‘Heed my prayers and bestow your grace upon this paladin so he might rise to fight again in your name. Heed me, Sigmar!’ Ionus cried aloud, as black clouds began to gather overhead. ‘Grant us your glory. Bring forth the storm!’
A lightning bolt arced down from the heavens and struck Cryptborn’s hammer. He shuddered as the immortal god-power went through him and into Ithar. Slowly, a cerulean glow began to suffuse the fallen paladin, reknitting the wounds in his flesh.
In moments it was over and Ithar was restored.
Ionus sagged, the effort draining, and glanced at the hourglass he had set down the moment he began. The last few grains trickled down its neck as Ithar sat up.
‘Rise,’ said Ionus, standing himself.
‘Praise the God-King,’ Theodrus murmured, and held his hammer to his chest to venerate the Lord of Storms.
‘We are whole again,’ Ionus told him, although he sounded weary. ‘The tower awaits.’ He spoke to his entire Exemplar Chamber, who had been silently looking on. As if the Lord-Relictor had summoned them, Sturmannon’s Prosecutors swept in from the north.
The gathered paladins made room for them to land. Ionus held his ground, but stood ready to receive them.
‘I bear tidings, Lord-Relictor,’ said Sturmannon.
‘The tower’s garrison?’
‘Is nothing we cannot overcome, but there is something… unnatural about it. This is no mere keep, wrought of stone and metal.’
‘It’s a temple, Sturmannon,’ Ionus told him, in a voice as deathly as the grave, ‘pure and simple. A monument to war, and it must be cast down.’
‘I saw a priest upon the parapet, one who bore a totem that was utterly unlike your reliquary.’
Ionus knew of whom Sturmannon spoke. Ever since they had won the battle on the Igneous Delta, Ionus had wondered what had happened to the blood-priest. Now he knew, and it was ill news indeed.
The brass tower was close. Ionus could feel it, and strove to marshal his violent thoughts, for he knew they were not entirely his own. As he pushed the urge for blood from his mind, as he saw his fellow Stormcast Eternals do, another thought intruded. It slipped in like a shadow, at first unseen but chill as the grave.
A cold, ancient voice echoed in the Lord-Relictor’s skull and the sound of it froze his very marrow.
A tithe is owed. A tithe shall be given.
A soul for a soul.
A hand on Ionus’s shoulder brought him around. At first he thought its fingers were made of bone…
‘Lord-Relictor?’ asked Theodrus, his concern obvious even behind the gold mask he wore.
‘All is well,’ Ionus lied, clapping the Retributor-Prime on his back. ‘All is well. We march. With all haste, brothers.’
Chapter Six
The Red Pyramid
Khul reached his lair on the third day. Grim menhirs stood at the edge of his domain, guarding a red-stained path that fed into an immense flagstoned courtyard. A great archway of stone sat in the middle of it, surrounded by warriors and raised up on a black dais. Beyond that was the Red Pyramid, its great shadow eclipsing all.
There was no fortress, no stronghold as such. Khul had no need for one, such was his dominance of these lands. He had all but conquered the Brimstone Peninsula, but his throne room was little more than a stone chair and the wealth of trophies that surrounded it.
Hordes thronged the courtyard, though they were wise enough to give Khul’s throne a wide berth. They were some of the many warbands he had brought together to form his Goretide. The bloodreavers and Chaos warriors present were but a portion of the martial strength of Khul’s armies.
Blood soaked the warlord’s skin, hair and armour. His skull-mask was flecked with arterial spray. Khul had carved a red ruin across the Brimstone Peninsula, severing heads to satisfy his blinding rages and slake his thirst for retribution.
Throughout this bloody fugue, barely realising the carnage he was reaping, a vision struck Khul over and over like a hammer blow to the skull. More than once, it had staggered the warlord, a bestial roar so powerful it had made his ears bleed and his teeth tremble. It was his god speaking to him. Khul’s head echoed with the promises of Khorne, bellowed from atop the mountain of skulls where the Blood God had fashioned his throne.
Khul saw himself, astride the lofty peak of the Red Pyramid. He had become a true champion of Chaos, axe brandished at the hellish sky, where clouds churned in torment and a crimson rain drenched the land. Khul too was painted red — red with the endless slaughter he had committed in Khorne’s name and red with the Eye of the Gods upon him.
Chosen.
Exalted.
In his mind’s eye, Khul saw himself changed, his human body becoming but a shell for what lurked within. He grew, his flesh stretching and blackening with the hellfire of metamorphosis. Armour plate buckled and then split as a grotesquely enlarged musculature broke through.
Pain.
He gritted his teeth, lurching onto his knees. Hugging his chest, he bent over as two immense wings, black and glossy as obsidian, pierced through the skin of his back and unfurled. Horns sprouted from the bony growths in his temples. Hooves tore his boots to shreds.
When he arose again, he was no longer a man. A dark aura wreathed his iron-hard flesh, and a rugged mane as black as night trailed from his immense head and neck. A giant stood upon the Red Pyramid, and mortals wept at the sight. Khul had ascended to claim a daemonic crown and war by his master’s side forever as a prince of slaughter. Craning back his head, Khul bellowed, and his cry of exultation and fury echoed across the vastness of Aqshy…
Abruptly, Khul’s thoughts returned to what was, not what would be if he were to raise his pyramid of skulls and claim his reward. As he walked the red-stained path, Khul would not forget his promise, nor what had been promised in return.
‘An immortal to crown my tribute, lord…’ he murmured, stepping upon the bone-wrought flagstones of the courtyard.
Grizzlemaw snarled in agreement, as if it had somehow been privy to Khul’s thoughts of ascension. It loped behind the warlord at a short distance, its muzzle and fangs red from feasting. It halted as its master did.
Khul had stopped to regard the gate. It was hard not to, such was its presence, even with the looming Red Pyramid behind it.
The Gate of Wrath was immense, a great and powerful edifice that had stood through the ages and endured wars of conquest. Even from a distance, Khul felt the anger and hatred emanating off the ancient structure. Though carved of stone, it was no mundane ruin. Khorne had whispered to him of its raising. It had been anointed with blood, and its very mortar was human bone meal and ground viscera. The archway held within it a portal. Light bled from it and shadows roamed within this churning miasma of blood, held in place by the confines of the arch. It was a doorway to the Realm of Chaos, and the Blood God’s throne of skulls.
Warriors flocked to this place of loathing and destruction, drawn by its evil, overwhelmed by the bloodlust it evoked.
Hundreds gathered in the shadow of the gate, devouring the battlefield slain, cannibalising hearts torn from the chests of the fallen. Drums fashioned from hollowed-out skulls beat a raucous tattoo in time with the blare of thigh-bone horns. Some danced, a crude and belligerent performance intended to please the Dark Gods and bring their gaze upon the performer. Others fought for favour. Many just took their fill of flesh.