Warbeast, p.8
Warbeast, page 8
Arkas did not ascend immediately, but led his Stormcast companions beneath the bridge, to the crumbling edge of the plateau. The mountain dropped down into a sheer chasm, the forests below just a dark smear against white, the glittering ribbon of a frozen river even further away. The fog continued to roll back, revealing the gorge. It was over five hundred paces wide, the far side a jagged face of black rock and pale ice.
‘It was not like this when last I came here,’ said Arkas, turning his gaze to the left, towards the bridge. ‘This chasm was but a javelin’s cast across, the duardin bridge crossing over the ruins of the outer castle.’
‘What use is a fortress that has a bridge over its wall?’ asked Dolmetis. ‘An enemy could march in and besiege the keep with ease.’
‘The bridge was not built in time of war,’ replied Arkas. ‘It linked the duardin lands to those of my forefathers, when Sigmar first drove the taint from Ursungorod and peace prevailed for a time. The bridge was marked by powerful duardin runework. I think that it would collapse at their command if needed, taking any attackers to their deaths and sealing the castle.’
‘The remains of the outer wall and gates, such as they are, are down there,’ said Hastor, pointing into the abyss. ‘I descended earlier. The far side of the cliff is marked by old passages and halls, revealed in cross-section as if a blade had cut through them.’
‘What of the tower?’ Arkas’ question was answered not by the Knight-Venator but by a swirl of wind that revealed the furthest extent of the sky-bridge. The stocky design of the ruins unveiled by the retreating cloud was obviously of duardin making, but the central tower was taller and more elegant, topped by an onion-shaped dome that still sparkled with red and gold.
‘Remarkable...’ breathed Dolmetis.
‘Indeed it is,’ replied Hastor.
Arkas looked on in stunned wonder.
The bridge descended as it had always done, to a sturdy four-towered barbican in front of the Queen of the Peak’s abode. The tumbled remnants of the duardin fort lay about on broken cobbles and flagged courtyards. In turn, the tower and ruins stood upon a great hunk of frozen rock, held only by the bridge itself, the vastness of the chasm dropping away below the inverted cone of the foundations so that it seemed to hang in the air. Openings that were the remnants of duardin vaults and storerooms broke the outside of the edifice, squared caves and smooth-hewn ledges.
‘The duardin runes you spoke of, my lord,’ said Dolmetis. ‘You think they might still work?’
‘I think they were activated long ago but nullified by the power of the queen,’ replied Arkas. He looked at the Knight-Vexillor and shrugged. ‘Should she wish to deposit us into the gorge, she has only to release her icy grip. Bridge and castle would drop as surely as a stone from your fist.’
‘But she would plummet also,’ said Hastor, ‘without the bridge to hold her tower. There is little danger.’
‘Says the knight with the wings,’ Dolmetis said sourly.
‘Time is passing,’ Arkas said, turning back to the bridge. ‘I will return to the army before night falls if possible. I will proceed alone.’
The Knight-Vexillor and Knight-Venator accepted this order without comment and moved to join the Decimators that had formed a defensive ring around the approach to the bridge. Arkas started his ascent.
The climb was not steep but the slippery surface of the bridge forced him to proceed with a little more caution than normal – the duardin-height wall to each side did not even reach to his waist and would have been little barrier against a fall.
At the apex of the arc he stopped to survey the mountains that had once been his home. The peaks seemed so familiar – he could remember the names of them all – but it was more than geography that made Ursungorod, and the indefinable spirit that suffused the land had been changed. Near the roof of the world, far from the rivers and forests that were the foundation of the peaks, the traces of magic that rose this high were thinned, like the air. Away from the near-overwhelming rush of power he had felt on his first return, he could taste the change, the telltale foulness of Chaos pervading everything.
Could it have even entered into the mind of the Queen of the Peak? She had been an ally at best for Arka Bear-clad, never a friend – giving support only in return for something. The Chaos Gods had become all-powerful in the centuries of Sigmar’s enforced exile to the Celestial Realm and over the turn of the years the queen might have succumbed to their threats and temptations.
With more uncertain thoughts in mind, he started down the far side of the bridge, heading towards the half-ruined fortress that hung impossibly over the valley. The stones soon gave way to timeworn paving, which led a short distance to the shadow of the gatehouse looming over the road. The wall to either side had long since been toppled, by time and assault, even as it had been in Arkas’ life as a mortal.
Of the gate itself nothing remained either. Even so, there was a barrier, a shimmer of energy between the massive bastions that flanked the road, a haze that obscured the tower beyond. Moving off the path towards the ruins of the wall, Arkas could see a line of thick frost that encircled the keep as surely as any curtain wall. His keen eyes picked out the shine of bones and skulls trapped within the ice beyond the boundary circumscribed by the ancient stones.
‘Though you might not know me by sight, know me by heart,’ he announced, using the dead tongue of his homeland rather than the language of Azyr. The words seemed heavy and crude after so long conversing in the speech of the immortals. ‘I am Stormcast, a warrior of Sigmar, God-King from the world-that-was. Arkas I am called, though I am known to my lord and companions as the Warbeast. The Bear-clad I was before Sigmar took me, Arka the Uniter, the Bear of Hard Winters. By another name you knew me, and you alone, written with this rune by your hand.’
Laying down his weapons, Arkas knelt before the portal.
‘“Saviour”, you told me it meant when last I was here. The Fang of Freedom you called me. I am here to deliver on my promise, though it has been long in the reckoning.’
Silence followed, even the wind stilled while the Queen of the Peak considered his pledge. Arkas gripped his hammer and sword, stood up and waited. Nothing happened.
A test, he thought, looking at the shimmering curtain just a pace away. Beyond that he could see the wide, low steps leading up to the arched doors of the tower itself. One step, one stride would take him into the domain of the Queen.
An act of courage? No. His courage had never been doubted, by any that knew him.
An act of trust.
He stepped into the veil.
Chapter Ten
The sky was blue above, the air sharp, cold and invigorating. The sun was low in the sky, a winter sun devoid of warmth but reassuring all the same. Frost crackled under Arkas’ tread, his boots leaving clear imprints in the thin layer that covered the flagstones leading to the tower.
Exactly as it had been hundreds of years earlier when the Bear-clad had made his last journey along this road.
It’s a gate, he realised.
The barbican was a realmgate of sorts, the Queen of the Peak’s domain a pocket enclave, a self-contained magical plateau shifted slightly aside from Ursungorod and the Realm of Beasts. The Bear-clad would not have understood such a thing, the concept of the Mortal Realms layered and entwined about each other as alien to his mind as the idea that he might one day become an immortal war leader clad in armour forged from metal mined in the heart of a dead world.
The grand doors at the top of the steps were open, the flickering light of brands glowing from within. He ascended the stairs four at a stride, covering the ground quickly. He paused for a heartbeat at the entrance. Like everything else, a veneer of snow and ice lay like a patina on the stone and wood. The sigils and images carved into the doors glittered in the light of the brands – faces of bears, suns with beneficent smiles, and stylised lightning bolts that reminded him of the magnificent city of Sigmaron.
It was exactly as he remembered. Exactly. Like a dream being re-enacted. It was impossible, of course, a trick of this mind. Even so, as he stepped into the light of the braziers and torches within, he could not shake the feeling that he was doing more than following in his footsteps.
The entrance hall was lavishly decorated, a thick red carpet running the length of the chamber. Archways curtained with velvet of the same colour broke the walls to either side. Both fabrics were threaded with gold in a repeating design of flame-like waves interspersed with triangular mountains and simple star-like suns.
But all was frozen still, every bend in the cloth, every flame in the sconces caught in a moment of time. The silence was all-consuming, muffling his step, swallowing the scrape and creak of his armour.
The only movement was Arkas. Leaving a trail of vapour from shallow breaths he advanced along the hall, as he had done before. He knew nothing of what lay beyond the curtains and dared not speculate.
Something caught his attention and he looked down, surprised to see a single trail of footprints leading towards the stair. His stride was much longer now, his body magnified by the Reforging upon the Anvil of the Apotheosis. Yet when he glanced back, he saw only that single set of tracks. He could even see the pattern of the hobnails in his old boots.
The stair inside, ascending from left to right, was more like that of a rampart, narrow enough for two men to hold back an army. Arkas covered the distance to the next floor in moments and then from there, ignoring the wooden doors to the left and right, walked along a short landing to a spiral staircase that he knew took him to the domed chamber at the top of the tower.
He had to duck to fit his massive frame through the door at the top, and stepped into a circular hall roughly thirty paces across. The door closed behind him with the faint click of a lock.
The ice coated the inside of the dome, with facets and edges forming crystal faces at odd angles to each other. Arkas saw his reflection three dozen times over, turquoise and gold refracted and contorted all around. He stepped into the centre of the chamber, the images splintering and reforming.
Hammer held to one side, runeblade sheathed at his hip, Arkas waited in silence. He looked up and saw his helm mask glaring back at him from between the dark wooden vaults of the ceiling, eyeholes suffused with a glow of celestial energy. It was reassuring to know that, even here in the heart of the icy palace, the link to Azyr was strong. Should anything happen, should his body perish, he would be called back to Sigmaron, there to be recast and remoulded.
Immortality, though not without a price.
A breeze drifted across the circular hall, the slightest gust that barely stirred his cloak. It brought with it the queen’s voice, soft but hostile.
‘Who claims the name of Arka Bear-clad?’ she demanded. To the right a reflection of Arkas was replaced by a vague outline of a middle-aged woman clad in white robes edged with fur, her silvery hair hanging long and straight about her shoulders. Her eyes were a piercing blue, shards of ice given sapphire life. ‘Reveal yourself!’
‘I am Arka,’ he replied. He lifted away the mask that hid his face. He almost started at his reflection, having forgotten the changes that had been wrought by the artifice of Sigmar. His beard and hair were short, never requiring to be shorn again, his eyes sunken and dark. Three scars ran across his face, one from each eye to the ears and another down the centre of his forehead.
‘What have they done to you, my champion?’ A sigh wafted through the chamber, perhaps of pity, or sadness. Another reflection shifted, revealing a matronly figure in the depths of the ice, bundled in a black shawl with a hood over her head.
‘They made me strong,’ Arkas replied.
He turned his head to face this new image. Other mirrored figures fractured and reformed on the edge of his sight. He caught glimpses of different people, though when he looked directly at them he saw only his own ravaged face. His mother, his father, Radomira, the sculpted masks of his warriors, even the bearded, noble visage of the God-King himself.
A third manifestation of the Queen of the Peak appeared, almost directly in front of Arkas. She was young, clad in white-enamelled armour chased with silver and sapphires. It was no ceremonial suit, and neither was the blade in her hand a weapon for parades. A warrior-queen, her face enclosed within the cheek guards of a helm with a white horsehair crest, eyes boring into Arkas.
‘Oathbreaker! Deserter! Traitor! You abandoned your people.’ Her voice dropped to a plaintive whisper. ‘You abandoned me.’
‘Never, my Queen of the Peak,’ Arkas replied. As he addressed the latest apparition he could see himself as he had been in an ice mirror to his right – a full beard and head of hair, a nose broken more times than he could remember, glowering eyes beneath bushy brows. For an instant he forgot that he was Stormcast as the memory of his past life was given form in this place. ‘I was taken. I would not have willed it, but I have returned to fulfil my oath.’
‘Your oath?’ This was from the first Queen, imperious and distant. ‘Your oath to your mother or your promise to me?’
‘Both.’
‘Yet it was not in your power to do either.’
Her words bit as deeply as an axe blow. The memory of his ascension to the Celestial Realm welled up inside him, bursting free from deep behind the walls raised by Grungni’s craft.
‘I tried,’ said Arka. The frustration and sadness that had overpowered him in that moment surged through him. He fought through the bleakness, a snarl escaping gritted teeth. ‘The Bear-clad is dead, but the Warbeast will deliver where he failed.’
Quiet followed, his words ringing around the chamber and in his ears. The images of the queen moved of their own accord, coming together into one reflection, an amalgam of all three – stately, armoured and motherly all at the same time.
‘You know that which I desire more than anything,’ said the queen. ‘Do you renew your pledge to deliver it?’
‘It shall be done,’ said Arkas. He replaced his mask and the likenesses all became that of the Lord-Celestant again, his mind of a single purpose. ‘There is something you must do for me first.’
‘No,’ said the Queen of the Peak. ‘The pact was sealed long ago, and I have fulfilled my part.’
‘You did not,’ insisted Arkas.
‘I gave you the winds and the snows to command, as you demanded.’
‘A power I never had the chance to unleash.’
‘Of no consequence. The fault of your god-king, not mine.’
Arkas turned on his heel and took a step towards the door. He stopped as he felt a chill seep up through his foot. Glancing down, he saw tendrils of ice crystals snaking up over his boot and onto his leg.
‘I am here to grant us both a fresh chance,’ he said. ‘Answer my questions and I will deliver on what I promised.’
‘I will not let you betray me again!’
The cold branches crept further up his leg and fresh veins of frost started to encase the other. His breath formed a thick fog. The plates of his armour paled with a thin coating of ice.
‘I am your last and only chance for freedom,’ Arkas said. ‘Aid me and you serve the God-King, who shall be handsome in his favours. Or strike me down with frost-spite and remain here in your prison forever.’
Arkas felt his heart thudding, every pulse a drumbeat in his chest, the rush of blood a surge of noise in his ears. Had he judged her wrong?
A rime crept over his face, fogging his vision, crawling along the channels of his scars. He could feel a current stirring inside, the Anvil of the Apotheosis beckoning to his spirit while death stole along his nerves.
He could no longer feel his legs, his hands were leaden weights, a coil of ice binding his fingers to the haft of his hammer. In a dozen reflections he saw himself as he should be, a withered, frost-bound corpse.
The fate Sigmar had spared him, he realised with a shock.
‘You will... be free...’ he gasped, his breath forming crystals on the inside of his mask.
He heard the faintest whisper, barely audible over the thunder of his own heartbeat.
‘Sleep.’
‘I cannot,’ Arkas managed, each word a triumph of will against the freezing of his muscles.
‘Beloved descendant.’
Arkas swallowed, the motion painful, as though swallowing a stone. He closed his eyes, frost thickening on the lashes.
With a shudder, he took in a great final lungful of chilling air and the magic of the queen’s breath flowed into him.
Chapter Eleven
Descending into the valley, Theuderis’ host had left the worst of the snows and storms behind. The wind was strong, bending tall firs and pines, whipping the great branches back and forth to dust the marching Stormcasts with falling snow. Roots slithered like serpents underfoot, opportunistically snaring feet and ankles. Even the stones and boulders rebelled at the presence of the Stormcasts, forming frowning faces and leering eyes as they passed, rolling to trip and hinder the step of Sigmar’s chosen, the larger rocks toppling down banks and hills in lumbering attempts to crush the invaders.
Tyrathrax padded quietly across the whiteness, her harness and armour jingling. The creak and tromp of the Stormcast Eternals advancing between the trees were the only other sounds. The lack of birdsong and small animals still disturbed Theuderis, but he allowed himself a moment of reverie as he contemplated his surrounds.
‘It has a certain grandeur, I give it that,’ Theuderis said to his dracoth. ‘A fallen glory, you might say. When the taint has been cleansed it will be beautiful again.’
The trees formed an almost unbroken canopy and except for the odd beam breaking through a gap caused by the wind, Theuderis had not seen the sun since they had entered, not long after dawn. The white-and-blue of his warriors was muted in the gloom, swallowed by the green and brown shadows.
