Soul Wars Page 7

  Designed by Sigmar and crafted by Grungni, the Thunder-Gates stood at the heart of the great orrery-bastions that revolved eternally on the outer ring of the palace-city. Each of the bastions was shrouded in a constant cascade of lightning from above. The lightning was caught in the massive, oscillating rings, to be stretched and subsumed, where it did not drip down to crawl in crackling patterns across the stones of the platform.

  Only those clad in blessed sigmarite could pierce the veil of lightning safely and enter the bastions. Thus, these routes were barred to all but the Stormcast Eternals.

  As they crossed the stone walkway that led to one of these orrery-bastions, Balthas cast his gaze over the wheeling stars of the firmament. The skies in Azyr were alive, in some sense. They roiled and crashed like the waves of the sea, albeit silently. Stars flared and dimmed, worlds spun in an eternal dance. Sometimes, if one stared too long into the dark, great, inhuman faces seemed to take shape and look back.

  These days, Balthas knew better than to stare. Whatever watched from behind the veil of stars was far beyond him, and he saw no reason to attract its attention. That was a matter for the gods.

  They stepped through the curtain of lightning, and Balthas felt invigorated by its touch. He raised his hand, drawing it to him and letting it play across the contours of his gauntlet. He released it, as they entered the carefully carved stone archway that led into the orrery-bastion.

  Within was a circular chamber, where the majority of the lightning was drawn down and reflected and refracted among innumerable celestine mirrors. As it shot back and forth, its fury was diffused and used to power the great clockwork mechanisms that clicked and groaned beneath a gigantic dais, composed of a number of concentric rings, which occupied the heart of the chamber. The air was thick with the smell of ozone.

  As they entered the chamber, a heavy figure greeted them. The lord-castellant turned from the array of lightning-powered mechanisms, his face unreadable behind his war-mask. He wore the golden heraldry of the Hammers of Sigmar, and his armour bore the marks of heavy fighting. Only the truly worthy were given the honour of maintaining the orrery-bastions, having proven their valour against incredible odds. Lord-Castellant Gorgus had done that and more, by all accounts.

  ‘Call down the lightning, Gorgus,’ Tyros said, without preamble. ‘We have business above and I would be about it.’

  The lord-castellant set his halberd and studied them ‘I expected you before now,’ he rumbled in a chiding tone. Nearby, a gryph-hound looked up from where it lay on its side, glared at them blearily and then flopped back down with a querulous screech.

  ‘I had to go and dig him out of his books,’ Tyros said.

  Balthas ignored him and greeted the lord-castellant respectfully. ‘My apologies, Gorgus. Time escaped me.’

  Gorgus nodded, as if this was to be expected. He swept his halberd out, indicating the flat dais. ‘Stand at the heart of the dais, lords-arcanum. The Sigmarabulum awaits.’

  They did as he bade. Almost immediately, the dais began to turn. Somewhere below them, gears began to move with a grinding snarl. The rings that made up the outer edge of the dais rose of their own accord, until the whole apparatus resembled an orrery. The rings spun, faster and faster, stretching the lightning between them as they oscillated. In moments, all Balthas could see was a blur of cobalt light, blinding in its intensity.

  ‘I hate this part,’ Tyros growled.

  Balthas said nothing, merely leaning on his staff. Thin strands of lightning played across the raised edges of his war-plate, or coalesced about the tip of his staff. The air tasted of iron and copper, and for a moment, his head felt as if it were stuffed with cotton wool. Then, there was a crash of thunder that shook him to his very bones, and the blue light began to fade. As it did so, the oscillation of the rings slowed and, one by one, they dropped flat, back into place around the dais. When the last glimmer of light had faded, they had arrived on the Sigmarabulum.

  They stood on a wide dais - the mirror of the Thunder-Gate - but it was open to the stars, rather than being contained in a chamber. Flickering azure lanterns lined the path leading away from the dais. There were no guards - at least none that Balthas could see. But he felt them, watching him. The pathways of the storm were never unguarded, and the sentinels of the Sigmarabulum never slept.

  Instinctively, he looked up, his gaze drawn to Mallus, rising above the highest towers of the Sigmarabulum. The red orb hung like a wound in the firmament, shining with a dull radiance. Unlike Sigendil’s light, that radiance brought no certainty or comfort - only sorrow. Mallus was a reminder that the Mortal Realms were but the latest iteration of the universal cycle - and what awaited them, if Sigmar and his chosen warriors failed.

  Balthas stared at the husk of a world and felt as if something were waiting for him there. Part of him longed to walk through the hollow caverns of its core, where Grungni’s lightning-powered automatons excavated raw sigmarite ore. To see and touch the world that had come before all that he knew. All that he thought he knew.

  But he knew better than to hope. Mallus was denied to all, save Sigmar. The most Balthas could hope for was to one day translate and read what few ancient histories of that world yet remained. They were kept locked away, deep in the heart of the Grand Library. Though they were available to any scholar, few could read them. Whatever tongue they had spoken in that distant age, it was all but unintelligible now.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Tyros said, as they descended the steps of the dais. ‘Like a haunting melody you cannot quite recall.’ He peered up at the red world. ‘I hear whispers, sometimes, when I look at it. The prickle of memories from a forgotten life. I think sometimes I might have walked there, in another age.’ He sighed. ‘That cursed light gets in your bones.’

  ‘Maybe it was always there,’ Balthas murmured. He’d often felt as Tyros had - as if Mallus were calling to him. As if he were a part of it, somehow. There were many among the Anvils of the

  Heldenhammer who felt the same. Something in them resonated with the world-that-was, but he could not say why. Balthas pushed the thought aside. He would find no answer to that question today, or possibly ever. ‘Come, brother. We are late.’

  Chapter four

  Chamber of the

  Broken World

  CHAMON, THE REALM OF METAL

  When everything began to shake, Tonst fumbled at the control valves of his aether-endrin and let it carry him back out of the shipwreck, towards his tiny, one-duardin aether-hauler. His elbows scraped against the edges of the hole in the hull of the wreck as he floated free.

  The remains of the Arkanaut Frigate hung awkwardly in the air, its endrin still functioning despite the massive amount of damage the vessel had endured. There was no way to tell what had happened, nor did he particularly care. That it was here, and still might hold something of value, was enough.

  He’d tracked the derelict south, just past the Chimera Isles, following the air currents to where it had at last become snared in the tangle-clouds. What was left of the crew was still scattered about, in messy fashion, and whatever cargo they’d been hauling was relatively intact. Or so he hoped.

  Tonst was a salvager by trade, and he had the certificates to prove it. That they were forgeries mattered not at all, so long as they had the golden stamp of Barak-Urbaz. He’d paid a hefty price for that stamp, but not so much as he would have paid for the real thing. Paper was paper. And salvage was salvage.

  But he forgot all about what treasures the wreck might contain as he emerged and saw that the sky was crawling. ‘Grombrindal’s bones,’ he muttered, watching as the sky’s lustre was hidden beneath an amethyst shroud. The pressure gauges and valves that dotted his suit began to spin crazily, and his beard bristled in unease.

  He’d thought it was just the ship settling, but instead it seemed as if the skies themselves were convulsing. He gritted his teeth and tri
ed to compensate for the rising wind. If he weren’t careful, he might be blown into the side of the wreck, or worse, carried out over the mountains, away from his own vessel. The aether-endrin on his back had seen better decades, and would only keep him aloft for a few hours at a time.

  As he watched, the purple haze filled the sky, staining the clouds and erasing the stars above. The wind rose to a brittle shriek, and he felt a chill in his thick limbs despite his suit’s insulation. It sounded as if the stars were screaming, somewhere out of sight. ‘Get a hold of yourself,’ he muttered, trying to ignore the sense of trepidation that filled him. ‘Are you a beardling, to be frightened of the sky?’

  Resolutely, he turned away, angling himself to float back into the hull. He extricated his anchor from his harness and hooked the edge of the gap. Carefully, he began to reel out the chain. The sky continued to quake, but the wreck seemed sturdy enough. At worst, its endrin would finally fail. If that happened, he would simply release his anchor and float free through one of the great rents in the deck above.

  A fine layer of frost crystals covered everything in the hull, crates and corpses alike. He set down gently, bracing himself for the deck to fall away. When it didn’t, he took a step. Frost crunched beneath his boots as he made his way deeper into the hold. The sun-stones mounted on his harness flickered to life, casting a soft radiance over the contents of the hold. Dozens of broken crates and shattered casks were revealed.

  The wind keened through the wreck, causing scraps of paper and wood to tumble about. Things clattered in the dark, and the deck swayed beneath his feet. He started as the deck dipped and a body slid into view. The crewman had been gutted, his suit ripped open and his torso hollowed out. Frozen blood covered the carcass, and Tonst couldn’t tell what had made the wounds. He swallowed, uneasy.

  It wasn’t likely that whatever had done this was still around. There were cloud-barnacles on the broken planks and no sign of tracks in the frost. Even so, he paused, listening. He’d heard stories about grot raiders, creeping down from the great spore clouds that blossomed in the dark above the highest peaks to set ambushes in floating wrecks.

  But all he heard now was the creaking of the rigging. Through the gaps in the deck above, he caught flashes of amethyst light, cascading upwards. He squinted. Was there something up there, hidden by that glow? And where was it coming from? It looked like no atmospheric distortion he’d ever seen. The information might be of value to-

  Thump.

  Tonst tensed. ‘Just a crate,’ he muttered.

  Thump. Thump.

  He cursed softly and let his lights play across the opposite side of the hold. In the gloom, something moved. A soft sound - a groan? - echoed. ‘A survivor?’ he said, his voice loud in the quiet. He approached the place the sound had come from, moving quickly. A survivor could be bad for business - or exceptionally good, if they were from a sufficiently wealthy family.

  ‘Anyone alive down here?’ he called, hesitantly. ‘If so, I claim salvage rights as per artycle eight, point three…’

  Another groan. Followed by a fumbling sound. He closed in on it, wondering if it was just the wind making a fool of him. His lights fell across another corpse. He stopped. The dead duardin’s boots had twitched. Tonst sighed. A survivor, and a poor one, to judge by his gear’s lack of ornamentation. ‘Just my luck. Well, come on then. Let’s see you, you wanaz…’

  Tonst reached down, and the crewman caught at his wrist. The wounded duardin lurched up, helm crumpled, revealing frost-blackened features. Eyes like misted glass glared sightlessly at him, as teeth champed mindlessly. He jerked back, yelling, as the duardin - not wounded but dead, he realised, dead and moving! - thrashed in pursuit.

  The corpse of the crewman flopped towards him, making gabbling noises that sounded more like a beast than a duardin. Tonst backed away, reaching for his cutter. Something hissed from behind him, and he turned awkwardly, hampered by his endrin. Another crewman crouched atop one of the few intact crates in un-duardin-like fashion. Broken limbs quivered as the corpse crept closer. It lunged, groaning.

  ‘No,’ Tonst snarled, snatching his cutter from its sheath and sweeping it out. His blade sank into the corpse’s chest with a wet crunch, and snagged there. He twisted a control valve and slid away from the stumbling corpse, as others nearby began to twitch and moan. Hands flailed at his boots as he hurtled back the way he’d come, anchor chain clanking in his wake. He caught it up as he half ran, half hopped towards the gap in the hull. The wreck was shaking worse than before, as if it might tear itself to pieces at any moment. Dead crewmen rose around him, lurching into view as he fled.

  He had to get out. Out, out, out!

  He exploded out of the wreck, trying to reel in the anchor. Cold hands groped, catching hold of it. The chain stretched taut. Tonst was jerked to an unsteady halt. He snarled curses as he twisted in place, endrin straining. He flailed at the release catch for the chain, but the sudden halt had jammed it. The chain trembled. He tried to angle himself to see what was happening. When he did, his flailing became more desperate.

  He was still trying to release the chain when they dragged him back.

  THE CHAMBER OF THE BROKEN WORLD,

  THE SIGMARABULUM

  The Chamber of the Broken World occupied the aleph of the Sigmarabulum - the point from which the entirety of the ring, and Mallus itself, could be seen. It sat atop a great tower on the edge of the ring’s inner curve, facing the world-that-was. The Tower of Apogee was said to have been the first part of the Sigmarabulum to be constructed, the seed from which the rest of the ring had grown.

  Smaller towers, connected by hundreds of walkways, spread out around it. Lightning played about the great pylons that crowned each of them, and ran like water down their sides. These were the soul-mills: the storehouses of the slain. Often, fallen Stormcasts could not be immediately reforged - whether due to the sheer number of deaths or some more esoteric reason - and so their souls were instead drawn into the soul-mills, where they waited, unformed, but not necessarily unaware.

  He could hear the towers shaking with the agonised fury of innumerable souls as he and Tyros climbed the steps of the Tower of Apogee. ‘The soul-mills are active, more than I have ever seen,’ he said.

  ‘Count yourself lucky in that regard.’ Tyros steadfastly ignored both the shuddering towers and the muted cries that came from them Despite being reduced to raw soul-stuff, the dead could still scream, and their wails were audible throughout the Sigmarabulum.

  ‘Something is going on - a new push into enemy territory?’

  Tyros grunted. ‘There is always a new push. Something is always going on. We are at war, brother. We fight on multiple fronts, in multiple realms, and every victory is bought at the price of our brothers’ souls.’ He sighed. ‘But such is the way of it - much is demanded of those to whom much is given.’

  Balthas could think of no fitting reply. He turned away from the soul-mills, leaving them to shake and scream as they would. Instead, he took in the tower before him. As ever, its scale staggered him. The wide, slabbed steps, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, spilled down the sides and back of the tower.

  This cascade was broken at regular intervals by great porticos and enormous doorways. These were overlooked by high, semi-enclosed archways, where heavy artillery pieces known as celestar ballistae sat, ready to repel anyone foolish enough to attack the tower. Devised by the war-engineers of the Conclave of the Thunderbolt, the lightning-infused bolts they launched could punch through even the strongest shield, or the scaly hides of the star-born monstrosities that occasionally slunk down from the outer dark.

  When they reached the uppermost portico, where the entrance to the chamber lay, two great clockwork gargants, made from gold and brass, stood to either side of an immense pair of double doors, covered in celestial carvings far beyond the skill of any mortal hand.

  The two false g
argants had been fashioned after the appearance of two of the ancient lords of that race, humbled aeons before by Sigmar. The Twin Kings, Mog and Gamog, had served for centuries as Sigmar’s shield-bearers in penance for their defiance. Both had been slain in those final days before the Gates of Azyr had been sealed, leading their tribes into the safety of Azyr’s mountains. Now, their death-masks adorned two great automatons, crafted by the Six Smiths in honour of the fallen brutes.

  As one, the pair moved to admit the lords-arcanum into the halls beyond. The air shivered with the screech of the massive hinges, and the thunderous whirring of the gargant’s gear-driven limbs as they hauled the doors open. Censers hung from the archway rotated in the sudden breeze, casting lazy comets of sweet-smelling smoke across the air.

  The entry hall beyond the doors was enormous. It stretched beneath a curved roof, decorated with a faded mural depicting celestial phenomena. Great pillars of marble upheld the roof, and at the opposite end of the hall, two huge statues stood to either side of a set of massive double doors. The statues resembled Stormcast Eternals, if highly idealised, and were crouched and bent beneath the weight of the roof above.

  An immense, contiguous bas-relief occupied the walls to either side of them. Among the many thousands of intricately carved figures, Balthas saw not just warriors, but delvers and masons, farmers, harpers and smiths. Not all of them human, but duardin, aelf and others. He spotted a looming gargant and the shuffling lines of the dead, as well. It was as if some unknown craftsman had attempted to capture the soul of the realms - the very stuff of life - in stone. A memory of a golden age, now long past, but preserved for all time.

  Mosaics, crafted from innumerable small, polished stones, covered the floor. These depicted discrete stories rather than the vast sweep of history. Stylised moments of heroism and wonder, like Templesen’s stand at Archiba, or the last charge of the Skyblood clans. Balthas, as ever, found himself distracted by the mosaics. More than once, he fell out of step with Tyros and lagged behind to better study one of the images.