Shadespire: The Mirrored City Read online

  He gestured for silence, and several of his warriors beat the hounds until their whines ceased. Silence reigned for long moments. Isengrim’s frustration built, and he raised his axe, ready to smash another mirror. And then she was there, smiling at him. A pale face, thin and narrow, like a blade. He hesitated, taken aback. It wasn’t often that someone looked pleased to see him. ‘What are you? Some spirit?’ He turned, seeking Hthara. The witch huddled into herself, not meeting his gaze. She could barely stand, having been run to her limit by the chase. ‘What is this sorcery, witch?’

  ‘When the dead speak, the wise do not listen, my chieftain,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘It lies. It seeks to trap you–’

  To lead you… to show you…

  Hthara flinched with every word. She reeked of fear. Isengrim turned back to the glass. ‘Show me what?’

  Your prey…

  Isengrim growled, low in his throat. ‘Where?’

  She vanished, like a mirage in the desert. One moment there, the next gone. His eyes widened in growing fury. Then her voice echoed again, slipping across the air.

  Follow me… follow me…

  He saw the woman, running away from him through a fractal reflection. The hounds stirred and started running after her, evidently having caught the scent. They bayed in joyous hunger, and he started after them, Urok and the others on his heels. As he ran, Isengrim saw that the woman was keeping pace, running lithely through the panes of glass to either side of him. She was laughing, though he couldn’t hear her.

  He was no fool. He had shed enough blood in Shadespire to know that nothing he saw was to be trusted. But the thought of his prey escaping again had driven wisdom from him. Khorne had demanded a skull, and Isengrim would gift it to him. Not for gain, or for fear, but because it was his duty. It was why he had been dragged from the field of battle. It was why he had survived. One skull was the price, and he would pay it or lose his own in the process. A fair bargain, by any standard.

  ‘Follow her,’ he roared, glancing back and shaking his axe. His warriors bellowed in response. Behind him, he could see Hthara chained to the back of a bulky bloodreaver. She was murmuring silently – praying, perhaps, or cursing his name. He didn’t care either way.

  Their reflections stretched as they ran after the spirit-woman, as if the substance of the mirrors were loath to let them go. The city was a predator – hungry, and savage in its hunger. Isengrim could feel it stirring, and knew, with the certainty of one who has spoken to gods, that something was occurring. Something unseen. The wind had shifted, and the street trembled as if in anticipation.

  And then, as suddenly as she had appeared, the spirit-woman was gone. Isengrim slowed and felt a chill course through him. The streets branched away in so many directions that he had no patience for counting them all. His warriors murmured, their unease growing as they realised how their surroundings had changed. The hounds whined and circled, unable to find the scent. Some of them were missing. He could hear them yelping mournfully, but it was as if they were leagues away. The sound echoed through the labyrinthine streets.

  He heard the sound of stones shifting, cascading across one another, but saw nothing save shadowed reflections in the broken panes hanging from the walls. ‘A trap?’ he murmured, and shook his head. The whole city was a trap. ‘Urok, bring me the witch.’

  No reply. He turned. ‘Urok,’ he growled. The others turned as well, searching. It wasn’t just hounds that were missing. Half their number was gone, Urok and Hthara among them. Isengrim snarled. He shoved his way through those who remained and found that the way they’d come from had become a cul-de-sac. The wind slithered through the street, carrying the soft hint of laughter.

  ‘Tricked,’ he said. Hthara had been right, curse her.

  Suddenly, something reached from one of the panes of glass and caught a bloodreaver by the hair, pale things like wisps of frost catching at his arms and legs. He screamed, desperately hacking at his own scalp. Isengrim started towards him, pushing through the others, but arrived too late. The warrior fell into the pane like a man falling into a lake. The glass cracked and swelled, absorbing the struggling bloodreaver into itself with what might have been a contented sigh.

  As Isengrim reached the pane, he saw the unlucky warrior tumbling away, growing smaller and smaller, as if he were falling into some great abyss. ‘The glass,’ he growled as he whirled to face his remaining warriors. ‘Shatter the glass – quickly!’

  Only silence greeted him. He saw them clearly enough, but they were all on the other side of the pane, each warrior caught in a reflection of the street. They looked around, seeming to call out or bellow in defiance. But he heard nothing. As one, they began to run away from him, down their lost and twisting streets.

  Isengrim howled in fury. But even his voice was muted here, swallowed up by the glass. More laughter greeted his cry. He spun, seeking its origin. The sound seemed to echo from all directions, filling his ears and drowning out everything save the thunder of his own pulse.

  There was glass all around him, above and below. The facets shifted with a harsh, metallic rasp as they began to converge on him from all directions. He saw his face glaring at him from a hundred points, and heard his own curses echoed.

  He tried to back away, but the way he’d come was gone, lost in shimmering convulsion. The walls of the passage narrowed, as if the glass were contracting about him. The panes cracked and splintered, thrusting jagged spikes towards him.

  Incensed, he swung his axe out and hacked at the extrusions. They gave way with a sound like a scream, fragments swirling into the dark as if caught in a whirlwind. For a moment, he thought he saw a face that was not his own reflected in them, but then the winds caught him and he was drawn inexorably towards the splintered glass and the starless void beyond.

  Chapter four

  FRESH MEAT

  There is a magic in the act of eating.

  To consume is to assume the mantle of the consumed.

  – Lady Emalia Grimsour

  A Lady’s Concise History of Shyish

  Reynar stumbled into the dark. He could hear Utrecht’s bellows, somewhere close and yet impossibly far. Light and dark mingled, split and merged again all around him. There was something beneath his feet, but it wasn’t stone or bone. It crunched like glass and shifted with every step, like sand. It threatened to drag him under if he stopped moving. Wherever he turned, his own face, distorted and fragmented, looked back at him.

  A strong wind howled against him, as if trying to simultaneously force him back and drag him on. There were voices in it – screams, whispers, a cacophony of cries, drawn up from vast depths and hurled forcefully against his ears. Shards of flying glass plucked at his arms and cheeks, drawing blood.

  He staggered on, shielding his eyes. He didn’t know where he was going, or what lay ahead. He knew only that he must move. He could not stay where he was. To either side of him, darkness hung thick between the mirrored shards, and he thought great shapes moved in it. Things larger than cities, larger than mountains, great serpentine shapes undulating in an abyss of shadow. He felt the path bow and crackle as they passed beneath it, and his myriad reflections cringed, as if privy to the true nature of the unseen leviathans.

  Ahead of him, the swirling lights coalesced into the ghost of a city. Jagged towers rose like lightning, but all other detail was lost in the glare. The path he was on was like a narrow causeway, stretching across the void towards the distant city. The dark pressed close, and it had become hard to breathe. Reynar stumbled as the pathway crumbled beneath him, fragments of glass spinning away into the void. He teetered, off balance.

  The city seemed impossibly far away, trapped between a gleam of light and a fold of shadow. In the dark below, indistinct shapes rose as if suddenly aware of him, and he felt a thrill of atavistic fear. The sword in his hand felt heavy, useless. Around him, his reflections c
owered or fled. Were they him, or was he one of them? Which of them was the real him? For a moment, he could not tell. Reflections fell away into the dark, and he thought he heard himself scream.

  The path convulsed, and shards of glass rose up around him, enveloping him. He felt himself dragged forward towards the gleaming phantom city, as if caught in a riptide. A wave of shards bowled him under and he lost sight of everything save his own distorted reflection, grimacing at him. Light swelled, filling every crack and facet.

  Suddenly, he was shooting forward, almost faster than he could stand. The glass swirled about and scattered, revealing a vortex of stone – columns, pillars, archways and steps, all tangled about him in a never-ending tunnel of distorted architecture. He realised that the city – once so far away – was now spreading out before him, unfurling like a great tapestry. He saw towers that thrust at him like teeth in the maw of some great beast, and the undulations of immense walls. Gateways groaned open beneath him, and statues clamoured at the edges of his vision, reaching out with stony hands as he fell past them.

  A cold wind swept up around him, catching him like a leaf. There was the sound of a mirror shattering, and then he was sliding across a slope of dust and stone. He rolled down, stopping only when he struck the broken remains of a pillar. Blood dripped from hundreds of small cuts on his limbs and face. His body aching, he waved a hand, trying to clear the dust thrown up by his arrival.

  As it thinned, he heard the crunch of something drawing near. He groped for his sword, snatching it up from where he’d dropped it. Hauling himself to his feet, he coughed out a challenge. ‘Stop where you are.’

  ‘Captain? Is that you?’

  Reynar blinked dust from his eyes. ‘Utrecht?’

  ‘It’s me, captain.’ Utrecht staggered towards him, his normal boisterousness subdued. He’d lost his helm, and his face was marred by cuts similar to Reynar’s own. He looked around, wide-eyed. ‘Where are we?’

  Reynar turned, taking in their surroundings. They stood on a hill of broken rock and bone fragments that slid away into gloomy streets below. Around them was a labyrinth of endless stairs that rose up into shadowed heights or fell away out of sight. Cramped streets and soaring archways rose at wrong angles, bent and twisted as if by the hand of a giant. Pillars and shards of shadeglass were everywhere, underfoot or rising high. In the distance, he could make out high causeways stretching over the city like a spider’s web.

  It was as if someone had folded a city in on itself and then twisted it about. Above them, nestled among a thicket of stairways and jutting statuary, a vast archway sprouted from a sideways lintel. Within the archway, a cracked pane of shadeglass slowly reformed itself with a creeping surety that sent a chill through Reynar.

  He heard a whisper of laughter, snatched away by the chill wind that curled about them. His breath blossomed before him, and he noted patches of hoarfrost on nearby stones. ‘I think…’ he began.

  ‘Welcome, friends, welcome!’ a voice called out. Reynar cursed and turned. A lean shape was clambering up the slope towards them. Utrecht scraped the edge of his axe against his shield and Reynar glanced at him.

  ‘More of them, captain. They’re all around us.’

  Utrecht was right. Reynar could see more shapes climbing the slope out of the mist that bunched and coiled in the shadowed streets. They emerged from cracked archways and darkened apertures, slinking into view with a sort of manic eagerness.

  Utrecht stared up. ‘Look,’ he murmured.

  Reynar followed his gaze and saw more shapes, clambering easily along the closest of the upside-down stairways. Men and women, clad in colourless rags and bits of tattered armour. They murmured among themselves, and he was suddenly reminded of the colonies of bats that had made Shadespire’s ruins their home. These newcomers dropped to the slope as the others climbed to where he and Utrecht stood.

  The one who’d spoken smiled welcomingly, displaying a mouthful of brown teeth. ‘Welcome, my lords, welcome.’ The smile slipped. ‘And apologies. For if you are here, you are surely damned.’

  ‘Damned?’ Reynar said, lifting his sword. The lean man stopped and sidled to the side. Reynar followed him with the point of his blade. ‘What do you mean? Where are we?’

  ‘You have the look of men of the world, my lord. Tell me, does Glymmsforge still stand? When I left it, dead men were capering on its walls.’

  ‘It was still standing, last I heard,’ Reynar said, glancing at Utrecht. ‘How did you come here?’

  The lean man gestured upwards. ‘The same way you did, I expect. Through a mirror of shadeglass, in my lodgings – a desperate flight into the unknown, as fleshless hands knocked upon my door.’ He flung out his hands in a theatrical manner. ‘You are in Shadespire, my lords.’

  ‘We’ve been in Shadespire for weeks, and I do not recognise this place,’ Utrecht growled. He turned slightly, trying to keep the lean man’s companions in sight. There were dozens of them, pouring out of their holes like vermin. Reynar felt disgust at the sight of them. They looked like beggars, or victims of famine. Knobbly limbs and hollow cheeks, febrile eyes and chapped lips. Some carried weapons, though many had nothing. They circled the two men, murmuring and muttering.

  ‘And yet, the evidence is before you,’ the lean man said. He had drawn closer to Utrecht. ‘Here is the glory of that lost city trapped between shadow and light. Long did I study the ancient texts, and I know whereof I speak.’ He bowed, almost mockingly. ‘A humble scribe, that is me. Not a brawny warrior, like yourself. But no less skilled, in my area.’ He smiled again, ingratiatingly. ‘I could explain more, if you’d like. I have acted as shepherd and guide for many a lost soul since I found myself trapped here.’

  ‘Trapped,’ Reynar echoed. Something in him curdled at the word. They had been led into a trap. He looked around and saw that the others were drawing close. Too close. He tensed, and tried to catch Utrecht’s eye.

  ‘Yes, sadly,’ the man said. He did not sound sad. Not at all. ‘We are lost, caught up in the wrath of a god, and what man might resist that?’

  Utrecht turned. ‘I don’t like this, captain. Perhaps we should go.’

  ‘There is nowhere to go, my friends,’ the man said. ‘Nowhere at all.’ He moved so quickly, Reynar barely saw him – faster than a man ought to move. The blade was in his hand and then in Utrecht’s back before he could speak. It slid between the rings of the big man’s hauberk and sank into his flesh. The hillman bellowed in pain and turned, the rim of his shield caving in the lean man’s skull. As their leader fell, the others swarmed over him, blades in their hands. Utrecht killed one, and then the others were stabbing at him.

  Several moved towards Reynar, seeking to cut him off from aiding Utrecht. He cursed as he realised that he’d allowed himself to become isolated. He parried a blow and chopped down the closest of them. ‘Hold on, Utrecht,’ he shouted. He drove an elbow into the face of another, but more pressed in, driving him back. They felt soft, like bodies left too long in the water.

  Utrecht was screaming. He’d fallen back, off balance. Knives rose and fell as the jackals overwhelmed the lion through sheer numbers. His axe fell away with a clang as he collapsed, borne down by the sheer weight of his attackers.

  ‘No,’ Reynar said, his voice loud in his ears. Utrecht had stopped screaming, hidden beneath a pile of thin forms. Reynar heard the sounds of meat tearing and bone popping. Utrecht was dead. Had to be dead.

  ‘Yes,’ a haggard woman said, waving a knife at him. ‘This is what happens to meat.’ She smiled at him and darted forward. He split her skull and kicked the body aside. He began to back away, trying to keep the others in sight.

  ‘Get away from me,’ he said harshly. ‘Stay back.’

  ‘Fresh meat,’ a man said, gasping the words. ‘Meatmeatmeat…’

  Others joined him in his savage chant as they closed in on Reynar. He slashed his sword ou
t, forcing them to retreat. But not for long. Others rose from Utrecht, faces and hands bloody. ‘Still hungry,’ one moaned. ‘Always hungry.’

  Reynar glanced around, trying to find an escape route. But there was nowhere to go. Everywhere he looked, the cannibals pressed close. Hands grabbed at him, pulling him this way and that. He lashed out with fist and blade, but they had no fear of either.

  Teeth sank into his forearm and he kicked out, catching their owner in the gut. Arms snaked around his throat and shoulders, trying to drag him down. More teeth caught him on the leg, the hand, the ear. Fingers clawed at his face and hair, rancid breath washing over him. They were going to eat him alive.

  Reynar screamed, not in defiance so much as frustration. He’d come so far, and achieved so little. The gods weren’t fair. He knew that. But still, he railed against it. Cursing, he slashed his blade out, ­slicing a throat and opening a gap in the tangle of limbs and jaws. He bulled through, hurling himself away. He rolled across the ground, and they flung themselves after him, laughing and howling. He kicked at them, trying to drive them back long enough to get his feet under him. But they didn’t let up.

  Fists thudded into his legs and torso, and someone kicked his head. He hacked at them blindly. Fingers wriggled around his throat, squeezing. Teeth filled his vision, growing larger as they drew closer. Then there was a sound like an axe striking a log, and the teeth were suddenly spattering across his face as their owner’s skull crumpled and split. He stared at the point of a sword as it was wrenched free of the man’s head. A golden giant towered over him. ‘Do you live, mortal?’ the Stormcast Eternal rumbled. Reynar gaped up at him.

  The cannibals hurled themselves at the newcomer, and the Stormcast roared and swept his massive two-handed blade out, leaving an arc of red in its wake. Broken bodies tumbled away, but more of them threw themselves forward in a frenzy. A thunderous crash rolled over the plaza, and Reynar saw another Stormcast bound up the slope of rubble, her shield thrust out to smash aside anyone in her path. She pivoted, crushing skulls and snapping bones with every swing of her warhammer. ‘Obryn, get him to his feet. I’ll aid Severin!’