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Covens of Blood – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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TRISETHNI THE UNSEEN

anna stephens

She was a witch-aelf of Khailebron, a Daughter of Khaine, and she slid through the night like steel through velvet – silent, lethal and true. The great fortress city of Greywater Fastness was intermittently dark and subdued, though never entirely, for even this late there was business to be done and perimeters to be walked. The great forge complexes run by the wealthiest duardin families operated day and night, and now they lit up the heavy smoke hanging over the city, casting a sulphurous yellow glow over rooftops and along streets.

The air was acrid, heavy with soot and hot metal, rent by the deep-throated scream-hisses of quenching steel. Yet despite the Greycaps’ vigilance and the hellish glow from the forges, no one saw the aelf pass, for she was Trisethni the Unseen, and the title was no mere posturing.

Lord Rygo’s mansion sat high upon the central hill of the city, where the breezes did much to carry the worst of the smoke away. Here were situated the most expensive properties in the Fastness, exclusively occupied by merchant lords, nobles, and members of the Council of the Forge or the Grand Conclave.

Trisethni’s disdain did not show on her cold, beautiful features, though it burned hot within her. These people worshipped glory and wealth, comfort and reputation, when they should worship the gods who kept them safe from the Forces of Chaos; the gods who blessed them with the resources and knowledge needed to manufacture their weapons and black powder. Instead, they were enamoured of their own skill, blinded by greed and arrogance and the bright flash of gold coins.

Footsteps sounded up ahead and the aelf stilled in a shadow as black as spilt ink. Her silver-blonde hair was muted with charcoal, her boots, trousers and tunic in shades of grey and deep blue. She splayed a gloved hand across her face to break up its outline lest forge-light or moonlight should glint upon her. The sentries marched past, silent and alert – but neither silent enough nor alert enough to spot her. Trisethni watched them go, and then slipped back onto the road and increased her pace. She didn’t have long.

The aelf didn’t like Greywater Fastness, hating its stink and endless hammering, the black skies and black walls and black rain that fell. But her soul and devotion were to Khaine, to Morathi his First Daughter and the High Oracle, and to her coven. She would endure the contempt of Greywater Fastness’ other, lesser, races with the outward inscrutability common to both her species and her religion.

The Khailebron sect of the Daughters of Khaine did not have a home temple, preferring to wander the Mortal Realms in response to the tides of war and fortune or the dictates received from Morathi herself. For the duration of this dictate, the Draichi Ganeth sect was hosting them in their temple here in this smoking, desolate, dead place of rock and metal.

She headed towards Rygo’s confection of a mansion for the second time that night. The first had been with her sisters, clad in armour beneath their cloaks to perform their ritual blade-dances at the coming-of-age celebration of Rygo’s son. Trisethni did not know why the boy was to be so honoured with their presence, but it was not her place to question the commands of Hag Queen Belleth. The war-coven had attended and they had performed, their every movement composed of death and grace and worship, moving in step, matchless in their abilities – and they had been insulted. Rather, Trisethni’s sister Itara had been insulted when some stinking-drunk human had told her she lacked the grace to blade-dance with the others. Itara had, rightly and instantly, slaughtered the scum for his sacrilege.

Just the memory of it set Trisethni’s rage to burning anew, hotter and brighter than the largest duardin forge, for an insult to one member of the coven was an insult to all, and by the time they had departed the panic-stricken mansion and reached the temple, they were clamouring for permission to return and wreak holy vengeance.

The insult would not have been borne by any of the aelven races, let alone those who had pledged their lives to Khaine, god of battle and Lord of Murder. Belleth had listened to their complaints and shared their outrage. While she did not at this time want outright war with the humans of Greywater Fastness, she had sent Trisethni to be the silent blade of justice, streaking through the night to carve retribution from the bodies of the perpetrators.

Trisethni ground her teeth together at the blind arrogance the surviving human guests had displayed in the aftermath of Itara’s righteous slaying. Once the initial screaming and running had faded, after the Greycaps arrived at a run and looked at their opponents and wisely did nothing but form a non-threatening line between the Daughters and the humans, some of the guests had spoken eagerly from that supposed safety. Their mouths uttered false solicitations, their hands and eyes told the lie that they did not share the dead man’s opinions of Itara – or indeed all the witch-aelves who had done them the honour of performing – and all the while they stank of unearned superiority and pitying derision.

You are beneath us. You are savage. You are animals, their smiles and hearts proclaimed, and not an aelf there did not see past the lies to that inescapable truth.

As she sped through the night, it pleased Trisethni that she would prove them right in one of their beliefs. The Daughters of Khaine were savage, because life was savage in the endless struggle against Chaos. And before the dawn fought the forge-light for possession of the sky, Rygo and his whelp would know just how savage existence could be. The humans would need to invent a new word for what she would do to them.

Trisethni’s saliva was coppery with the need for blood. I am the blade of my sisters’ just vengeance. My retaliation on their behalf shall not be swift, though it shall be brutal. It shall last for hours. And all humans will be reminded that the Daughters of Khaine are true servants of justice, and of blood.

The aelf ran the last mile over the rooftops of the houses ascending the soft curves of the hill, springing from gable to eave to ornamental tree until she reached the crest and the largest, grandest buildings, each set back behind its own protective wall. Trisethni had memorised the layout of Rygo’s gardens – a wonder in the stone, smoke and metal of Greywater Fastness and its bleak, uninhabitable surrounds – and the approaches to the main house, as well as the three large rooms she and the rest of the blade-dancers had been permitted to enter. Permitted. As if they were a troupe of common mummers. But she was deep into the concentration required for her mission now, and the thought – the outrage – skated over its surface without leaving a mark.

There were house guards patrolling the base of the wall and none of the trees were within jumping distance – she’d have to cross open ground to reach the little orchard. Trisethni waited until the pair of guards had vanished into the gloom and then leapt from the top of the wall, covering ten feet and rolling once to take the impact out of her landing, and sprinted into the shadows. Her keen ears told her she remained unnoticed.

From there it was two hundred paces to the house, eighty of them within the trees. Once she was on the lawns and among the flower beds, there would be little cover, but it didn’t matter. Though the humans found it more comforting to think of them only as blade-dancers or pit-fighters – little more than brutal savages who fought for the Forces of Order – the truth was that the Khailebron were the spies, saboteurs and assassins of the Daughters of Khaine. Concealment and subterfuge, the blackened blade in the night or the slip of poison into a cup, were their tools in trade. A hundred feet of open garden was no obstacle to Trisethni the Unseen.

Grinning at the ease of outwitting the dull-sighted human guards, the aelf sped light-footed across the grass, using the low shrubs as cover, and flung a grappling hook from thirty feet out. The hook, muffled in black cloth, flew long and high and true, wrapping around a second-floor balcony balustrade with a muted clatter. Trisethni didn’t wait to see if anyone was alerted by the noise; she swarmed up the rope and over the balcony, drawing it up after her, and lay pressed against the smooth, cool stone until she was sure she was undetected. Two more guards patrolled by below her and she caught a glimpse of their grey hats – Rygo was spooked and had supplemented his private guard with others. Just how she liked it.

Trisethni packed the hook back into the small bag she carried across her back and pulled out a stiff loop of wire and a blackened, narrow blade. She worked the blade in between the window frame and the lock, pushing to create a small gap, then fed the wire through and felt around until it hooked the latch. A twist and a quick upward jerk with the loop, and it slipped free. She stepped into the house as soft as liquid shadow.

Humans were so trusting. Give them high walls and enough weapons and night-blind guards and they considered themselves impervious to retribution. Trisethni’s lesson would be for more than just Rygo and his mewling pup; it would be for them all. The whole of the Fastness. The whole of Ghyran. The Daughters of Khaine fought for Order and for Light, and there wasn’t a human whose opinion meant anything to them. This house’s fate would ensure no one ever forgot that again.

The mansion was sprawling and opulent, as befitted a member of the Grand Conclave. Wealth oozed from the walls, displays so ostentatious they became tasteless. So rich they looked cheap. The heavy carpeting silenced Trisethni’s footfalls, but would also deaden those of any guards; she proceeded cautiously but fast, gliding along the corridor. It was lined with rooms, many with the door closed and the distinctive sounds of breathing emanating from within.

Rygo’s party guests inhabited these rooms, guests who had stood by and let Itara be abused. If there’d been more time, she would have chased them down one at a time or in groups, spilling blood for Khaine, but tonight it was Rygo as host and his son as guest of honour who deserved the full measure of her fury. The rest would benefit from mercy they had no right to expect.

Trisethni pulled a mask from her bag and tied it tightly over her nose and mouth, then took a paper packet from a pouch. One by one, she opened the doors and ghosted into the rooms, using a long feather to waft the powder coating the paper over the slumbering occupants before stealing back out and shutting the doors. No one in this house would wake at Rygo’s screams. No one in this house would ever wake again.

In the name of almighty Khaine, in honour of his prowess and his subtle arm, I dedicate these deaths. May he look on me with favour, though these endings draw no blood in his name.

That is still to come, she added to herself with a toothy smile as she removed the mask. Anticipation stroked its fingers across her scalp and began to whisper in her veins as she padded up the stairs to the third floor, where the private suites were located.

She left the tainted mask, the feather and the empty paper on a small table in an alcove, arranged beside a large, gold-painted vase. The mask’s silk was painted with the Khailebron sigil, but Trisethni placed it face down so it couldn’t be seen without being handled. She smiled again, wondering who would turn it over when the house’s fate was discovered – and if they would live long enough to identify the Cult of Khaine as the bringers of justice to this house.

There would be sentries stationed throughout the lower levels of the house to guard against intrusion. Trisethni didn’t know how many, but she knew they’d come at the first sounds of fighting or the first screams. Another slow smile stole across her face.

Crouching at the top of the stairs, the corridor sweeping away to her left and right, she scanned the darkness. Rygo and his son, Rygel – how original – would have the entire third floor to themselves; Rygo’s wife had died two years before. Each man had a guard stationed outside their door and the soft tramp of feet indicated at least one more walking another, unseen corridor or room. Guards downstairs she’d expected – it was why she’d entered the mansion through the second floor. For Rygo to have or need guards on the private floor spoke of paranoia in excess of what she’d expect even for a lord.

He knows the insult given to my sister. He is expecting me, perhaps.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2020.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Pindurski.

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