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City of Secrets — Extract

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Act One

The prophecy promised slaughter and death, and so the Stormcast Eternals marched to war.

The city of Excelsis watched them leave her borders. All along the great walls the lightning engines spun and whirred, sending flickering cascades of storm energy coruscating across the sky. It was a fitting salute. Beneath the churning aether, columns of solemn warriors marched under the panoply of their Warrior Chambers. Their splendid, gilded war-plate bore many colours. There was the pristine white with blue trim of the Knights Excelsior, most zealous of Sigmar’s sons. Elsewhere could be seen the grim black of the Sons of Mallus, a Stormhost whose temperament was as sombre as their aspect. Ahead, always ahead, was the sea-green of the Knights of the Aurora.

It had been the first prophecy in a decade to bring the city’s war council together. The Prophesiers had conversed with the mages of the Collegiate, and both had ratified the augury, mined from the deepest veins of the Spear of Mallus – the colossal shard of fate-touched rock that aeons ago had plunged into the Realm of Beasts and ripped from the earth the very bay upon which Excelsis now stood. This was truth, they said. There was no question.

The orruks were gathering, and in numbers large enough to engulf a city.

And so the Stormcasts marched. The fortified gates of the city rumbled open, and the columns of towering figures snaked off into the low hills and deadly plains of the Coast of Tusks.

‘Do they eat, do you think?’ said Custin.

The boy was greeted with a volley of blank stares. Rare was the minute when the stick-thin guardsman wasn’t asking some damn fool question or another.

‘The lightning men,’ he continued, scratching his pointed chin, which was as ever covered with a fine blanket of wispy hair that was as close to a beard as he could manage. ‘My cousin Rullig, he says they do. Says they order up a big cart full of salted meat to their fortress every other market day. Now my other cousin, Ullig, he says that’s nonsense. Swears he’s seen them in the early hours, up on the high wall eating thunder and lightning. The lightning strikes and they just swallow it up.’

‘Sigmar’s bones, boy,’ sighed old Happer, leaning back on his bunk and staring at the stone above his head. Once grey, it was now stained a sickly yellow, a result of the pipe that constantly rested between his lips. ‘You’ve a rare talent for talking nonsense.’

‘Leave the lad be,’ said Corporal Armand Callis, stifling a yawn as he sat up on his bunk. ‘We can’t all be as wise as you, Happer. Not for a good few decades yet, anyway.’

Happer snorted indignantly. ‘Boy’s been fed too many tall tales. I’ve lived long enough to know the Eternals ain’t no fairy-tale knights. I ever tell you about the purges, son? I’ve seen things that would make your guts turn to ice.’

From the other side of the room came an exasperated groan, and a balled-up sock arced across to strike Happer on the side of the head.

‘Spare me another tale of the bloody White Angels,’ said Longholme, running a hand through her greasy black hair. ‘I’ve heard a hundred times how they’re going to come at night and steal us all away, damn us all as heretics and stick our heads on the harbour wall.’

Happer opened his mouth to reply, but instead just shook his head and muttered darkly under his breath.

Custin sighed and crossed to the window. ‘Raining heavy now,’ he said, looking out glumly. ‘We’re to get soaked.’

From outside the heavy wooden door to the barracks, hurried footsteps could be heard. Shortly after, Jammud came bursting into the room, breathless from taking the stairs two or three at a time.

‘Corporal?’ he said, panting at the exertion. ‘The sarge is sick again. His belly, he says. He can’t make patrol tonight.’

Callis hauled himself to his feet, biting back a curse. If Sergeant Ames spent less time stuffing his ever-expanding guts with dock cakes and cheap liquor, and more time earning his blasted rank, then maybe he wouldn’t be bedridden four nights out of seven. Of course, Ames would be the one earning twenty more glimmerings a week while Callis did his job for him, so who was the real fool here? He buckled on his breastplate and tucked his pistol into the shoulder holster beneath his long overcoat. The black powder weapon would have to be kept dry. A lowly corporal could never afford one of those fancy duardin-made wheel-lock guns that kept out moisture – his sidearm was usually a trusty piece, but a sniff of rainwater and he might as well be wielding a loaf of bread.

He pushed the bitterness deep down inside, adding it to his not inconsiderable stock, and jammed his sabre into the scabbard at his side.

‘All right, you lot,’ he barked. ‘On your feet. You know the drill here. We make our circuit, we do our best to avoid getting our pockets picked, and we get back here by the early morning for a couple of hours sleep before we have to do it all over again.’

There was the expected chorus of grumbles and moans. Callis strode across to Custin and peered out of the window of the Coldguard Bastion. The young guardsman was right; it was a torrential downpour. Thick spears of rain, the kind that almost hurt when they hit you. The Bastion loomed over the eastern harbour side of Excelsis, an uncompromising slab of stone littered with gun emplacements and watchtowers. The massive cannons on top of the structure had range and power enough to defend the entire bay. That was the Coldguard Regiment’s unglamorous task, while the Stormblessed, the Bronze Claws and other elite units made their forays into the wilderness alongside the Stormcasts, earning glories and battle honours.

Callis sighed. Guard duty was all soldiers longed for while on manoeuvres outside the city walls, but give it a season or two and you had a fortress full of bored troops on your hands, all with glimmerings to spare. Patrolling and constant drills were all you had to occupy them. And, if you happened to be a young corporal with a drunken sot for a sergeant, you had to take on that extra responsibility without even being paid for the privilege.

Callis dismissed the sour thought. Before him stretched the tumbledown roofs and alleys of Squallside, its streets lit by waterproof marrowpitch torches and the strobing flashes of the lightning storm that roared overhead. Far in the distance, rising ominously from the dark waters of the bay, was the Spear of Mallus. The vast monolith of black stone seemed to move closer with every burst of lightning, as if it were some kind of primordial behemoth striding out of the ocean to crush the city of Excelsis underfoot. Callis could glimpse the fulminating energies of the mage towers as they circled the vast rock, siphoning off the deposits of purest prophecy that ran through its augur-touched stone. A flash of lightning illuminated the Consecralium. The forbidding stronghold sat out on a promontory that reached into the surging bay, to the right of the Spear. He glimpsed its soaring, angular battlements and the colossal siege-weapons that littered its walls. The home of the Knights Excelsior, the White Angels. Callis felt a shiver of unease, and turned away.

‘A week of this storm,’ he said. ‘The last thing we need is a flood tearing its way through the Veins. They’d have to send every regiment in the city to stem the riots.’

Custin stared at him, eyes wide with fear. ‘Mam lives there,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘She’ll be okay, won’t she?’

Callis grinned, and cuffed the younger guardsman on the shoulder.

‘Of course she will, Custin. Don’t mind me. If a flood was coming the omens would have shown it by now.’

There was something particularly miserable about an early morning patrol, even when the sky wasn’t doing its best to drown you or freeze you to death. The five soldiers squelched through the streets of Squallside towards the harbour, past slick-cobbled lanes lined with stormstone town houses and dimly lit taverns. Here, the housing was built to last. These were imposing, blue-black edifices with steep roofs of grey slate, sacrificing aesthetic appeal for rugged sturdiness. The only warmth that emanated from them was the soft orange-white glow of tallow candles and lanterns through windows and doors. Residents here were well protected from the wretched weather, and the guardsmen could hear peals of good-natured laughter from within the augur-houses, where people came to trade and consume their hard-earned glimmerings. Outside, the vicious downpour had caused the gutters to overflow, and so the dismal conditions were capped by the gruel of rotten tallow and night soil, which seeped into their boots and wafted up their nostrils. Corporal Callis consoled himself by vividly picturing the vicious murder of the absent Sergeant Ames.

Onwards they marched, serenaded by the sound of Guardsman Happer trying to cough up his innards. Callis half considered ordering him back to the bastion, but knew that the old soldier would only bluster and complain about being mollycoddled. They passed through Squallside, and headed down the wide cart lane towards the harbour.

Far ahead they could see the forest of masts poking out of the mist and rain before the sheer face of the Spear. A haze of light radiated from the bay, hundreds of cabin lights and lanterns coating the water in a soft golden glow. No captain was foolish enough to set sail in the middle of all this, especially not upon the treacherous waters of the Coast of Tusks. Tall, broad ironoak and redbark masts marked the great galleys of human captains, gleaming metal chimneys the strange steam-powered contraptions of duardin seadogs. Even now the wolf-ships of the sinister aelf corsairs would be prowling the lanes and edges of the gathered mass. These were sleek and predatory vessels, their hulls festooned with ivory spears and other treasures torn from the hides of the sea-devils and behemoths that plagued the Coast of Tusks. For once they were not hunting. Instead, they watched the flock with a tyrant’s eye. No captain would risk breaking the rules of Excelsis harbour with the wolf-ships at their door.

‘We’ll cut down Rattleshirt Lane,’ Callis said. ‘Skirt the edge of the Veins, push down towards the harbour.’

There was an awkward pause. Eventually Guardsman Jammud spoke.

‘Ah… corporal?’ he muttered. ‘The sarge doesn’t like to go in there. He says there’s nothing worth protecting anyway. Just a bunch of pickpockets and knifemen. Why don’t we just stick to the trade lanes?’

‘That is our assigned patrol,’ Callis snapped. ‘Besides, in the narrows we’ll get some cover from this damned rain.’

No one liked to go into the Veins if they could help it, least of all those who actually lived there. It had been thirty years since the last consecration, since the city borders had been expanded and her walls rebuilt. In that time, the population of Excelsis had almost doubled, with waves of refugees and fortune-seekers of all races appearing from across the realms, drawn by the promise of the city of secrets, where merchants dealt in raw prophecy and even the poorest man could witness a glimmer of his future. With no space left for housing, the city’s craftsmen had hit upon a novel solution – keep building regardless. Known as the Veins for its labyrinthine network of cramped alleyways, the poor quarter of the city stretched from the east to the western wall, a rookery of thrown-together, multi-storey shacks piled haphazardly on top of each other with no care for safety or comfort.

‘Watch your coinpurses and cover your throats,’ grumbled Happer, clutching his steel mace firmly in two hands.

‘No band of roof-runners is stupid enough to start a fight with the Coldguard,’ said Callis. ‘Now get moving. I’d like to climb into a cold, uncomfortable bed at some point in the next week or so.’

Fortunately, the overhanging roofs did indeed provide some cover from the pouring rain, though the streets here were even filthier than the main thoroughfares. There were no drains or sewers here in the sprawl. Wary eyes peered at the guardsmen from behind broken doors and shattered windows, and hunched, pale figures scattered like mice when Custin’s lantern shone into the dark corners of the alleyways.

‘Through here,’ said Custin. Oddly enough, the youth seemed far more comfortable out here on the streets than he ever did amongst the soldiery of the Coldguard Bastion. ‘It’s a shortcut,’ he told Callis, grinning widely despite his soaked longcoat and drowned-rat hair. ‘It’ll take us out past Hangman’s Row.’

‘Good work, lad,’ the corporal said.

They filed through Custin’s shortcut, tramping over the accumulated filth of the Excelsis poor. Fragments of bottles and burnt-out glimmerings, the tell-tale remnants of a drunkard’s futile quest for a secret that could get him out of this hell-hole for good – a half-glimpse of a valley festooned with precious amberglass, perhaps, or the location of a swarm of rare quarrelfish. When they were fresh from the mint, the small, silver glimmerings would have flickered and gleamed with the faintest hint of prophetic magic, imbued as they were with fragments of the strange metals found within the Spear of Mallus. Now, their magical properties consumed, they were a dull grey-black and appeared charred, as if they had been sifted out of the ashes of a house fire. Malnourished figures scuttled away into the darkness as the guardsmen approached, like beetles fleeing from underneath an upturned rock.

‘What a waste,’ said Longholme derisively, her long, oft-broken nose crinkling in disgust. ‘You don’t get nothing from a few glimmerings. Odd feeling in your guts, maybe. Might get lucky at the card table a couple of times. Nothing you can actually use. Imagine if these gin-wits had saved up all this. Earned themselves a decent living. Typical native-born, can’t even…’

She tailed off as Happer dug an elbow into her arm. With an apologetic and fearful expression, she turned to the corporal.

‘Ah, what I mean to say, sir,’ she stammered. ‘Just that some of them…’

Callis allowed himself a few moments of enjoyment from her embarrassed guilt. He was second generation reclaimed himself, descended from the nomadic tribesmen who had flocked to Excelsis when the light of Sigmar had returned to the realms. He had the same dark skin and slight, lithe frame of his mother, a legacy of the many generations his ancestors had spent scratching an existence from the ruthless plains and valleys of the Coast of Tusks. Despite their insistence that all were equal in Sigmar’s realm, many pure-blood Azyrites still harboured a mistrust of those descended from the reclaimed tribes. The unspoken assumption was that such folk were untrustworthy somehow, as if their people’s long years without the light of Sigmar must surely have left them tainted.

‘In all likelihood these lot were born within the city walls same as you, Longholme,’ he said. ‘And if you think Azyrites don’t get augur-haunted, you’re deluding yourself. They just tend to frequent cheap brothels rather than back-alley streets.’

There was a chuckle from the patrol.

‘Aye, sir,’ said Longholme. ‘Sorry, sir.’

From an alley to his left, Callis caught a glimpse of a figure staring out at them. It was as pale as snow, and so gaunt that in the darkness it could quite easily be mistaken for a risen corpse. The eyes were the worst. They were swirling pools of ice-blue and white, pupil-less and staring. Not staring sightlessly. It was clear the poor wretch was seeing something. That was the thing about recklessly consuming prophecies – after a while, the world as it was ceased to mean anything to you. You became lost in a world of half-seen, potential futures, lost out of time and uprooted from everything you had once held dear. All that mattered was the next omen, the next secret that you could devour. The figure faded away into darkness, and Callis breathed easily again.

They marched on, quieter now. Any lingering good spirits had been well and truly extinguished by this place. After another hour or so of trudging onwards, they emerged in a small, cramped square, in the centre of which was a bent and broken hand-pump. Posts, some of iron and some of rotted wood, were scattered around the far edge of the square, and various crumbling porches and balconies overlooked the clearing on all sides. The corporal took a wild guess that the original idea had been for this place to act as a communal well while doubling as a place to hitch beasts of burden. An idea typical of the efficient – or insane – approach that those who had thrown together the Veins seemed to favour. Sigmar alone knew what kind of liquid source that pump would have drawn on.

Two figures stood in the shadow of a rotten, storm-blasted balcony, directly in front of the patrol. Runoff from the slanting roof to their left poured through holes in the sickly green wood, spattering off the hooded and cloaked forms. Beside them sat a two-wheeled dray cart, a canvas thrown over whatever cargo it carried. A rheumy-eyed flathorn was harnessed to the cart, stomping its hind legs irritably and snorting rainwater from its broad snout. Its thick armoured hide glittered as another fork of lightning split the sky above them.

‘Evening,’ said one of the figures, nodding as the guardsmen began to file past.

In later times, Armand Callis would wonder what made him hold his hand up just then, signalling his men to halt. He would go over this seemingly unremarkable situation, and wonder why it had sent alarm bells ringing in his mind. Perhaps it was the fact that no one in their right mind would be outside that stormy night, not least loitering in the depths of the Veins. Perhaps he heard a tension in the man’s voice, a flicker of nerves. All he would ever be certain of was that he made a subconscious choice that would change his life forever.

He approached the pair, his hand resting easily on the hilt of his sabre.

‘Hell of a night, eh?’ he said.

The nearest figure lifted his hood, revealing a narrow, angular face with high cheekbones and sharp blue eyes. The man smiled, and wiped rainwater from his brow.

‘That’s the truth,’ he said. ‘No night to be hauling ale through the narrows, for certain. We’re just waiting for the worst to pass.’

Callis nodded. The second figure was leaning against a jutting beam of hardwood, hood still concealing his face. His arms were buried in the pockets of a long, patched coat, and his head was pointed down at the muddy quagmire of the square. Callis quickly flicked his eyes to the balconies and rooftops surrounding them. Not a flicker of movement.

‘Don’t recall there being any taverns nearby. Where are you headed?’ he asked, keeping his tone light and friendly. ‘Perhaps we could give you some help?’

‘No need,’ said the man, waving one hand. ‘Stein’s doing all the heavy lifting. We’re bound for the Hole in the Wall, off Arkhall Lane. It’s not such a distance.’

‘That’s Kofel’s place, right?’

There was that smile again, though this time it was masking a flash of irritation. ‘Aye, that’s the one.’

‘Strange, I always thought he brewed his own stuff. Tastes like sewer runoff and nettles, far as I recall.’

‘You’re mistaken,’ said the second figure, stepping out of the shadows, and there was no false bonhomie in his voice. ‘We’ve duardin amberfire here, and it needs getting where it’s goin’. If you’ll pardon us, now.’

Callis’ hand squeezed the hilt of his blade. ‘Hold there,’ he said, and he spoke the words like he meant them. Behind him there was the sound of sliding steel, and the creak of crossbow winches. ‘Happer, Longholme, watch these gentlefolk. Jammud? Check the cart.’

The lanky guardsman crept forward, holding his sword ready in one hand and a lantern in the other. The two strangers didn’t move a muscle. Jammud gently jabbed at the canvas with his blade. There was the clink of something like glass. For a moment, Callis thought that perhaps he had misjudged the situation after all. Then Jammud lifted the cover off, and a wan blue light washed across the pooling water around their feet. In the lantern light, Callis caught a glimpse of row upon row of cylindrical containers, dark blue crystals that pulsed with ghostlight.

‘Augur smugglers!’ shouted Jammud, his face creased with an excited grin.

The arrow took him in the throat.

Callis felt something colder than the freezing rain clench around his gut. Jammud’s eyes widened, and he dropped his sword and lantern, trembling hands reaching for the shaft. He coughed up a gout of blood and slumped backwards into the muddy water.

‘Shields!’ yelled Callis, dragging his blade free and hauling his pistol from the depths of his overcoat. Another arrow was fired from the roof to their left, and Longholme spat blood, clutching her belly, her crossbow tumbling to the ground. The water was a red river around their feet. The narrow-faced stranger was slamming his fist into Happer’s side, and it was only when Callis saw a spray of scarlet that he realised the old man’s assailant held a knife. Happer was gasping and groaning, a horrid wet mockery of that familiar cough.

One of the hooded archers crouched on the roofs raised his bow to take a shot, and Callis felt himself move with the swiftness of instinct. His pistol bucked in his hand, and the acrid tang of black powder filled his nostrils. The figure toppled, turning a half-somersault in midair and smashing a rotted hitching post to splinters as he hit the ground, and Callis jammed the pistol back into its holster.

The flathorn screeched and bucked. Arrows were whipping past them from all sides. Callis was dimly aware of Custin at his side, screaming incoherently as bolts rattled against the shield he held overhead.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2017.
This eBook edition published in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Mark Holmes.

City of Secrets © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2016. City of Secrets, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
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ISBN: 978-1-78572-530-2

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