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The Hollow King – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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CHAPTER ONE

The girl ran through the wood under the grin of a skull moon. Breath panted from her lungs. The roots tangled the ground under her feet. A branch caught in her hair, and her head snapped back. She pulled at the branch. The thorns tangled deeper. She yanked, panting, tears running through the blood smearing her face.

A howl came from the direction of the road.

‘Please…’ she cried, the words dissolving into a gasping ball of panic. She wanted her mother, her father, her elder sister. She wanted to be back in the rocking dark of the wagon as it jolted along the road in the twilight. She wanted the world to be a shape she understood, to hear a voice say that everything would be all right. She wanted someone to reach down and pick her up.

The thorns sliced into her fingers. The branches of the trees thrashed. She saw crimson eyes, pinpricks of ember red in the dark, behind her, coming closer.

Branches whipped Cado as he ran. The moon poured silver down on him. He could smell blood. Could taste it. Death was howling through the forest. The quarry was out there, running, flooded by fear, bleeding. It was fast too. He reached a thicket of trees. His eyes had become red flames in their sockets. The skin of his face pulled back from his teeth. The world was silver and red. It had taken too long to catch the caravan. Too long running along the lich-marked paths, hunger growing inside, as the prey sent a fraying thread pulling him on. Now the wagons of the caravan lay behind him on the road, tipped over, spattered with blood, dying horses thrashing in the harnesses. Now there was just this chase and a world redrawn by hunger.

His senses were singing. The reek of blood was a crimson haze. Magic spiralled through the bare branches. The gasp of breath. Bones rattling. Close. An abyss of hunger open and waiting to swallow him. He reached a rock, bounded onto its top and launched up into the branches of the trees. Birds took flight, cawing, their song splitting the air.

She had been asleep in the wagon, and then there had been shouting. She had come awake blinking, thinking for a second that the shouts were echoes of her dreams.

‘Stay here,’ her father had said, and she had clutched at the cold-iron hammer amulet and pulled the furs close. The rock and sway of the wagon had slowed, and then the vehicle had kicked, and she had heard voices shouting to ride fast. Her heart jolted. The grave-coins, bone amulets and dried roses hanging from the wagon’s roof swung on their cords. She hoped they would keep them safe again. There were things in the forests. For as much as her parents and the other adults tried to hide it, she knew this land wanted them dead.

Two nights ago, she had heard muttering and the click of cocking crossbows as she lay awake. She had sneaked up and opened the hatch at the back of the wagon. Peeking out she had seen something drifting through the trees. At first it looked like nothing, just a smudge of pale light. It was no more than two hundred paces away. It glowed, fizzed. Dead leaves rattled on tree branches above. The more she looked, the more she thought it had a shape – like an old person bent under a cloak, long arms and thin fingers trailing. She had wanted to duck back into the wagon but stayed, watching as the shape crackled past. Once it turned, and for a held breath she was certain she could see a head, the curve of a hood hiding a face and eyes. It had looked at her while the breath she was holding burned in her lungs. Her fingers had gripped the little iron hammer. She whispered what she could remember of the names her mother had spoken while hanging the charms inside the wagon: Sigmar, Morrda, and others that were just sounds.

Please let all the cruel things of this realm pass… Please protect us… Please let us reach a safe place… Please.

The blurred figure had drifted away through the trees. The guards settled again as she went back inside the wagon and watched the amulets turn on their cords as the wheels rolled on.

Tonight, as she heard the guards shout, she had begun to plead to the names and amulets again. Not whispering. Calling. The wagon had started to shake, wheels bucking over earth and stone. They were going fast, trying to outrun something coming after them. Then the world had tipped over. The wagon rolled and skidded, and the amulets clanged against each other. Toppling bundles of clothes half buried her. She heard the horses cry, and her father shout, and then another sound. A sound that froze her in place. A howl that passed through the wagon’s walls like they weren’t there. More shouts and then a loud, wet crunching. She had lain still, hardly daring to breathe.

Then she had heard claws on the outside of the wagon. She had looked around at the hatch-door, now on its side and level with the ground. Its bolt had broken, and it lolled on its hinges. The scrape of claws came closer. Her eyes stayed fixed on the hatch, waiting for a shadow to blot out the sliver of moonlight falling between it and the frame. Then there was a shout from somewhere nearby and the scraping of claws paused. She had not waited. She was up and through the hatch and running before her heart beat again.

There had been an instant when she had seen the shadow, looming close, ragged under the moonlight, eyes red. She had run into the trees. She saw a figure ahead of her, running too. She had followed. So had the red eyes of the ragged shadow.

She yanked her hair free from the thorns. Ran, gasping. Small bare feet over dark loam and tangled roots, fear numbing the cuts of sticks and stones. A tall, twisting tree stood in the middle of a clearing ahead. Its bare branches reached up to the rictus face of the moon. Birds crouched upon them. Hundreds of birds. Hunched forms of white and black feathers.

She could see someone running ahead of her. It was one of the caravan guards. Morinar, the kind one with the gut that did not fit under his armour; who always gave her one of the dried fruits from his pack when she asked; who was never scared of the sounds that came from the night, and always smiling.

‘Help!’ she cried. He turned, armour plates and chainmail jangling. He had a sword in his hand. His face was pale, eyes wide with terror, air gasping from his mouth. ‘Help! Please!’ she called again. Her foot caught on a root.

She fell. Her knee hit the edge of a stone. Blood… Blood beading her skin, black under the moon’s glare. She twisted to look back.

Red. Spots of red in between the trees. And jaws. She froze. A rattling sound of breath through long teeth came from behind her. The tears had stopped now. The birds shifted on their perches, beaks and feathers rustling. A rattling sound of something that could not breathe growling through a rotten throat. She was shaking. Her eyes clamped shut.

‘Mama…’ she whimpered, ‘Papa…’ It was the only thing she could think to say, the prayer of a child in the face of the unimaginable. It was right there, on the other side of her eyelids. She needed to be brave. Be brave and things would be all right. She turned, shaking, and opened her eyes. Glowing eyes looked back at her. Rotting skin and fur hanging from a long, yellow skull. Bits of red and pink hung from its teeth. It cocked its head. The ember light in its eyes flared. Two others padded from its shadow. Death-light and blood drooled from their mouths. Dead muscle tensed under flesh. Jaws hinged wide. She could see strands of hair and bits of cloth caught in the fangs. Be brave…

A sound like a scythe passing through wheat. Black, rotten blood splattering.

The nearest dead wolf twisted. The two halves of its split skull thrashed from side to side. A bubbling howl came from its throat. A shadow landed. It looked human. Almost human. It crouched on the ground between her and the wolves. A tattered cloak covered its back. It had a sword in its hand, bright under the grin of the moon. Two dragons coiled either side of the cross guard. She noticed rings on the thin fingers, black iron on pale skin. The wolves gave a growl. Their heads lowered. The figure in the tattered cloak looked back at her over its shoulder. Red eyes. Skin pulled taut around a mouth of knife-point teeth.

‘Run,’ it said.

The wolves howled.

The birds in the tree above took flight.

She ran.

Cado rose, looking at the other wolves. Ghost-light crackled silver in his sight. The fat caravan guard had his back against the tree. The man raised his sword, undecided whether to run, climb or fight.

‘This one is not yours,’ said Cado. The wolves tensed. Dead muscles bunched. The hunger trapped in their rotting shells would not turn away now – any more than Cado would. He felt the weight of the sword in his hand. The silver runes in its steel breathed cold into the lengthening second.

The wolves pounced. The sword came up. The first wolf’s jaws were wide. Cado rammed the tip of the blade through the top of its mouth. Force jolted down his arm. Another wolf landed on him, jaws fastening on his shoulder. Fangs shattered as they met the armour under his cloak. He pivoted, ripping the sword out of the skull of the first wolf and throwing the second onto the ground. It hit with a crack of shattering bone. Pale light fizzed in its mouth and eyes. Cado stamped down. The creature’s skull shattered. He whirled. The rest of the pack were already past him. The wolves flowed towards him, blurred shadows, howling. Cado leapt, sword tracing a silver-sickle path through the moonlight. Bones parted. He landed amongst the mess of rotten flesh and guttering magic. The substance of the wolves was already turning to black froth as the sorcery animating them dissolved into the wind.

Cado turned to the fat guard. The hunched birds in the branches were quiet and still.

‘They could smell the reek of your god on you,’ said Cado, nudging a crumbling wolf skull with his foot. ‘You brought them to the caravan. Did you think the innocent could mask you, or were they just a shield to be spent?’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ gasped the guard.

‘You almost outran me, but this hunt is over.’

‘I… Don’t… Please don’t. We just wanted to reach safety, please…’ The man had started to move away from the tree, ready to run. Cado levelled his sword.

‘You worship lies. You should know when one has run its course.’

He looked up at the fat man’s eyes. They were suddenly steady, unblinking. There was no fear there now.

The man opened his mouth, paused, and then smiled.

Cado lunged.

The guard spat a word into the air.

Moonlight shattered into rainbow. The birds exploded from the tree branches. Cawing cries filled the canopy. The guard’s shape unravelled. Fat and skin and armour and smile spun into blue fire. The sword in his hand melted. Sculpted muscle unfolded under translucent skin. A grinning mask of bronze now covered his face. He had a knife in his hand. The blade flickered like a flame.

The blow was fast, but Cado’s sword turned the blade, and sliced the hand holding it. The man in the bronze mask flinched back. Cado rammed the pommel of his sword into the mask. Its bronze grin crumpled. The man staggered, and Cado was on him before he could recover, hammering blows into the face and chest. The masked man lashed out. Cado grabbed the fist and twisted. Force snapped up the man’s arm. Bones shattered from wrist to shoulder. Then Cado slammed him onto the floor. He lay, gurgling, blood and breath forming pink bubbles in the mask’s mouth slit.

Cado tied the man’s limbs, broken and whole alike, then hooked his fingers under his chin and began to drag him back through the forest towards the caravan. Above him the birds were wheeling.

The caravan was still intact, but there was almost no one left alive. Almost. One guard, gasping last breaths, legs worried to ribbons, lay where he had collapsed, trying to crawl away. He looked too old and thin for the scraps of armour he wore. Most of his blood was now soaking the ground he lay on. Cado paused above him, looking at the worn dagger still clutched in the bloody hand. Others must have survived, he reasoned: travelling chests and bundles had been opened, possessions taken. Two of the five wagons were gone. He could read the hoof and foot marks where someone had harnessed the surviving horses to them. He wondered if the girl had been amongst them. Maybe. None of them had seen the dying guard. Or perhaps they had; perhaps they had heard his gasping pleas for help. Either way, they had not stopped to give succour. He was not surprised; the underworlds were not kind places for the living. Everything dissolved into agony and loss. Only revenge and justice remained true in such an age.

The beliefs of mortals had made the underworlds. Across existence the living had told stories and dreamed of what would follow death, and with time those beliefs had become real. Places of punishment, plenty, reward, reincarnation and eternity – conjured into being with all the variety of imagination, hope and fear that life could create. There had been mountains and forests crossed by rivers, the waters of which carried the souls of the dead; great networks of caves where grey shades moved between stone tables to set them with two cups and talk again to every person they had met in life; orchards that never seemed to end, where the trees always bore fruit and the dead lay in warm shadows under green boughs and winter would touch neither leaf nor air.

That had been the beginning of the Realm of Death: an archipelago of kingdoms made by the beliefs of the living, in which only the dead dwelt. But in time the living had come. Colonies of mortals had made the underworlds their homes. Cultures had grown. The ways of the newcomers had intertwined with those of the dead. It had been the first invasion of the afterlife, and from it the Realm of Death had become a Mortal Realm. Then Chaos had descended. The followers of the Dark Gods had stepped from the shadows. Realms and underworlds had burned. Blood had soaked the ground as daemons feasted on the souls of the dead. The past had become fire and ashes. The lives of mortals became ones of cruelty and suffering. Long ages of pain, with no light of hope or rest from the hunger of the Ruinous Powers.

Finally, a change. There had been a war, a new invasion to add its layer of blood to those that had come before. This one wrapped itself in promises of hope and help. It echoed, to Cado’s ears, the hubris of the past, spoken in a new voice. Faith, alliances, light, order and majesty… all of it so crushingly familiar. All of it empty of anything except inevitable failure. The Realm of Death was a broken dream still sliding into darkness. Chaos had breathed its taint into everything, and the unquiet dead took what little kindness remained.

In the great cities of the underworlds, the living clung either to the protection of the servants of the Lightning God of Heavens, or the tyranny of the undead and the shadow of Nagash. Both were a lie. Sigmar, Lightning Born, could not undo the poison poured by the Dark Gods into the Realm of Death. It ran too deep. Nagash and his legions tried to make empires of bone and shuffling corpses, as immune to corruption as they were to time: another bargain, made with a lesser torment.

The people who had led the caravan through the forests had been humans. Either their forebears had survived under the hand of Chaos, or they had come to resettle this land. Regardless, they were fleeing whatever life they had made. They were trying to find safety, Cado guessed: a city guarded by the forces of Sigmar, a way out, other mortals to join up with. All lies told like stories to soothe frightened children. Now all that remained of their credulity and hope was an old man in battered armour gasping his last in shallow, bloody breaths. Cado paused and knelt beside him. The guard did not react. Pain and the nearness of death had stolen his sight. Cado could feel the tug of hunger rise to the reek of the man’s blood. Slowly, carefully, he reached out. The guard flinched at the touch of Cado’s hand on his neck. Cado flexed his fingers and felt vertebrae crack in the man’s neck. Then he stood and picked up his captive again.

He dragged his prisoner to one of the remaining wagons. It had slewed off the road and pitched onto its side when its wheels caught a rut. A tree bore its weight now, branches bunched against its side. The tree was in bloom, Cado noticed. Purple blossom covered its twigs and branches in thick clumps, petals open to the moonlight. He fastened the prisoner to a wheel with an iron chain and pitch-dipped rope. The man’s head lolled forward, unconscious. The bronze mask still hid his face, blood dripping from under its edge. Cado watched the thick scarlet droplets slide down the man’s chest. The heart inside that chest was still beating… Warm… soft… the rhythm of redness.

He had gone very still. The smell of the drying blood and torn flesh all around him was suddenly a haze threading his senses. Hollowness opened wider inside him, screaming with silent hunger.

He stepped back, closed his eyes. The world was red threaded with black. A high, dry shriek filled his head. The blackness was roaring up from inside.

Hunt now, run through the night and find the living. Rip, tear and feast…

Red warmth. Emptiness filled with crimson. The comfort of iron and copper on the tongue.

He held himself motionless. Slowly the shriek faded to a dry chuckle. He could still hear a remembered echo of that false laugh when he opened his eyes.

The face of the moon was looking down on him from a break in the trees above the road.

He shivered then raised his hands in front of him. Nine rings sat on the fingers. Each was iron. He looked at them for a second, forcing himself to read the names etched on the metal. His eyes closed briefly again. He touched his right thumb to the ring on the index finger.

A cold shiver just behind his shoulder, and then her voice breathing into his skull.

~You are troubled.~ Solia’s voice was the same as it had been when she had been his tutor. He opened his eyes. The blurred haze of her shade was just behind him and on the edge of his sight. If he turned and tried to look, her presence would shift too, so that she was always just out of view.

‘I am…’ He paused. ‘Weary.’

~The dead can’t become tired, my boy. It’s a privilege left to the living.~ He almost smiled at that, but it faded as she spoke again. ~The weight you bear, I can see it is growing heavier.~

Yes, he wanted to say. Heavier by the day and by the year, each one added to the others. Links on a chain dragged behind him through time. Every prey brought down, every new road trodden… heavier with each step.

~It shall end, one day, my prince,~ said Solia.

My prince… She had called him that even when he had become a king. He could still remember her standing on the balcony on the high wing of the palace. Straight-backed, black hair fading to grey where it fell down her blue-and-ivory robes.

‘Scholastis Solia,’ his father had said, and she had turned and knelt to him.

‘Your majesty,’ she had replied. His father had said something and then turned and left. Cado had blinked, looked down, and begun wrapping his fingers over each other, then remembered his mother and nurse’s scolds about fidgeting. He put his hands behind his back. He wanted to look where his father had gone, but that was not what you did. Solia, still kneeling so that she was on a level with him, had smiled.

‘Do you know why I am here?’ she had asked.

‘To teach me,’ he said. ‘You are my…’ He tried to form the word that his mother had said. ‘My tutor.’

She smiled more broadly. There were flecks of amber in the deep blue of her eyes. He smiled back.

‘That’s right, my prince,’ she said.

~You have not fed,~ said Solia’s shade.

He shook his head. He had not fed since before he had crossed the boundary into this underworld. Even then it had only been the congealing remains of a single vial. Warm blood, rich with fading life, and the beat of a panicked heart… he had not tasted that since he had left the City of Rivers. The rictus face of the moon had twisted through darkness and crescent once since then.

‘I have the prey we were tracking,’ he said and nodded at where the man in the bronze mask lay against the wagon wheel.

~So you have,~ she said, and he could imagine her frowning, eyes taking in details as she listed them. ~It is one of the Hidden Ones, an acolyte of Change. No marks of the higher mysteries. Alive too, or for a while at least. Two limbs broken. Bleeding inside. You won’t have long to get answers if you get any at all.~

Cado nodded. He could hear the man’s soul struggling to hold on to body and flesh. There was an edge of cooling iron in the smell of blood dripping from the chin of the mask onto the man’s chest. Life dimming drop by drop. Cado crouched next to him.

~What do you wish of me in this, my prince?~ asked Solia from behind him. He could hear the hesitancy in her voice, the plea. She was a shade, an echo of who she had been in life, bound to the iron of the ring. Like all the dead, she was beyond the concerns of flesh, but the weave of her soul remained. ~Is this going to be distasteful?~

He did not answer. Another thick drop of blood formed on the hooked nose of the man’s mask. Cado raised his hand; ice breathed from between his teeth. Pale light grew from his fingers. He placed his hand on the man’s chest. The light flared and then sank into the skin. The masked head jerked up, and snapped around. Muscles bunched against the ropes and chains. The man’s heart was a thunder roll of panic. Then his eyes found Cado, and he became still. Cado could not see a mouth, but he was certain there was a grin behind the mask. The man drew a breath. It sounded wet, rattling. When he spoke, it was in the sing-song rhythm of verse.

‘By what twists of fate, mere knaves and beggars do find themselves in cruel hands, made cold by death’s grave smile,’ said the man. ‘From the Call of Trisanda, Vagabond’s chorus, second act. Do you know it?’

Cado nodded once. Long ago… players moving between trees, laughter in a lost kingdom. He knew the words and knew that they had been written in an age that only the immortal and the dead remembered. Through the mouth of this man, the Dark Gods were laughing at him.

‘I know it,’ he said.

The bound man laughed, blood spattering from the mouth of his mask.

‘And I know you, Hollow King.’

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2022.
This eBook edition published in 2022 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Represented by: Games Workshop Limited – Irish branch, Unit 3, Lower Liffey Street, Dublin 1, D01 K199, Ireland.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Artur Treffner.

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