Shadespire: The Mirrored City Read online

Something rumbled in the distance. Like an avalanche, growing louder as it drew closer. Everything was shaking. Sadila heard the servants crying out in terror and the shouts of the household guards. The trees shuddered. Pillars cracked. Dust drifted down like rain. To her, it sounded as if the city were tearing itself apart.

  The mirrors on the walls began to vibrate, one by one.

  The trees had become as black as night.

  The rumbling increased, and she pressed her hands to her ears, trying to block it out. Mekesh was shouting something, but she couldn’t hear him. Her eyes were drawn to the trees, seeking some sign of her father, or any of the dead.

  The trees cracked, splintered and came apart. They collapsed, spilling across the floor in a gleaming wave. Shards of black skidded towards her and she stumbled back, nearly crashing into Mekesh. Her ears and teeth ached as the rumbling enveloped her, drowning out all other sensation. She wanted to look away from the shards of the shattered trees, but could not. There was something, or perhaps many things, moving deep within each facet.

  Mekesh had her arm. He tried to yank her away, but she tore herself loose from his grip and fell to her hands and knees. She groped for a shard of glass and picked it up in trembling hands.

  Out of the dark, something rose towards her, its eyes shining like twin suns of amethyst. So immense was it that only parts of it were visible in the scattered facets of shadeglass – the flare of its gaze, the flash of bone, the jagged outline of a tooth, a monstrous jigsaw of leviathan proportions. Her hands went numb and her heart strained in its cage of bone, as if it were a frightened bird seeking flight.

  She moaned at the sight of the thing, stretched across the remnants of the grove. She looked up and saw that it was in every mirror. Every piece of shadeglass, no matter how small, held some fragment of the monstrous immensity.

  She turned, a question on her lips, but Mekesh was gone. Fled. She already knew the answer, regardless. No native of Shyish, whether highborn or low, could fail to recognise the one who claimed dominion over their days and nights, from the moment of their birth to their final breath. Nagash had come. The Undying King stood at the gates of the deathless city.

  His voice tolled in the deep, echoing out of every quivering pane like black thunder.

  You have been judged and found wanting. And so, the sentence is passed.

  As those hateful words reverberated through her, she heard the first crack as the mirrors in the walls and pillars shattered. It was soon followed by more – a cacophony of destruction, a shattersong that stretched past the limits of her perceptions, rippling outwards and away in every direction at once, throughout the city and perhaps beyond.

  She heard the first cries from the streets outside, a communal wail of animal panic soon swept under the impossible crash of an ocean of glass. It resounded through the stones and up through her limbs, shaking her to her core. The sound of it sliced the very air and filled the gaps with the howls of the dead as their sanctuary was shattered by the hand of a god.

  The shard in her hands splintered and came apart, cutting into her flesh. She let it sift between her bloody fingers like sand. The Undying King had spoken.

  Beyond the pillars, shadows crawled. And a city screamed.

  Chapter one

  SHADOWED STREETS

  Bravery killed as quickly as cowardice in those shadowed streets.

  – Palem Bok

  Idle Reminiscences of the Book Trade

  The attack, when it came, was not entirely unexpected. The bloodreavers had been shadowing Seguin Reynar and his men for days, their hunting ululations echoing through the ruins of Shadespire, setting the carrion birds to flight. He didn’t know why the cannibals were after them, in particular – there was easier meat to be had in the rubble-strewn alleyways – but he’d learned not to waste time worrying about such things.

  It didn’t matter why – it just mattered when and where.

  When turned out to be now, and where was a decrepit, dust-choked avenue beneath the hollow gazes of the statues that lined either side. The statues observed the massacre with silent detachment, hooded heads bowed over clasped hands. And it was a massacre. Five men against nearly twice that number of gore-locked savages had little chance. Hardened killers though they were, Reynar and his men could not match the sheer ferocity of their attackers. Thus, one by one they fell, until only two of their number remained. Reynar himself and the Ghurdish hillman Utrecht.

  ‘I told you we shouldn’t have bought a map from a man named Nechris,’ Utrecht growled as a barbed axe bit into the embossed face of his shield. ‘You’ve put us right in the soup this time, captain.’ He shoved his opponent back and plied his own axe to better effect, removing his attacker’s arm at the shoulder joint.

  ‘We’re here, aren’t we?’ Reynar snapped. ‘And stop calling me captain.’ He twisted aside as a crude blade chopped down at him. He saw an opening and lunged. His blade, proper Aqshian steel, sank easily into his opponent’s scarified flesh, releasing a torrent of blood. The reaver sagged with something that might have been a groan – or a laugh. Reynar lashed out with his boot and kicked the dying man off his blade. There were four bloodreavers left now. Bad odds, but better than before.

  ‘Captain you were, captain you’ll be,’ Utrecht said, flattening a reaver with a sweep of his shield. Born in the hinterlands of Ghur, Utrecht was head and hands taller than his opponents, and built thick. He was like a bear fighting wolves. His bare arms were marked by scars, both ritual and earned in battle. He wore a crude mail hauberk and a round helm decorated with the fangs of some beast he’d slain. His axe was a long-handled, single-bladed thing that would have taken most men two hands to properly wield. But Utrecht wasn’t most men. He boasted that he’d shed blood in three realms and ruled kingdoms in two of them. Sometimes, Reynar even believed him.

  Reynar was shorter than his companion, but no less deadly. He fought the way a miser spent money – carefully, and with an eye on getting back twice the value he put in. That was the Freeguild way. Never risk more than you could afford, and make them pay in blood. His sword slashed out in short, looping arcs. Aqshian steel held its edge longer than most and would cut bone the third time, or the twenty-third, as easily as it had the first. ‘We’re deserters, remember?’ he said, backing away from a hulking bloodreaver.

  The warrior bore slave markings beneath the scars. He grinned, displaying broken teeth, and hefted a crude sword, probably stolen from some previous victim. ‘Blood for the god of battle,’ he ­mumbled through gnawed lips. ‘Skulls for his throne.’

  ‘Find another one,’ Reynar said. ‘I’m still using mine.’ He jerked aside as the bloodreaver’s blade swept down, shivering to fragments against the stones of the street. He staggered, off balance, and Reynar thrust his blade up through his opponent’s ribcage. The bloodreaver clawed at him, gurgling imprecations, and bore him backwards against the base of a statue. Reynar’s back spasmed as he struck the stone, his duardin-made hauberk doing little to protect him from the force of the impact. Cursing, he drove a fist into the warrior’s head, to no avail.

  The bloodreaver grinned at him as he dragged himself along Reynar’s blade, further impaling himself. ‘Blood and skulls,’ he croaked, scrabbling at Reynar’s throat. His grip was like iron, and Reynar found himself unable to breathe. Desperate now, his sword arm pinned to his chest, he fumbled for the hilt of his dagger.

  The world started to go black at the edges, like paper caught in a fire. His lungs strained. He saw death in his opponent’s eyes, and something else over his shoulder. A face – a woman? – watching from the other side of the street. She stood in a doorway, half-hidden in shadow, her eyes gleaming like black opals. He blinked, and she was gone.

  Finally his fingers scraped the pommel of his dagger. He snatched the thin blade from its sheath and stabbed it into the side of the bloodreaver’s neck, trying for an artery. Blood spu
rted, and the savage staggered back, dragging Reynar after him. Reynar twisted the knife, trying to find something vital. The bloodreaver gargled hymns to the Blood God as he sank back, his grip finally loosening enough for Reynar to free himself. He stepped away, breathing heavily, as his attacker slumped into the sand. Utrecht laughed.

  ‘Well done, captain.’

  Reynar glared at him. Utrecht had killed the rest of their foes while he’d been otherwise occupied. ‘If you were bored, you could have helped.’

  ‘What, and steal your kill? You’d never forgive me.’

  Reynar didn’t reply. He looked around. The rest of his band were dead, and no sense checking to make sure, the way the bloodreavers had hacked them apart. Kuzman, Dollac… even Hakharty. He paused, looking down at the last, his chest caved in by an axe blow, the hilt of his broken sword still in one hand.

  Hakharty had been the youngest, a drummer boy in the armies of Azyr, before Utrecht and Kuzman had filled his head with stories of fabulous plunder and taught him every sin they knew. They’d come a long way since then. Across three realms, and over the bodies of more men than Reynar had ever killed in Sigmar’s name. Hakharty had killed his share. He had been lethal with a blade. But not lethal enough.

  ‘He died well, for an Azyrite,’ Utrecht said.

  ‘There’s no good way to die, hillman.’ Reynar looked back towards the doorway where he’d seen the woman. Where he thought he’d seen the woman. She wasn’t there now, if she ever had been. One more phantom in a city of such. Shadespire had more than its share of ghosts. Overhead, something shrieked. He looked up.

  Carrion birds sat atop the statues and on the broken archways, watching them. One croaked, and the others picked up the call, singing a song as old as war itself. Long shadows stretched, sliding across the bone-strewn street and making it seem as if the statues were stirring. Reynar felt a chill and looked away.

  ‘Shame about Kuzman,’ Utrecht said. ‘The little Ghyranite was a good cook.’

  ‘He was a terrible cook.’

  ‘But he was willing,’ Utrecht grinned. ‘More than can be said about us.’

  ‘I’m in charge,’ Reynar said. ‘Man in charge doesn’t cook.’

  ‘I know your tricks, captain. You’re only in charge when it suits you.’

  Reynar glanced at him. ‘Then why follow me all the way across the desert?’

  ‘It was getting dull, fighting beastkin for Azyrite coin. No sport in it.’

  ‘And is this better?’

  ‘Much.’ Utrecht laughed.

  Howls sounded, somewhere nearby. More bloodreavers. Reynar sheathed his weapons. ‘Come on. Time to go. We get back to camp, grab what we can and go.’

  ‘Are you certain? We could stay and kill a few more, if you like.’

  ‘Stay or follow as it suits you, Utrecht. I’m not your captain anymore, remember?’ Reynar set off down the avenue, back towards their campsite, moving as quickly as he dared. There were more dangers in the ruins than just bloodreavers. Blood and death were in ready supply here, but so far there was a distinct paucity of the riches he’d been hoping for.

  He’d come to the ruins of Shadespire hoping to make his fortune. Though the city was no more than a hollow skeleton half buried in the desert, it was said that the treasures of antiquity remained untouched in its vaults and crypts. The wealth of untold empires, waiting for a clever man to find it.

  Reynar had been certain he was that man. It was starting to look as if fate had other ideas. So he did what he always did when his luck turned.

  He ran.

  Isengrim growled in frustration. He looked over the dead, irritated that none had fallen by his axe. ‘Too slow,’ he muttered. Then, more loudly, ‘You were too slow.’ He turned and looked at his followers, who edged back in a suitably chastised fashion. They had arrived in a howling tumult, expecting enemies to slay.

  Instead, they’d found only the dead and carrion birds. Eight of his warriors to claim three skulls. A bad bargain. ‘Weak,’ he said, looking down at the body of one of his men. ‘They were weak. You were slow.’ He spoke slowly, scanning their ranks, gauging their value. Then, without warning, he beheaded the closest of them – a pale-skinned northerner whose head rolled off his neck as blood gushed, filling the air with its sweet, hot stink. Nine dead now. He had fifteen left. That was enough.

  He wiped gore from his face and growled again. ‘Too slow. They’ve escaped.’

  ‘There is other prey,’ Morgash said. A heavy brute with ash-marked skin and teeth capped in brass, Morgash liked to think of himself as Isengrim’s champion. But in truth, he was a rival. Morgash thought the Blood God smiled on him. And maybe Khorne did. But that didn’t mean Isengrim wouldn’t take his head if it proved necessary.

  ‘Not this prey.’ He stooped and picked up a chunk of shadeglass, broken underfoot during the confrontation. Something pale flashed within its dark facets, and he felt a chill. For an instant, it had seemed as if someone were looking at him from within the glass.

  He’d heard the stories passed about the tribal fires by champion and slave alike. That there were dead souls trapped in the shards of black glass scattered across the city. That if you looked too closely, the Undying King could trap you as well, or drive you mad. He growled and tossed the shard aside. Such tales did not frighten him. He feared neither the dead nor their god.

  ‘Why? You bring us from our hunting grounds for what? Weak men.’ Morgash hawked and spat, showing what he thought of that. ‘We could have rejoined the joyous slaughter at the western palisades and taken skulls in Khorne’s name again. Instead, we stand here, following your fever dreams.’ Several warriors murmured in agreement.

  Isengrim studied Morgash, wondering if the day of days had come at last. The mantle of chieftain could only be bought in blood. He smiled thinly. ‘If they were weak, they wouldn’t have escaped. If they were weak, they wouldn’t have made it across the desert.’

  A murmur swept through his warriors at that. Morgash fell silent, but glowered at him. Isengrim turned away. ‘Urok,’ he said. Urok was his second-in-command, a rangy southron with grey in his tangled mane and beard. Urok was older than most – a survivor. Not a coward, for cowards didn’t survive. But careful.

  ‘My chieftain?’ Urok asked as he brusquely pushed past Morgash, earning himself an irritated glare. Isengrim watched the interaction, smiling widely.

  ‘Bring me Hthara,’ he said. ‘Bring me the witch. Now.’

  Urok turned, bellowing for the witch to be brought forward. They never went anywhere without her these days. One did not discard a god’s gifts. Not unless they couldn’t keep up. Isengrim turned back to the dead, replaying the battle in his head. He could tell how it had gone from where the bodies had fallen and the tracks in the dust.

  He stepped forward, following one set of tracks in particular. He avoided imaginary blows and returned them in kind. The warrior he hunted was fast – but fought without flourish. His steps were like a weasel’s war dance. Quick, always in motion, but always going in the same direction. Calculated. Isengrim’s smile widened.

  Morgash was wrong. This prey was strong, though lacking in courage. His death would be a good death, however swiftly he ran from it. A hard death, full of screaming and blood. Such men did not die quietly. Of course, Khorne would not have sent him the witch if his prey were a weakling. From behind him sounded a clank of chains, and he turned.

  Hthara came unresisting. Brass chains connected to a collar of iron bound the woman’s hands and feet, and her robes were stiff and stained with old blood, their original hue lost. Ravaged sockets peered out unseeing from within a ragged hood. She claimed to have looked full upon Khorne in all his glory and plucked out her own eyes as penance and sacrifice both. But the red mists of the Blood God’s kingdom were still in her – insensate, but ready to be awoken at the call of the worthy.

  Ise
ngrim was worthy. He knew this, because Hthara had sworn it was so, and she was too frightened of him to lie. He watched as Hthara’s keepers brought her forward and forced her to crouch before him. ‘Witch. Was my prey here?’ He asked the question knowing the answer, but his warriors would need convincing. They lacked his certainty.

  Hthara sniffed the air. ‘I will need a sacrifice,’ she croaked, pulling her cloak tight about her wasted form. ‘Blood and offal, to draw Khorne’s eye.’

  Isengrim nodded. ‘You shall have it.’ He paused. ‘Morgash.’

  Morgash blinked. ‘What?’

  Isengrim spun, axe looping out in a wide arc. Morgash parried the blow with his own crude blade but was rocked back on his heels. He wasted no time, hurling himself at his chieftain. Their dance was short, but bloody. Most of it was Morgash’s. He was too slow. Too eager. He’d thought himself blessed, but Isengrim had been chosen.

  Isengrim ducked a blow that would have split his skull, and ripped open Morgash’s belly in return. Morgash grunted and stumbled, one hand fumbling at the wet loops of pink intestine that bulged from his abdomen. His weapon fell from his hand. ‘Blood and offal,’ Isengrim said as he cast aside his axe and lunged. Grabbing handfuls of innards, he wrenched them loose from Morgash’s stomach, eliciting a howl of agony.

  Morgash clawed at him, but Isengrim kicked him to his knees and looped the intestines about his neck. They were too soft, too fragile, to make a proper garrotte, but it was about spectacle rather than effectiveness. Bunching the guts in one hand, he hooked the fingers of his other into Morgash’s eyes. The warrior’s screams became squeals. He flailed and thrashed, but Isengrim had him caught fast.

  Morgash’s blood splattered into the dust, turning the pale grey brown. When he’d ceased struggling, Isengrim hauled back on his head, hard enough to snap his neck. He pitched the body forward and kicked it onto its back. He gestured with a gory hand. ‘Offal and blood, witch. Find me my path. Find me my prey.’