The lord-arcanum thought differently, he knew. For Balthas, the stars were finite. He thought in terms of epochs, of history. One millennium upon the next. Time was a mountain, for Balthas. The future rose ever up and away, while the past crumbled below you. Helios wondered if there was something in that. He shook his head. No. Perhaps not. Balthas saw the heavens, but not the stars which made them up.
Then, that was his duty. To see the grand design, in all its glory. But for a humble Celestor, the stars were enough. He cocked his head, listening to something clawing at the stones. A shard of glass fell from a window above. He watched it fall, watched the light play off the shards as they scattered across the floor.
Miska had not asked him to volunteer. It had not been necessary. When the mage-sacristan had explained the plan, Helios had understood, instantly. The final instant, come around again at last. He had lived, once, and died, in a moment like this, though he could not recall it in any detail. And now, having lived, he would die again. Painfully, perhaps. But gloriously, in a manner befitting a warrior such as himself. Balthas was a generous lord, to bestow such a gift.
He smiled. There was a poem, at least, somewhere in the meandering. He set the tip of his blade against the stones and began to scratch out the first stanza. He was still writing when the first window fully gave way, and the dead poured in.
He wondered what they thought, as they saw the empty nave and felt the silence. Balthas had led the others below, while the dead slammed themselves uselessly against the outside of the temple. Now, hopefully, they were on their way. But he would buy them a few moments more, just to make sure.
Shrieking spirits raced towards him through a storm of glass. He swept his staff out and caught one a solid blow. It convulsed as lightning danced across the links of its chains, and was reduced to a charnel mist. He did not stop, but remained in motion – thrusting, slashing, spinning. A few moments, well spent. A dozen spirits, laid to rest. He stepped back, and resumed his composition.
A dull boom sounded from the main doors of the temple. Spirits clustered in the broken windows, murmuring and rattling their chains. Helios did not look up as the bravest of their number rushed at him. The poem claimed the entirety of his attentions. His staff lashed out, and a spirit was reduced to tatters. The others retreated. As he scratched words into stone, arcs of celestial energy flickered about him and danced along the lengths of his weapons.
Another boom, accompanied this time by a sizzle-scorch sound, as the mystic barriers gave way. And, at last, the sound of splintering wood. An eerie mist seeped through the archways, slithering about the pillars and coiling in the alcoves. Still, the Celestor-Prime did not look up. The poem was close to completion.
Heavy boots thudded against the stone. An incongruous sound, utterly at odds with the hissing, sand-scrape of the nighthaunts. A smell, like ionised metal mingled with rotting meat, invaded his senses. He paused. ‘You are a new thing, under the sun.’
The figure stood before him, a black pillar amid the ghostly mist. He was thin, almost spindly, as if all that was not bone and muscle had been sheared away, leaving but a shadow in its place. The armour he wore drank in the light, as did the blade he held balanced across his shoulders.
‘I am the truth,’ the dead man intoned.
‘How portentous. A moment… I have almost completed my poem.’
‘Poem?’ The dead man sounded bemused.
‘It is important to finish what one begins. Don’t you agree?’
Silence was the only reply. Helios scratched a final word and stepped back. ‘There. Now, we can speak.’ He planted his blade before him, his hand resting on the pommel as he tapped his shoulder with his staff. ‘Tell me your name, spirit, so that I might recount it, in moments to come.’
‘I am Thaum. And once, I was as you are.’
‘Oh, I doubt that. There is no one like me.’
‘Regardless, you are here, and your soul is forfeit.’ Thaum gestured, and a spectre, wreathed in chains and padlocks, drifted forwards. ‘You will be made to see, as I have seen. Falsehood will be burned from you, by the radiance of the black sun.’
‘All things are possible.’ Helios studied the spirit, noting the amethyst light that bled from its padlocks. ‘But we have not come to that moment, yet.’
‘It is inevitable.’ Thaum stepped closer, his black eyes empty of anything save purpose. Helios nodded.
‘And yet, here I stand.’
‘Not for long.’ Thaum thrust his blade out, and the nighthaunts swept forwards in a howling typhoon. Helios sprang to meet them, moving swiftly. With every gesture, lightning arced out to ripsaw through the legion of spirits. It was rare that Helios could fight to the fullest, for the energies within him were as dangerous to his fellow Stormcasts as they were to the enemy. But here, now, in this moment, he was free to do so.
Chains struck the floor or tore divots from the pillars as the fight moved through the temple. Helios allowed the nighthaunts to drive him where they would, for he had no strategy beyond holding their attentions. He swept staff and blade out, catching unwary spirits in chains of his own – ones made from lightning.
Still, they pursued him, flooding through the temple in a wave of tattered shadows. Distorted faces grimaced and yowled, as clammy hands fumbled at him or rusty chains drew sparks from his war-plate. For every one he destroyed, two more took its place. Spiked clubs and ruined swords bit at him as he spun and twisted, staying out of reach.
He could feel their madness clawing at him, a tangible chill that made his limbs heavy and his head reel. A miasmatic frost clung to the plates of his armour. But the lightning within him carried him on, if not so fast or so sure.
Slowed, he found himself being driven back towards a semicircle of drifting shapes. He heard the thump of rawhide drums and glimpsed the leer of bestial skulls within ragged cowls. The nighthaunts, wielding long, black glaives, began to close in on him as their lesser kin continued to harry and hamper him.
They had been wearing him down. Inevitable, as their master had said. The drifting spectres drew near, and he was forced to turn and parry a blow that would’ve split his heart. His tempest blade swept out, and a ragged cloak folded over as the gheist was torn apart. More blades thrust towards him, and he was forced to retreat.
Everywhere he looked, the dead looked back. He spun and lashed out, his storm staff passing through several grisly visages with little resistance. Lightning sparked out, dancing through their ranks. He turned, spinning his staff. The tempest built within him. But he would not release it for just any spirit. Not when he had gone to the trouble of weaving a trap of his own. They had harried him, and he had allowed it, knowing that they would drive him ever closer to – ah. And there it was.
The jailer-spirit, in its screaming chains, descended on him as he fought, seemingly oblivious to its approach. Miska had told him all about the creature – about what Balthas had seen. The souls of his brothers were caught up in its chains, condemned to an unknown fate. The mage-sacristan hadn’t known if destroying the creature would be enough to free them, but Helios saw no harm in trying.
He waited until it was within reach, then turned, letting his staff slide through his hand, so that the tip slammed into the bestial helmet. The creature squalled and swung its chains at him. He ducked aside and twisted his staff, catching the links. A flip of his wrist further tangled them about the length of the staff, and he could feel the soul within calling out for release. Before the spirit could rip itself free, he lunged, striking it in the head again. As he did so, he let the tempest loose.