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Chapter One

Lord-Celestant Tylos Stormbound

The hammer falls.

Vengeance tears from my throat, ringing through the bloodless metal of my mask. ‘God-King!’ I cry in a voice that is no longer my own.

‘God-King!’ howl my lightning-born brothers as the tempest hurls us from the sky.

The ground gives as we land but Zarax rides on, ignoring the odd, yielding terrain. I cling to her scales, as blind as a newborn. The others are close behind and I hear their metal boots pounding across this broken, benighted land. Weapons are drawn, oaths are howled and I take my first breath of mortal air. Sulphur pours through my mouthpiece and I gulp it down, relishing the bitterness.

The storm thins, revealing plumes of smoke and embers. I whisper to Zarax and as she slows I sense the others gathering around me. I almost pity those we have come to destroy. Who could dream of such an enemy?

The smoke drifts, revealing glimpses of a tortured landscape. We’re heading down a glistening, crimson road that seems to have been carved from a flayed corpse. Sigmar’s tempest has landed us on a butcher’s block of body parts and thrashing, broken wings.

It’s a shameful sight but I don’t avert my gaze. I must be vigilant, aware. I must understand this place quickly.

I look harder and realise that it’s not a road, but a bridge of meat and chains, hazy with flies. Its span is vast beyond measure, stretching miles ahead before disappearing into a crimson wall of smoke. Over the side I glimpse wisps of cloud and realise we’re far above the ground. Shrieks fill the air and I see that the bridge is alive. The whole structure is made of living birds – thousands of them, broken and burned together by hot irons and fixed to a mesh of thick, oily chains. It’s the stink of their ruined flesh that fills my lungs. It’s their thrashing bodies I’m riding across and their pain I can hear.

I want to roar in outrage, but I bite down my fury and keep my voice level.

‘Advance,’ I say, rising up in my saddle and turning to face my army.

My heart races as I see what I command. The storm has spawned a golden host. Even in this stinking, bloody wound, they are a vision. Every one of them is clad entirely in gleaming armour, still crackling with the fury of the storm. Pennants trail above glinting, haloed helmets, bearing the divine sigils of Sigmar and the Celestial City. No army ever looked so glorious, so dignified. And Sigmar has entrusted it to me.

The vanguard is a seamless wall of shield-bearing Liberators; numberless ranks of heroes, marching towards me in perfect unison. Then come the retinues of paladins – striding goliaths that dwarf even the Liberators, clad in blessed, god-wrought suits of armour. Some carry great, two-handed hammers that look like they could topple city walls, while others wield pole arms – long, gleaming glaives with lightning in their blades. In the rearguard are my divine archers – hundreds of Judicators, moving with the same precision as the rest of the army, readying their shimmering bows. High above, riding the thunderheads, are our winged guardians, the Prosecutors: radiant, inviolable and more dangerous than the lightning.

I almost laugh. Stormcast Eternals – the God-King’s unbreakable fist. Removed from the golden halls of Azyr, we shine all the brighter.

I turn back to the bridge and see the sky for the first time. It’s almost entirely obscured by rock. A vast sphere of smouldering ore, hundreds of miles in diameter, hangs directly over our heads. Such a star-burnt hulk can only be a moon, dragged from the heavens by divine will. It’s moving towards us, shedding sparks and boulders as it glides majestically through the clouds. The sky ripples in its wake like water in the lee of a ship.

‘Lord-Celestant.’

I look down from Zarax’s back at Lord-Relictor Boreas. I can barely recognise my brother’s dry tones. His arcane duties have left their mark on his speech, just like every other part of him. As I was being drilled and remade in the Celestial City, Sigmar sent my brother through death and beyond. Eternity echoes in his every word.

Unlike the rest of us, my brother’s mask resembles a bleached skull, and I find myself wondering what lies behind. Would I recognise his face? Unlike me, he has endured Sigmar’s fire a second time. He knows what it really means to be immortal.

The rest of my captains stand back in respectful silence as he approaches.

‘What are your orders, Lord-Celestant?’ he asks, speaking formally, giving no hint of our shared past. He glances at the heavens. ‘This was not prophesied. None of my auguries indicated that we would land here, on this bridge of birds.’

I look back down the road, blanking out the thrashing wings and the insanity hanging overhead.

‘The tempest can’t have strayed too far off course, Boreas.’ I nod back down the bridge. ‘We’ve clearly found our foe.’

There are figures emerging from the fumes – a barbaric, crimson-clad rabble scrambling along the bridge, pouring from the smoke like blood from a wound. The moonlight shows them in sickening clarity. They wear jagged, red and brass helmets and their bare chests are lashed with scarred muscle. They carry repulsive, brazen idols and axes as tall as men, scored with foul sigils, and every one of them is draped in skulls and glistening with blood.

‘Bloodreavers,’ says a voice edged with hate. ‘Finally these snorting dogs will receive some justice.’

I turn to face the speaker. ‘Liberator-Prime. There can be no victory without discipline.’ I nod at the lines of Liberators marching towards us. ‘They will follow our lead, Castamon. Show them what Sigmar expects.’

He nods, humbled. ‘Lord-Celestant.’

I turn back to the bloodreavers. As they run they fill the air with a dreadful din. They are trailing something that clangs and clicks along the chains of the bridge but at this distance I can’t make out what it is.

The rest of the Liberators clatter to a halt around us, moving with such well-drilled precision that they could be on a parade ground.

I point my hammer at the bloated moon and raise my voice.

‘Remember this, Stormcasts: nothing is forsaken. Look deep enough into the darkness and you will always find Sigmar looking back.’

They remain motionless and silent, but I feel their battle-hunger; it radiates from their gleaming armour.

‘Lock shields,’ I say, and there’s a deafening clang as the vanguard snaps into place. The entire army moves as one, bodies, shields and armour, fitting together to make an impenetrable bastion of sigmarite.

Struggling to suppress my pride, I raise my warhammer, Grius, to the crimson heavens. It flashes in the moonlight, and Zarax lets out a roar. As the dracoth rises beneath me she opens her reptilian jaws and unleashes pure white fury at the clouds. The air crackles and spider legs of electricity dance across my armour.

I give the signal to advance and as we meet the enemy lines I become one with my expressionless mask – an emotionless implement of Sigmar’s will. Anger is forgotten. Grief is suppressed. Everything falls away: the sound of shields rattling on greaves, the torment of the bridge, the lunacy of the moon – all I know is this moment. I feel the long, slow arc of my life reaching its culmination. Finally, I face the monsters I was born to slay.

Gold and crimson collide. There is an explosion of grinding metal as the vanguards meet. Sparks glitter in the darkness, axes clang against shields and bucklers smash against armour.

The lines of Liberators hold steady and I order them onwards. Their shields lock tighter with every step and they drive the enemy back across the bridge of birds. Even from a few rows back I can barely breathe for the stink of the bloodreavers, a ripe stench even more powerful than the sulphurous moon. They fight like wounded animals, snorting, spitting and howling as they throw themselves against the Liberators’ shields, trying and failing to break our line. I glimpse deranged faces, eyes rolled back in sockets, delirious with rage. They’re more stampede than army.

‘Drive them back!’ I shout as the bloodreavers’ frenzy grinds us to a slow plod. ‘Drive them back to whatever dark vaults spawned them!’

They begin to drop, felled by lightning hammer-strikes, golden flashes that lash out from behind shields, crushing armour and bone. It seems that victory will come before I even have chance to gauge the strength of my army.

I hear a cry of pain from the shield wall.

I peer through the serried, golden lines and glimpse one of my Liberators clutching at his throat. His armour has been rent and there’s blood, lots of blood, rushing between his fingers. He vanishes from view as the phalanx closes around him.

His choked screams scrape around my skull and I drive Zarax forwards, keen to be done with these animals. Even the dracoth cannot easily wade through such a crush, so she unleashes a gout of lightning, tearing a channel through the enemy ranks. The smell of cooking meat intensifies the stench.

A bloodreaver bounds over the shield wall. He vaults several rows, screaming hysterically, and lashes out with a pair of jagged axes. Another Stormcast staggers as the bloodreaver crashes into him.

Before the Liberators can respond, a paladin strides casually forwards and brings down his huge, two-handed hammer. He moves with a languid, easy grace but his blow lands like a thunderclap. The bridge rocks and blinding light envelops us all. Even Zarax stumbles.

When the glare fades, the bloodreaver is gone and the paladin has calmly resumed his place. If it weren’t for the gore sliding down his breastplate there would be no sign that the Chaos creature had ever existed. I take note of the Stormcast’s markings.

‘Retributor Celadon,’ I shout, disguising my pride beneath a stern snarl. ‘Wait for my command.’

More of the howling curs manage to scale the shield wall, disrupting our faultless lines. It’s becoming harder to match the dispassion of my mask. Anger boils through my limbs. I clutch one of my honour scrolls and recite the Oath of Becoming.

Dozens of the bloodreavers are falling to the Liberators’ hammers and swords but I hear Stormcasts crying out too. Such noble beings were not made to succumb to such soul-sick dogs and my patience starts to fray. The crush of bodies becomes oppressive. My eyes blur with sweat and my muscles burn with the effort of holding myself back.

Another Liberator falls and a whole section of the shield wall gives.

The bloodreavers seize their chance and wrench the gap wider with a flurry of axe blows.

I signal to the paladins, finally giving them permission to advance, and they surge forwards, led by Celadon’s brutal blows.

‘Close ranks!’ I roar, rising up in my saddle and ordering the Liberators back into position as the paladins storm ahead. They try to obey but the bloodreavers are becoming even more feral. They fight with no structure or reason. Something is driving them into a boiling frenzy. It’s bewildering.

Another Stormcast cries out in pain and I will take no more.

‘For the God-King!’ I roar, launching myself from Zarax’s back and into the enemy, joining the wave of paladins.

Ranks of warhammers rise behind me, along with a chorus of battle cries.

The fight begins in earnest.

I pick out the largest bloodreaver and bear down on him. His face has been warped beyond recognition by deep jagged scars and there are thick hoops of brass hammered through his biceps. Every inch of him has been transformed by a lifetime of war. The din of battle is everywhere, but I’m deaf to everything beyond the deep, phlegmy rattle of his breath. He snorts like a boar, drooling and bestial as he smashes his axe into my hammer.

The blow jolts through me and I rock back on my heel, gauging the weight of him against my own strength. He is as heavy as iron, but I’m easily sufficient for the task, and after the crush of the shield wall I relish the chance to lash out. The stink of his breath is worse than the rotting bridge – he growls something in his disgusting, dark tongue and I recognise the smell of human flesh.

I smash Grius into his axe and savour the sensation of my armour-clad limbs. My body feels like a new weapon, forged in the stars. There’s a strength in me that I can barely fathom.

The bloodreaver recovers and swings but I’m faster. So fast. Grius crunches through the mouthpiece of his helmet, tearing it away in a shower of sparks and blood. His head snaps sideways and he reels away from me, jaw hanging loose from his head.

I stride after him, barging deeper into the crush, and draw back my warhammer for another blow.

Laughter explodes from his throat. He tears away what remains of his jaw, hurling it to the ground like the remnant of a meal.

There’s something so obscene about this that I pause – only for a second, but long enough for him to slam his fist into my golden mask. My head rocks back as a long, iron spike grinds through the eye socket of my helm. Pain explodes across my face and my helmet fills with blood. I stagger backwards, reeling across the thrashing birds, blinded in one eye, and almost drop my hammer.

He gurgles grotesquely as he lunges after me, blood rushing from where his mouth used to be.

Pain only makes me faster. My hammer connects with the top of his helmet and brass crumples beneath god-forged sigmarite. His skull collapses.

He gives a last, porcine, grunt and topples back into the throng.

I down another opponent with a backhanded blow, then step back to survey the scene. I’ve unleashed a storm. Freed from the crush, the paladins are striding through the bloodreavers like a tempest, their voices raised to Sigmar, lightning flashing across their hammers. The bloodreavers topple before the combined onslaught of Liberators and Retributors. It’s a massacre. My army flows like gold from a brazier. In minutes we have shattered their ranks, scattering heads and axes as we go. The battle is almost won.

Boreas fights beside me, smashing his way through the enemy with slow, precise determination, splitting shields and heads.

I wipe the blood from my golden mask and realise that we’re mirroring each other as we strike.

‘Victory and honour!’ I cry, and he raises his hammer in reply.

I take a fume-filled breath and look around. There’s a vast shape looming up from the smoke further down the bridge, punctuated by ominous crimson lights.

‘That’s not the Crucible of Blood,’ I call out to Boreas. ‘We must finish this quickly and find out where the storm has landed us.’

He peers at the distant tower. ‘You have eyes in the heavens, Lord-Celestant.’

I nod and look up into the darkness. ‘Drusus!’ I cry, fending off a blow and peering back down the bridge. At first there’s no reply so I battle on, scouring the heavens for my cloud-borne Prosecutors.

The moon has fallen even closer. The sight of it is dizzying, vast beyond understanding. Such a colossal, dazzling sphere has no place looming so low. As it gets closer it starts to affect the bridge. The structure sways so violently that birds are being torn free and hurled up towards the sky, and the chains reach up to the clouds, dancing like serpents.

‘Lord-Celestant!’ cries a voice.

I make out the golden form of Drusus, flying overhead.

Divine light gilds his wings as he dives through the fumes, trailing Sigmar’s heralds of death behind him. He banks and rolls, clutching twin hammers. Even the blank expression of his mask can’t hide his excitement.

‘See what this bridge has in store for us,’ I shout, levelling my hammer at the shadows up ahead.

Drusus nods but remains overhead, struggling to hold his place, buffeted by a new storm that has sprung up.

‘Lord-Celestant,’ he cries, pointing one of his hammers back to where debris is flying up from the bridge. ‘The moon is falling.’

Before I can reply, a circle of bloodreavers surrounds me, each clutching an axe as tall as I am. If they’ve noticed their losses, they don’t show it. They lope towards me like drunken brawlers.

As I ready myself, I feel a charge in the air – traces of Sigmar’s wrath circling once more, crackling in my joints, responding to my faith. I raise my warhammer to the clouds and cry an oath.

The bloodreavers charge and my armour blazes white, ignited by the remnants of Sigmar’s tempest. Grius erupts as I bring it down between my feet.

There’s a thunderclap and a ring of light slams into my attackers.

Blood flies from their mouths and they arch in pain as their backs break.

‘Make for the towers!’ I cry, vaulting their twitching corpses and hurling myself back into the throng. Whatever Drusus has seen, the battle is nearly over and we need to advance.

My leap takes me unexpectedly high and I have an odd sensation of weightlessness. It takes me several seconds to land back on the bridge. The battle rages on, but most of the bloodreavers are dead and the rest are in disarray, so I call my retinues back into formation for the final push. We will finish this with the same dignity with which we began it.

I’m still a few paces away from the phalanx when my feet lift off the ground again and my face turns to the sky.

Deranged laughter fills the air as I try unsuccessfully to grasp on to something. Dozens of birds are being torn free and hurled into the ink-dark sky. The whole bridge is bucking and heaving.

I spin in the air, thrashing my limbs. As I turn I see that some of my Liberators have been thrown to their knees while others, like me, are rising into the air.

‘Lord-Celestant!’ cries Drusus from somewhere nearby. ‘The moon is too close!’

An iron-hard hand locks around my throat and I turn to see one of the berserk warriors laughing wildly as he drifts up beside me, several feet above the bridge. His axe swings towards my face.

The sickening sensation of weightlessness slows my reactions. I bring Grius up but only quick enough to deflect his blow, and the axe slams into my gorget. The blessed sigmarite holds, but we continue to spin away from the ground.

The bloodreaver still has hold of my throat and we pirouette through whirling embers. His breath reeks of death. His scarred, leathery muscles are slick with blood and his battered helmet is daubed in tribute to the Blood God. His face is near enough for me to see cracked, corpse-dry lips and thin, blackened teeth. He’s too close for me to swing my hammer so I pound the handle into his face, breaking his nose. He just laughs harder as we float higher.

Then he twists his voice around words I can understand.

‘Fly home,’ he says, his voice an obscene gurgle. Then, with a snort of derision, he tries to shove me away, but my speed has not entirely left me; before I’m lost to the storm I manage to grab hold of his axe.

The fool is so rabid that he won’t let go of his precious weapon, so I haul myself down its length, grabbing onto his arm with one hand and swinging Grius with the other. It connects squarely with his head and I hear the crack of his breaking neck. He slumps in my grip.

I roll again, hanging onto his corpse and get a sickening bird’s-eye view of the battle below. Dozens of my Stormcasts are being lifted up from the jolting bridge. Only the paladins are too heavy to be moved. Most of the bloodreavers are dead, but the survivors howl ecstatically as the moon wrenches us from victory. Finally, I realise the significance of something that has been bothering me since I first saw it. Every one of the bloodreavers is shackled to the bridge.

‘Their chains!’ I cry, grabbing hold of the one attached to the corpse and lashing it around my leg. ‘Drusus!’ I can see him and the other winged Prosecutors still hurling hammers of lightning at the foe. ‘Their chains! Lash us to the bridge!’

He stares at me, confused, then nods and waves his retinues into action. They dive into the crowds of drifting Stormcast Eternals, grappling as many as they can back down to the bridge. Our orderly attack has become an airborne riot. As Drusus’ Prosecutors attempt to lock chains around their brothers’ legs, the remaining bloodreavers lash out with their axes, hacking them down as they struggle to secure the chains.

My head pounds as Liberators rush up through the clouds, snatched by the lunar storm and thrown to the heavens. The moon is so close the air is groaning beneath its incredible mass.

Drusus and the other winged Prosecutors lash countless dozens to the bridge, but others are disappearing from view, flashing like reclaimed comets as they rush towards the firmament. My Stormcasts rage as they are dragged from this world. Anger boils in my knotted gut as the storm spins me faster.

The grinding of the moon becomes deafening, throbbing in my still bleeding head until I think it might split.

Chapter Two

Vourla – High Priestess of the Steppe

My sorcery is almost spent; my books have been burned. What does that leave? Just a weak old woman, waiting to feel a blade at her throat. The gods played a cruel joke when they chose me as the steppe’s last chance for vengeance.

I shift in my chair, throwing shadows across the octagonal chamber. The floor gleams in the torchlight like a piece of perfect marble, but I’ve walked across it many times and know the truth. Hakh’s throne room is carpeted with human teeth, hammered and smoothed to a sheen. They spiral across the room in their thousands, circling a thick, pitted grindstone. The teeth are only a small reminder of the lives Hakh has taken. I doubt he considers them more than decoration, but I feel the pain of every sundered soul. Sometimes I run my hands over them, tracing the contours and cracks, recalling names and whispering a promise: I will avenge you. For a long time I did not know how I would achieve such a feat, but now, finally, it is in reach.

The throne beside me is the carcass of a great beast – a beautiful, feline thing from the time before Chaos. After killing it, Hakh hollowed out the corpse with his bare hands and had it cast in brass. Now it hunches over him, frozen in an eternal roar. The warlord sits silently and hasn’t moved for an hour, but I know he’s awake. He’s long beyond such mortal frailties as sleep. There are weapons everywhere, but if I took a single step towards him my game would end. I must bide my time. Vengeance is so close I can feel it in my tingling palms.

Hakh’s generals have yet to arrive and my only entertainment comes from his hounds. Most of them are as motionless as their master, slumped at his feet, but a few circle me, their claws scraping and clattering across the gleaming floor. Even after all these years they’ve not given up hope that Hakh might rethink my importance and present them with a meal. They’re not real dogs, of course, but hulking, reptilian things, the colour of flayed muscle and as tall as a man. Their enormous, canine heads are crowned with horns and their bodies have been bloated into a grotesque parody of nature, torn out of shape by heaving muscle. Smoke leaks from their jaws as they pad back and forth, their eyes always locked on me.

The spiked collars at their throats crush the magic out of me and they stink of the hell-pits that spawned them, but I’ve become fascinated by them. There’s a mystery to them that I can’t fathom: Hakh loves them. When slaves become too weak to work, he feeds them, still living, to the hounds. I’ve been forced to endure the screams more times than I wish to recall and, as the slaves die, I always keep my eyes locked on Hakh’s. They burn with pride as his hounds do their work – the pride of a devoted father. The thought fascinates me. I can’t stop thinking about it. There seems to be something profound just beyond my comprehension. This murdering, poisonous monster cares for something. What does that mean? What does it mean for his wretched subjects? These gore-hungry executioners own everything now. They own those pitiful few of us who still live on the Kharvall Steppe. Slaughter, hunger and fear are the only things we will ever know now. Few of us can recall the days when animals like Hakh’s great cat still breathed and hunted, moving through a realm unshackled by Khorne’s brass towers. The monster sitting in the throne is all we have, and he loves something. What does that mean?

The door swings open and Hakh’s eight generals march into the chamber, paying me no attention as they approach the throne. A more wretched group of stooges and villains never drew breath, but, as always, they adopt the mannerisms of proud, disciplined knights. Their twisted red and brass armour flashes in the torchlight as they drop to their knees and rest their foreheads against their axes. How furious they would be if they knew that a frail, human woman like me had written their death warrants. Not only have I convinced Hakh to call them home, but I have also convinced him that they are worthless. I have driven a blade so neatly between their shoulder blades that they did not even feel it.

Hakh remains motionless for a few more seconds, then his ember-red eyes flicker into life. The lord of the Blood Creed is still a man of sorts, I suppose, but he has more than a foot in the realm of daemons. The thick serrated plates of his armour cover most of his body, but his head is horribly exposed. Years of dark worship have earned him a pair of bestial, ridged horns that swoop up from his brutal, heavy brow. His face has the grey, greasy pallor of a month-old corpse.

For a while he ignores the newcomers and stares at me. My fear was long ago matched by hate and I hold his gaze, but I can’t read the thought in those inhuman eyes. Has he seen through my ruse? Will he turn his generals on me?

He waves a hand, allowing them to rise and bark out their tallies of atrocities, presenting them as proud victories. They list every head they’ve taken for their lord, but I’ve already told him a convenient truth: that they have nothing to boast of. They no longer have an enemy to fight. This kingdom is no longer on its knees – it is supine.

‘I have tightened the yoke on the cities of Iphilaus and Chius,’ cries one of them in strident tones. His massive frame is encased in jagged brass armour and he has the pure white pelt of a wild cat slung across his shoulders. ‘Their princes will not ask you for leniency again.’ He hurls a sack to the foot of the throne and bloodless heads spill out, tumbling across the floor with a sickening series of thuds.

Another of the warriors strides forwards. He wears a heavy, blood-drenched cloak that leaves a crimson smear behind him as he walks. His gauntleted hands are locked around a daemon-forged glaive that shimmers with inner fire, revealing a cruel leer deep inside his hood.

‘The Volpone River now runs red, Lord Hakh. The Volpone Knights seemed unsure whether they should kneel to you, so I helped them decide. I removed their knees. Three thousand of them are now feeding the fish at the bottom of their sacred river.’

As he listens to their boasts, Hakh leans forwards in his throne and starts to tap the blade of his sword against the floor.

I notice that Hakh has started to tremble and I edge back into my stone chair. His growing anger would be obvious to anyone with sense, but the generals carry on oblivious, crowing over their petty victories.

Hakh is a goliath – there is something almost bovine about his armour-clad bulk. But when he finally explodes, it’s with surprising speed.

The general nearest to the throne topples back into the others as his head flies off, removed by one clean swipe of Hakh’s sword.

The warlord roars as he storms across the room to grab the severed head and smash it against the wall. The others try to raise their weapons, but Hakh attacks them with the head, slamming it into their faces until it becomes a bloody lump of bone and metal. He roars as he kills, and then, when every one of them is dead, he hurls his dripping weapon at his throne, where it bursts like a flagon of wine.

I feel a mixture of nausea and pride at what I’ve done.

He’s not finished. Still roaring, Hakh strides across the chamber and gouges the wall with his horns, sending wood and masonry clattering across the floor.

Then he turns, panting like an animal, and locks his gaze on me.

I scramble backwards but there’s no escape. The doors are unlocked, but even if I could get through them, where would I go?

He crosses the chamber and stares at me, blood dripping from his horns.

‘You were right again,’ he says finally. ‘They found nothing. They failed.’

His voice is a low growl that makes my language as vile as his own.

‘What else do you know?’ he asks.

I’m terrified but, even now, he won’t hurt me, I’m sure of it. As the hounds throw themselves around the chamber, snapping and snarling, he bats them away, sending them sprawling across the floor.

‘What do you want to know?’ I ask.

He snarls and jabs one of his bloody, brass-plated fingers at my forehead.

‘No games.’

‘Why would I tell you anything more?’ I ask, playing a fool; playing along with his lie.

He relaxes visibly, thinking he still has me in his power. He points his sword at a space in the floor of teeth. ‘It’s not finished. You know who’s next.’ He leans close, dripping blood onto my face. ‘I’ll make an exception and kill them slowly.’

For a moment, I allow myself to imagine that his words are true – that I have a family to save, that they’re still alive somewhere, waiting for my powers as a sorcerer to buy their freedom. I picture their trusting, beautiful faces and it almost breaks me. My eyes fill with tears and the idiot thinks it’s because I’m afraid for them. He thinks I don’t know they are long dead.

His breathing quickens as I nod.

I sneer at his butchered generals. ‘They were wasting your time. They lacked the wit to find the real threat.’ I look beyond him, out through one of the narrow windows. ‘But there is still an enemy. There is a way you could shine.’

His eyes blaze and he moves to grab me, stopping himself at the last minute as though he’s afraid of shattering a precious jewel.

‘And if I slay this enemy?’

‘If you could slay the man I’ve seen, your future will be secure.’ I glance at the sign of the Blood God, Khorne, carved into the back of his throne. ‘You will have served your god well. He’ll be in no doubt as to which of his lords should rule this land. You’ll become lord of the Kharvall Steppe.’

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First published in Great Britain in 2015.
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o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

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* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.