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Skaventide – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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CHAPTER ONE

THE HALT, AQSHY

Sometime past midnight, the Heart of the Halt pulsed once, and the heat of it woke Brevin Fortis from dreams of shadows and smoke.

He sat up and stared across his workshop. He’d moved his pallet in here years ago, when he’d first come to this place on the edge of everything, to be closer to his work. The night was quiet and cool, but his skin was slick with sweat and he could feel a heat gathering in his chest where the Halt had marked him ten years before. He stood, thin sheets sliding off, pressed one hand against the raw basalt of the room’s wall, and murmured.

‘Where?’

Beneath his hand the cold stone warmed and then began to glow red like approaching dawn, like blood flowing. The glow bloomed around his hand in a perfect circle, then moved upwards, like a brush stroked through ink, away from the Heart, towards the top of the Halt. As he watched, it dimmed to nothing but a lingering heat.

Brevin frowned and took his hand away. Then, he stepped to the rack next to his bed where his armour hung, the silver sigmarite gleaming in the gloom, and began to dress.

It was three hundred steps to the top of the Halt from Brevin’s workshop, but he took them three at a time, well acquainted with the shallowness of each stone tread. This fortress had been built long ago by mortals, and its rooms were scaled for them, despite the enormity of the place.

The Halt was a wall, four hundred feet tall and almost three times as long, a bastion of basalt that stretched between the sheer cliffs of Warrun Vale. The vale itself cut through the Adamantine Chain, the gigantic mountain range that separated the dry, hot plains of Aqshy’s Great Parch from its lonelier lands bordering the Ocean of Tears. In some distant age, a forgotten empire had built a line of fortresses into these mountains, an attempt to block every route in and out, denying passage to an enemy now unknown. Warrun Vale, located almost in the centre of the Chain, was the widest of those routes, and so the Halt was the greatest of the ancient fortresses.

And deep within that giant pile of basalt, those mortals had set the Heart, the relic that had been Brevin’s blessing and curse for ten long years.

Brevin reached the top of the steps, breathing easy despite the climb and the altitude. The Warrun Vale might lie far below the snow-capped peaks of the Adamantine Chain, but it was still high above the Great Parch. The air here was cold and thin, but Brevin’s body had been crafted by the gods. The guard at the top of the stairs was mortal though, and when the woman stepped out to challenge him, Brevin could hear the chatter of her teeth, the panting draw of her breath.

‘Who–’ she started, but her voice fell to a stammer as she saw him in the lantern light. ‘Lord-Ordinator!’

‘Golden Lion,’ he answered, keeping his voice low. It was deep in the night, and most of the Halt’s defenders were asleep. Or should have been. He’d heard mutters as he mounted the steps, the sounds of restless sleep broken by dreams. Or nightmares. ‘How goes it?’

‘Quiet, Lord-Ordinator.’ The woman finally remembered herself and moved back, giving him space to pass. Beneath her cloak she was wrapped in a breastplate, its steel enamelled crimson and emblazoned with the golden head of a lion snarling over two crossed swords. Brevin didn’t recognise her, but Brevin didn’t recognise most of the mortals guarding the Halt. The 27th Regiment of the Golden Lions had marched here four years ago, the latest regiment sent by the distant free city of Hammerhal Aqsha to guard this lonely bastion. Eight hundred men and women with polished armour and determined faces, the first line of defence for the vast open lands that surrounded Hammerhal Aqsha and the other free cities of Sigmar.

Another set of children wrapped in costume armour, waving toy swords.

That was unfair, Brevin thought. The Adamantine Chain was far from any place that could be called safe. In the years they’d been here, these mortals had faced feral orruks, screaming grots riding malformed troggoths, bands of blood-mad Khorne worshippers from gods-cursed Hel Crown, and even a pair of towering gargants. They were soldiers, brave and true, even if they were half his size.

Besides, he’d been mortal once himself. How he would have bristled then to be thought of as a child when he’d fought for his people. But it was hard to remember that the Astral Grandhammer he carried now was over twice as tall as he once was. Before Sigmar had taken his soul and poured it into a body remade for war.

‘My lord Stormcast Eternal,’ the guard said as he passed. ‘Are you looking for General Kant?’

‘I was not,’ he answered honestly. ‘But I am now, if she is here.’

‘Yes.’ The soldier pointed towards the centre of the wall. A figure stood there, a shadow against the dim glow rising from the face of the wall below. ‘She said she couldn’t sleep.’

‘I know the problem,’ he said. Nodding his thanks, he walked towards the Golden Lions’ leader.

General Delia Kant was in her mid fifties, a lean woman with grey hair and weathered brown skin marked with scars. Despite the hour, she wore the Golden Lions dress uniform with its crimson cap and jerkin. The only time Brevin had seen her out of that uniform was when she wore her armour. Armour which was just as well kept as her uniform, but ruthlessly utilitarian. Kant was a practical woman, organised and meticulous, patient but demanding with her soldiers. Brevin had got along with her well since she arrived, though they seldom spoke. The general was private, disciplined. Contained. But when he stepped up to the low rampart that ran atop the Halt’s face, she looked grateful for his company.

‘Brevin Fortis, honoured Lord-Ordinator of the Hallowed Knights. Good evening. Or should I say good morning?’

‘Morning would be more accurate,’ he said. It didn’t feel accurate though. The sky was black, the stars bright. Dawn did not touch any part of the horizon, and the only light came from the stars, the three moons that spun over the realm of Aqshy, and the steady glow of the face of the Halt. The wall was made of basalt, dense volcanic rock without seam or joint. But the face of it was covered with a sheet of quartz a foot thick, gleaming crystal covering the dark stone. Threads of crimson ran beneath the quartz, a web of glowing red veins. Emberstone. Aqshy was the Realm of Fire, and emberstone was its magic in crystalline form, fire made solid. Volatile and valuable, small pieces of emberstone could fuel vast conflagrations of magic. The amount of it contained in the face of the Halt was anything but small, and Brevin had only heard of one place that used more emberstone in its construction. That was the Whitefire Court, the home of the Collegiate Arcane in the city of Hallowheart, and the mages that lived there were constantly fighting to keep that power contained.

In the Halt, the emberstone’s power was chained to its Heart, and Brevin could feel the heat of that ancient artefact in his chest as he stared at the glowing veins of power in the wall below.

‘The Heart woke me from dark dreams,’ he said. ‘It told me to come here.’

‘Dark dreams,’ Kant said, frowning out at the darkness.

Warrun Vale was kept clear for the distance of a bowshot, but beyond that the pass was overrun with pines, massive old trees filling it from cliff to cliff except for the thin track that disappeared into the forest. The Golden Lions ran patrols out into the wilds on the other side of the Adamantine Chain, and occasionally traders would try their luck in those distant lands, though they seldom found anything there but death. The Warrun Vale was a lonely place, and beyond the mountains, foothills gave way to flat plains that ran down to the Ocean of Tears. During the day, you could see what felt like forever from here, across a haze of green to the distant sea, but there was nothing civilised out there. And now there was nothing but night.

‘I dreamt of darkness too,’ Kant said. ‘Darkness that flowed and choked. Dreams are strange lately. My sergeants tell me my soldiers don’t sleep, and when my dreams woke me tonight their cries kept me awake.’ She looked up at him. ‘Did the Heart speak to you of dreams when it woke you?’

‘The Heart spoke to me of nothing,’ Brevin said. ‘It just wanted me awake.’

Over a decade ago, Brevin Fortis had come to the Halt to study it. Lord-Ordinators were the engineers of the Stormcast Eternals, those mortals to whom the great god Sigmar in his wisdom had granted immortality so that they could battle anyone or anything that fought to despoil the Mortal Realms. Brevin had been a builder in his first life, before he was reborn a Hallowed Knight, and his ability to shape stone was valued just as much by his god as his ability to hew flesh. After his soul was Reforged, he was taught to raise edifices that would protect and inspire Sigmar’s faithful. But there was always more to learn, and when Brevin heard of a massive wall in the mountains which stood uncorrupted and unchanging through countless years and attacks, he set out to understand it. With ten other Hallowed Knights he’d come to the Halt, and found the Heart buried deep within it. He had touched that artefact, and was touched by it, and now this was his home.

He was part of the Halt now. Tied to it with chains of fire that wrapped around his heart. But did he understand it, after all those years of study? Not really.

Kant shook her head. ‘I’ve campaigned over thirty years. Came here to put in my last years before I retired somewhere to count my scars in peace. I liked it here, because it was predictable. Running patrols and breaking up fights between bored soldiers, with the occasional chance to throw rocks down on orruk heads from safe atop this wall. It seemed like a good plan. But these last few nights…’

The general frowned at the sky, as if looking for portents. ‘Something’s coming. I don’t know what, but I can feel it. So can my soldiers. They have trouble sleeping when they should, then fall asleep when they shouldn’t, and they talk of dreams they cannot remember.’ She breathed deep. ‘It’s affecting me too. Like tonight. Like every night for the last week. Dreams of choking dark, dreams of… I don’t know. Something’s wrong, something’s coming, but I don’t know what it is.’

‘Nothing is happening, but nothing feels right,’ Brevin said, and she nodded.

‘Maybe this doesn’t happen to you any more, Stormcast,’ she said, ‘but maybe you remember it. That feeling when you’re struck and you know it’s going to hurt. But the pain hasn’t hit yet, and you’re just waiting for the hurt to come. That’s what it feels like.’

‘I remember,’ Brevin said. ‘You have caught the feeling well.’

‘Lord-Ordinators…’ Kant hesitated for a moment, then pushed on. ‘I’ve heard that you’re trained to read the stars. To see the paths of the future in their dance. Could that be why you were brought up here?’

‘By the Heart?’ Brevin laughed, a rueful chuckle. ‘My ability to read the heavens was always limited. But when I touched the Heart, what little skill I had was wiped away. My perceptions are tied to the Halt now, and this wall is more concerned about stone than sky. But it woke me tonight for some reason, and I can feel something here.’ He tapped the armour over his heart, gauntlets ringing faintly against the polished metal. ‘Something is wrong, something is coming, as you said. But I cannot say what, or when. I wish I could read it in the heavens. Or anywhere.’

He raised his eyes, and then, across the vast gulf of darkness he did see something.

A flicker of red like flame. A shifting flow of sparks, like crimson lightning flowing across the distant horizon. Was it a storm? No. These flashing lights were red as blood, red as the veins of emberstone running beneath the quartz face of the Halt. This was not lightning, this was something else, and in his chest Brevin felt heat and a low pulse of pain. This was something wrong.

Up and down the Halt, the soldiers on guard duty were calling out, pointing to the distant light.

‘What is that?’ Kant asked, straining her mortal eyes. ‘Wildfire? An eruption?’

‘No,’ Brevin said. The pain and heat in his chest were increasing, and with the pain came knowledge. ‘It’s emberstone.’

‘Emberstone?’ Kant said. ‘What? How?’

‘I don’t know,’ Brevin said, watching as the crimson light stretched across the sky, like some false dawn. ‘That much. That much!’ The words hissed between his teeth as the pain in his chest grew. It was as if a thorn of fire had been driven through him. The power out there, being released… That much light, that far away, must mean whole veins of emberstone were being torn from the roots of the realm. Aqshy itself was being ripped apart, out in the distance, falling into fire and death and destruction, but as he watched, it became worse.

Amid the burning redness came flashes of green, a poisonous emerald just as bright as the crimson. That colour dug into his eyes, and in his chest the burning pain twisted and he felt suddenly sick, like the nausea he dimly remembered from being mortal. The green intensified, ripping into the red, and up and down the wall, guards were turning away, some vomiting, others falling to their knees.

And then the horrible light was gone.

Red and green, the bright fires were swallowed up by a darkness that swept across the sky and blotted out the stars.

‘What is it?’ Kant asked, staring at the rising dark.

‘Smoke,’ Brevin answered. A tidal wave of smoke, rising from whatever apocalypse was occurring on the horizon, rushing towards the mountains. Towards them. ‘It’s coming. Sound your warnings, here and all through the Chain.’

General Kant began to shout orders to her soldiers on watch, telling them to take messages to the candelarium and to sound the bells. The soldiers scrambled away, and soon the bells were ringing, rousing the whole of the 27th.

‘Lord-Ordinator!’

The deep voice cut across the sound of the bells, and Brevin saw Therus striding across the wall towards him. The Hallowed Knight was fully armoured in his silver sigmarite, the heavy pauldrons on his shoulders enamelled in shining blue and gold. Behind him were the other Stormcasts in Brevin’s command, their size serving to clear space around them as mortal soldiers poured out onto the top of the wall.

‘What orders?’

Brevin opened his mouth to speak, but stopped when a sound rippled through the air. It sounded like rocks breaking, and beneath his feet the whole Halt shifted, as if the ground itself had rippled like a wave. The pain in his chest sharpened, then loosened, and the Lord-Ordinator stared out one more time at the horizon. It was a wall of black threaded with jagged lines of crimson and emerald, and it was rushing towards them like a charging beast.

‘Stand ready,’ he told Therus. ‘Line up along the Halt, and show the mortals that whatever happens, Sigmar is with them.’

Therus nodded, and the Hallowed Knights began to fan out, moving carefully through the crowd. Brevin looked back to the smoke. The terrible curtain was rushing forward, eating up everything beyond the Vale. It moved like a tidal wave, and it broke when it hit the edge of the mountains. It smashed into that great line of stone and recoiled, but then rushed forward again, pouring up Warrun Vale. A river of darkness seamed with terrible light, it crashed into the high sides of the valley and poured forward.

The Golden Lions were shouting and cursing as they gaped at the onrushing darkness. Some started to turn, trying to escape the top of the wall, trying to hide behind it before that terrible gloom reached them. But they were barred by the press of soldiers still ascending the stairs. Beside him, Kant turned, half-stunned, but she saw what was happening and her trained mind snapped into action.

‘Golden Lions, stand! Stand, damn you! Stand!’

Her shout rang out, and near her the crowd began to still, but the Halt was too huge; the soldiers farthest away couldn’t hear their general and Brevin was sure that panic would take them soon.

Raising his massive hammer into the air over his head, Brevin bellowed, ‘Lions! Golden Lions! Hear your general and halt!’

Sudden silence fell over the soldiers, and Brevin caught Kant up with his free hand, helping her atop the Halt’s parapet, holding her steady as she stood over the crowd.

‘My Lions!’ she shouted, and this time their eyes turned to her. ‘Form ranks and stand firm!’

The order rippled down the wall, General Kant’s words taken up by the sergeants who’d found their way up, and soon the 27th was standing in rigid lines, formed up for parade even though many of them were still pulling on armour. Every eye stared down the Vale, and General Kant nodded her thanks to Brevin as they both turned to stare out too.

The smoke still rolled towards them, though its rushing advance had slowed as it moved up Warrun Vale. But it rolled through the trees and crossed the clearing before the Halt. Brevin glanced at the mortals standing in their formation. They were still, but their eyes were wide and watching. What would happen if that smoke crept up the Halt and touched them, ran across their skin and up to their faces? Would it fill their lungs like fire? Would it choke them, kill them? Brevin didn’t know, couldn’t tell what this dark cloud would do to them any more than he could say what it would do to himself or the other Hallowed Knights who stood like silver statues along the wall. Whatever happened to them now, they were in the hands of Sigmar, and they would face this doom unblinking.

So he stood with General Kant, his heart burning, and watched the smoke come until it finally reached the Halt.

Flickering with flashes of red and green, the dark cloud ran into the glowing face of the wall and a ripple of light went through the quartz, like water struck by a stone. In his chest, Brevin felt the pain increase again, a deep, aching throb. The smoke poured forward and it rose up the wall to the height of a Stormcast, higher, a flood of stinking dark. Its stench was acrid and greasy, like gangrenous bodies burning. The pain and the stench made even Brevin want to stagger, but he held himself still, ignoring the sweat that slicked his face and hands. He kept his pose as the smoke finally, slowly, ceased its rise. It had made it maybe twenty feet up the wall. Now it drifted there like mist, contained but constantly moving. Shifting in response to the vibrations that ran through the ground, smaller now but still present, as if the realm itself was twitching in pain.

Raising his eyes, Brevin could see the tops of the trees at the clearing’s edge, could see the cliffs rising out of the dark, but most of Warrun Vale and the land beyond was gone, swallowed by smoke. Looking down from the Halt was like looking into a void, and the pain in his chest was like being eaten alive. But he kept his voice steady as he spoke to Kant.

‘Tell them.’

‘Tell them what?’ Her hard voice had an edge to it, of emotions barely held in check.

‘Tell them they have to fight.’ Brevin was struggling not to raise his hand to his chest. The pain was worse than dying. Worse than being reborn. But he made himself speak. ‘Tell them.’

General Kant turned her back on the apocalypse and faced her Golden Lions, drawing her sword and raising it high. ‘Something comes!’ she shouted, and her voice echoed in the silence that filled the Vale. ‘I can’t tell you what it is. But I can tell you why.’ She pointed with her sword away from the smoke, down the other side of the Vale towards Hammerhal Aqsha and all the rest of the Great Parch. ‘It comes because out there lies civilisation. Order. Justice. Joy. But more than that, out there lie our homes. Our families. Everyone and everything we love and want to live.’ She slashed her sword down, pointing it back at the smoke. ‘I don’t know what that is. What made it, and for what purpose. I don’t have to! All I have to know is that it and its creators will not pass this point. This is the Halt, and the Halt holds!’

Up and down the wall, a shout rang out.

‘The Halt Holds!’

‘Good work, general,’ Brevin said, helping the woman down. The pain in him had lessened a little, but she seemed to sense something in his movements and looked at him.

‘Lord-Ordinator–’

‘Have no concern for me,’ he said. ‘Worry about your troops, because our waiting is done. The pain, though – I think the pain has barely even begun.’

She nodded, face grim, and went to speak to her sergeants. Brevin watched her go, leaning on his grandhammer. In his chest, the pain was slowly ebbing but still terribly strong. And in his mind he saw the veil of smoke pulling itself across the sky again, but in his memory there was something else. Something he’d seen before the stars were consumed by that dark. Something Kant and the other mortals had missed.

Something that might have been eyes. Baleful, green, inhuman eyes, blazing across the sky.

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2024.
This eBook edition published in 2024 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 Catherine O’Connor.

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