Champion of the Gods

Chapter sixteen

Sometimes I wondered if Akturus and I had been adversaries in another life. He was the sort of man that made you look over your shoulder just thinking about him. Up close he smelled of death (the permanent kind) and stone (the sort they bury you under), and no power in Azyr seemed able to eradicate it from his soul. I knew, of course, that amongst the Anvils of the Heldenhammer discussions of their mortal existences were considered taboo, but to me that was like waving red meat in front of a bullgor.

‘I think that you must once have been a duardin king, brother – cruel to your people and miserly with your gold, until a bold king of the Winterlands brought you low.’

‘Only human warriors can be reforged into Stormcast Eternals,’ Akturus replied flatly.

I shrugged. ‘So we are told, but it wasn’t so long ago that we didn’t know about the Sacrosanct Chambers.’

Make of that what you will.

Akturus sighed as a pair of Retributors heaved the throne room’s great doors shut behind us. The bang echoed through the blustery grey chambers.

The décor was much as I had left it.

Animal skins and throws were much in evidence. Faded orruk murals and a mad collage of glyph art daubed the crumbling stonework, picked out here and there with my own illiterate markings. I would have expected my old quarters in the keep to go to Frankos, since the Lord-Celestant now had the title and the swords, and lacked Akturus’ maudlin aversion to fresh air and natural light. And sure enough, if the Ironheel had spent half an hour in this hall since my ill-fated excursion into the Nevermarsh, then he was covering his tracks as well as any Vanguard of the Astral Templars. You could even see the rounded impression of one Hamilcar Bear-Eater in the furs heaped over the wooden throne at the far end. The surrounding flagstones were still littered with cracked bones. Beastmen and skaven – though I’d let it be known about the keep that they belonged to little children who didn’t say their prayers to Sigmar. I felt a lump forming in my throat. Crow had been chewing on them on the eve of my departure.

Time is an elastic thing in the soul-mills. Knotted. Looped. Able in the same stretch to be both very, very short and very, very long. It had been a handful of weeks. It had been five years. Standing here now in my own lightning-forged skin, in a room essentially unchanged, it felt like yesterday.

The single addition that had been made since my regency of the Seven Words had ended was a brightly coloured silk blanket, laid out on the floor and surrounded by scattered cushions. Tassels wound with gold thread flapped in the winds from the chamber’s enormous windows. A fine collection of clay pottery held the four corners down.

‘Sit, brother.’

Akturus folded himself neatly onto one of the cushions and reached for a decanter of wine. It had been sculpted into the form of a swan, or something similar to it. It had been painted black, the carved details of the bird neatly done in gold. He glanced at me, pointedly, jug hovering.

Without making too great a fuss about it, I sat.

The alternative would have been to settle our differences back in the street.

After every­thing I’d been put through over the last month or so, getting my pride bruised in an honour match with the Ironheel didn’t come with quite the terror that it had. Be that as it may, however, every­thing I’d been through had come about precisely because I’d been avoiding such a public thrashing, and I didn’t want to cheapen my ordeal by just giving into it now.

Dipping his head a hair my way, Akturus poured himself a goblet.

‘That’s not from Ghur,’ I noted, though I knew full well that the Lord-Castellant wouldn’t answer.

I must have sat through this ritual a thousand times.

The cup is always the same distance away. The decanter is at the same angle, in the same hand, resting against the inside of the wrist in the exact same place. A precise measure is poured, always the same. Then he sets the decanter down, exactly where he picked it up from, as though this is a work of seraphon astromancy rather than the libation ritual of a dead civilization. With the same hand, free now, he reaches for the spice bowl. He takes a spoonful. The spice is dark orange and fragrant. Always the same blend. I have no idea what’s in it, or where it comes from. He smooths it level with the sigmarite of his little finger and then sprinkles the spice into his wine, muttering as he does so in a tongue that I have never heard spoken outside of his company. The spoon is then dipped into the wine for a single stir around the inside of the cup. Then he withdraws it, taps three times on the rim of the cup, and returns it to its resting place against the lip of the spice bowl.

Once that was done, and only then, would he lift his eyes to me and allow for whatever war or pestilence or death I had come to report.

I closed my eyes in prayer.

A thousand times and one.

With smiling eyes, Akturus reached up to undo the clasps at the back of his Mask Impassive. It came away in his hands. A high gorget of smooth black sigmarite and some gold banding kept the rear of his head enclosed. His skin was dark brown, freckled with motes of flickering cerulean that had appeared as a manifestation of his second reforging. The smile, as I had already known, did not reach far beyond his eyes.

He may as well have kept his mask on.

Setting the golden plate in his lap he delicately picked up the ­goblet, closing his eyes as he inhaled the spiced vapours.

‘It is from Shyish,’ he murmured in answer, his voice like a gentle wind through a door just opened. ‘The vineyards of the Blacksun Cape produce some of the finest varieties of grape in the Mortal Realms.’ He raised the goblet in a ritual toast to ancient gods and drank, leaving his lips stained black. ‘One of few tangible benefits to Sigmar’s truce with the Undying King.’ Holding the goblet in both hands, the way I might brandish the skull of an enemy or a trophy cut from a foe in battle, the Lord-Castellant offered it to me.

‘The finest grapes in Shyish would be wasted on me,’ I said.

‘The Cape has converted more with its gifts than any god still living.’

‘I’m a trueborn son of Azyr, my friend.’ Setting my gauntlet fingers against the goblet, I pushed it gently back towards Akturus. The Ironheel produced a stiff grimace of an expression as our fingers touched. With Akturus this could mean either great amusement or deep outrage, but I suspected the latter. It was the only condition under which I had aroused any expression in him before now. ‘I have butchered my palette with raw meat and too much ale.’

Implacable once again, Akturus returned the goblet to its proper place.

‘It is good to see you again, Hamilcar.’

Now, it’s fair to say I couldn’t have been more surprised had he swept up his goblet to throw the dregs in my face.

Akturus and I had spoken, at best, a dozen times during the siege of the Seven Words and the preceding campaigns against the beasts of the Gorwood. Half of those had been me insulting him for tinkering with siege engines and making prayers to Sigmar while my Bear-Eaters had just gone on ahead and assaulted the walls. For the Imperishables, battle was a thing of lines and formulas, something to be won through precision and patience rather than a hero’s valour. During the years of consolidation and re-building that had followed that conquest, he had become as irritating and wearingly soul-sapping as a pebble in my boot. All that being true, however, if you could pick one warrior to bury in a dark, hard to reach place to make damn sure nothing murders you in your sleep, then I can guarantee you that it would be Akturus Ironheel.

‘I heard that it was you that tried to go after me,’ I said.

Akturus nodded.

‘The Jerech, I could understand. But you….’

‘We made a good pairing here, for all of our…’ He hesitated, the shape of his mouth trialling various choices, ‘differences. But Frankos is…’

‘Frankos,’ I concluded.

Again, Akturus nodded. ‘Yes. He is a good warrior. A fair leader. The Freeguild like him, but they do not respect him as they did you. He tries too hard to be you, and he looks to me for authority even though he is Lord-Celestant now, and commands a host larger than I.’ It was unlike Akturus to resort to physical gestures, so when he raised his hands to indicate his surroundings I read plenty into the Seven Words’ current situation. ‘That is why I find myself here, enthroned in your old seat, and not him.’

‘I like what you’ve done with it.’

‘The people sense it,’ Akturus went on, ignoring me. ‘Freeguild and citizens alike. He does not inspire faith. Not even with ten times the warriors that followed you.’ He sighed, shaking his head. ‘You have been here a day. Half a day even. Yet morale is already higher than it has been since the news of your capture in battle. How do you do it, brother? I ask you honestly.’

‘Honestly? I think it’s equal parts being good and being liked. You are good, brother, though Sigmar help you if that leaves this room. Perhaps you could give being liked a try?’

‘I am reminded of something that Lorrus Grymn used to say of his partnership with the Steel Soul. What was it?’

I put my face in my hands and groaned through the gauntlet fingers.

‘That one was the sword and one the shield.’

‘You disapprove?’ said Akturus.

Without peeling my hands from my face, I nodded. ‘All the time. All the time.’

‘Well, I have always felt that you are the carrot, brother, and I am the stick.’

For the first time in my life, I found myself laughing at something that Akturus Ironheel had said. ‘I think I like that.’ I straightened up, then sighed. ‘But you should know. Sigmar didn’t send me here to re-join my old Stormhost.’

And thank the heavens for that. The idea of having to take actual orders from an actual Lord-Celestant made me feel unwell.

I spread myself, pivoting side to side so as to better show off my new armour.

‘I noticed,’ said Akturus.

‘Sigmar has named me Knight-Questor. I am above such authority now, beholden only to the geas he has placed upon me to find the skaven’s leader and show him the God-King’s justice.’

The Ironheel remained impassive.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘When you first arrived in the Gorkomon, I had already been campaigning against the Untamed for several months. Do you remember what you said?’

‘I… don’t.’ I shook my fist towards the twinkling light of Sigendil, visible through the windows, even by day and in this foreign realm. ‘The things we must surrender unto the Anvil of Apotheosis.’

‘You told me that you came with the authority of Sigmar, that I was to disregard the fact that I commanded four hundred souls to your fifty and cede complete authority to you.’

I shrugged apologetically. ‘The memory is all gone, brother.’

‘It was only after the conquest when Vikaeus and the Knights Merciless joined us that I learned he meant for us to share joint command.’

‘Sigmar knows the strengths and weaknesses of men,’ I said, sagely. ‘He would have known that I would try to trick you, and that you would fall for it.’ I frowned suddenly, unsure how much I was pretending to be remembering. ‘Probably.’

‘Must I mention the Stardrake that you claimed to have left in Azyr because it was too big to pass through the Realmgate?’

I barked with laughter.

I’d forgotten that one.

‘My new position suits me, I won’t deny. Not that I didn’t have my doubts at first. Hamilcar? The Bear-Eater? Me? Fighting his battles alone with none to carry the tale of them? But to walk my own path, my way? Yes, I think I could get used to that. But this is no Celestial Drake, brother. This armour I wear now is a gift from Sigmar himself.’

‘As is mine,’ said Akturus, mildly.

I made a dismissive noise. ‘Yes, yes, all we bear is made and given by the grace of the God-King, but this was a gift, given from his keeping and into mine. He saw my halberd remade, when even the Smith himself had said that it could not be done.’

‘So you will just leave?’ said Akturus. ‘You will build the hopes and faith of those under my ward, only to knock it down, and make the task impossible for whoever is charged with its repair when you are gone?’

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to save the Seven Words. On the contrary. I wanted to do it myself, single-handed and in full view – maybe give in and let them build their statue. But I couldn’t, and not just because Sigmar had given me a sacred quest. Sigmar could give me an order with about as much expectation of being obeyed as Frankos of the Heavens Forged. My immortality, and perhaps even the health of my soul, depended on my finding Ikrit and Malikcek, though I could hardly say that to Akturus.

My… affliction was one of the few tales I was content to keep between myself and my god.

‘I don’t want to, but I must.’

‘Why?’

I did a passable impersonation of someone who was justly appalled. ‘Sigmar has given me a sacred quest.’

‘Then just wait here. Hold the Seven Words with me. The skaven will surely come to you before too long.’

‘And they will be led from the front, you think?’

The muscles in Akturus’ jaw seemed to unclench one by one, and he appeared to shrink an inch in height. ‘You are a Knight-Questor. I am a mere Lord-Castellant. Who am I to argue the writ of the God-King?’

‘That’s the spirit, brother.’

‘At least if you are successful then some good may come of it. Perhaps if word can be spread that that is what you are doing, and why you are leaving, then the populace will take heart. Yes. I will see to it that Frankos begins spreading word of your new status immediately.’

‘Good.’

This was, frankly, more like it. Spreading the glorious word of my adventures and glories was exactly the sort of thing that Frankos should have been doing.

‘What can you tell me of the skaven?’ I said, leaning forwards. ‘Anything to suggest where to start my quest?’

Akturus shook his head solemnly. ‘The vermintide began shortly after you were lost to the Nevermarsh. First it was the logging camps in the Low Gorwood, then the watch forts and winter lodges in the heights. Those few that were able to outrun it brought stories of a horde without number, of slave-taking and murder, and feasting on the flesh of the dead. I have sent warriors to hold the Gorwood, but they never brought a single clanrat to battle.’

That would have been at Vikaeus’ urging. Akturus’ instinct would always be to draw behind a shield, wait for the enemy to show his colours and then grind them under his Thunderhead brotherhoods. Had it been me I would have had Prosecutors constantly in the air. I would have despatched dozens of Vanguard sorties into the High Gorwood and I would have led them myself. But then one of us had been lured into a trap, captured and killed. The other hadn’t. I kept my opinions to myself.

‘So where were they?’

‘Elsewhere. Always. All my retinues ever returned to me was ill-tidings of some other distant redoubt aflame. I stopped sending them out, and instead called all who had not yet fled the forest back to the Seven Words. There is nothing left for the skaven to pick at, and while the Azyr Gate remains open then we can outlast them. If they wish to take the Seven Words, then they will have to come to me.’

I smiled, that being the sentence that will forever characterise Akturus Ironheel best.

‘This amuses you?’ said Akturus, inexpressive.

I bared my teeth. ‘Eagerness for the fight, as always. Go on.’

‘That is all.’

‘What of the skaven leader? Ikrit?’

‘I have not heard the name. The skaven come in the night and strike as a tide, withdrawing with the dawn. I have seen or heard nothing to speak of a leader.’

I gave a melodramatic sigh. ‘Then I should probably move on. I am but one man, am I not? Perhaps the skaven will not melt from me as they do from the brotherhoods of the Imperishables.’

‘One can but pray.’

‘Hah!’ I reached across and thumped Akturus roundly across the pauldron. ‘Hamilcar is back in the Ghurlands now. Your need for prayers is passed.’

I rose, and Akturus stood up after me. I extended my hand, but for some reason the Lord-Castellant hesitated before taking it. When he did, his grip was unexpectedly tentative, as if my vambrace had been scratched with unwholesome runes.

‘I will bid you well then, Knight-Questor,’ he said, with stiff formality. ‘But if it is all the same to you then I will pray to the God-King, and implore him to send us more swords.’

‘Ask him for Lord-Celestant Settrus, perhaps. Then at least you will have a proven warlord in charge.’

I liked Settrus. He could be stiff, but he suffered no nonsense and made things happen. Even I minded my manners when he was nearby.

‘War is not confined to the Gorkomon or this corner of the Ghurlands,’ said Akturus, as though this was somehow news to me. ‘He marches instead with the remainder of the Imperishables to bolster the garrison at Glymmsforge.’

‘He has a special loathing of the Undying King,’ I recalled.

Akturus nodded.

I released my grip on his forearm and nodded back. I hadn’t been expecting this particular farewell to be hard. ‘Keep your lantern to hand, brother. The assassin, Malikcek. Be wary of him. These walls, your guards, they will not stop him getting in here if he or his master should wish it.’

‘I am always wary.’

‘If he can scale the walls of Malerion’s palace, walk the Black Maze, evade the mirror-traps and the shade-hounds and almost get back out alive, then he can break into the Seven Words.’

‘I know how to hold a castle, Hamilcar.’

Before I could try another avenue of persuasion, I heard a commotion from the other side of the doors. Voices, raised in argument. Armoured bodies scuffling in a hallway. I turned, just as the doors were thrown open and Frankos of the Heavens Forge shouldered his way between the two Retributors trying in vain to keep him out.

I was aware of my mouth hanging open.

Frankos?

The Lord-Celestant looked exactly as I remembered him. The face of a child-king, the purity of a child of Dracothion. His beatific features were unworn by any duty or care or the passing of the centuries. His hair was the gold of Sigmar’s throne. His eyes were light. And yet, he was different. His breastplate – though I challenge anyone to look directly on that much gold in direct sunlight and make out much – depicted the Anvil of Apotheosis, the Heavens Forge, six lightning bolts shooting from the centre to form the spokes of a Celestial ring. His cloak dragged across the ground. It was heavy, woven not of cloth or hide, but hammers.

He looked as though he had been encased in an idealised statue of himself.

Or me.

‘Frankos?’

‘Hamilcar. By the God-King, it’s true.’

The Lord-Celestant’s sternness evaporated into something luminous and he extended his arms, brushing off the Anvils of the Helden­hammer as he strode towards me and drew me into his embrace. I laughed and met strength with strength, crushing his breastplate into mine and knuckling his perfect hair. Almost as soon as I did, however, he pulled back, pushing me off as if I had just grabbed his face and tried to kiss him.

Frankos has ever been an open tome. The kind with woodcuts, in fact. If there is a thought in his head or a passion in his heart, then it is there for the realms to see and to make their peace with. What I saw on his face then was an inarticulate mashing together of horror, disgust, and a hatred of himself for harbouring such a base response towards a mentor and a brother. It was as if he had reached out for his best friend and found a daemon masquerading in his skin.

I had done my best to forget every­thing that Ong and his caricatures – and yes, even Sigmar himself – had tried to tell me about the injuries that Ikrit had caused to my soul. Because any problem that can be readily ignored was never a problem at all. Now I thought about it, it occurred to me that Zephacleas had behaved somewhat oddly when I took his hand. And the Anvils of the Heldenhammer that had greeted my arrival through the Realmgate had definitely been feeling something other than awe at my presence. Frankos had always been difficult to ignore. That was what had made him such an exceptional Heraldor; why he may yet make a worthy successor to me as Lord-Celestant.

He didn’t even need to speak to reach you exactly where your heart beat.

‘What?’ I said, not sure I wanted to know, but knowing that I needed to ask. ‘What is it?’

‘It is… difficult to describe.’ Frankos backed off, staring at me as though to catch me in some unclean act. ‘It’s like looking upon a holy vessel, taking it up in your hands, only to find its contents befouled.’

I snorted. ‘No offence taken.’

‘My lord. Forgive me.’ For once, Frankos’ golden tongue failed and he stuttered, bowing low, ostensibly in apology, but with every outward appearance of simply not wishing to look upon me a moment more. ‘Pray… I meant no–’

‘It’s alright, brother. I was joking.’

‘I felt it also,’ said Akturus, behind me.

So that was what the expression had been when our fingers had touched. I felt an odd sort of triumph at the fact that it had just been my poor broken soul, and that I had not unwittingly offended him again in my brief stay.

‘You see now why I can’t stay,’ I said.

‘I do.’ Akturus turned to the Retributor who was still filling the doorway like a storm cloud. ‘It is alright, Kephos. The Lord-Celestant will not be staying long.’

‘Your will be done, Lord-Castellant.’

The door was closed very deliberately behind him.

‘By all that is good and glorious,’ Frankos declared, rounding on me as it shut. ‘What has been done to you, lord? What wickedness could the vile skaven be capable of inflicting that even the blessed fires of the Anvil itself cannot undo?’

I could still hear grumbling from outside, but ignored it. It was probably just the Retributors again, complaining about Frankos.

‘I cannot discuss it,’ I said. And preferred not to. ‘Only that Sigmar has charged me with bringing the warlock responsible back to him in Sigmaron.’

‘Then by the Twelve Points of Sigendil and the eternal fires of Dracothion you shall go with every sword, hammer and bow of the Heavens Forged beside you.’

‘No,’ said Akturus, calmly. ‘He will not.’

‘You dare give me orders? I am Lord-Celestant in the Seven Words, and the warriors of the Heavens Forged are mine to command.’

Akturus raised an eyebrow.

I took an unconscious step back.

‘He goes for the very jugular of the beast,’ Frankos cried, articulating with a grabbing motion of his hand. ‘The Astral Templars would join him in the hunt. Share the danger, and the taste of blood when it is spilled.’

That was Frankos, ever willing with a turn of phrase.

‘That’s enough,’ I said. ‘Akturus is right.’

‘He’s–’

Whatever the Lord-Celestant had been about to declaim was cut short by a severely disgruntled Retributor.

‘There is a runner from the Realmgate, Lord-Castellant,’ he said, pushing the door aside. ‘Vikaeus Creed has returned with a Thunderwave Echelon of Knights Merciless. She urgently requests the presence of both you and Lord-Celestant Frankos in the High Hall.’

Vikaeus.

Sigmar had sent Vikaeus after me.

The thought both thrilled and terrified.

I was thinking of a cell with a view in the Forge Eternal, and the centuries I had to look forward to spending in it.

‘You are welcome to join us, lord,’ Frankos said, sternly, spreading his glare evenly between Kephos and Akturus.

‘No, no,’ I said, declining as naturally as I could. ‘She asked just for the two of you, I’m sure she has her reasons.’

‘Come, lord,’ said Frankos. ‘You are only just arrived, she cannot know yet that you are here or she would have summoned you as well.’

Of that I have no doubt.

‘She’ll know where to find me.’ I took his pauldron. He cringed, doing a poor job of hiding it. ‘I’ll be out there, with them, where I belong.’

Frankos bowed low.

‘I will have Kephos escort you back to the wards,’ said Akturus.

‘No need,’ I said, waving the offered Retributor off. I was already eyeing the door he was standing in. ‘I remember the way out.’