Contents

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The Measure of Iron – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Chapter One

Syzek Govus of the Iron Golems stepped into the Realmgate as lightning danced down the metal frame, a murky yellow reflection wobbling in its heart. He closed his eyes instinctively. Cold nothingness washed over his bleached, ashy skin and hissed over his ruddy plate.

For a long moment, he was nowhere at all.

Transformation in permanence, permanence in transformation was how the mantra went. The saying described many of the unknowable mysteries of Chaos, from the madness of the afterlife to the state of the soul. In this way, the Iron Golems also described the space between the realms. Some scholars said it was where the forge-fire burned. Some said it was where the Four Instincts made their home. Some said that there was nothing but void.

Suddenly, heat rolled over him like the breath of a forge. Harsh sunlight pierced through the grille of his helm into his pale eyes and he blinked away tears. It had been years since he had seen a sky. The wet stone was crooked under his bare feet and he stumbled a little.

A ragged scream shocked him out of his disorientation.

Below him, a pack of emaciated men and women cowered, staring up at him with bulging eyes, near-toothless mouths hanging open. When he stepped forwards, they scrambled back like feral animals. Some hid amongst the broken pale ruins that surrounded the gate, others froze, licking their cracked lips.

His mountainous frame encased in heavy plate enamelled in red like old blood, Syzek strode forwards. Sheets of chain mail and brass hammer charms jingled. Cautiously, he drew his heavy warhammer from his back, the spiked head gleaming. The wretches scuttled back, using their hands as much as their feet. He rested his hammer on his broad shoulder.

‘So these are the creatures that live in the Bloodwind Spoil,’ he muttered, frowning.

Eziel, his drillmaster, appeared at his side with a snort of derision. Like him, she was tall, heavily muscled and armoured in the same ruddy plate. Unlike him, she was at ease under the strange sky, rolling her shoulder as if preparing for some forge-yard feat of strength, not war. The long chain-flail at her hip clinked, more heavy weapon than goad for lesser humans, and a footman’s flail dangled on the opposite side. She cocked her head at him.

‘You sound disappointed,’ she said, amusement trilling through her dry, raspy voice.

‘I am,’ he said. ‘You said that there would be dangers.’

She barked a rasping laugh and the pack moved back further.

‘I said that there would be dangers,’ she replied, ‘but there are also things like these. Most seem to be escapees.’ She chuckled again. ‘Imagine escaping your drillmaster, rushing through this blessed gate and ending up here.’ She pulled the flail-whip from her belt. ‘I almost feel bad for them.’

Syzek glanced at her sharply, the quick movement exaggerated by his helm.

‘I said almost,’ she said with a shrug. ‘You know me better than that.’

He shook his head. Most people did not understand Eziel at all. She often spoke in riddles, putting too much trust in her tone to convey meaning. It was only because he had known her since they were children that he understood her strange turns of logic.

Loud rhythmic jangling announced the arrival of his signifer, Somnixes Ozud. In his hand, he carried the war-seal on a heavy iron pole. The broad steel plate bore the spiked portcullis symbol of the Golem’s Will; a sheet of small brass discs hung from it and jangled whenever he moved. It was he who announced that war had come to these pathetic wretches. With him came the first supply wagon, pulled by ornery Ghurian pack drevars and loaded with water barrels.

A change rolled over the wretched scavengers. Their backs stiffened, their fingers dug into the sand.

‘They have water!’

‘Water!’

‘They have eating on them!’

‘There are only a few!’

The feral crowd charged, hurtling across the sands towards them. More poured out of hiding. Starvelings or not, their numbers might have made up for their relative weakness. No matter how many were there, they could be no match for Syzek’s warband, the Golem’s Will. They came from the Legion and the Legion was unstoppable.

‘Legion, front!’ he roared. ‘Riot crush!’

Somnixes banged out the order, his thunderous voice carrying like the rumbling of a drum.

With a disgusted grunt, Syzek swung his warhammer off his shoulder, turning the motion into an underhanded stroke. It was a lazy strike, but these weak creatures did not need his full effort.

The first wretch reached him and warhammer met skull. Brains and bone scattered over the sand, the thin body flying back. Another wretch scrambled at Syzek from his left and he backhanded the man to the ground. Without pausing, he staved in the prone man’s chest with a single blow, crunching frail bones.

Behind him, his legionaries stepped through the gate, their armour gleaming dully in the light. They numbered twelve, carrying their personal arms, hammers, spiked maces and round shields. It was still strange to him, leading these soldiers. His place had been in the forges as a forge-master, supplying the Legion with its arms. Now he was in the field, leading them as dominar.

Still, war-making was his duty and inheritance as an Iron Golem. It had soaked the air he breathed, the rations he ate, the water he drank. The knowledge simply existed for him. Where so many other decadent civilisations treated their warriors like they had a profession, for Syzek and the Golem’s Will, it was simply life. To be otherwise was to be nameless, without citizenship, perhaps less than human.

Syzek growled and pushed away the memories that threatened to surface. His family of origin had been nameless – worse, the professions of both his parents were outright shameful. His mother was a merchant, his father a jeweller. Useless in war. Still, his past was irrelevant to his elevated present. At least, that is what he told himself. There were many who were eager to remind him.

‘Stay together, kill them,’ Syzek shouted.

They wasted no battle cries, as this was not war but a speedy extermination. Armour and mail clanking, the legionaries charged forwards in a wall, swinging their spike-sheathed clubs and heavy hammers. The thud of maces hitting flesh and bones breaking cracked across the basin.

Broken bodies piled high, and the sand became soaked in blood. The dregs came on in clots of reeking desperation, like jackals trying to bring down lions. Slowly, the legionaries moved forwards in a u-shaped formation, hemming the creatures into the pale rocks where they were crushed. Yet, there were always more of the stinking things, as if the ground spawned them like insects.

Syzek pulverised them. He broke their limbs, cracked their skulls and twisted their necks. Blood flowed, but Syzek did not revel in it. This violence was a purely mechanical endeavour; it was neither a test of his skill as a soldier or as a smith. Just a wearying delay, if it could be called that much.

Eziel followed at his side, roaring encouragement and threats in equal measure. Unlike some drillmasters who perhaps edged too close into cruel decadence, she touched her prods to his legionaries only if she needed to, using drevar whip, razor-sharp insults and occasionally her heavy flail-whip as required. Instead she wielded that flail-whip against the enemy, the heavy brass ball lashing out to break ribs or crack skulls with frightening precision.

‘We’re almost free of these creatures,’ she said. ‘They’re breaking.’

Then the unthinkable happened.

One of his legionaries, Galex, fell under a crowd of flailing wretches, cursing as the dregs tore his flesh. Syzek shuddered. They were trying to eat him even as he still lived. Sensing that these newcomers were not as invulnerable as they had first appeared, the crowd surged forwards anew.

How many of these cannibals were there?

Syzek barged in, swatting aside shrieking cannibals as he went. Another legionary joined him, a man named Alon, armed with mace and shield. An older veteran, he rarely needed ordering; he simply knew what needed doing.

They reached the screeching knot and Syzek shattered it apart with a sweep of his hammer. More scrambled over the shattered bodies of their fellows to reach Syzek, biting and clawing at his exposed flesh. Pain flashed through his thigh. Alon hauled Galex to his feet. The man’s skin was ripped, great chunks bitten from his flesh.

‘They sense food, more will always come,’ Eziel said as she strangled some fiend with the chain of her flail-whip.

‘Part centre!’ he roared.

His remaining legionaries did so. They knew what was coming.

‘Breacher! Charge!’ he bellowed.

An inhuman roar boomed over the basin, loud as an avalanche. The sands quivered with each footfall as the vast slab of iron, gristle and muscle that was the ogor Breacher charged. He did not have a name – not unless ‘Breacher’ counted. Not that he cared, as long as he was fed. His vast fists were encased in iron mauls, his prodigious gut covered in plate, his head enclosed in the same type of heavy helm as the rest of them. A generous parting gift from his adoptive father, this living weapon was the ultimate sign of Azen Govus’ confidence in him.

The Breacher bulldozed through the gap into the odious crowd. Bodies flew up into the air as if they weighed nothing. A bloody hole opened in the sea of weak flesh as the Breacher swung wildly about, pulping everything around him. A mash of gore marked his path as he churned onwards.

Behind their line, the supply train plodded forth from the Realmgate. Wagons loaded with rations, water, shelter, fortifications – everything they needed for a lengthy expedition. Slaves from dozens of nations huddled in their cages, shrieking at the sight of the cannibals that lunged towards them.

‘Follow the Breacher!’ Syzek roared. ‘Guard the flanks!’

The call was taken up around him and their supply train followed. The warband scattered through the train, breaking up knots of clawing cannibals. Even protected by the warband, several of the unnamed were dragged away to their deaths. Syzek was not concerned. His father had been generous and they could afford to lose a few lesser workers.

Syzek moved to the rear wagon with Atoska and Ferron, both armed with shields and hammers, to form a tough defensive knot around the second load of water. They were nearly free.

The fight became desperate as the creatures realised that their opportunity was vanishing. With a final shriek, they rushed at the Golem’s Will. Like they were shaping metal, Syzek and the others hammered their bodies into paste.

Whimpering, the cannibals finally broke away and loped back the way they had come.

‘Cowards,’ Syzek muttered, looking down with disgust at the bloody bite in his leg.

‘No, just smart,’ Eziel said, behind him.

‘Smart?’ he said.

‘Plenty of eating over there,’ she said, a smile in her voice.

Sure enough, the creatures fell upon the broken corpses of their fellows, wrestling with each other over crushed limbs and spilled guts.

He shuddered in disgust, and she laughed.

‘Welcome to the Spoil,’ she said. ‘It gets worse.’

The two shield bearers tensed at the apparent disrespect but when he only shook his head, they relaxed once more. Eziel hopped onto the back of the wagon and sat down, her feet dangling. Syzek joined her, poking at his wound.

The train crested the lip of the sandy basin, and they entered a vast scrubland. Strange tripodal insects creaked to each other and blood-red scrub rattled in the wind like old bones.

Now that they were not in immediate danger, they took off their helms, though they kept their weapons close. Syzek was typical of the breed, heavy-featured and hairless. Small bone spikes lined his jaw and brow, and heavy brass discs dangled from his ears, marking out his house. Eziel was much the same, though she still had hair, dry and brittle, tied tight to her scalp.

As a slave healer tended to the bite in Syzek’s leg, Eziel opened the thick folio of maps and notes that carried her family’s knowledge of the Spoil. Like the rest of her family, Eziel Ebrixos was curious. It was the Ebrixos that sought out new ore veins and farmland to exploit, new cities and towns to conquer. And it was the original Ebrixos, the first of their bloodline, that had been the first to try and map the Eightpoints. Her descendants had been trying to complete her work ever since. The Varanspire remained blank on every map, known and unknown, seen but unseen. Eziel intended to change that. She wanted to be the first Ebrixos to step inside it.

‘There’s the place that we can set up the forge,’ she said, pointing at a map. ‘Though we’ll have to fight for it.’

‘Understood,’ he said, as the slave healer finished stitching the wound and left silently.

At that moment, a black haze swept over Syzek’s vision and all sound muffled.

Syzek. Govus. Are you ready to make a weapon worthy of me?

It was a deep voice, ancient and curt, used to being obeyed. Such was its authority and majesty that Syzek nearly stood and knelt. There was no voice like it. Not even Mithraxes wore the right to rule so easily.

A welter of images skittered through his mind. Despite himself, Syzek flinched. He hated this; it felt too much like madness. A vast forest opened before him, heat rippling over the boughs. His sight rushed along dry riverbeds and cracked clay banks, flashing by towering trees, as if he were a bird, until he came to rest at a tumbled-down stump, bleached from the sun. No, not a stump. A corpse. A treelord corpse.

Syzek rubbed his brow.

He knew his purpose here.

To make a weapon worthy of Archaon – the Great Overlord, the man of Iron and Flame, the Iron Will that had overcome the Four Instincts. It had to be without peer to earn him his place in the warlord’s forges. That much, he knew. But as Syzek looked over the distance to where a faint blot of darkness hovered on the horizon, he questioned how these new, strange visions played into his quest.

‘What is it?’ Eziel’s voice broke through, echoing to him as if over a great distance.

He shook his head. How long had he sat there vacantly staring?

‘Syzek?’ she said.

He described the vision to her in a quiet voice, hoping that she knew what he was talking about.

‘I know that place,’ she said. ‘The Cursewood.’

‘The name feels right, which seems wrong,’ Syzek muttered. ‘Going by feeling is foolish. Dangerous, even.’ He looked about him at the alien wastes. ‘I wonder how many lose their souls to the Instincts instead of going to the Golem’s Forge.’

Eziel paused before answering.

‘Too many.’

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2019.
This eBook edition published in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Stepan Alekseev.

The Measure of Iron © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2019. The Measure of Iron, 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: 978-1-78999-480-3

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