Gloomspite - Andy Clark Read online

  They emerged through another arch and into a larger chamber that might once have been a chantry. Half its ceiling had collapsed, the rubble cleared away and silken awnings hung over the ragged hole. Wood and silk structures crowded the chamber’s wings, a small village’s worth of lightweight dwellings hidden away within the shadows of the ruined monastery. Hendrick noted that all of Stonehallow was hidden in this fashion. It was how the people had stayed safe during the Age of Chaos, concealed behind a façade of hollow ruin and the lingering holy energies that permeated the monastery’s stones.

  It was why they had responded with such terror to Varlen.

  This wing of the vast monastery had been abandoned, its inhabitants scurrying away elsewhere while the outsiders remained. They had enough space to work with, thought Hendrick; the monastery was immense, an inexplicable ruin left over from the Age of Myth. How else could you hide an entire town in its depths?

  Three figures waited for them here.

  Eleanora VanGhest sat propped against the stub of an old stone pillar, beside the heap of backpacks and satchels that contained their gear. She was clad in her ever-present engineer’s smock. Her hair was tousled and she had a lens-monocle pulled down over one eye. She was tinkering with an arrangement of gears and delicate metal arms, and barely glanced at Hendrick and Aelyn as they approached.

  Borik Jorgensson and Romilla Aiden both rose at Hendrick’s approach. The former was a stocky slab of a Kharadron duardin. He had his helm hooked to his belt, and in the wan dawn light every wrinkle on his weathered face created its own sharp shadow. He appraised Hendrick with his steely gaze but said nothing. After a moment, the duardin mercenary went back to cleaning the considerable mass of the six-barrelled rotary cannon he lugged about with him.

  Romilla came to meet Hendrick half way. She wore white and blue robes still stained with soot from the night before, and her tattooed scalp was shaven like Hendrick’s.

  ‘Sigmar’s blessings upon you,’ she said firmly, reaching up to clap one scarred hand on Hendrick’s shoulder. ‘I have prayed all night for your brother’s soul. If intercession were possible, I promise you it has been achieved.’

  Hendrick gave Romilla a grateful nod then looked past her pointedly.

  ‘Bartiman is still asleep,’ said Aelyn.

  ‘Sigmar only knows how the old sorcerer has rested at all, after what occurred,’ added Romilla, her distaste clear.

  ‘Olt slept beyond the walls,’ continued Aelyn.

  ‘Not his gods, not his problem?’ asked Hendrick.

  ‘Nothing so callous,’ replied Romilla reproachfully. ‘Varlen was a friend to all of us, Olt as much so as any.’

  Hendrick winced. ‘I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m exhausted and… out of sorts.’

  Romilla sighed. ‘That’s putting it mildly. You had to witness your brother teeter upon the brink of damnation, and then pass through the fires of cleansing. I cannot begin to imagine how you feel this day. I only wish to remind you that your friends and allies remain just that. After what happened, Olt chose to absent himself lest fearful locals turn their eyes upon him next.’

  ‘So, not his gods, but very much his problem,’ amended Hendrick grimly. ‘If they have laid a finger on him– ’

  ‘They’d have suffered for it,’ said Aelyn. ‘He’s safe. He’ll find us when we depart. He always does.’

  Hendrick felt Borik glance his way again at the word ‘depart’. The duardin held his gaze a moment, then cleared his throat and went back to his gun.

  ‘Come, break your fast,’ said Romilla, tugging Hendrick over to where the others waited. She pushed him down onto a broken length of pillar, then produced dried meat, a canteen of water and a slightly withered jashbin fruit.

  ‘My appetite died with my brother,’ said Hendrick, immediately regretting how melodramatic the words sounded aloud. Romilla pressed the provisions upon him regardless.

  ‘As did all of ours,’ she said. ‘But the Lord Sigmar has work for us yet, and we cannot do it exhausted and half-starved. Eat what you can, Hendrick.’

  He took a bite of dried meat, chewed, tasted nothing but ash. Hendrick forced the mouthful down with a dry click and swilled his mouth with brackish water. He took another bite, and another, attacking the mean repast like a begrudged enemy until it was gone. Hendrick wondered, distantly, whether he would ever enjoy food or drink again.

  Romilla joined him in his meal. Aelyn stood and stared off into the distance, head cocked as though listening to something. Aside from the sounds of stolid chewing and swallowing, there was only the click and tick of Eleanora’s tinkering, and the slow scrape as Borik cleaned the bore of another gun barrel.

  ‘El, my dear, will you not eat?’ asked Romilla. She had to repeat the question before Eleanora glanced up at her.

  ‘No,’ replied the engineer. ‘I’ve nearly got this. The third flywheel is still sticking, and the gears won’t quite mesh right until I’ve figured out why.’ With that, she returned to her work with an intensity calculated to shut everything else out.

  ‘She’s nearly got this,’ echoed Romilla in exasperation. Hendrick ignored her and forced down the last of the jashbin.

  Hendrick gave a low grunt. His thoughts were far away, filled with the darkness of the night before. He heard again the screams of the townsfolk and the raving of his brother, the crack and crunch as Varlen unmade them with hands that had become talons. He felt the awful shock up his arms as Reckoner connected with his brother’s chest, the sensation so real that Hendrick’s knuckles twitched with it. He heard his companions’ cries as they fought to subdue the monster that had once been their leader and friend, and he smelled the smoke as the villagers lit their great pyre. He jumped as he felt a hand-clap land on his shoulder, half fearing as he looked up that he would see his brother’s twisted visage and melting pupils.

  Instead, he saw Romilla crouched before him.

  ‘It doesn’t do to dwell, Hendrick,’ she said, her tone stern but not unkind. ‘What happened was too terrible to keep reliving.’

  ‘What did happen?’ asked Aelyn. ‘Are we sure we know?’

  ‘It was that damned crown,’ replied Hendrick. ‘I told him to leave it where it lay.’

  ‘You know Varlen,’ said Romilla, then winced at the faux pas. ‘Knew. Sorry. We had fought our way through Sigmar-knew-what to get to the heart of that Dreadhold. If there was a prize to be had for all that effort, he was going to claim it. And once it was on his brow–’

  ‘It wouldn’t come off,’ growled Hendrick. ‘We all saw him trying to pry the damned thing off his skull. We all saw what it did to him!’ He took a breath, lowered his voice. ‘There’s no sense indulging in should-haves or would-haves. Varlen put the crown on, and saw visions, and they led him here to his death.’

  ‘The Moonshadow brings death,’ said Aelyn. ‘That’s what he was shouting, at the end, when he… burned. “The Moonshadow brings death to Draconium”. What do you suppose it means?’

  ‘Varlen was under the influence of a malefic artefact,’ said Romilla. ‘It didn’t mean a thing.’

  ‘Yes, it did,’ said Hendrick, and even he was surprised at the iron he heard in his voice. They were all silent for a few moments, and he felt his companions glancing uncomfortably at one another. Eleanora’s tools clicked relentlessly, dry and irritating jags of sound in the sepulchral quiet of the chamber.

  He drew breath, wanting to shout at her to leave the damn mechanism alone. Before he could, Aelyn spoke.

  ‘We need to decide what to do.’

  ‘The townsfolk are undoubtedly winding themselves up to something even now,’ said Romilla. ‘They lost loved ones last night, in horrible ways, and it was us that brought that horror into their home. They won’t care that it wasn’t intentional, and they won’t stay too frightened to act forever.’

  Aelyn looked pointedly at Hendrick
. He felt the weight of their stares turn upon him, felt his shoulders hunch defensively and his heavy brow settle into a frown. He’d just lost his brother, for Sigmar’s sake, could they not give him the time to mourn?

  But no, he thought; they were right, and hiding away from his responsibilities behind brooding silence was a luxury he could no longer allow himself. Varlen had always been the charismatic one, the people person, always ready with a quick quip and an easy smile to put folk at ease. Hendrick had been more of a silent partner, the menace that backed up his brother’s charm and decisive sense of purpose.

  Purpose. That was a word his mind could latch onto, a star by which he could steer. Varlen’s death had to have had a purpose, and Aelyn had shown him what that was.

  ‘We make for Draconium,’ he said. His comrades stirred awkwardly around him. Borik cleared his throat again.

  ‘Hendrick, where even is Draconium?’ asked Romilla. ‘I’ve heard the name, but…’

  ‘Draconium is a large fortified border city located two hundred and eighty-two miles to the north of Hammerhal Aqsha, and forty miles north of where we are now,’ said Eleanora, still not looking up from her work. ‘It dominates the pass known as the Drake’s Jaws in the volcanic Redspine Range. Its thermal springs form the source of a canal that bears trade barges and troop barques through the reconsecrated lands north of Hammerhal.’

  ‘Thank you, El,’ said Romilla. ‘But even if we do know where it is, what reason would we have for going there?’

  Hendrick looked at the priest as though she were slow of thought.

  ‘Varlen’s words, at the end, when they were… when he… burned. We know that they were a prophetic warning, one that he died to deliver. We are going to see that it reaches the right ears.’

  ‘Hendrick, we know no such thing!’ exclaimed Romilla. ‘Sigmar’s hammer, he was transforming into something unclean, gibbering like a lunatic! For all we know, his words were some diabolical utterance designed to drag us into damnation along with him!’

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ said Hendrick, feeling the familiar hot anger trying to well up and overwhelm his better judgement. ‘He saw things, knew things, once he put that crown on. For months before… Things he couldn’t have known. He predicted the Gor-kin ambush in the Ash Hills, didn’t he? He saw that spine-trap and stopped you treading in it, didn’t he, Romilla? Varlen was still Varlen. It didn’t beat him, not even at the end, and he was still trying to aid us even in death.’

  ‘We’re meant to be bringing the rest of the treasure to the rendezvous at High Crag,’ said Borik. He didn’t look up as he spoke, carried on working an oilcloth over his weapon. ‘We miss that meeting, we don’t get paid, and maybe the Olmori tribe come looking for their ancestral treasures.’

  ‘The Olmori tribe were cowards enough to send mercenaries to recover those treasures in the first place,’ said Hendrick. ‘They can wait a few more days while we deliver this message.’

  Borik shot Hendrick a quick glance from beneath his heavy brows but made no other reply.

  ‘Look, if Varlen was lucid, if he was still seeing visions… what if this is a warning from Sigmar? What if we ignore a warning from Sigmar and compound failure with faithlessness? All we have to do is to reach the city and make sure that someone in a position of authority hears our warning. Then that’s it, job done. Who knows, if you’re so concerned they may even provide some fiscal reward for our efforts.’

  ‘We’re mercenaries. Fiscal reward is our only concern,’ the duardin said.

  ‘We’re a sight more than that,’ said Hendrick hotly. ‘Varlen always made sure we did Sigmar’s work first and thought of profits second.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to hear this, but as I said to you last night, Varlen may not have been Varlen anymore,’ said Romilla, rising to her feet and looking around for support. ‘Surely we’re not going to break faith with our employers just because some unnatural being possessed our friend and used his face to tug upon our heartstrings?’

  Hendrick felt the disapproval coming off Borik in waves. Eleanora’s tools clicked away with panicked intensity, and he felt frustrated fury build in his chest.

  ‘Listen,’ continued Romilla in more conciliatory tones. ‘Perhaps we should–’

  ‘No, we shouldn’t,’ Aelyn said. They all stared at the aelf, Hendrick included. Aelyn was so quiet, so still, that it was possible to forget she was even there until she spoke, but when she did her voice was sharp and clear as cut crystal.

  Romilla drew breath to speak again but Aelyn talked over her.

  ‘Before today, Varlen and Hendrick led the Swords of Sigmar. Now Varlen is gone, Hendrick is our only leader. We are mercenaries, not vagabonds. If our leader gives us an order, we obey it. The matter requires no further debate.’

  Romilla blinked, scowled, but subsided. She looked at Hendrick.

  ‘And do you so order, sergeant?’ she asked.

  Hendrick shot a grateful glance at Aelyn but she ignored him, and he felt the rebuke in her eyes. He had to do better, had to be firm not furious, a leader not a bully. He would try, he told himself, for Varlen’s sake. This would all, ultimately, be for Varlen’s sake. Nothing else would make his loss bearable.

  ‘I do,’ he said. ‘We will deliver the message as quickly as we can and then return to the Olmori, and if they are angry then I will pay whatever reparations or face whatever judgement they deem right. You won’t suffer for this, I’ll make sure of it. But for Varlen’s sake, we have to deliver his last warning. Maybe then something good can come out of this damned tragedy. Maybe it’ll be enough to save lives.’

  Borik grunted noncommittally. Romilla looked somewhat mollified.

  ‘Very well then,’ she said heavily. ‘For Varlen.’

  ‘Ah! Got it!’ said Eleanora in sudden triumph, her tools giving a final flurry of clicks. She looked around at them and smiled. ‘It’ll work now,’ she said, holding the inexplicable gadget up for their inspection. ‘We can go.’

  Hendrick sighed, shook his head, and stooped to gather his gear.

  ‘For Varlen,’ he echoed.

  Act 1

  GLOAMING

  ‘Listen child and heed me well,

  A grave warning you must fear.

  Get to bed and silent stay,

  Lest the blackencap might hear.

  Shuttered must the windows be,

  Your eyes, quickly, close them fast!

  Or the Bad Moon’s light you’ll see,

  And the sight will be your last.’

  – Azyrheimer nursery rhyme

  Chapter One

  SHADOWS

  Tobias Kench stepped from the tavern door into the cobbled street beyond. He wiped the blood from his knuckles and took a deep breath of cool evening air.

  ‘That’s better,’ he sighed, rolling his shoulders. The Wayward King rose at his back. The tavern was a slab-like architectural pile that looked as though it had been carelessly discarded rather than built. Its bottleglass windows were webbed with cracks, its heavy roof slates had begun to erode, and the rain-proofing was peeling down its frontage where the landlord had been remiss in his duties of care.

  Tobias wouldn’t have drunk in this dive if his life depended on it. He wouldn’t have drunk anywhere in the Pipers’ District, come to think of it. But the Wayward King was always good for working out the stresses of a bad day. It had got so that the regulars knew to get very quiet and attend their flagons of rotgut when Tobias walked in, but there was always someone who didn’t know better: docksnipes off the barges that came upriver from Hammerhal Aqsha, spending their ingots before they’d earned them; a local piper who’d scraped together enough dust to drink their resentment away in the cheapest dive in town while cursing their betters for their own misfortunes; ne’er-do-wells making sure to celebrate their latest score a safe distance from any who would place their fa
ces. Some days it was just outsiders that he judged to be lacking in piety, or those Tobias suspected had turned from Sigmar’s light.

  Tobias would never take his fists to good, God-King-fearing folk. He would have been horrified at the thought. But the Wayward King never let him down.

  ‘Such impious souls always stray when the daemon drink takes them,’ he muttered to himself as he readjusted his watchman’s cloak and took a moment to work the sparker of his lantern. It stubbornly failed to fire, reminding Tobias that he had meant to hand it in for repair and draw a replacement from stores. Evening was drawing in and the shadows of the volcanic mountains flowed along Draconium’s streets like ink, pooling between the city’s tall, slate-roofed buildings. ‘I am merely preempting their transgressions, reminding them that Sigmar is always watching.’

  Behind him, the tavern was quiet, as it always was after he left. It would become rowdy again soon enough. They’d light the lanterns, mop up the blood and carry on as though he’d never been there. Tobias, meanwhile, would continue his watch.

  Ever was the pious man’s burden thus.

  Lightning blossomed high overhead, drawing Tobias’ gaze to the sky. Up there, amidst the jagged peaks and rumbling calderas of the Red­spine Range, storms brewed and broke with ferocious speed. The storm’s wrath was a sign that Sigmar watched over them all, thought Tobias, as arcing bolts were drawn from the sky to strike the metal prayer rods of the shrines that dotted the mountainsides. He wondered if any pilgrims were up there now, knelt upon narrow ledges of stone, their rapturous expressions illuminated by the arc and flare of one lightning strike after another. If so, there’d be bodies to bring down by morning, those who had passed into the realm of the dead and whose charred mortal remains were no longer required.