Oaths and Conquests Page 3

  ‘We both remember Asqualon as it was,’ she said.

  ‘Asqualon?’ he said.

  ‘The city in your dream. I was born there. As were you, it seems. Prince Leoric was your name. I saw you ride past during your celebration parade for the victory at the Fields of Sarel. You had Lightning scabbarded at your side. The air smelled of ozone and storm winds as you passed.’

  All this sounded familiar, suggested memories just out of reach. ‘You lie,’ he said desperately, but his curiosity was piqued.

  ‘I can assure you, I do not. My master has far more accomplished deceivers than I. My chosen weapon is the truth. It will set us free. Eventually.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that?’

  ‘Believe it or not as you choose, but we both know that you were once Prince Leoric of Asqualon.’

  ‘You could have picked that up from my dream.’

  ‘I could and did, but that in no way alters the strangeness of the fact I already knew. I suspect my master is playing games with me once again.’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘Why else would the last two survivors of Asqualon meet after long millennia have passed? One can never discount coincidence, of course, but I mistrust it. The schemes of gods often bear a strange resemblance to coincidence. Fates can be woven by those who know how.’

  ‘You expect me to believe you were there when Asqualon fell?’ He forced doubt into his voice, but he remembered the figure on the balcony in his dream.

  ‘Why not? You were, albeit in a different body.’

  ‘I doubt you were the same either,’ he said, looking at her hoof.

  ‘One gift of the Changer of Ways. Another is a great extension of the years available to me.’

  ‘He is the Prince of Lies.’

  ‘Few know it better than I, but that does not change the truth of some things.’

  ‘If you were really there, then you know the destruction he wrought.’

  ‘I welcomed it.’ Even knowing what she was, the pure malice of her smile was still shocking.

  ‘Then you are every bit as evil as your master.’

  ‘No doubt. But why do you think I helped summon his daemons that night?’

  ‘Because you sought power.’

  ‘No, because I sought justice, and he gave it to me.’

  ‘Justice? You call murder and destruction, justice?’

  She laughed at him. ‘Your father killed my father and thousands like him. My father’s crime was to steal to feed his starving daughters. Was that justice?’

  ‘Your father was a criminal.’

  She spat her words out contemptuously. ‘My father was poor. Like tens of thousands of others in Asqualon. He dwelled in a hovel and ate dry bread when he could steal it, while your family lived in a palace and dined on luxuries. Your father fought wars that beggared the kingdom. Kill a starving peasant for stealing a loaf and you call it justice. Kill a nobleman who has stolen the lives of a thousand others, and you call it insurrection.’

  Balthus looked down at the floor of the cage. ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘I do.’ He heard the utter certainty in her voice, and the controlled anger.

  ‘And so you helped the Changer of Ways overthrow all that was good.’

  ‘It was good for you. Not for me. And there were a lot more like me than you. You believed your world was paradise. I believed your world was hell.’

  ‘And now our roles are reversed.’

  ‘No. Now you believe this world is hell and I do too. The difference is that I have always lived here.’

  ‘Sigmar will change the world. Order will be restored. The Dark Gods will be overthrown. The realms will be made whole again.’

  ‘Perhaps. For a time. And then what? Sigmar lost it all once. Even if he wins, he will lose it again. For a time, there will be peace but then the injustices will start, and the proud nobles will find reasons to scheme against their rivals and covet their lands. And the people will plot…’

  ‘You are deluded.’

  ‘Perhaps we both are, but it’s too late for that knowledge to do either of us much good.’

  ‘I fight for right and the vengeance of those enslaved by your masters.’

  Her laughter was like the tinkling of temple bells. ‘What do you think you are? A hero? A champion of all that is righteous? You are the mailed fist of an angry god, one driven by petty spite over what he has lost. That is what he has made you. That is why you remember only what he wishes you to remember. Your reason to hate and to fight his foes.’

  ‘You lie!’

  She shook her head. ‘Believe me, I know far more than you about the scheming of gods. I have had millennia to contemplate it. You think it’s an accident that all you remember is the thing that motivates you to kill in Sigmar’s name. If I were to slay you now, and you were to be reforged, do you think you would remember this conversation or anything else that would give you reason to doubt? No. You would be a slate wiped clean, knowing only your desire for vengeance and your hatred of the foe. You would never remember your doubts. It is beautiful in its ruthless simplicity. The greatest servants of Order have rebelled in other places and other times. It seems unlikely that you Stormcasts ever will.’

  He studied her for a moment and looked at the crystal sphere overhead, and he remembered her words and his dream. ‘Were you really there in the Temple of the Storm? Did you really kill my father?’

  She considered this for a moment. ‘Yes, I was and, yes, I did. And I saw you drive your blade into Arkatryx’s chest and pin him to the altar. You drove it so deep that no one could draw it out afterwards. With it I began my study of your god and his magic.’

  ‘You wanted its power!’

  ‘I wanted to change the world. I thought I could make Asqualon a paradise for the people.’

  It was his turn to laugh. ‘You thought you could create paradise by summoning daemons.’

  ‘I almost did once. I would have succeeded, had it not been for the treachery of my rivals. I might yet do so again. If I can learn the secrets of your god.’

  The tower shook and the lights guttered. The trapped lightning in the crystal sphere above provided the only illumination. Balthus felt his chains go slack and he threw himself forward, only to feel them stiffen as the sorcerous spells came back.

  ‘It seems your comrades are getting closer to breaking into my tower. I will have to prepare a proper reception for them,’ Aesha said.

  Thunder boomed again. All went dark once more. The chained lightning in the globe flared fitfully and Balthus remembered his dream. He remembered who had killed his father. ‘You said the schemes of gods often bear a resemblance to coincidence – did it occur to you that this coincidence might have been engineered by my god and not yours?’

  Understanding passed across her face, then he shouted, ‘Sigmar! Give me strength and give me vengeance!’

  The lightning in the crystal sphere leapt from its prison, smashing down on the cage. Its power would have fried anyone but a Stormcast; it gave Balthus strength. The bolt shattered the chain and sent the cage plunging to the floor, cracking the tiles as it split open. Balthus came upright, grabbed a piece of shattered stonework and threw it at Aesha with all his strength. It clipped her side and sent her reeling. The sorcerous disc flickered out and she too tumbled to the floor, landing poorly.

  She picked herself up and gestured. Power gathered round her fingers and leapt towards him. He dived behind one of the strange measuring machines as the ravening bolt of energy tore up the ground where he had stood.

  He grasped one of the heavy gauges protruding from the spell engine and tore it free from its mounting. Sparks fizzled around him and the scent of lilac and sorcery filled his nostrils. He lifted the gauge like a spear but saw that Aesha was already gone, hobbling towards the great arch of the doorway. He raced after her, closing the distance, wondering why she had not summoned her flying disc or stood to face him. Perhaps she was hurt worse than it had first looked. Perhaps she had gone to find help. It did not matter.

  The thunder rumbled once more. The spell-powered lighting dimmed, but the flash of the levin bolts themselves provided fitful illumination. He sensed Sigmar’s power flowing around him. Each of those thunderbolts represented the arrival of Sigmar’s chosen. It seemed the wards around the citadel had finally broken. If he could hold out long enough, he might yet survive this.

  Even as that hope flared in his heart, he heard beastmen approaching. Aesha’s guards were here at last, a mass of mutated monsters swarming towards him. He wielded the brass instrument like a hammer, smashing through the flesh of the Tzeentchians. He remembered the sorceress’ mocking words. Now she would see the fist of an angry god.

  Charged with Sigmar’s holy lightning, driven by his fury for vengeance, he ploughed through the beastmen, leaving a wake of broken and bloody bodies behind him. From ahead he heard the sorceress chanting and saw a polychromatic glow. She was once again summoning magic. Who knew what daemons would soon arrive or what new trap she might spring? He smashed his way forward, determined not to allow another of his brethren to fall because of her.

  He entered a vast, high-ceilinged, cathedral-like space, breaking the bones of a massive tzaangor and plunging the brass spike of the broken gauge into its chest. It was dark save for the glow of the sorceress’ spell. Behind her a massive object loomed, a huge shadow in the gloom.

  He raced towards her, wondering what new devilry she planned, and saw that she was already starting to shimmer.

  Her chanting continued, and the glow intensified, seemingly drawing all the light from the ch
amber. He towered over her and raised his improvised weapon high.

  ‘Vengeance!’ he roared.

  She smiled up at him. Sadly, he thought. ‘You don’t even recognise this place, do you?’

  The lightning flickered and he saw. He stood within what once had been the Temple of the Storm. The plinth of the strange statue was what remained of an altar, a massive suit of misshapen armour pinned to it by an ancient rune-marked blade. He recognised the hammer sigil on the hilt.

  He remembered her words about how his final blow had driven Lightning into the stone so deep it could not be pulled out. He looked up, searching for the gallery where the sorceress had stood in his dream, and saw it was there. ‘This is Asqualon,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Aesha replied, ‘Enjoy your birthright while you can remember it. I doubt you will when we meet again.’

  She was already starting to fade, as whatever spell of translocation she had cast took hold. Cultists and tzaangors poured in through every doorway. He needed a better weapon than the bent gauge. He sprang onto the altar and gripped the hilt of the sword that only the royal blood of Asqualon could draw. It slid free from the stonework easily. Lightning blazed along its length, coils of power encircling the blade.

  He raised it above his head, and lightning danced all around him. The power of the storm filled him. He charged to meet his enemies. ‘For Sigmar and vengeance!’

  In the aftermath of the battle, as the Stormcasts scoured the ruins for the enemy leader, who had eluded Sigmar’s vengeance, they found Balthus surrounded by a mountain of dead beastmen. The corpses of his foes looked as if they had been scorched by lightning. His armour was dented and broken in a thousand places. He lay like one dead, and they wondered if somehow the power of Sigmar had failed and he had not returned to the storm. Then his eyes opened and he struggled to speak.

  ‘What is it, brother?’ the Stormcasts around him asked.

  Balthus raised the sword aloft and studied the way small lightning bolts danced along the length of the blade. ‘I still remember Asqualon,’ he said. ‘And I will the next time we meet.’

  They could get no more from him than that, even as they bore him aloft on their shoulders and carried him in triumph through the wreckage of the strange machinery destroyed by Sigmar’s wrath.

  THE GARDEN OF MORTAL DELIGHTS

  Robert Rath

  Arise, all ye spirits, arise in the soul glade,

  O children of the Everqueen, what dost thou see?

  A foe-host has come bearing ember and axe-blade,

  To poison the water and butcher the tree.

  Armour of ore they have pillaged from mountains,

  And pelts of thick fur torn from unwilling beasts.

  They come hence with daemons, both fair and befouled,

  And ecstatic moans on the lips of their priests.

  Grant them bitter welcome with stone-sword and claw-root,

  With borrowed earth-arms do we strike the first blow.

  And soon we shall lay these gifts back in the soil,

  All slick with the nourishing blood of the foe.

  Hold fast, forest children, the Mirrored One cometh!

  He cuts down our kinfolk, blades thick with sap-gore.

  I weep at the sound of your pain-song and fear-dirge,

  And reap lamentiri to sow you once more.

  Hold fast, he comes!

  He comes! Hold fast!

  Do not break the song.

  Wilde Kurdwen removed her claw from the dryad’s root, unable to bear the dream-song. A season’s cycle later, her last battle-chant still echoed in the souls of those she had failed.

  They still sung, still striving to answer the war cry of their branchwych.

  Indeed, the dryads twitched as they dreamed. Finger-branches clenched and released. Gnarled roots, planted deep in rich earth, twisted like running ankles. The flowers that bloomed from their chests, arms and legs shivered. From afar, it looked as though a flock of purple butterflies had alighted on their bodies, their petal wings opening and closing like eyelashes.

  But there were no butterflies here. Nothing so delicate could live on this island.

  Crouched, she could even imagine these sisters back in a Neos glade, their disquiet merely the natural, traumatic cycle of growth and regrowth. And indeed, many ripe fruits hung from these elegant spirits. Berries clustered around their throats like jewels on the neck of a high-born bride. Dark spices burst up through the cracked bark of their roots. And the feathery pollen stems inside the purple flowers would, after being pounded, dry into the finest sapphrin. They were blossoming, verdant.

  Yet these dryads dreamed of battle. Of trespassers. Of blades stained amber by torchlight, of men with nets and kin cut down.

  And they dreamed of axe blades chopping deep into their own flesh.

  For these twitching, still-living dryads had no heads. Each one was decapitated, planted, a vehicle only for growth. New shoots emerged from the stumps of their necks – for dryads are resilient spirits – but soon the menial gardeners would come to trim them back.

  They were not allowed to grow, for dryads themselves did not produce the fruit, spices or fine edible flowers. These delicacies came from the plants grafted on to their bodies – their shoots inserted into the living bark and wood-flesh with sharp knives and sealing wax – parasites that supped from the dryads’ life force to make their branches heavy with culinary delights.

  And no matter how much Wilde Kurdwen tried to fool herself in the quiet hours of night, there was no forest glade beyond this copse of headless spirits, only an obsidian wall that blocked the spirit-song.

  High above, the branchwych saw the torches of warriors patrolling the battlements.

  It was not a prison – it was a pleasure garden.

  Red juice ran from the corner of his mouth, past his sharp chin and down a throat elegant as a swan’s. A concubine dabbed at it with a war banner he’d pried from the hands of a dead witch aelf.

  It was a petty pleasure, wiping his mouth with their sacred colours. But Revish the Epicurean lived for pleasure, petty or not, and he was old enough to know that the smallest experiences often brought the greatest joy.

  He raised another tangberry and bit, rolling it in his mouth, tasting it with a tongue that split like a snake’s. Days ago, he’d felt the stub of a third tip sprouting below the others, and had sacrificed six prisoners to thank Slaanesh for his newly expanded palate.

  He had been force-feeding one prisoner spiced crème for weeks, and it was his liver that had preceded this delectable tart.

  Revish staffed the fortress kitchen with chefs – human trophies of his conquests – and it was always good to have more than one on hand. After all, they tended to go mad fulfilling his culinary desires.

  For Revish the Epicurean coveted taste above all else. In past centuries he had held other fascinations, it was true. The pounding blood-song of his body as he pursued the enemy. Carnal delights of flesh. Exotic intoxicants. Yet for centuries, he’d found no battle glee as savoury as the first bite of a buttered eel, no pleasure of the flesh greater than a gryph-hound grilled with expert precision. Nothing so intoxicating as wine from a good vin-grape, made plump by rich soil and warm sun.

  So he’d put aside the shallow, adolescent pleasures of violence, sensuality and athleticism. The tongue was his altar now, and upon it he sacrificed all manner of animals, plants, sweets and men.

  And it was well known that the master was not to be disturbed at his meal – which was why his warrior-consort Sybbolith waited patiently, her boot on the neck of the prostrate man.

  ‘Speak,’ said Revish, as the concubine dabbed his face with rose water.

  ‘A menial from the pleasure gardens,’ Sybbolith said. Her eyes, golden and whiteless like those of a jungle cat, stared at her lord. Her thumb slid tenderly over the hellstrider whip coiled at her belt. ‘He broke the rule.’

  The menial quaked, bones showing through his translucent skin. Hands filthy with dirt. It was impossible to tell whether he was twenty or sixty – like the cooks, the garden menials did not last long.

  ‘Is this true, filth?’ asked Revish.

  The question was rhetorical, since as a garden menial, the man’s mouth was padlocked shut. But he tried to answer nonetheless, and as he gibbered Revish saw that the muzzle was ill-sized, leaving just enough room to slip a mashed berry through.