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Temple of Silence – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Chapter One

Even the day had been grim. A stale wash of sky had lowered over the moors like a damp grey sheet, and by late afternoon the rain had picked up. Doralia ven Denst had drawn down the brim of her hat and set her face to the weather as her father hacked through the ground ahead. At one point Galen had stumbled into a bog, plunging thigh-deep into a stagnant, weed-strewn pool of mud and slime. Doralia had leapt forward and grabbed his hand before he could sink any deeper, and the string of curses Galen had spat near turned the air blue. After that, it felt like good enough going just to get soaked by the rain.

Now, as they hiked along a rough trail bordered by stands of thornbush and reeds, the light was beginning to fade and the dusk was creeping faster over the land. The moors of Draeonia stretched away from them on either side, mile upon mile of bitter heath and desolate, fallow ground, broken in places by shards of dull grey rock and stretches of shale. The wind was picking up, haring in from the broad swathe of forest far in the distance. Doralia drew tight her long, blood-red duster against the dank air. Her feet were chafing in her boots and she could feel the muscles in her legs beginning to cramp.

‘We’ve been hiking for days,’ she said to her father. Galen only grunted in response. ‘I can’t say I’m too keen to spend another night under the stars. How much further is this realmgate, anyway?’

Galen ven Denst paused. The light was fading ahead of them, rimwards, and he shaded his eyes with the flat of his hand. Doralia saw the set of his jaw, the scowl on his lined forehead. He tapped his other hand against the butt of the pistol tucked into his belt and shrugged against the weight of his pack. Doralia started to count silently in her head, and when she got to five he growled, ‘I figured it would be closer.’

‘Forgive me if I’m wrong, but you did give the impression that you’d been to Danathe before…’

Galen gave her a bitter glance. ‘I never said that I had. There’s a well-known realmgate there, though, which connects near enough with Izalend. After that, the road from Izalend doesn’t take too long to Excelsis.’

Doralia looked around her, casting her gaze across the moorlands. In the growing darkness there seemed nothing else in all of Draeonia, this rough country of brooding, mist-shrouded barrows and tangled woods on the fringes of Ghur. She could well believe they had strayed into some endless desert, and on either side of them there were only these bleak and featureless heaths pitted by bogs and marshes. Last night they had slept in a hollow of ground between half a dozen broken boulders, wrapped in their dusters. The night before that they hadn’t even had the boulders to shelter them, and they had shivered beside a trickling stream of ill-smelling water. Their last mission had taken them well off the beaten track, and it was far harder than she had assumed to get back onto it.

Their last mission, Shadowglass Creek… In her mind’s eye Doralia saw the marketplace, the horrified looks on people’s faces. The two women lying in the dust, shot dead. They had deserved it, they had brought every inch of their punishment on themselves, but…

Then there’s no forgiveness in Sigmar’s dominions, the woman had said. Lying there, choking on her own blood, staring up at the sky. Why bother being anything but evil, if there’s no way back to being good?

Doralia shook her head. There was no point in dwelling on it. It was done. That’s all there was to it. She looked to her father as Galen scowled at the land ahead of them, as if he could conjure up the realmgate solely through the force of his anger. She wondered if he thought about it still. Did he feel the pistol bucking in his hand again, did he hear the woman’s words as she resigned herself to death? Somehow she doubted it.

‘It’s getting dark,’ Galen said. He looked to the sky. ‘Even if this realmgate’s within a day’s walk, it would be wise to seek some shelter.’

Doralia agreed. They’d been fortunate so far, she knew that much. Three days back they’d had to fight off a pack of feral beastmen, a prowling band of savages festooned with bloody trinkets, their fur matted with gore. Her crossbow had accounted for three of them, her father’s pistols for two more, but after that it had been vicious sword-work until they were all put down. They’d been lucky to come out of the skirmish without a scratch. The last two days had been clear of any threat. They’d heard no howling at night, and there had been no sign of orruks or bandits or any of Ghur’s more primal creatures since then. It was like the closer they got to the broad swathes of forest ahead of them, the more any potential enemies drew back, wary of the shadows beneath the trees. It was luck, no more, but as a witch hunter Doralia knew better than most that good luck was only ever something you got on loan. Sooner or later, you had to pay it back.

‘What do you suggest, then?’ she said. ‘These moors are bare, it’s going to be hard gathering firewood for another camp.’ She nodded towards the forest in the distance. ‘We could shelter under the trees, but that’s still half a day’s walk.’

Galen pondered this for a moment, stroking his grey moustache, peering off into the distance.

‘It’s been years since I’ve been to Draeonia,’ he said, ‘but I know that there’s supposed to be a temple near the Mirkvain Forest. It might be that we could take refuge there overnight and head on in the morning.’ He looked to the sky, the grey streaks of dusk purpled now as the light began to drop. ‘Or what passes for morning.’

‘It seems an out-of-the-way place for a temple,’ Doralia said.

‘That’s half the point. They’re an ascetic order, they don’t believe in the comforts of civilisation. The priests plant their flag out here in the wilderness and dare the worst of the realms to remove them.’

‘And how do you know they’re still there?’

‘I don’t,’ Galen admitted. ‘Chances are they were all wiped out years back. The ruins should still be there, though, and they’ll be a damn sight better shelter than the open ground.’

‘Then let’s set to it and find out,’ Doralia said. She hiked on, pushing ahead and leaving her father staring at the blasted heath around them. ‘If it’s still standing,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘and if the priests there have even so much as a straw mattress to sleep on, then I’ll take holy orders myself.’

Galen scowled. ‘You already have taken holy orders.’

‘You know what I mean.’

They pressed on for the rest of the evening, trekking slowly over a rough ground of tussocks and shale. Doralia fastened her duster and settled the weight of the crossbow on her shoulder, her hat tipped back, eyes scanning the land ahead for danger. The forest loomed in the distance, a dark band of shadow, and the scent of the trees was blown towards them by a chill wind that slithered over the moors. The sky faded above and all around them the land fell back into the darkness. They would have to stop soon, she knew, even if they didn’t have the wood to build a fire.

‘If the temple is still there,’ Doralia said, ‘I hope the reception’s better than the one we got in Shadowglass Creek.’

She looked to her father. In the darkness she could barely see him. The clouds swam thickly above and what little light fell from the stars was pale and weak.

‘It is what it is,’ Galen said. ‘If folk aren’t scared to see us coming, then we’re not doing it right. We don’t do the job to be popular.’ He glanced at her, and when he spoke again there was a faint touch of concern in his tone. ‘Are you having regrets? Doubts?’

‘No,’ she said. She meant it too. A witch hunter in the Order of Azyr couldn’t afford to feel doubt, not for a moment. Regrets, though… maybe that was something different. ‘It was just something she said, before we put her down. Chellane Gythan.’

‘What?’

‘About forgiveness. About redemption.’

Galen snorted. ‘I don’t believe for a moment you think those two deserved forgiveness. And it was too damned late for redemption, I can tell you that much.’

‘I know, it’s…’

Galen stopped and took her by the shoulders. ‘Listen, daughter. They were cultists in the Nullstone Brotherhood. They were responsible for countless deaths in Excelsis during the siege. So what if they found some town off the beaten track, changed their names, made themselves out to be honest citizens? So what if they had found redemption, whatever that means.’

She looked up into his face, fierce and unyielding, masked in shadow.

‘They got what they deserved,’ he said. ‘Nothing more and nothing less.’

‘I’m not disagreeing,’ Doralia said, with more force than she meant. She snapped the lid on her anger, surprised she was even feeling it. Damn but she could do with a drink right about now. ‘Don’t tell me what I already know. It’s just…’

She couldn’t explain it. It was there in the eyes of the townsfolk as they watched the two women be shot down. It had been there in Chellane’s utter resignation as she readied herself for death. There was no coming back, for anyone. You crossed the line, the witch hunters seemed to say, and that was it – you were done. Doralia shook her head, took off the wide-brimmed hat and wiped a line of sweat from her forehead. But who drew the line, and who decided how straight it was? And could a lifetime of doing good ever wipe out a moment of doing evil?

‘Forget it,’ she said. She shrugged her father off. ‘I know what the job is. I know what has to be done. It doesn’t mean I always have to like it.’

Galen frowned. ‘If you liked it, then I’d start to worry,’ he said. ‘But duty means doing what you have to do, not what you want. Don’t forget that. If we could all do what we wanted, you think I’d be trudging through these moors right now, chilled to the bone?’

Doralia showed him a dry smile. ‘Honestly? I don’t think you’d be anywhere else.’

‘You don’t think I’d rather be sitting with my feet up, a box of fresh cheroots next to me and a pint of Parchbreaker at my side?’

‘Oh, you might take a moment to enjoy all that,’ Doralia said. ‘But by the time you’d finished the flagon you’d be pacing the room or cleaning your pistols, just itching to get out into the realms again. Duty isn’t something you have to force yourself to do, is it? It’s the air you breathe, it’s food and drink.’

‘True,’ Galen gruffly agreed. ‘Duty can be onerous, but it’s not a burden. Or if it is, it’s one you carry lightly, no matter what.’

They were another hour across the moorland before they saw the light. It was as faint as a distant star, a coin of amber fitfully flickering near the dark body of the forest. Galen stopped and pointed.

‘There,’ he said, and Doralia was surprised to hear the relief in his voice. ‘You see it?’

‘It certainly looks like it’s still standing,’ Doralia said.

‘The Temple of Silence, they call it.’

‘Then let’s just hope they have a good word to say to us.’

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2023.
This eBook edition published in 2023 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Rémi Jacquot.

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