‘If I were, you would be the first I’d call for, Briaeus. Now, tell me,’ Pharus said, clasping the Retributor-Prime’s forearm. ‘I heard the bells.’
‘The sleepers have awoken,’ the big warrior rumbled. ‘The lesser dead, all throughout the catacombs. It’s as if someone reached into every mausoleum and tomb, and shouted them awake, all at once.’ He glanced up and quickly stepped to the side as a chunk of masonry crashed down and shattered. ‘And the catacombs are coming apart at the seams.’
‘They’ll survive,’ Pharus said confidently.
‘That’s not what I am worried about,’ Briaeus growled. ‘These quakes are tearing open even the most tightly sealed of the tombs – there are things abroad in these tunnels that should not walk.’ He hefted the struggling deadwalker and shook it, as if for emphasis. Its spine snapped, and the Retributor slung it away from him with a growl of disgust.
‘What could be worse than walking corpses?’ Calys asked.
Somewhere, out among the tombs, something screamed. A long, low wail of desolation, echoing down through the broken hummocks of stone. Pharus looked at Calys. ‘I expected you to know better than to ask such a thing, and here, of all places.’
Calys shook her head. ‘My apologies.’
Above them, specks of witch-light danced through the tombs. Behind them, a great clamour rose from the abyss, as of many muffled voices, shouting in their confinement. Pharus glanced uneasily past the pillared supports of the ramparts, at the edge of the pit. Briaeus was right. It was as if something had woken all of the dead beneath Glymmsforge.
‘Is this some… spell, perhaps?’ Briaeus asked.
Pharus shook his head. ‘If so, it’s unlike any we’ve seen before.’
Another scream sounded. More voices were added to that hellish choir. They echoed throughout the chamber and were joined by others from elsewhere. It sounded as if the entirety of the catacombs were howling.
‘Lord-castellant – look.’ Calys pointed.
Something like a mist had begun to drift down the slope, gathering speed. It flooded between the tombs and swept through the shattered gateways, pouring down over the broken porticos. Motes of violet light swirled within it, growing brighter as it drew closer to the Stormcasts. Pharus slammed the ferrule of his halberd down on the ground. ‘Form up, form up. Shields to the fore!’
Liberators hurried to form a shield wall. Pharus was pleased to see Calys take her place, without waiting for his order. Sigmarite war-shields were locked together to form an unbreakable bulwark. Judicators raised their bows and sent a volley of crackling arrows arcing over the heads of the Liberators. The arrows sped down, and muffled explosions of lightning flared briefly beneath the mist. Undaunted, it rolled on, picking up speed, as the screaming intensified.
Pharus grunted. That wasn’t good. ‘Brace and hold,’ he snarled. Briaeus and his Retributors stepped forwards, lightning hammers at the ready.
‘I prefer deadwalkers,’ the Retributor-Prime said.
‘So do I,’ Pharus said. He lifted his halberd. At his side, Grip crouched, feathers stiff, tail lashing. The gryph-hound whined shrilly as the mist billowed down the crest of the slope and spilled over the buttresses. There were distorted faces in its convolutions. Wide, howling mouths and bulging eyes that swelled, split and disgorged more of the same. A constant, churning mass of spectral agony.
Nighthaunts. Hideous spirits that had no corporeal body to speak of. Some were the restless souls of the wrongfully dead, while others had been wrenched from their living bodies by dark magics and cast adrift into eternity. Regardless of their origins, the result was always the same – a hateful creature of undeath.
The fog bank of howling souls struck the shield wall a moment later, and rolled over it. Sigmarite warblades, crackling with the lightning of Azyr, passed through the whirling storm of lost souls with no resistance. The weaker spirits came apart like smoke and fluttered away. But the stronger ones thrust aethereal claws through the joins in the Stormcasts’ war-plate. The dead could not easily be killed, but they had little difficulty harming the living.
Wispy talons slid through holes in masks, and Stormcasts staggered, choking. Broken blades and phantasmal weapons crashed down, sometimes with no effect – but other times, the blades bit abnormally deep into armour. Only the Stormcasts’ preternatural skill saved them from agonising death, as the host of spirits enveloped them. Warblades flashed, dissipating some spirits and causing others to retreat. But not enough.
‘Hold them,’ Pharus roared. ‘Briaeus – drive them back!’
The blows of Briaeus and his fellow paladins were more effective than those of their brethren. The lightning hammers snapped out, trailing sizzling bands of energy, and spirits convulsed and came apart as they were struck. But there were only three of them, and they could not be everywhere.
‘Judicators – loose,’ Pharus shouted, whirling his halberd out to tear through the misty neck of a nighthaunt. At his command, the Judicators loosed arrows into the morass of tormented souls, further scattering them, though not permanently.
Pharus heard Calys cry out and saw her stagger back, a writhing spectre clinging to her. One unnaturally long hand was thrust into her chest. ‘No!’ He swept his halberd out. The blade chopped into the murky substance of the wraith’s form, and it spasmed in apparent pain. His blow tore it from her and sent it whirling away. As she fell backwards, the shield wall began to crumple. Pharus sank down beside her.
‘Do you yet live, sister?’
‘I… believe so,’ she gasped, clutching at her chest. ‘That… I have… I think I have felt that cold pain before…’ She looked at him, her eyes wide behind the mask of her helm. ‘I can see…’ She shook her head, as if confused. He knew what she was feeling, the sudden flood of half-forgotten sensations. ‘What was that?’
‘Death,’ Pharus said flatly. Nearby, another Liberator gave a strangled scream as a ghost reached through his armour and stopped his heart with its chill claws. The warrior’s body came apart in motes of crackling, azure lightning as he slumped. With a shuddering snarl of lightning, his soul was cast upwards, back to Azyr and the Anvil of Apotheosis, there to be reforged.
Pharus flinched away from that light. He had not yet endured a second death, and he had no intention of doing so, if it could be helped. He reached down and caught hold of the back of Calys’ war-plate. ‘We are giants, raised up and cast down, to rid the land of evil and keep safe all that is good,’ he roared, as he dragged her to her feet. ‘Hold fast and swing true.’ He looked at her. ‘Stand, sister.’
‘I am fine. It… it… I felt it, in my heart. Squeezing my heart.’ She clutched at her chest. ‘My armour did nothing.’
‘It kept you alive,’ Pharus growled. He unhooked his lantern and hung it from the top of his halberd. Where its light touched, the spirits recoiled. They were not of Chaos, but they were corrupt nonetheless. ‘Now ready yourself. They come again. If you must die, let it be on your feet.’ He raised his halberd high, so that the light of the lantern washed across the shield wall. ‘Stand, brothers and sisters. Not one step back.’ He slammed the halberd down, and the light of his warding lantern blazed forth.
‘Whatever comes – we hold!’
Chapter three
Sigmarabulum
In the scented pavilions of Thurn, daemons were screaming. Mortal slaves and warriors, swaddled in silks and silver chains, fled the inhuman wailing, their hands pressed to newly burst ears and their bloody eyes clamped shut. Vainly they sought respite in the far pavilions, sprawled across the rocky convolutions of the Felstone Plains, or in the wilds, staggering into the smouldering darkness of the Aqshian night. But nowhere was free of the daemonic shrieks.