staff, crushing her skull. Her soul fled upwards with a roar.
‘We are soon to overcome the enemy,’ Dohl said. He swung his staff out, casting the glow of his lantern across the nearby crypts. The Stormcasts were still fighting, but wherever Dohl’s lantern passed, the weakened stone of the tombs shattered, releasing the spirits trapped within. The organised shield wall had dissolved into struggling islands of cobalt light, slowly being swallowed up by the dark.
‘Let us finish this,’ Pharus began. Behind him, something hissed. He turned. There were dozens of cats perched among the tumbledown tombs and archways, glaring hatefully at him. ‘Elya,’ he said. The name tasted strange, on his lips. Why had he said it?
‘What?’ Dohl asked.
‘Pharus?’ a child’s voice called out. The din of battle seemed to die away. The sword in his hand became heavier, threatening to drag him down. The sands sifting within the hourglass sounded like a nest of serpents. Past the cats, he caught sight of a small face, streaked with dirt. A child. A girl.
‘Elya,’ he said, again. Memories fluttered, moth-gentle, across his mind’s eye. He hesitated. ‘You are… Elya.’ The words came out almost as a question. He took a step towards her. The cats hissed again, their eyes gleaming in the light of Dohl’s lantern. She retreated, her eyes wide, face a pale oval.
She fears you. She is nothing. Ignore her.
‘Leave her, my lord,’ Dohl intoned. ‘What is a child, save a morsel of fear?’
‘Quiet,’ Pharus snarled, turning to extend his sword towards Dohl. ‘Quiet,’ he said, to the voice. He turned back and reached out his hand. ‘Elya? Is it you?’ More memories, filling the empty caverns of his mind. ‘Elya… come here.’
Silence, save for the hissing of cats. The child was gone. Fled. He lifted his blade. He was dead, and the dead had no fear, but even so, he felt a certain wariness. There was something at work here that he could not perceive, and it drove him to distraction. ‘Dohl, cast your light. Find her.’
She is not important. Do not turn from your path.
‘She is but one little life, my lord. Leave her, and she will be snuffed with the rest.’
‘Find her!’ Pharus lifted his blade, so that the tip rested where the hollow of Dohl’s throat would have been, if he’d had one. ‘Find her, or I will claim your lantern for my own.’
‘My lord… the battle…’
Pharus turned without a word and sped in the direction he thought the child had gone. He did not know why. He could feel the cold and hunger returning, and his armour felt more like a cage than ever before. He had to fight it to move, even to lift his blade, but a voice deep in him – a different voice, this, to the other – spurred him on, telling him that he had to find her – he had to–