Covens of Blood
Covens of Blood
Covens of Blood
Novels
• Hallowed Knights •
Josh Reynolds
Book One: PLAGUE GARDEN
Book Two: BLACK PYRAMID
EIGHT LAMENTATIONS: SPEAR OF SHADOWS
Josh Reynolds
• Kharadron Overlords •
C L Werner
Book One: OVERLORDS OF THE IRON DRAGON
Book Two: PROFIT’S RUIN
SOUL WARS
Josh Reynolds
CALLIS & TOLL: THE SILVER SHARD
Nick Horth
THE TAINTED HEART
C L Werner
SHADESPIRE: THE MIRRORED CITY
Josh Reynolds
BLACKTALON: FIRST MARK
Andy Clark
HAMILCAR: CHAMPION OF THE GODS
David Guymer
SCOURGE OF FATE
Robbie MacNiven
THE RED FEAST
Gav Thorpe
GLOOMSPITE
Andy Clark
GHOULSLAYER
Darius Hinks
BEASTGRAVE
C L Werner
NEFERATA: THE DOMINION OF BONES
David Annandale
THE COURT OF THE BLIND KING
David Guymer
LADY OF SORROWS
C L Werner
REALM-LORDS
Dale Lucas
Novellas
CITY OF SECRETS
Nick Horth
Audio Dramas
Cover
Backlist
Title Page
Warhammer Age of Sigmar
ULGU
Part 1
TRISETHNI THE UNSEEN
RED CLAW AND RUIN
A SNAKE SHEDS ITS SKIN
ULGU
Part 2
About the Authors
An Extract from ‘Warcry Catacombs: Blood of the
Everchosen’
A Black Library Publication
eBook license
From the maelstrom of a sundered world, the
Eight Realms were born. The formless and the
divine exploded into life.
Strange, new worlds appeared in the firmament,
each one gilded with spirits, gods and men.
Noblest of the gods was Sigmar. For years beyond
reckoning he illuminated the realms, wreathed in
light and majesty as he carved out his reign. His
strength was the power of thunder. His wisdom
was infinite. Mortal and immortal alike kneeled
before his lofty throne. Great empires rose and,
for a while, treachery was banished. Sigmar
claimed the land and sky as his own and ruled
over a glorious age of myth.
But cruelty is tenacious. As had been foreseen,
the great alliance of gods and men tore itself
apart. Myth and legend crumbled into Chaos.
Darkness flooded the realms. Torture, slavery and
fear replaced the glory that came before. Sigmar
turned his back on the mortal kingdoms,
disgusted by their fate. He fixed his gaze instead
on the remains of the world he had lost long ago,
brooding over its charred core, searching
endlessly for a sign of hope. And then, in the dark
heat of his rage, he caught a glimpse of
something magnificent. He pictured a weapon
born of the heavens. A beacon powerful enough
to pierce the endless night. An army hewn from
everything he had lost.
Sigmar set his artisans to work and for long ages
they toiled, striving to harness the power of the
stars. As Sigmar’s great work neared completion,
he turned back to the realms and saw that the
dominion of Chaos was almost complete. The hour
for vengeance had come. Finally, with lightning
blazing across his brow, he stepped forth to
unleash his creations.
The Age of Sigmar had begun.
ULGU
PART 1
Morathi, High Oracle of the aelven war-god Khaine and
Grand Matriarch of the Daughters of Khaine, rose from
Mathcoir’s crimson depths, blood and magic dripping from
her. She stepped from the great iron cauldron with a shiver
of delight, the rejuvenation of her body and spirit complete.
Strong, lithe and long-limbed, Morathi’s beauty was as cold
and magnificent as ice and as deadly, too – not just to the
unwary but to all those on whom she turned her formidable
charms.
Three handmaidens, powerful warriors and sorcerers in
their own right, hurried to dry and dress her, while a fourth
was tasked with brushing out her luxurious hair until it
shone like moonlight. Her magic swirled around her, as
potent as an aphrodisiac. It, too, had been replenished in
the cauldron’s sacred blood-waters. Dressed and filled with
the boundless energy of Mathcoir, Morathi took her spear,
Heartrender, from its bracket on the wall and paced through
the corridors of the grand temple in the citadel of Hagg Nar.
All who encountered her progress prostrated themselves
and she passed without a glance or a murmur. She barely
noticed them unless they failed to offer her the correct
respect.
Encircling Hagg Nar like a translucent wall writhed the
shadow-magics that made the Realm of Ulgu impenetrable
to those who had not the knowledge to navigate its ways.
Shadows that confused and waylaid wanderers also gave
succour to the Daughters of Khaine, whose own magic was
attuned to it, but those same coils of mist hid the stealthy
incursions from the unholy minions of Slaanesh and Nagash,
who had learnt many of the secrets of Ulgu and exploited
them for their own evil purposes. The realm’s earth these
days ran with blood and her mountains echoed with
screams as the Daughters of Khaine defended their sacred
home from the Forces of Chaos.
No, Ulgu was not a peaceful realm, but then Morathi had
rarely craved peace in her long, extraordinary life. It
certainly did not serve her purposes now. The Shadow
Realm’s magic, and the blood spilt within it, was both
blessing and curse: power that gave and also took away.
Morathi was intimately familiar with such a seeming
contradiction. Her life and purpose had alike been forged in
such extremes, in horrors such as none living could ever
begin to comprehend. Horrors Morathi herself refused to
dwell on or allow to be spoken. And yet now, thanks to
Khaine and the she-aelves who so zealously worshipped him
and worked for his return, her strength grew and her power
with it.
Morathi ascended the spiralling walkways from deep
within the temple until she came to a wide balcony
overlooking an arena of black sand. Slabs of jagged stone
stood here and there within the oval pit, and surrounding it
was row upon row of tiered seating, filled with hundreds,
maybe thousands of her Daughters, eager for the contest to
begin.
Above them, the sky was black, its surface pitted and
cracked by lightning that flickered through and behind
obsidian clouds. Beyond Hagg Nar’s limits, Ulgu was a realm
of deception and bemusement, where a well-trodden path
could as easily lead over a chasm as it could to a Daughter’s
intended destination. For a Khainite to live within the
peculiar magics of the Shadow Realm, she was required to
dedicate herself wholly and without restraint to the war-god
and his High Oracle. She risked death with every breath she
took, and in so doing, she triumphed over it – and dedicated
that triumph to Khaine himself.
But not all of Ulgu was completely hostile to those who
called it home. Though coils of shadow, of magic and
misinformation, still writhed at the gates, their questing
tendrils could not penetrate the dome of protection built
over the citadel by Morathi’s power and reinforced daily by
the Scathborn who lived within Hagg Nar. The barrier
protected Morathi and Mathcoir itself from attack, but also
the thousands of she-aelves who lived and worshipped here.
Magic sparked across the dome as Morathi stepped back
from the balcony, a coruscation of crimson sparkles and
flitters that danced and shattered high above them. Weird
shapes and patterns flickered over the black sands and the
murmur from the seats faded away. Morathi sat in the huge
carved-stone throne at the balcony’s centre, ignoring
Melusai Filstag who waited in inscrutable silence beside it.
Filstag had much news; Filstag could wait.
The arena fell into held-breath silence, the weight of
thousands of awe-struck gazes caressing Morathi’s skin, the
reverence no less than her due and her demand. She held
them in suspense a little longer, winding the tension,
savouring their hunger, their love. And then she slammed
the butt of her spear onto the stone, the flat crack echoing
out across the vast space: the signal for the first bout to
begin.
All around the circumference of the arena, she-aelves
began to call out in praise of Khaine and in anticipation of
the bloodshed to come. Only under cover of that sound did
Morathi give Filstag leave to speak. Still she did not look at
her, but kept hungry eyes fixed on the warriors running onto
the sands below. More blood for Khaine’s glory, for the war-
god’s exaltation.
‘The Forces of Chaos grow bolder, First Daughter, both
here on Ulgu and elsewhere. Our war-covens march with the
humans and duardin, or come to their aid when the benefit
falls to us, and turn the tides of every battle they fight. Still,
the lesser races shrink from our forces, understanding
nothing of us and our dedication. Some have ventured the
opinion that they do not need us to achieve victory. That…
our ways mark us not as servants of Order, but of Chaos.’
Morathi noted the tiny hesitation in the melusai’s
response. Her lip curled. The old fear rising in the weak,
frightened denizens of the Mortal Realms as it ever did
when the Daughters of Khaine threw themselves into battle
to honour their god. Combat was sacred; slaughter was an
act of reverence and dedication that had made the
Daughters of Khaine the mightiest allies of Order since
Sigmar himself. To kill for Khaine, to destroy life in honour of
the sacrifice he had made, was their highest, and only,
purpose. Of course humans couldn’t understand such
dedication. Not even their Stormcast Eternals spent their
lives so willingly, for they knew that resurrection awaited
them. Morathi suspected they’d take fewer risks in battle if
their deaths were final, as the aelves’ were. That was true
dedication; true glory.
The temptation to abandon the other realms to face the
horrors of Chaos alone was great, but Morathi resisted.
Every enemy death was a triumph, after all, and every
being, god or mortal, who had ever harmed her was an
enemy, whether they allied with Chaos or Order. And every
drop of blood spilt was holy – and filled with glorious
purpose.
‘Khaine himself is pledged to destroying Chaos. We must
do no less, despite the mewling of the lesser races. Are your
sisters so feeble that the disgust of mere humans can
dampen their battle-fever? Is their faith in almighty Khaine,
in me, so small that they would cower from words and hard
looks the way a tzaangor cowers from our khinerai
lifetakers?’
Filstag cowered herself, just a little. She was a fierce
warrior in her own right, had led war-covens in a dozen
brutal, bloody campaigns before becoming Morathi’s
bodyguard, but none withstood the High Oracle’s rage
unscathed.
‘They fight hard and with honour, regardless of what their
allies speak or think,’ she said quickly. ‘They fight for Order
and for you. For the god of battle above all. There will be no
cease until Khaine is returned to us, First Daughter. Until he
is restored by your power and the sacred magic of Mathcoir
itself.’
Morathi’s fingers tapped Heartrender’s smooth haft in idle,
unconscious threat. ‘In Khaine’s image and for his glory,’
she said, and Filstag hurried to echo her.
Mathcoir. The great iron cauldron from which Morathi’s
magic sprang. Mathcoir had held her portion of the souls
reclaimed from the belly of Slaanesh, the God of Excess and
Morathi’s greatest nemesis. She too had spent aeons in that
belly and, before that, in torments and tortures that had
forever twisted her. From those freed souls she had crafted
the first Daughters: melusai like Filstag; and the khinerai.
From those small, humble beginnings, the Daughters of
Khaine had grown in stature, in number, in influence. In
power.
Tens of thousands of she-aelves now dedicated their lives,
their skills and their deaths to the war god – through
Morathi. Morathi who would not stop until Chaos was
defeated. Morathi who would not stop until she, herself,
gained immortality. Morathi who sat now in the heart of her
power, in the very centre of Hagg Nar beneath its
sheltering, concealing mists, and watched blood spilt in her
name and Khaine’s.
And yet she was not content. Morathi was never content,
for always she was slighted – her Daughters were slighted –
by the more puritan of the Forces of Order.
‘It pleases me to report, though, that I found no base for
your fears among the sects you sent me to investigate,’
Filstag said, breaking into Morathi’s reverie.
The High Oracle raised an eyebrow. ‘Really?’ she asked,
turning briefly to the melusai. ‘That surprises me. Perhaps
you are ill-equipped to ferret out treachery. Perhaps it was
going on beneath your very nose and you could not see it.
Still, tell me what you can of your travels and interactions of
the last months. I shall judge for myself their loyalty or
otherwise.’
The Grand Matriarch listened to Filstag’s steady, calm
breathing. Whatever she was or wasn’t, she did not anger
easily. Still, Morathi suspected that Filstag harboured oceans
of rage beneath that cold, inscrutable visage. Here in the
very heart of Hagg Nar, the melusai had dropped the illusion
that made her appear as other aelves. Her slender waist
thickened where her hips should be into a muscular tail of
emerald shading into midnight black and she swayed tall
upon her coils. Monstrous in Morathi’s own image, but
beautiful, too.
She was a Blood Sister, and she had been Morathi’s
bodyguard for decades, following her into battle and
assisting her in many rituals. And yet despite their history,
in the past few years the High Oracle of Khaine had begun
to doubt Filstag’s loyalty. It should be impossible, she knew,
for one of the Scathborn to betray her, for she had moulded
that aelf’s soul herself when it had been freed from the
curse of Slaanesh. Moulded it and given it life as a melusai,
armed with loyalty and bloodlust and the exquisite pain of
the Scath touch, and yet the more time that passed, the
more convinced she became.
Filstag was disloyal. Filstag was a traitor. She stank of it.
As head of the Cult of Khaine, Morathi did not need proof
to act upon her suspicions, but she was determined to
discover how far the rot spread. None of these thoughts
showed in the High Oracle’s perfect face as she looked back
down at the black sands and the combat reaching a frenzy
below. She slammed her spear into the stone again, and
more gates in the arena walls opened. Captured beastkin
lumbered forth, braying challenges, and the fighters who
seconds before had been duelling to first blood – and
occasionally to the death – united into a single cohesive
force against this new, true enemy.
The cheers from the crowd rose in pitch, shrill prayers to
Khaine for blood and victory piercing the cacophony.
‘The Realm of Life is particularly beset by enemies, First
Daughter,’ Filstag said without a hint of animosity about
Morathi’s opinion of her ability or otherwise to sniff out
treachery. ‘The Dark Gods have their claws deep in Ghyran’s
verdant hide, though both the Draichi Ganeth and the
Khailebron sects oppose them at every turn. The Draichi
Ganeth, in particular, have integrated themselves into most
of the major cities in order to learn whatever they can to aid
us in our great quest. Both sects are ever alert for a
disparaging word said against them or against you, First
Daughter, and retribution is ever swift and savage. They are
loyal,’ she said again, perhaps unwisely, perhaps a little too
forcefully.
Filstag paused, but Morathi gave her nothing, instead
perceiving her via her magic as she kept her face turned to
the slaughter in the arena below. One of the beastkin, a
giant wolf five times its normal size and with a slavering
muzzle over-full with yellowed, wickedly sharp teeth, had a
witch-aelf by the leg and was shaking her, blood and
gobbets of flesh flying. Her screams shamed her, and one of
her sisters waited until others had hacked into the wolf’s
hindquarters and distracted it, and then decapitated her as
she began to crawl away. The crowd yelled its disgust for
her cowardice and stones and rocks rained down on her
corpse from those sitting close enough.
‘I spent time with each sect, as commanded, observing
their structure and worship, their daily ritual combat and the
interactions and commands of their priestesses. The Ghyran
Khailebron take on such quieter tasks as their hag queen,
Belleth, commands,’ Filstag continued, and her tone now
was one of stilted disdain. Most of the Daughters of Khaine
shared her contempt for the Khailebron aelves, though
Morathi kept herself above such pettiness; her favouritism
extended to particular aelves, those who showed real
promise, not entire sects. The Khailebron spies and
assassins had many uses that those loyal to other splinters
of the Cult of Khaine could not fathom. Yet it pleased
Morathi to foster inter-sect competition. The more her
children fought each other, the less likely they were to unite
to fight her.
‘Their hag queen agrees to only those assignments that
will further our cause, First Daughter, and marches her war-
coven to battle when called upon and when prudent. All she
does is in your honour and that of our lord. Meanwhile, the
Draichi Ganeth hag queen in Ghyran has sent a coven to
Phoenicium to scour it for the Shards of almighty Khaine. It
is mainly a den of thieves and outcasts now, but they won’t
allow that to stop them, of course. They will take apart that
abandoned city stone by stone if they must.’
‘And have they found success?’ Morathi snapped, as fast
as a striking snake.
‘Not by the time I left, First Daughter, but they did
discover some artefacts and scrolls that may aid us in where
to search next. Again, I found nothing to fault in that coven
during the weeks of my stay with them. The Daughters in
the Realm of Life are unswerving in their devotion to you,
Grand Matriarch, and to Khaine himself.’
‘So you say.’ Morathi made no effort to melt the ice in her
tone. The melusai did not respond. ‘Next.’
‘Another coven of Draichi Ganeth that came to your
attention,’ Filstag continued smoothly, ‘those in the far
reaches of Ulgu. I spoke with their hag queen, Lilithan, and
observed their ritual combats and interactions. Their
temple’s work proceeds as expected. They provide
gladiatorial entertainment for a price, act as guards and foot
patrols on the borders with Chaos-held lands, and throw
themselves into glorious battle alongside our allies. Their
foes are numerous and sly, but your children neither fear
nor are fooled by them. A great victory was recently won by
the Daughters when they came to the aid of ten companies
of Freeguilders, who were caught between the enemy and a
swamp, and fell on the Nagashi undead like vengeance
itself, hacking them apart to sever the divine spark
animating their corpses. None survived and the Freeguilders
in question now offer us their full support. Hag Queen
Lilithan expects they will be vocal in their defence of us
among the Forces of Order from now on.’
All this, too, Morathi already knew, but she let Filstag
prattle on. As if the Daughters of Khaine required the
mewling voices of Freeguilders raised in their defence.
The last of the beastkin in the arena below were pulled
down and destroyed. The surviving Daughters raised
weapons and demanded the applause of their sisters in the
seats. Thousands of she-aelves surged to their feet to give
it, ululating triumph and bloodlust of their own. When the
gladiatrixes turned to her, she raised both fists in salute.
The cheering increased and the aelves on the sand stood
tall despite their injuries. In ones and twos they limped to
the exits, while leathanam raced into the arena with hooks
and chains to drag the dead monsters away. Others raked
over the bloody sand.
‘Those Draichi Ganeth have accepted fifty witch-aelves
who wish to be promoted into the Sisters of Slaughter,’ the
melusai went on, and that did interest Morathi. The Sisters
were counted among the most zealous of all Daughters of
Khaine, forever marring their beauty and risking their lives
in the initiation ritual that included living metal masks being
welded to their skin, destroying their faces forever and
killing many through blood loss in the process. The survivors
then underwent a series of gladiatorial contests, with only
the victors being welcomed into the elite ranks of the
Sisters of Slaughter.
‘I see Hag Queen Lilithan is most diligent in her
recruitment,’ Morathi said and Filstag swelled with pride as
if it was she the Grand Matriarch was praising. ‘Are there
any of special promise?’
‘Two, First Daughter. I have their names and histories
here,’ Filstag said, handing out a scroll. Morathi waved it
away. ‘I will see it is placed in your chambers.’
They were silent as the next group of warriors came into
the arena: khinerai lifetakers who swooped on their wide
pinions to take a perch on the tall slabs of rock dotted
around the sands. Their harsh calls echoed as the
spectators abruptly quieted. Into that silence came a series
of underground booms, as of something massive beyond
comprehension throwing itself against the very bones of the
earth. A huge gate beneath Morathi’s vantage point
rumbled open and onto the sand erupted a sunwyrm from
the Realm of Beasts.
The khinerai shrieked and leapt into flight, circling as the
enormous creature surged around the arena looking for
escape. Those aelves seated closest to the sand threw
stones to drive it back into the centre, though the missiles
had no effect on its thick, spiky hide. It coiled around one of
the pillars of rock pointing like an accusing finger at the sky,
and flexed. The stone cracked through its middle, the top
half tumbling to the sand. The khinerai attacked in flights of
three, arrowing out of the sky with their long spears
extended, rending the sunwyrm’s back and flinging
themselves upwards before it could rear and pluck them
from the air with its huge mouth lined with rings of serrated
teeth.
The crowd screamed its approval, thousands of fists and
feet drumming on the stone in rapture. Morathi permitted
herself a small smile. The games were good. Not just the
bloodshed, but the bloodlust wafting like incense from the
crowd; it came to her and nurtured her. She siphoned it out
of the air and funnelled it into Mathcoir without a soul
noticing. Not even Filstag. Its power danced across her
unblemished skin and brought a girlish flush of pink to the
tops of her sharp cheekbones.
They watched in silence as the khinerai battled the
sunwyrm, as its sudden lunges and twists caught more than
one unawares. Wings were shredded and spears lost in its
flesh, but for every injury it inflicted, they scored a dozen on
its great length. A trio of khinerai hovered and sent arrows
at its blunt head, shaft after shaft, to weaken it further. Their
actions were met with jeering scorn – to fight from a safe
distance was the mark of a coward – and as soon as their
quivers were empty, they threw aside their bows and dived
in formation, to close with the wyrm and win back honour in
the eyes of their sisters.
One landed for a few moments on its back to plunge her
spear into its spike-armoured hide. It bucked and threw her
aside, but the weapon had bitten deep and soon the sands
were wet with gore. The wyrm’s high-pitched keening
drowned out even the roar of the crowd.
Morathi spun her fingers through a complex web and then
gestured. A flash of crimson and the noise was suddenly
muffled, as if behind a screen, though they could still see
the proceedings.
‘And the Kharumathi?’ she asked, for Filstag was
mesmerised by the battle.
The melusai started. ‘Forgive me, First Daughter. Yes, the
Kharumathi. They remain… fractious, on the verge of self-
destruction. Though there is much internal strife, more than
I have seen before, it’s true, that doesn’t make them
inherently untrustworthy. While they battle for supremacy
among themselves, their devotion to you remains clear.
Those who fight to control the sect do so only in your name,
to your glory and almighty Khaine’s. Of that I am certain.’
‘You are certain, are you?’ Morathi snapped, and Filstag
shifted upon the coils of her tail. Its stinger rose and flexed
and then sank again.
Morathi narrowed her eyes; was that insult? Or challenge?
Or merely an unconscious indication of inner turmoil?
‘Again, it is clear your ability to understand the politics
among the sects is lacking. I hope your skills as a warrior
have not become as poor.’
Filstag clenched her fists. ‘They have not, First Daughter,’
she said, anger clear in her icy voice.
‘What do you think will happen if the Kharumathi fall
apart?’ Morathi continued as if the Blood Sister hadn’t
spoken. ‘Will the other sects accept those Daughters into
their ranks, Daughters who let strife and arrogance destroy
their covens and who embraced a sect so clearly lacking in
cohesion that it tore itself apart?’
She paused and Filstag opened and then closed her
mouth, unsure whether the question was rhetorical.
‘Well?’ Morathi demanded, though her gaze was fixed on
the sunwyrm’s dying struggles. Even in its extremity it had
the ability to cause vast destruction – of the khinerai, of the
arena itself. Much like the Kharumathi themselves if their
infighting proceeded much longer.
‘I do not know, First Daughter,’ the melusai replied with
false humility.
‘No. You do not. Yet you stand there and tell me there is no
need for concern, that these aelves can be trusted. Trusted
to spread sedition through any Daughters they come into
contact with. Trusted to break away and form their own cult
of Khaine, leaching legitimacy and followers from us, the
war-god’s true worshippers and interpreters of his divine
will. Will their hag queen set herself up as my rival? Will
there be civil war among us once more?’
The melusai’s tail writhed in distress, but this time she did
not attempt an answer.
‘You observed their internal strife and did nothing to
combat it. You allowed it to proceed, unable to see the
dangers inherent in such surreptitious clawing for power. No,
I think you are good only for killing these days,’ she added,
the statement deliberately ambiguous.
Filstag summoned the last dregs of fire. ‘You asked me to
report on their loyalty,’ she tried, the dry rustling of her
scales on the stone loud in the muffled silence of Morathi’s
magic.
‘And you failed to do so,’ Morathi interrupted. ‘You
discover not the slightest whiff of corruption within covens
that I myself told you to investigate. Think you that I sent
you there idly, sister? For your health?’ she mocked.
The High Oracle stared down into the arena at the
carnage. The sunwyrm was a heap of foul-stinking flesh
cooling as blood and life left it. The khinerai circled,
screeching their victory, swooping low over the tiers of
seating to accept the applause from the watching aelves.
Morathi’s pinions, bladed and wrought of shadow-stuff,
stirred in time with their wingbeats and Filstag slithered a
little further away.
‘We aelves are the highest of the mortal races,’ Morathi
continued abruptly. ‘Your incompetence shames us all. We
are born with a single great, glorious purpose – to return
Khaine from destruction. My every effort is bent to that sole
task, and the majority of my children revel in their faith. And
yet there are always some who put personal glory and the
pursuit of power above the needs of the many and the
return of our lord. I sent you to seek them, the corrupted
and the greedy. You tell me they do not exist.’
She faced Filstag directly, so the melusai could not doubt
she was speaking about her.
‘Those aelves think they could secure Khaine’s return
better than I, as if they understand the first thing about the
complexity of the task. They think their devotion to be
somehow greater than my own, their sacrifices larger and of
more import than mine. Those aelves shame themselves –
and they shame Khaine.’
Melusai Filstag sank to the stone, arms and face pressed
against its chill. ‘First Daughter, Grand Matriarch of the
Daughters of Khaine and High Oracle of the Lord of Murder,
forgive my failings. I will return at once to the sects and I
will not stop until I have uncovered the treachery at their
hearts. I will–’
‘Get up, sister.’ Morathi’s voice was suddenly as sweet as
honey, as warm as fire. Filstag choked off her apology and
dared to raise her face. The High Oracle smiled, putting all
the power of her centuries of seduction into it. ‘Get up,’ she
repeated softly. ‘I suspect everyone, these days. Each year
that passes without the discovery of another Shard of
Khaine tears at me. Perhaps it is as you say – you are rarely
wrong, after all.’
Filstag rose back up, uncertainty and pleasure warring on
her features. They watched the khinerai fly out of the arena.
The sunwyrm’s bloated, ruined body remained where they’d
cut it down; captive beastkin would be sent in to devour it
once the games concluded, so that they were strong and
quick opponents for the Daughters of Khaine to face. Before
then, those in the next contest would fight around, over and
even within its corpse if they had to.
‘Tell me of Hellebron and the latest plots she has cooked
up,’ Morathi said, and once again she slammed Heartrender
into the stone.
Hellebron, ruler of Har Ganeth and the Second Daughter
of Khaine, was the most senior hag queen in the hierarchy
behind Morathi herself. Their rivalry was bitter and centuries
old. Hellebron had thousands of aelves under her command
and constantly plotted to overthrow Morathi and steal the
Mathcoir from her. Ever they danced around each other,
manoeuvring for position, seeking a secret or piece of
information to give them the upper hand.
‘Is she still old and ugly?’ the High Oracle added, a small,
cruel smile playing across her beautiful mouth. Below them,
four gates opened and a hundred aelves flooded onto the
sands. They were all acolytes seeking promotion within their
respective sect. Each one sought space, trying to ensure
none could come at them from behind. A few scaled the
pillars; others put their backs to the dead sunwyrm.
Anticipation and suspicion flooded the arena. All eyes turned
to Morathi and she waited, holding them in the palm of her
hand, building the tension to breaking point, before a single
clap released them.
Howls rose from the spectators as well as the fighters, and
within seconds the clash of weapons added to the noise.
The duels would be fought to first blood this time around,
with those emerging unscathed proceeding to the next part
of their testing on the gore-soaked climb into the hierarchy
of the Khainites.
‘She is, First Daughter, and she will not be rejuvenated for
some months yet. She is bitter with it, and angry.’
‘Hellebron is always angry,’ Morathi said, waving her hand
in languid dismissal, though beneath her indifferent exterior,
the thought of the hag queen’s wizened features and
impotent fury were as intoxicating as blood. ‘I asked of her
plots. How does Har Ganeth seek to supplant Hagg Nar as
the founding temple of our religion this time?’
‘The spies we have sent into Naggaroth have not
returned, First Daughter. Or not returned with their sanity
intact, at least. They have no information worth the name.’
Morathi stood, taking Heartrender from where it leant
against her throne and pacing to the edge of the balcony to
watch a young aelf of the Kraith sect leap from the
sunwyrm’s back and throw herself onto her opponent. The
hag queens had dosed the acolytes with battle-rage elixir
and in this one, at least, it had overcome any sense of self-
preservation or the habits and grace of ritual combat. She
held her blade high to decapitate her enemy, but that
enemy, an initiate of the Khelt Nar, slipped sideways and
swung her own blade up in a diagonal slash. The Kraith
aelf’s arm and weapon both spun away across the black
sand and she fell screaming, writhing, her remaining hand
clutching at the stump of her arm as blood sprayed high into
the misty air.
There was a lull in the cheering before it returned twice as
loud, howls and screams of pleasure echoing back from the
bellies of the lightning-rent clouds above. The victorious
acolyte hesitated, torn between triumph and horror at her
actions. Morathi snarled – regret was not a fit emotion for
any Khainite. She flipped Heartrender in her hand, took aim,
and threw. The great spear punched the aelf of the Khelt
Nar off her feet and pinned her to the sunwyrm so that she
was impaled on its spikes as well as Morathi’s own weapon.
There was no lull this time; the sound built until it was ear-
splitting despite the muffling magic around the balcony. The
Daughters on the sand responded to it like music. The ritual
became a massacre as those who’d been eliminated by the
drawing of first blood hurled themselves back into the fray.
The Grand Matriarch watched it with a smile, her arms
folded. Let all the sects know who had ultimate control of
their numbers and how fast they progressed through the
ranks. Let them know that she watched. That she saw
everything.
When there were barely thirty survivors, Morathi clapped
her hands and a bolt of crimson lightning earthed itself in
the central, tallest pillar in the arena. The fighting came to a
shocked standstill and silence fell faster than a weakling
human to the dark temptations of Slaanesh.
The High Oracle drummed her fingers on the carved stone
of the railing. Her steel wings twitched and unfurled to their
fullest, extending to either side of the balcony and catching
and reflecting the lightning far above so that it flickered
across her features and the throne, outlining her in
radiance. When she had the attention of them all, she
stepped off the railing, her pinions cupping the air so that
she drifted like mist to the sand. She ripped Heartrender
from the dead aelf and then, very deliberately, licked the
young acolyte’s blood from the blade. She shivered at the
fizz of the dead aelf’s fervour, at the fierce, unyielding love
for Khaine that flavoured her heartblood.
Morathi beckoned, and the survivors ran to surround her,
standing in panting, awestruck silence to be this close to
their Grand Matriarch.
‘You fought well today. You fought for me and for Khaine.
Remember that. Remember you fight for me and for our lord
first, and your sects second. Khailebron or Kraith, Draichi
Ganeth or Khelt Nar, ultimately it doesn’t matter. You fight
against the Ruinous Powers, to defend the Mortal Realms
from Chaos and to restore almighty Khaine to us. Remember
that. Remember this moment – remember me – when you
are weary and doubt your path. Remember me when your
wounds pain and slow you and your bodies are crippled and
torn. Remember me when you face your foes in the battle
line, more monstrous than you could ever imagine.
Remember that true faith provides true strength,’ she said
and leapt into the air, her wings holding her aloft. She threw
Heartrender again, threw it with all her strength, and the
spear flew true into the tall central stone pillar. There was
an earth-shattering crack, and the pillar broke and slumped
into jagged pieces on the sands.
The only sound from the thousands of throats was a
collective intake of breath.
‘I am Morathi and I give you blood to honour Khaine. I give
you ritual to honour Khaine. I give you opportunity and
enemies and quests – to honour Khaine.’ She landed in their
midst again and beckoned; they leant forward, a collective
coming together.
‘Remember. Me.’
She leapt up a final time and opened her wings with a
crack that echoed across the arena, then flew back to her
balcony without a sound. The spell held, thousands of
aelves immobile, their breaths trapped in their chests. She
turned back to them and held out both arms to embrace
them all.
‘For Khaine!’ she screamed, and the words were howled
back at her with such wild devotion that it was a physical
force, as sensual as a lover’s touch.
Filstag, too, was trembling with passion when Morathi
returned to her throne.
‘So,’ the High Oracle said as if there had not been an
interruption, ‘you begin with tales of your failure among the
sects and now you have nothing but failure to report where
Hellebron is concerned. Correct?’
The change was so sudden that the melusai physically
recoiled and the tip of her tail twitched in agitation. She had
been forgiven; now she was not. It was too fast for her to
comprehend.
‘I-I will send more spies, First Daughter, and they will bring
back Hellebron’s agents and followers to interrogate. I swear
it.’
‘Be quiet,’ Morathi said. ‘I tire of your words. You bring me
no new information. You learn nothing on your travels to my
temples, despite me sending you there myself. More and
more I am convinced you waste my time.’
The urge to flick out a wing and open Filstag from tail to
throat was great, but she resisted. Filstag deserved so much
more than a quick death, and Morathi meant to see she got
it.
‘The primary bout begins soon,’ she said instead. ‘Watch.’
Again the arena fell into silence as the survivors made
their dazed exit, many stopping and looking back and up at
the balcony. Morathi had spoken to them. Morathi!
The leathanam dragged away the slain initiates and raked
the sands to make ready for the primary. Morathi could feel
the excited speculation among the audience. What form
would the bout of greatest honour take? Beastkin, a
sunwyrm, acolyte slaughter – how could the primary exceed
those that had gone before?
Quietly, slowly, three aelves made their way onto the
black sand, their hair and bodies pale against its bloody
darkness. They wore minimal armour. One limped, a second
held one shoulder higher than the other, and the third
worked her jaw as though it pained her. She turned her head
and spat a mouthful of blood and saliva.
‘They have fought before, and often,’ the melusai
murmured, frowning as she looked down at the trio. ‘And
they have not been blessed with rejuvenation before this
contest.’
The question was there, hovering behind the statements,
begging to be answered. Morathi didn’t look at Filstag, and
neither did she answer, either the statement or the
question. The melusai would learn the meaning of it all soon
enough.
The High Oracle rose from her seat and the crowd became
still.
‘My daughters, and the Daughters of Khaine himself – all
you whose loyalty to our god knows no bounds, whose zeal
for slaughter and for victory cannot be dammed, whose skill
and ability turns the tide of every battle – I give you the
primary bout. Blood for the war-god! Death for his life!
Victory to ensure our enemies’ defeat! I give you Trisethni
the Unseen, of the Khailebron. I give you Nepenora, of the
Kharumathi. And Vahis, who hails from the Draichi Ganeth.’
There was the rustle of scales on stone from behind her,
but the melusai was silent.
‘You, my Daughters, have recently seen much combat.
Now you will see more – you fight for victory and for truth.
You fight for Khaine and for Order. You fight to the death,
with no quarter asked and no mercy given. “For the blood to
speak it must first flow”,’ Morathi called.
The opening lines of the Red Invocation rang around the
arena and the aelves gathered to bear witness chanted
them with her. ‘Ten cuts are better than one, save for the
deft slash that opens an artery. For almighty Khaine, let your
blade drink deeply, and often.’
Morathi paused, feeling the swell of power and devotion
beat against her skin like a lover’s hands. This was what she
had come to see – this blood, spilt for Khaine and for her,
spilt to see her plans brought one step closer, her power
forged one link at a time. She took a deep breath.
‘Begin!’
The three aelves began to circle as Morathi returned to
her throne. Filstag leant close.
‘These aelves, First Daughter – the primary is the bout of
greatest honour, yet you are punishing them? A fight to the
death for some crime?’
‘Not at all,’ Morathi said, eyes fixed on the sudden
eruption of battle below. ‘In fact, quite the opposite.’
‘Yet they fight already injured,’ the melusai tried,
confused. ‘The combat will be over quickly.’
Morathi’s mouth curved into a sensuous smile, drawing
Filstag to her like a moth to a flame, unwilling and helpless
and always off-balance. The lightning changes of mood
Morathi underwent were impossible to predict and behind
them all was her amusement at watching her underlings
scramble to keep up.
‘Oh no, there will be no swift end to the combat, not with
these three. Lean in close, my love. Let me tell you their
stories as they fight for glory. Let me tell who they are and
all they have accomplished in service of their covens and
the Lord of Battle.’ She pointed. ‘First, the Khailebron
assassin, Trisethni the Unseen. A most interesting story…’
TRISETHNI THE UNSEEN
ANNA STEPHENS
She was a witch-aelf of Khailebron, a Daughter of Khaine,
and she slid through the night like steel through velvet –
silent, lethal and true. The great fortress city of Greywater
Fastness was intermittently dark and subdued, though never
entirely, for even this late there was business to be done
and perimeters to be walked. The great forge complexes run
by the wealthiest duardin families operated day and night,
and now they lit up the heavy smoke hanging over the city,
casting a sulphurous yellow glow over rooftops and along
streets.
The air was acrid, heavy with soot and hot metal, rent by
the deep-throated scream-hisses of quenching steel. Yet
despite the Greycaps’ vigilance and the hellish glow from
the forges, no one saw the aelf pass, for she was Trisethni
the Unseen, and the title was no mere posturing.
Lord Rygo’s mansion sat high upon the central hill of the
city, where the breezes did much to carry the worst of the
smoke away. Here were situated the most expensive
properties in the Fastness, exclusively occupied by
merchant lords, nobles, and members of the Council of the
Forge or the Grand Conclave.
Trisethni’s disdain did not show on her cold, beautiful
features, though it burned hot within her. These people
worshipped glory and wealth, comfort and reputation, when
they should worship the gods who kept them safe from the
Forces of Chaos; the gods who blessed them with the
resources and knowledge needed to manufacture their
weapons and black powder. Instead, they were enamoured
of their own skill, blinded by greed and arrogance and the
bright flash of gold coins.
Footsteps sounded up ahead and the aelf stilled in a
shadow as black as spilt ink. Her silver-blonde hair was
muted with charcoal, her boots, trousers and tunic in shades
of grey and deep blue. She splayed a gloved hand across
her face to break up its outline lest forge-light or moonlight
should glint upon her. The sentries marched past, silent and
alert – but neither silent enough nor alert enough to spot
her. Trisethni watched them go, and then slipped back onto
the road and increased her pace. She didn’t have long.
The aelf didn’t like Greywater Fastness, hating its stink
and endless hammering, the black skies and black walls and
black rain that fell. But her soul and devotion were to
Khaine, to Morathi his First Daughter and the High Oracle,
and to her coven. She would endure the contempt of
Greywater Fastness’ other, lesser, races with the outward
inscrutability common to both her species and her religion.
The Khailebron sect of the Daughters of Khaine did not
have a home temple, preferring to wander the Mortal
Realms in response to the tides of war and fortune or the
dictates received from Morathi herself. For the duration of
this dictate, the Draichi Ganeth sect was hosting them in
their temple here in this smoking, desolate, dead place of
rock and metal.
She headed towards Rygo’s confection of a mansion for
the second time that night. The first had been with her
sisters, clad in armour beneath their cloaks to perform their
ritual blade-dances at the coming-of-age celebration of
Rygo’s son. Trisethni did not know why the boy was to be so
honoured with their presence, but it was not her place to
question the commands of Hag Queen Belleth. The war-
coven had attended and they had performed, their every
movement composed of death and grace and worship,
moving in step, matchless in their abilities – and they had
been insulted. Rather, Trisethni’s sister Itara had been
insulted when some stinking-drunk human had told her she
lacked the grace to blade-dance with the others. Itara had,
rightly and instantly, slaughtered the scum for his sacrilege.
Just the memory of it set Trisethni’s rage to burning anew,
hotter and brighter than the largest duardin forge, for an
insult to one member of the coven was an insult to all, and
by the time they had departed the panic-stricken mansion
and reached the temple, they were clamouring for
permission to return and wreak holy vengeance.
The insult would not have been borne by any of the
aelven races, let alone those who had pledged their lives to
Khaine, god of battle and Lord of Murder. Belleth had
listened to their complaints and shared their outrage. While
she did not at this time want outright war with the humans
of Greywater Fastness, she had sent Trisethni to be the
silent blade of justice, streaking through the night to carve
retribution from the bodies of the perpetrators.
Trisethni ground her teeth together at the blind arrogance
the surviving human guests had displayed in the aftermath
of Itara’s righteous slaying. Once the initial screaming and
running had faded, after the Greycaps arrived at a run and
looked at their opponents and wisely did nothing but form a
non-threatening line between the Daughters and the
humans, some of the guests had spoken eagerly from that
supposed safety. Their mouths uttered false solicitations,
their hands and eyes told the lie that they did not share the
dead man’s opinions of Itara – or indeed all the witch-aelves
who had done them the honour of performing – and all the
while they stank of unearned superiority and pitying
derision.
You are beneath us. You are savage. You are animals, their
smiles and hearts proclaimed, and not an aelf there did not
see past the lies to that inescapable truth.
As she sped through the night, it pleased Trisethni that
she would prove them right in one of their beliefs. The
Daughters of Khaine were savage, because life was savage
in the endless struggle against Chaos. And before the dawn
fought the forge-light for possession of the sky, Rygo and his
whelp would know just how savage existence could be. The
humans would need to invent a new word for what she
would do to them.
Trisethni’s saliva was coppery with the need for blood. I
am the blade of my sisters’ just vengeance. My retaliation
on their behalf shall not be swift, though it shall be brutal. It
shall last for hours. And all humans will be reminded that
the Daughters of Khaine are true servants of justice, and of
blood.
The aelf ran the last mile over the rooftops of the houses
ascending the soft curves of the hill, springing from gable to
eave to ornamental tree until she reached the crest and the
largest, grandest buildings, each set back behind its own
protective wall. Trisethni had memorised the layout of
Rygo’s gardens – a wonder in the stone, smoke and metal of
Greywater Fastness and its bleak, uninhabitable surrounds –
and the approaches to the main house, as well as the three
large rooms she and the rest of the blade-dancers had been
permitted to enter. Permitted. As if they were a troupe of
common mummers. But she was deep into the
concentration required for her mission now, and the thought
– the outrage – skated over its surface without leaving a
mark.
There were house guards patrolling the base of the wall
and none of the trees were within jumping distance – she’d
have to cross open ground to reach the little orchard.
Trisethni waited until the pair of guards had vanished into
the gloom and then leapt from the top of the wall, covering
ten feet and rolling once to take the impact out of her
landing, and sprinted into the shadows. Her keen ears told
her she remained unnoticed.
From there it was two hundred paces to the house, eighty
of them within the trees. Once she was on the lawns and
among the flower beds, there would be little cover, but it
didn’t matter. Though the humans found it more comforting
to think of them only as blade-dancers or pit-fighters – little
more than brutal savages who fought for the Forces of Order
– the truth was that the Khailebron were the spies,
saboteurs and assassins of the Daughters of Khaine.
Concealment and subterfuge, the blackened blade in the
night or the slip of poison into a cup, were their tools in
trade. A hundred feet of open garden was no obstacle to
Trisethni the Unseen.
Grinning at the ease of outwitting the dull-sighted human
guards, the aelf sped light-footed across the grass, using the
low shrubs as cover, and flung a grappling hook from thirty
feet out. The hook, muffled in black cloth, flew long and high
and true, wrapping around a second-floor balcony
balustrade with a muted clatter. Trisethni didn’t wait to see
if anyone was alerted by the noise; she swarmed up the
rope and over the balcony, drawing it up after her, and lay
pressed against the smooth, cool stone until she was sure
she was undetected. Two more guards patrolled by below
her and she caught a glimpse of their grey hats – Rygo was
spooked and had supplemented his private guard with
others. Just how she liked it.
Trisethni packed the hook back into the small bag she
carried across her back and pulled out a stiff loop of wire
and a blackened, narrow blade. She worked the blade in
between the window frame and the lock, pushing to create a
small gap, then fed the wire through and felt around until it
hooked the latch. A twist and a quick upward jerk with the
loop, and it slipped free. She stepped into the house as soft
as liquid shadow.
Humans were so trusting. Give them high walls and
enough weapons and night-blind guards and they
considered themselves impervious to retribution. Trisethni’s
lesson would be for more than just Rygo and his mewling
pup; it would be for them all. The whole of the Fastness. The
whole of Ghyran. The Daughters of Khaine fought for Order
and for Light, and there wasn’t a human whose opinion
meant anything to them. This house’s fate would ensure no
one ever forgot that again.
The mansion was sprawling and opulent, as befitted a
member of the Grand Conclave. Wealth oozed from the
walls, displays so ostentatious they became tasteless. So
rich they looked cheap. The heavy carpeting silenced
Trisethni’s footfalls, but would also deaden those of any
guards; she proceeded cautiously but fast, gliding along the
corridor. It was lined with rooms, many with the door closed
and the distinctive sounds of breathing emanating from
within.
Rygo’s party guests inhabited these rooms, guests who
had stood by and let Itara be abused. If there’d been more
time, she would have chased them down one at a time or in
groups, spilling blood for Khaine, but tonight it was Rygo as
host and his son as guest of honour who deserved the full
measure of her fury. The rest would benefit from mercy they
had no right to expect.
Trisethni pulled a mask from her bag and tied it tightly
over her nose and mouth, then took a paper packet from a
pouch. One by one, she opened the doors and ghosted into
the rooms, using a long feather to waft the powder coating
the paper over the slumbering occupants before stealing
back out and shutting the doors. No one in this house would
wake at Rygo’s screams. No one in this house would ever
wake again.
In the name of almighty Khaine, in honour of his prowess
and his subtle arm, I dedicate these deaths. May he look on
me with favour, though these endings draw no blood in his
name.
That is still to come, she added to herself with a toothy
smile as she removed the mask. Anticipation stroked its
fingers across her scalp and began to whisper in her veins
as she padded up the stairs to the third floor, where the
private suites were located.
She left the tainted mask, the feather and the empty
paper on a small table in an alcove, arranged beside a large,
gold-painted vase. The mask’s silk was painted with the
Khailebron sigil, but Trisethni placed it face down so it
couldn’t be seen without being handled. She smiled again,
wondering who would turn it over when the house’s fate
was discovered – and if they would live long enough to
identify the Cult of Khaine as the bringers of justice to this
house.
There would be sentries stationed throughout the lower
levels of the house to guard against intrusion. Trisethni
didn’t know how many, but she knew they’d come at the
first sounds of fighting or the first screams. Another slow
smile stole across her face.
Crouching at the top of the stairs, the corridor sweeping
away to her left and right, she scanned the darkness. Rygo
and his son, Rygel – how original – would have the entire
third floor to themselves; Rygo’s wife had died two years
before. Each man had a guard stationed outside their door
and the soft tramp of feet indicated at least one more
walking another, unseen corridor or room. Guards
downstairs she’d expected – it was why she’d entered the
mansion through the second floor. For Rygo to have or need
guards on the private floor spoke of paranoia in excess of
what she’d expect even for a lord.
He knows the insult given to my sister. He is expecting
me, perhaps.
Reaching into her bag, the aelf retrieved a different
packet. She didn’t need a mask this time. The tiny black
spheres shifted against the paper and Trisethni tipped them
into her hands. Rising fluidly, she called out: ‘What? Who
are you?’
The guards’ attention snapped towards her. ‘What?’ one
responded in dumb incomprehension. ‘Who are you?’
‘How dare you enter the lord’s house uninvited,’ Trisethni
growled. Confused but obeying their training, the guards
trotted towards her from either end of the corridor, pulling
short swords as they came. As soon as they were in reach,
she threw the spheres. Warmed by her body heat through
the gloves, the sudden cooling as they sped through the air
caused them to pop, releasing the gas inside.
Trisethni back-flipped down the stairs to the landing, well
below the reach of the coiling fumes. Coughing, spluttering
and then the snarling of rage drifted down to her, and after
a count of ten she sauntered back up. The guards lunged at
her and the aelf held up her hands. ‘You will do as I
command,’ she said softly, and they halted. She gestured at
their uniforms. ‘Kill all those dressed as you are dressed,
and those wearing grey hats who patrol the grounds, but
quietly, that you might take them all. Let none come up to
the third floor. Go.’
They passed her in a silent rush, teeth bared and eyes
black with compulsion. Dressed as you are dressed. When
the last of the non-compelled guards were dead, they’d turn
on each other, unable to stop the need to kill. Waving her
arms to dissipate any last traces of the gas, Trisethni took
the left-hand corridor first. Time to see who slept where –
and who got to watch the other die.
It was the boy’s room. Rygel. Newly come of age. An adult
now, but one who would never get any older. He didn’t look
like an adult as he sprawled drooling among the silks and
quilts of his bed, though; he looked young. He looked
innocent. Almighty Khaine would be pleased to receive his
life in offering.
The assassin backed softly out of the room and left the
door ajar, then hurried along the corridor to Rygo’s suite.
She could just make out the sounds of combat from the
ground level, too quiet for human ears. Would the Greycaps
in the gardens be aware and, if so, would they come to the
guards’ aid or summon help first? It was an idle query;
Trisethni would slaughter any who tried to stop her. She slid
in through the door and leapt, lithe as a cat, onto Rygo’s
immense bed. The thump of her landing was enough to stir
him; the press of the sciansá at his throat enough to bring
him to full, icy-cold wakefulness. Trisethni crouched over
him like the avenging spirit of murder she was.
‘Let’s visit Rygel,’ she breathed.
‘Who – who are you?’ Rygo stuttered. ‘Guard!’
They waited for twenty heartbeats, Trisethni’s smile
growing in time with Rygo’s blanching. ‘Oh dear,’ she
lamented. ‘No help.’ She slid off the bed, keeping the blade
against his throat, and wrapped her hand around his arm,
dragging him to his feet. Rygo winced at the force of her
grip and then gasped as moonlight crossed her face.
‘Aelf,’ he hissed. ‘What is the meaning of this?’
‘I think you know, but I’ll tell you both in Rygel’s room. I
dislike having to repeat myself,’ she said, hauling him
towards the door. The man dug in his heels and resisted, so
Trisethni spun behind him with a blade-dancer’s grace and
her sciansá nicked at his flesh, drawing a crimson bead of
blood. ‘Walk. Walk or I take your fingers one by one.’
He balked again, just for a second, and then all the fight
went out of him in a rush. ‘Whoever’s paying you to do this,
whatever their price, I’ll double it,’ he babbled as she
marched him along the corridor towards Rygel’s room. She
said nothing. ‘Triple. I’ll triple it, I swear. In Sigmar’s name, I
swear it.’
He seemed suddenly to realise where they were going,
because he slowed and then fought them to a halt. Trisethni
let him, let the fear build. ‘Ten times,’ he said, his voice
hoarse. ‘Ten times whatever you’re being paid if you let me
and my boy go.’
She shoved him in the back, got him moving again, her
lips peeled back at his proximity to her. His body heat
passed through her clothes; his fear-sweat clogged her
nostrils.
‘Everything I have,’ he moaned.
‘Open the door.’
‘Please.’
Trisethni sighed, spun him so his back was to the door,
pressed his hand against the stone of the wall and severed
his little finger with the wicked, razor edge of her blade.
Rygo sucked in a breath to scream and she slapped her
hand over his mouth, turned the door handle and shoved
him backwards into the room. Only then did she let go and
the shriek she’d muffled found its way out.
Trisethni locked the door and pocketed the key. When she
turned back, Rygel was sitting up in bed, yelling in shock at
the sudden commotion. Humans. Always so loud, so
emotional.
Rygel fumbled with the lamp on his table and turned up
the flame. Rygo had his maimed hand clamped in the other
and held in front of his face. He was grey and still screaming
as he stared at the space where his finger should be; maybe
he’d never stop. Trisethni relished the screams of her foes,
but this one was simply embarrassing himself. She
brandished the sciansá; Rygo sucked in one last deep breath
and then closed his mouth. Sweat poured into his eyes and
his chin wobbled as he fought to master the pain.
‘I am Trisethni of the Khailebron war-coven. We did you
and your whelp the greatest honour of your miserable lives
earlier this night by performing our blade-dance for you. The
response of one of your guests was to insult my sister.’
Trisethni’s voice lowered into a growl and her fingers flexed
on the hilt of her sciansá. Outrage and fury built anew in her
breast. ‘You have no honour, and you sought to strip the
same from us to, what, make your own inadequacies seem
less? Believe me, in that you failed. You will pay for the
insult, and all in this stinking prison of a city will know the
Daughters’ honour is intact and untainted.’
‘I didn’t… the insult has been paid for,’ Rygo squeaked,
trembling all over. ‘The man is already dead!’
‘The man is, yes. But who encouraged him in his folly?
Who was the corpse’s friend?’ She didn’t bother making it
easy for him, knowing the moment of realisation would be
sweet. For her, at least.
Rygo frowned amid his sweating and bleating and
bleeding, but then horrified recognition dawned and, slowly,
he twisted towards the bed. Rygel was standing by its side
now.
‘You fool,’ his father breathed. ‘Tell me you didn’t. Tell me
you’re not so stupid.’ He was almost begging.
Rygel’s warm brown skin drained to grey. ‘I… it…’ he
stuttered, but no more.
Trisethni felt a blush of satisfaction and another rush of
justified anger. There was no battle-joy to sink into with this
assignment, but that was simply another sacrifice the witch-
aelves of Khailebron made for their god. Alone of the
Daughters of Khaine, when it was necessary they forewent
the wild blessings of bloodlust that united them with their
lord. To be the subtle arm and poisoned cup instead of the
frenzied, joyous killer was their pride and their curse both.
Rygo turned back and seized both her forearms in a grip
strong with desperation. Trisethni raised an eyebrow.
‘He’s a boy, just a boy, a stupid, snivelling wretch. He
didn’t know what he was doing. A foolish prank, honoured
Daughter. We will pay reparations to you, your sisters. Many
reparations. A donation to the cause of the Daughters of
Khaine, however much you ask. My son will make a public
apology–’
Trisethni twisted her arm free and whipped up her sciansá;
the point scored through his cheek and eyebrow, a thin red
line that an instant later began to gush with blood. Rygo
screamed and fell back, both hands clutching the new
wound. Rygel screamed too, and seized up the lamp and
threw it at the aelf.
Trisethni leapt towards the bed. The lamp smashed
against the door and spilt burning oil in a pool across the
wood and the rugs. Hissing in fury, she batted the boy aside
and ripped the silk hanging down from the wall. She threw
the material over the flames and stamped them out, her
rage hotter than the burning oil. The last thing she needed
was the house to burn down – no one would find her
message if the occupants were nothing but charred corpses.
By the time she turned back, Rygel had fled, leaving his
father coughing and bleeding on the floor. Human loyalty
left much to be desired.
Trisethni slammed the hilt of her blade into the side of
Rygo’s knee – he wouldn’t be running anywhere now – and
set out in pursuit of the boy. The suite was a warren of
rooms, at least a dozen, but no human had ever outrun an
aelf and this one wasn’t to be the first. She caught him by a
window and slammed his face into the wall next to it. He
crumpled, and Trisethni bound his hands with cord from her
pack, and dragged him back into the main bedroom.
Rygo was hammering on the scorched door and calling for
his guards, his injured leg stretched out before him.
‘Stop that,’ the aelf said. ‘They’re dead or dying – no one’s
coming for you. You’ve done this to yourselves. Arrogance
has blinded you to any consequences that don’t involve
increasing your wealth. Weapons and gold are your god and
guiding light. Neither will save you.’
The lord’s voice faltered when he saw Rygel, blood
streaming from a broken nose, dazed in Trisethni’s arms.
‘Please, not my boy,’ he whispered. ‘I beg you, in the name
of Khaine, not my boy.’
Trisethni became very still. ‘In the name of Khaine?’ she
asked, and her voice was death. ‘How dare you swear on my
god’s name when it was my people – his people – you so
insulted? How dare you sully his divinity with your mouth?
What know you of Khaine or the sufferings we endure to
restore him, what know you of our battles and struggles
against the forces of darkness and death? My god decrees
his Daughters are sacrosanct – now you use his name to
turn me from my righteous vengeance? Will you debase
your final moments of life with more dishonour, more
arrogance and manipulation, or will you find your courage
and accept your fate for what it is – both justice for your
crimes and a warning to others like you?’
‘I will, I will, but not Rygel. He’s a boy. Just a boy.’ Tears
mingled with the blood on his face and he held out two
hands and nine fingers in supplication.
Trisethni scoffed. ‘We danced at his coming of age
celebration this very night. We came here to honour your
son and you repaid us with insult. He repaid us with insult.
You say, and your custom says, that he is now a man. He
will suffer a man’s fate.’
‘I have wealth,’ Rygo tried again, forcing himself up the
wall, balancing on one leg. He hopped towards them and
the aelf tightened her grip on Rygel’s arm. They stank of
desperation and this blind repetition of bribery only
increased her disdain. They could not conceive of an
existence dedicated to a higher purpose, or that wealth was
not the ultimate goal for every living creature.
‘I have already said I don’t want your stinking human
riches,’ she snarled, and put the edge of her sciansá against
Rygel’s neck.
Rygo stopped, wobbling, pain creasing his bloody face. ‘I
have other things, other valuables not treasures,’ he
babbled. ‘I have a book! A secret book, a book that your
priestesses will want. I guarantee it.’
The assassin laughed, the sound sharp as a knife with
mockery. ‘Is there no end to your lies and bribes? Is there no
beginning to your honour? How such a one as you rose to
power is beyond me. There is no doubt it is the Daughters of
Khaine who stand between humanity and Chaos.’
‘He does have a book. A book of information,’ Rygel
ventured. Trisethni shook him into silence. She was growing
tired of the delay. This wasn’t noble, joyful combat to praise
her god; it was the messy necessity of slaughtering
diseased livestock.
‘This book will change everything you think you know
about your religion,’ Rygo said, and the claim was so bold
and delivered with such fervour that it gave Trisethni pause.
‘Is it about almighty Khaine?’ she asked, reluctance and
suspicion clouding her tone. It was most likely just another
delaying tactic; Rygo probably hoped his guards were on
their way. But if not, if she passed up this opportunity to
discover information vital to their cause… If it did exist, the
tome might give an insight into the possible locations of the
shards of her destroyed god. With such an artefact they
could restore him to life and power and together, in his
name, crush the Forces of Chaos forever.
‘Khaine? No,’ Rygo said, patting the door. ‘It’s in my room
– we must go and get it.’
‘Tell me what the book is or the boy dies screaming,’
Trisethni snarled and Rygo’s momentary bravado shrivelled
in the heat of her anger.
‘It contains secrets, many secrets, that Morathi wishes to
keep hidden,’ he said quickly and it was as if he’d thrown a
bucket of ice water over her. The aelf’s natural grace
deserted her for an instant and the sciansá cut Rygel’s neck
as her hand jerked. The boy, who’d been standing so still he
barely breathed, screeched and tried to squirm away. She
held him tighter.
‘I swear! I swear,’ his father shouted. ‘Don’t hurt him, I
swear it’s true. A book of secrets about Morathi herself. Let
him stay here – let him live – and I’ll give it to you.’
Trisethni had her orders, but Hag Queen Belleth couldn’t
have known about this. Would her instructions have been
different if she had? The assassin made her decision.
‘No, he comes with us. And if you’re lying, I will make you
watch while I peel off your son’s skin. Now – let’s go.’
‘A book, a book,’ he repeated, the only words he seemed
able to say in the extremity of his terror.
Trisethni unlocked the door and followed, dragging Rygel,
who was silent but for a high-pitched wheeze with every
inhalation. He walked as if half turned to stone, legs stiff and
gait jerky. She shoved him along. If the uninfected guards
had killed the two she’d compelled, they’d sweep the house
for more threats soon enough. ‘Hurry,’ she hissed and didn’t
need to expand on the threat. Whimpering, one hand on the
wall for balance, the lord limped on.
His suite, if anything, was even more luxurious than his
son’s. The trio shuffled past the bed and into a study: walls
lined with bookcases, a huge desk in the centre beneath a
wide window. A lamp stood on the desk and Rygo fumbled
with it until light flooded the room.
‘The book,’ Trisethni demanded, keen not to waste any
more time. She listened back to the suite’s entrance and
beyond to the stairs. So far it was still clear. Every room on
the second floor would need to be checked and the dead
and dying guests any surviving guards found would need
dealing with. It should slow them some more.
Rygo unlocked a desk drawer, removed a second key from
it, staggered to a bookshelf and pulled out a dozen books,
letting them fall. Behind them was a little door set into the
wall – a hiding-place.
The governor unlocked it and Trisethni tensed – there
might be a weapon in there. This was Greywater Fastness,
after all. She would not underestimate its many innovations
on the subject of weaponry and swift death. She tightened
her grip on Rygel and pulled him in front of her as a shield, a
blade in each hand now, the steel framing his throat. The
governor reached into the hole and dragged out armfuls of
papers; these, too, he let fall. His confidential documents
scattered like snow around his bare feet. He reached in
again and dragged out a large book bound in what looked
like troggoth-hide leather. Clutching it to his chest, he
shuffled around to face them.
‘It is yours in return for our lives,’ he tried.
‘Where did you get it?’ the aelf asked, ignoring his
bargaining.
‘Before settling here I was – I am – a merchant. Spent
years travelling Ghyran. Even took the Realmgate to
Azyrheim a couple of times. Over the years I collected much
– wealth, treasure, artefacts. This,’ he rubbed his non-
maimed hand over the cover lovingly, ‘this I… made.’
Trisethni blinked. ‘Made?’
‘Sometimes I was paid in information, not coin. Or old
objects – scrolls, books, tablets and statues. A few pieces
from the World-that-Was itself even, invaluable objects that
held many secrets. Some of those secrets related to
Morathi, some to other figures. I collated each into a book –
this is the Book of Morathi.’
Rygo paused and a calculating look stole briefly across his
sweating features. ‘When you and your blade-dancers came
to perform tonight, it was but a cover. Your high priestess
Belleth came here too, in secret, to inspect this book. It’s
why I wasn’t downstairs to curb my idiot son’s indiscretions.
The chaos after your sister killed my guest alerted us.
Belleth had been reading the book – she told me to keep it
safe and that she would soon need me to arrange for its
transport. Then she left and returned to the temple ahead of
you. Or so I presume.’
Trisethni’s grip on her blades tightened. ‘No,’ she said
softly and then shoved Rygel out of her path. ‘No. Belleth
would never trust such an object to a human. She would
have taken it herself, guarded it and made her way to Hagg
Nar with it. You lie.’
Rygo’s eyes widened. ‘I assure you I do not, Daughter of
Khaine. Belleth herself came here and told me to keep hold
of it until she was ready for it to be sent away. She did not
want it falling into the wrong hands.’
And now Belleth has sent me to kill them. Rygel had not
denied her accusation back when she’d first burst into his
bedroom with his father screaming and bleeding at her side;
the insult had indeed been given and Itara had reacted
appropriately. But that didn’t explain all. It didn’t explain
anywhere near enough.
Rygo, of course, knows the contents of the book. Who
knows how many others he may have shared it with, and
yet Belleth would have the book remain with him. Rygel too
confirmed its existence; how much of what it contains does
he know? Knowledge like that cannot be allowed to rest in
the hands of a human. It is direst folly.
She went suddenly cold. What if Rygo had turned to the
Dark Gods? What if he was a traitor, allied to those who
would see the destruction of the Daughters of Khaine? If this
book was meant for an agent of Chaos…
No. If Belleth suspected that, she would have told me to
retrieve the book or at the least to destroy it. None of this
makes sense. She didn’t tell me to collect a book; she didn’t
even mention one. But how is she going to get it back once
I’ve done my work here and the mansion becomes overrun
with Greycaps?
Trisethni’s mind was a whirl of confusion and indecision.
Neither emotion was familiar to her; both were unwelcome.
She couldn’t think of a situation in which leaving the book in
Rygo’s possession – and not only that, but dead Rygo’s
possession – was a good idea.
But then, I am not hag queen. Belleth knows what she is
about; she is privy to more knowledge than I. There will be a
reason she acts as she does. Have faith.
The assassin had done Belleth’s will for decades, ever
since her birth-mother had deemed her old enough to begin
her training, first in obedience and the lore of the
Khailebron, later in weapons and finally in those other,
quieter methods of destruction. Belleth had raised her,
taught her, confided in her and trained her. It was Belleth
who named her the Unseen; Belleth who guided Trisethni’s
career within the Khailebron. Her loyalty, her love, would
allow no suspicion and no disobedience.
She sheathed one sciansá and held out her hand. ‘Give
me the book.’
‘Our lives?’ Rygo asked. ‘Our lives for this knowledge?’
Trisethni sighed, pulled Rygel against her with her free
hand and slit his throat with a swift, hard jerk of her blade.
Blood gouted like water from a burst pipe and the boy
gurgled, trying to scream. His bound hands scrabbled at his
neck, but there was no stemming the flow of life. He
collapsed as Rygo gave a hoarse, despairing cry and
launched himself at them both. He threw the book. Trisethni
plucked it from the air – it was heavier than she expected –
and then Rygo was past her, running for the exit without a
single thought for his twitching, dying offspring.
Humans.
There was no glory in this hunt – Trisethni’s mind was too
unsettled – but she chased him down the corridor towards
the staircase, running up the wall to fall on him from above
and spear him through the top of his shoulder with her
blade. Her body weight punched it deep inside, cleaving his
lung, stomach, intestines.
‘For the blood to speak it must first flow. Ten cuts are
better than one, save the deft slash that opens the artery.
For almighty Khaine, my blade drinks deep.’ The words of
the Red Invocation spilt from her lips as Rygo crumpled
beneath her.
He was still alive when Trisethni carved the Khailebron
sigil into his forehead and the palm of each hand for all to
see. ‘Those who find you will understand. They will know the
Daughters of Khaine preserve their honour. And they will
know you threatened it. No one will mourn such fools as
you,’ she promised him. The governor didn’t seem to care.
He died as she stood and retraced her steps, to mark Rygel
the same, though she would have preferred to do it while
the boy still lived. Still, appearances were important.
When it was done, Trisethni stood in the study and looked
at the book in her hands. Then, very carefully and without
opening it, she replaced it in its hiding place, piled the
papers back on top, locked it, and hid the little door behind
books again. Her hag queen had given her orders; her hag
queen had her reasons for not telling Trisethni to recover the
book, or even of its existence.
She put the key back in the drawer and left the suite,
drifted like smoke down the stairs to the second floor, and
slid back out through the window. She didn’t need the
grappling hook this time; she dangled by her hands and
then let go, landing with a soft thump she turned into a
tumble to absorb the impact.
As she crossed the gardens without challenge – all the
guards had been pulled inside by the sounds of fighting –
her awareness of the book’s existence tugged at her.
Resolutely, the aelf put it from her mind and sped back into
the night.
Trisethni couldn’t find her hiding place again. The aelf was
sure she had returned along the same path, but when she
took the fork in the tunnel, she began immediately to
descend where before the path had been straight, and this
time there was no pit to jump across. Her hiding place, her
supplies including her food and water, were gone. But so
was one of her enemies. One of Morathi’s enemies, a cruel
and poisonous creature of Slaanesh and his foul
perversions. Tumbled and dead and lost at the bottom of an
underground waterfall.
As the hunger grew in Trisethni’s belly, it seemed scant
reward. There were still two more. Two who whispered and
sighed to her, two whose beauty would never be marred as
hers now was, whose bodies would not fail as hers failed
from want of water, food and healing. They would never
bear such marks, such sickness. Two whose dedication to
their lord and master would never be called into doubt. Not
like the aelf’s, with her questions and her misgivings about
Belleth and the book.
And always, as insistent as the beat of her pulse, the
command: say his name. Surrender. Say his name.
And ‘Khaine,’ she would respond in a halting tone when
she could bear it no longer. Always, it was received with sly
and disbelieving laughter as they herded her about in the
darkness, always just out of reach.
Will Khaine make you beautiful? they jeered. Will Khaine
return Belleth to your arms or show you pleasure such as
you have never even imagined could exist? No. But you
know who will.
Say. His. Name.
Trisethni was on her knees, both hands pressed over her
mouth, the right one digging into the scabby wounds on her
cheek. She gagged at the stink of corruption and the hot
stickiness of pus against her palm as the infection broke
free under the pressure. Her mind screamed the name of
the Lord of Murder; her mouth and tongue formed the name
of the Lord of Pleasure.
Morathi cannot help you.
Morathi doesn’t know you serve her. She doesn’t even
know you exist. She doesn’t care whether you survive in
here or not. And Khaine is dead. Dead and not coming back.
You should ask your High Oracle about Khaine’s fate. Ask
her about his heart.
Say his name. Slaanesh. Say it. Say it!
Abruptly, again, Trisethni became aware of the scent of
dream-pine. She stuffed her broken finger in her mouth and
bit down savagely so the urge to speak became a sharp
inhalation of agony, and her other hand reached into her
pocket for the gleamstone. She drew it out gently, slowly, so
as not to light it. So slowly that she couldn’t help but take a
breath of the narcotic. Contentment nibbled at the edges of
her fraying mind and dulled the pain in her hand and face
and shoulder and ribs. The aelf held her breath and took her
finger from her mouth. She gritted her teeth so hard that
new pain erupted, through her sinuses this time, and drew
the hunting knife silently from its sheath. Stealthily she rose
to her feet.
Morathi cannot save you. Your god is dead, your sect is
dead – give in or you are dead. Come to us, love. Breathe.
Dream. Say his name.
Trisethni’s lungs were burning but she didn’t dare take a
breath. Gripping the knife tight in one fist and the
gleamstone hidden in the other, she shook it hard and as
the light burst from it, she flung it in one direction and leapt
in the other.
The daemonettes were either side of her, as if their night
vision was sufficient to know her location in even the
darkest tunnel. Yet both threw up their arms as the light
burst upon them. Trisethni, her eyes screwed to slits against
the glare, stabbed at the closest and gutted it as it shielded
its face, chanting the invocation that prevented a being of
Chaos from being reborn. She was already moving before it
knew it was dead, before an agonised keening burst from it
and its glamour vanished so that she saw, clearly, not only
its hideousness but its stinking intestines bulging from the
slit she had carved in its belly.
The other raked its talons down her back, but the
sheathed sciansá turned the blow and only a single claw
seared into her shoulder blade. Trisethni caught a glimpse of
outcrops of rock and climbed the wall; the daemonette
came after her and it was fast. Faster than the aelf and with
a longer reach. Claws or teeth, Trisethni couldn’t tell which,
pierced the stiff leather of her boot and cut into her calf and
she screamed and let go of the wall. She fell back into her
enemy’s embrace and the daemonette caught her up easily
and cradled her as if she were a child. It was still halfway up
the wall, balanced on wide, clawed feet as easily as if it
stood on flat ground. She looked into its face, perfect and
yet cold, its eyes pitiless. Trisethni wanted to drown in them.
‘Say his name, little aelf,’ it whispered, caressing her hair.
‘Pledge everything you are to the Lord of Pleasure and I
might let you live.’
‘I am a Daughter of Khaine,’ Trisethni began, and stabbed.
The daemonette slapped the knife out of her hand and it
clattered down out of sight. It threw itself off the wall with
the aelf in its arms and landed with a soft thump near its
dying nest-mate. It looked down and a terrible sadness
crossed its features.
Tears pricked at Trisethni’s eyes and shame closed her
throat. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered to the glorious being
holding her, to the one dying on the cold rock. ‘I’m so sorry.’
She turned her face into the creature’s shoulder and
sobbed, hitching in breaths of its musky skin. Shame welled
in her, both at her actions and that she would never be as
perfect, as devoted or as skilled as the one who cradled her.
‘Say his name,’ it commanded again in its low, lilting
voice. ‘Who do you love above all others?’
‘Khaine,’ Trisethni said, her tone begging, as the
daemonette’s claws drifted down her unscarred cheek to
her throat. ‘Khaine.’ She knew it would be the last thing she
ever said and she poured her heart into it.
‘No, my little one,’ the daemonette corrected her and the
talons dug in, just a little, enough to dimple the skin but not
break it. ‘Not Khaine. Who? Take a deep breath and tell me.
Say his name.’
Its skin was perfumed, more intoxicating than even the
dream-pine, and Trisethni pressed her face against it and
inhaled again. ‘I’m not worthy,’ she cried. ‘Not of you, not of
any of them.’
‘No. You are not,’ the daemonette agreed. ‘Not until you
say his name. Who do you love? Who, above all others?’
And it was there, on her tongue, fizzing like bubbles, warm
like blood. Her mind began to form the shape of it, her heart
began to yearn towards it. The Dark Prince. More tears
warmed her face and the daemonette hushed her as if she
was a babe. ‘Say his name,’ it breathed again and she could
feel it drinking in her despair as if it were wine. A delicate
shudder rippled its lithe form, pleasure at her pain. It
squeezed, cutting off Trisethni’s breath, and the wound in
her shoulder spasmed into sudden, burning life.
That, too, the daemonette imbibed. The musk of its skin
grew stronger. ‘Mmm,’ it hummed and squeezed again,
eliciting another stab of agony and a wheezed, strangled cry
from the aelf. Even though it was hurting her, Trisethni
wanted nothing more than to surrender – to it and to its
commands.
Say his name. Say his name and know all the delights of
the Lord of Pleasure and his worshippers.
‘Put me down,’ Trisethni managed as her ribs creaked
under the pressure of its embrace. ‘Put me down so I can
breathe and I’ll say whatever you want.’
It reared back enough to look in her face and the aelf’s
breath caught in her throat at its perfection again. ‘Are you
lying, little aelf?’ it asked.
She shook her head, mute.
‘Pleasure and power, immortality and beauty await you,’ it
promised her. ‘An end to any pain that isn’t also pleasure.
All you have to do is renounce Khaine and give yourself to
Slaanesh. Pledge your heart to the Dark Prince. Will you say
his name?’
‘Yes,’ Trisethni whispered, broken and hurting and wanting
it all to end. She was so tired; she carried so many wounds,
inside and out. ‘Yes.’
The daemonette tucked her against its chest and jerked
the sciansá from her back, then threw them singing into the
blackness out of the gleamstone’s reach. They landed with a
skirring clatter far off in the tunnel’s blackness. Then it set
her on her feet.
‘Say his name,’ it commanded and its features now were
twisted with excitement. It was still beautiful and Trisethni
was as a worm in comparison. It was everything worship of
Khaine should have brought her.
It was everything and Slaanesh had made it so. The other
daemonette was finally dead. There was only this one left,
this perfect embodiment of the Dark Prince’s will. Of
everything Trisethni could be – once she surrendered.
Trisethni’s legs buckled and she fell to her knees on the
stone as if in worship. Perhaps it was. Her fingers raked the
ground, searching, while she held the daemonette’s gaze
with her own. Searched. Found. The daemonette cocked its
head, birdlike, and its elegant, long-fingered hands came up
before it.
‘Say his name. Say his name and be damned and saved
and loved. Slaanesh. Say it. Say it!’
The name thudded in her blood, in her heart and her head
and tingled across her skin like a lover’s touch. Slaanesh.
Slaanesh. Slaanesh. It ate at the last tattered shreds of her
will, gnawed at her faith in Khaine, her god, her lord. It
placed itself between her and Morathi, as the daemonette
placed itself between her and memories of Belleth.
Slaanesh.
Slaanesh.
Slaanesh.
The aelf’s faith hung by a single shimmering thread of
habit and magic and loyalty and the decades of worship.
Shuddering, she stood and her feet began to move, taking
her through the opening steps of the blade-dance that was
ritual.
The daemonette hissed and the strength of her glamour
increased, cutting at that last thread of belief until it was
fraying in the face of its power. The name built in Trisethni’s
stomach and grew in strength, travelling up into her chest,
burning as it came – a sweet burning that she found she
liked, that she craved – and into her throat and the last
vestige of her faith was unravelling…
Trisethni opened her mouth to speak. The daemonette’s
shriek of triumph echoed along the tunnel, but the aelf
roared and grabbed her own tongue and hacked it off with
the knife.
Blood spurted in her mouth. Pain like she’d never known
exploded through her face and the daemonette paused in
disbelief, then screeched with laughter, revelling in
Trisethni’s agony, shivering with the rapture of it. Its
glamour winked out of existence and its unblemished skin
vanished, its hands became claw-tipped and stunted even
as they reached for her.
Bellowing and spraying blood, Trisethni threw the stump of
tongue at the daemonette and hurled herself after it. She
struck it full-force in the chest, all her bodyweight behind it.
The knife went into its shoulder and out; into its chest, the
side of its neck. Its claws tore at her back, shredding
scabbards and shirt and flesh, tearing into muscle. It went
over backwards and Trisethni rode it down like a bucking
horse, knife hand pumping as she carved its face and chest
into bloody ruin. She chanted the invocation in her head
with every thrust of the knife, praying it would be enough to
extinguish the daemonette from existence.
Its hands fell limp at its sides and its only movements
were the jerks of the blade punching in and out of its flesh.
And then the magic, the glamours and auras and
whispers, faded. Still Trisethni stabbed, weeping, drooling
blood and saliva and bleeding from a dozen wounds, her
knife hand slowing now until eventually she collapsed on top
of the ruined monster.
Khaine, her mind whispered as her mouth could not.
Khaine.
Vahis carried the head and heart of Nadiya Layir back to the
Seb’ahn. Unlike previous battles, her sisters did not
approach her to congratulate her. Some started to, and then
shied away like shadow horses upon seeing the ugly head
and the bleak look on Vahis’ face. Others simply pinched
their lips tight, eyes wide, as if shocked she’d be seen with
such an ugly trophy. And then there was the small twittering
coterie that fluttered around Sareth, as the girl strutted
pompously, a smile mixing poorly with her permanent sneer.
The battlefield was quiet. Breezes rippled through the
grasses and whistled in the cracks of the ruins. Overhead,
sleek gazure and leathery skelkrin, scavenger birds,
wheeled slowly through the air, while speedy ashswallows
zipped through the clouds of gloomflies that swirled over
the grotesque corpses of the varghulfs and warhorses.
Briefly, Vahis considered retrieving the head of the
vampire Bertrand. But she knew that there was no saving
face, no matter how many heads she returned with. Not
from this.
This rite, the seral’heth or the display of foes, typically
took some time to organise. Many sisters lingered on the
battlefield, performing their own personal rites, daubing
sigils on their skin in the rite of the krish’lar, the sign of
victory. Others were injured and needed help reaching the
Seb’ahn to witness the rite. And then there were the Sisters
of Slaughter, who had their own customs to observe and
often took hours. Not that anyone was foolish enough to try
and rush them along.
Fortunately, most of the others were returning from the
battlefield with dry skulls. Such trophies were useful for the
personal esteem of lesser fighters but provided nothing for
the cauldron. Doubtless, the leathanam would be forced to
open their veins for the seral’heth. There was not enough
blood for the cauldron otherwise.
‘By Khaine’s sword, I hate fighting the undead,’ a voice
said next to her. ‘They barely seem worth it.’
‘Greetings, Avara,’ Vahis said, glancing at her.
Avara blanched and stiffened. The girl was new to the
temple, her crest still the small circlet denoting a novice to
their sect. Her brown eyes were large and set wide in her
face, giving her a look of constant surprise. Small and slim,
she barely came up to Vahis’ shoulder. In her right hand, she
carried a skull in a conical helm, a gift worthy of her station.
Still, the girl seemed ready to leap out of her skin.
‘All foes are worthy of our attention,’ Vahis said, thankful
the ugly head was on the other side of her body. ‘Even the
bloodless dead. After all, they thwart the truth of the realms.
It is the purpose of the weak to die or serve. Not to be
elevated with unnatural strength. Even the Stormking knows
this, even if his criteria for strength is suspect.’
‘Of course, sister,’ Avara said, bowing her head.
Vahis took a deep breath and looked away from her. She
could only hope that her sisters feared her in the same way
after this pitiable display. Shaking her head, she
reprimanded herself. She deserved to lose their esteem for
this, but she would gain it back.
The Daughters assembled in front of the cauldron where it
seethed still. As always after a battle, the icon of Khaine
seemed to waver on his feet through the smoke. It may
have been an illusion created by the heat, or the icon might
really have been drunk from the gallons of blood spilled in
his name. His Daughters cared not.
The chant began, praising Khaine for the opportunity to
take lives in his presence. Drums rolled over the plains as
the shrill voices of the Daughters joined the scavengers that
circled overhead in a terrible hymn of slaughter.
‘Vahis,’ Lilithan called, beckoning to her. ‘Come.’
Vahis started and took a deep breath.
Normally, she would have vaulted up one of the two
flights of stone stairs that wove around the Seb’ahn, eager
to share her prize, but not this time. The two guardians that
stood on the stairs looked at her and made subtle motions
with their heads for her to come up. Instead, she limped up,
failing to hide the pain in her bruised body. What a pitiful
figure I make, she thought, exhausted, pained, limping – an
old drevar fit only for slaughter. A murmur reached her ears
and she glanced down.
Sareth watched her, three perfect heads clutched in her
hand, a heart in the other. Next to her was Melaka,
whispering in her ear, her pale eyes alight with gossip.
Sareth was splattered in blood, her mane stiff with it. A cold
smile lit her face and she licked her teeth.
A promise, a threat. It was only a matter of time until
Sareth challenged her to a public duel, most likely to the
death.
Vahis looked away and climbed on, her head high, her jaw
clenched tight. She reached the upper platform where
Lilithan and the Seb’ahn waited. After a deep breath, she
muttered the ritual words and dropped the grey heart into
the cauldron. Then she held up the head by its hair. Lilithan
leaned forward and carefully examined the trophy. Then she
shook her head.
‘This is unworthy of you,’ she said softly, as if trying to
ease a blow. ‘I know what you are capable of and this is not
it. It is unworthy of your strength and Khaine knows this. I
cannot accept this trophy.’
Though Vahis had expected some disappointment, she
had never thought that she would be rejected outright. For
one enraged moment she thought of striking Lilithan, but
held back. The hag queen was right. Such a creature was
not beyond her capability. Perfection had eluded her.
A flush crept up her face, and Vahis let her arm fall limp at
her side.
‘Keep it for your own use,’ Lilithan continued, then she
crossed her arms in formal rejection. Vahis had no choice
but to crouch down on all fours in a gesture of penance and
touch her nose to the bloodstained flagstones. She thought
she might choke on the shame of it.
Vahis would not receive the mark of the seral’heth, the
mark of the executioner, for the first time since she could
not remember when. And she could only beg for another
chance to do so.
‘Bring a mighty gift to Khaine, or greater pain than this
indignity will be your reward,’ Lilithan said. ‘All weakness
must be purged. If need be, we will reforge you anew.’
Vahis rose and walked down another flight of stairs
opposing those she had climbed up. Every step seemed to
take an age and Vahis kept her eyes firmly on the ground.
An audible gasp reached her ears, and she could not bear to
look at her sisters as she took her place among them.
‘I would not put too much stock in this,’ Imyana
whispered, leaning in.
Vahis glanced at the slender wisp of a woman as she
stood with a varghulf head in her hand.
‘It is but a moment in your long life,’ she continued. ‘Soon
everyone will have forgotten all about this.’
‘Of course,’ Vahis said in a shaky voice, staring straight
ahead. ‘Thank you, sister. It is good to keep perspective.’
The rest of the sisters walked up one by one and their
hearts and heads were added to the cauldron as they
chanted on. All received their rewards based on their gifts.
And every one of them looked at her as they came down the
steps, whether they earned the sigil of the seral’heth or not.
Then at last the excruciating ceremony was over. The dim
light of Hysh vanished under the horizon, shrouding the
plains of Zoshia in a gloom so deep one could taste it on the
tongue. Some said it tasted like the richness of old ashes,
others spoke of bitter salty tears, still others thought it was
like fresh velum. It differed from individual to individual. The
Daughters made their way back to the temple, their cries of
triumph echoing over the plain. As they journeyed, the
others sang of their triumphs and their dangers.
Vahis stayed silent.
The temple rose before them like a great flower, glowing
red against the impenetrable blackness. Its curving spires
wrapped around a central core, eerie red light flickering
from its heart. About it, spiked walls spread outward like
vines to direct the enemy in, not to keep them out. Like all
of the Draichi Ganeth’s works, it was meant to be seen. And
seen it was, for many miles. Thousands had journeyed
through the plains using the red pulsing of the temple for
guidance, where on another plain they might have used the
stars. None ever approached, however; no inhabitant of
Ulgu was so foolish.
The smell of a feast reached her nose and Vahis could
only curse herself. ‘The Feast of Kimendech,’ she groaned.
Another of her favoured rituals stained by her failure.
In the main hall, the Daughters lay upon a sea of
cushions. Leathanam brought out delicate meals on thin
clay dishes. The feast was a short time of rest, a well-earned
respite, between worship and constant training. The
priestess, Des’tat, brought Vahis the cup of the Kimendech –
lined with four heads, depicting Khaine’s four moods – but
Vahis waved her on. Des’tat blinked and cast about, looking
for the one who was worthy. Smirking and flushed with
triumph, Sareth immediately took her place. Once again,
Vahis was forced to look at her smug face.
‘To Khaine, we give this victory,’ Sareth recited. ‘As we
might give a head or a heart.’
Vahis looked away as Sareth took the first sip and then
passed it to her right. A leathanam skulked nearby with a
pitcher to refill the cup, thus ensuring all the sisters
received the blessings of the draught. When Vahis took it,
the draught was watery and tasteless.
She looked at Sareth as the brat droned on in her ritual
speech, her pet, Melaka, leading her audience. I hope that I
was never that pompous, or dull. As she spoke, Sareth’s
eyes slid over to Vahis, dancing with cruel glee. I have
caught you, they said. The others scrutinised Vahis through
narrowed eyes, even as she struggled to get comfortable
with her sore hip.
Vahis endured until the festivities slowed, and then she
stalked out. Snarling in fury, she disappeared into her
chambers, yanking off her ruined crest, hanging up her
sciansá, stripping off her armour. And she waited. She would
not endure this humiliation for another moment.
It was late in the night when the leathanam cleaned up
the last plate, the last knife and the last drop of blood. Only
when all the others had dragged themselves to bed did she
order the bath at last.
It was close to dawn when it was ready and the leathanam
retrieved her.
Vahis looked into the churning cauldron, the red mists
coiling around her. Over her shoulder loomed the icon of
Khaine, cavernous mouth closed, eyes half open in moody
contemplation. The rest of the chamber was empty, save for
her personal leathanam. With pinched lips and clenched
jaw, she lifted the ugly vampire’s head straight out in front
of her.
‘Khaine, god of the blade, father of murderers,’ she said,
‘giver of life unending, keeper of our souls, bless your
daughter that she may continue to bring you mighty gifts.’
She dropped the head into the cauldron and it sank into
the gruesome stew.
The leathanam on either side of her gently removed the
black silk robe from her shoulders. Underneath it, she was
nude. Her body was covered in scars, many thin and knitted
together in a strange barely noticeable pattern from
hundreds if not thousands of years of the Colmthart, the
dance of scars, ritual gladiatorial duels performed solely for
outsiders so they could witness the Daughters’ skill without
risk of life and limb. But others, puckered and ugly, stitched
across her skin from dozens of old adversaries; from swords,
spears, knives, fire and teeth. One of the leathanam braided
her dark hair, wrapped it into a knot atop her head and
bound it with a steel chain.
Her pale skin prickled in the cold chamber. Neither the
cauldron nor the ghostly torches offered much warmth.
Incense smoke curled through the air, spicy and dizzying.
The silence was immense, as the leathanam of her sect
were not allowed to speak prayers to Khaine themselves;
only a priestess did that for them. And only then if they
were worthy.
The cauldron hummed, the gruesome contents gurgling
within. Another leathanam stirred the gore with a ranureh, a
sacred instrument not usually touched by one such as him.
However, necessity had a way of making the profane holy.
Some of Khaine’s daughters preferred a grand ritual like
the felath’ahn as their mortality was washed away by the
blood in the cauldron. However, as the list of their rivals
grew long and the rituals became rote, older aelves left such
displays behind. Not even Lilithan oversaw Vahis’ ritual bath
any more.
With a sigh of anticipation, she stepped into the cauldron.
The warm blood churned as she lowered herself fully into
the gruesome bath. She tried to force herself to relax as the
blood mist infiltrated her lungs. Her eyes itched from the
incense. And time passed. As the blood congealed and the
incense became stale, she waited for the tingle, the shock
of youth. She waited for the aches to fade away, for her skin
to smooth, for her senses to sharpen.
The bath cooled and became still.
And she felt just the same. She twisted around and looked
up at the icon, searching its face. Its lips were shut tight, its
eyes squeezed closed. Its fists were clenched so tight that
she thought the stone might bleed. Khaine rejected her.
‘No, this is not possible,’ she hissed, rising from the fluid.
In a storm, she leaped from the bath. Blood gathered in
her scars and dripped from her skin. She looked like one of
her mad Kraithian sisters. The leathanam cringed, putting
their hands up, eyes dark with cowardice. They did not look
at Vahis, but flung themselves to the floor.
‘You,’ she said, pointing at the one with the ranureh.
He froze, the ranureh clenched in his fist. Then a shudder
rolled down his body and he pressed himself harder into the
floor in his fear. She leaned in and slowly gripped the
leathanam by the hair. Ever so gently, she pulled his head
back, so that he had to look at her gaunt face.
‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘was this duty that I have given you
beyond your meagre capabilities?’
He swallowed, his throat working. His black eyes flicked
nervously about.
‘No,’ he said, knowing full well his life stood on the edge
of a knife. ‘Yes.’ He gagged as he searched for the answer
that would satisfy her.
She looked at the others as they prostrated meekly in a
row. They were scrawny things, repulsive in their weakness.
Pale and tremulous, they hunkered under her gaze. Their
thin white hair clouded their faces, the livid brands of their
marks of control red as blood on their foreheads.
She released him and his black eyes returned to her feet.
With a deep breath, she looked down the line of them and
coolly whipped a knife from the rack by the cauldron’s rim,
leaned down and slit the throat of the first, her eyes never
leaving the others.
He thrashed on the ground, watery blood leaking over the
tile. The others did not flinch, even as he died.
‘Was he the one responsible for the failure?’ she asked the
others, focusing on the next one.
They hesitated. Vahis could almost see them making the
calculation. Blame the already dead leathanam and be
caught in a lie, or reveal something of the truth. One of
them pulled in a breath as if to speak but then let it go.
She coughed, crooked a finger at him and he flushed. He
was caught. Carefully, as if faced with a viper, he rose up on
all fours and bowed once more.
‘Fe’tiata,’ he said as she loomed over him. ‘You are
graceful and lovely, but you are ancient. It is rumoured that
after many centuries…’ He paused and swallowed. ‘The
baths cease to work at all.’
She leaned even closer, a snarl twisting her features.
He collapsed to the floor again.
With a contemptuous sniff, she hooked his chin with her
blood-stained toes and turned his head. His features
quivered as if he was face to face with a medusa and
waiting for her to boil him alive with her gaze. Slowly, the
blood from his dead companion crept towards him over the
stone.
‘You are not the first,’ he whispered. ‘I know that I am
short lived compared to you, Fe’tiata.’ Something hardened
in his eyes, then faded. ‘But even we share stories. Even we
see things.’
‘No doubt you do,’ she said, her lip curling. Why must I
depend on creatures such as these? ‘You saw nothing. If you
speak of this, I will send you to the new temple site at
Tarnastipol to consecrate the foundation. And there you will
wish you had never been born.’ She released him and he
snapped his eyes back to the floor. ‘Now wash me.’
They bowed as one, sensing that the danger had passed.
As they washed her clean, Vahis considered whether or
not to kill them all. There was a certain practicality to it but
such a move merely delayed the inevitable discovery. A
group of dead leathanam was not that alarming in and of
itself, but even the most oblivious of her sisters would have
noted who they were last seen with and when. And they
would ferret out the truth.
No, better to let the leathanam live and pretend that
nothing was amiss. A fearful closed mouth often kept
secrets better than the dead. Even leathanam had some
touch of will, whereas the dead had none. Besides, she had
little interest in training an entirely new group of them.
Discipline and restraint was essential here.
After all these years, the moment had finally come. Had
anyone else reached this point? And had they escaped their
final fate? She knew of none, but then such a thing would
not be spoken of, not even by the most irreverent of the
Daughters. None of them wanted to think that one day, they
could die from age. A shameful death indeed.
Once dressed, she left the chamber and went to her bed,
where she lay staring at the ceiling until the grey dawn
came.
Weeks passed. Vahis kept to herself, healing in private. This
was typical of her and no one questioned it. Once her
bruises had faded and her skin sported a few new scars, she
went back to the routine she had perfected over the years.
She performed her private dedications to Khaine, bleeding
into a bowl and burning it in a smaller version of the
senies’lat, a bloodletting rite held at a public altar. Then she
ate a small breakfast before heading out into the duelling
rings for the first time in weeks.
The duelling rings were elaborately decorated, as befitted
a holy temple of Khaine. They ran in rows down a long hall,
each one framed by grey daylight streaming down from tall
arched windows. At the end of the great chamber, an icon of
Khaine loomed in grandeur. Iron runes lined the bounds of
the rings and pale sand gleamed under the harsh light.
Several Sisters of Slaughter already skirmished, lashing and
cutting at each other with their kruip-lashes, the razor-
tipped whips they were famed for. As Vahis walked into the
chamber, their dance faltered.
Cheba was there, as always, practising by herself. She
turned to watch Vahis walk by, the living mask she wore as
blank as a mirror. Vahis caught sight of her haggard
reflection in the smooth brass and repressed a frown.
Cheba’s hair had been burned off from receiving the mask,
and only her eyes remained of her original features, glaring
bright from behind the metal. Not only the face, but the
tongue was also frequently lost. Cheba was the most vicious
of the Sisters of Slaughter and even Vahis stepped about
her with care.
Vahis nodded to her and the sister nodded jerkily before
turning back to her combat stances.
As Vahis walked down the aisle, she noted that Lilithan
was also present. Overlooking the ritual practice, Lilithan
stood upon a balcony. She rarely participated in these
functions unless she felt the need. Sometimes she might
offer a soft compliment or subtle rebuke but more often
than not, she was utterly silent.
The hag queen caught her gaze and her brow furrowed in
puzzlement but she nodded all the same.
Apparently the elder of her sisters was not going to
underestimate her. That was something at least.
Vahis stripped off her outer robe, revealing her armour,
now repaired, and stepped into one of the duelling rings.
Her sciansá gleamed in the cold light as she began to go
through the ritual stances. The iase’set, the stance of
readiness, the drosmor, the dragon’s horn and so on,
flowing from one to the next without pause.
Her hip ached but she could ignore it. All about her, her
sisters fought. Blades struck shields and aelven shrieks
echoed in the chamber. Sounds that she had listened to all
her life. Vahis relaxed, forgetting about her troubles for a
little while.
A flutter of conversation broke her serenity. Then Sareth’s
laughter rattled through the air.
Vahis’ calm vanished under a flood of seething rage. Then
she took a breath, released the tension and ignored the
grating upstart. Back to her stances. Into the ustale, the
fool’s gambit, then back through the drosmor to the
iase’set.
‘Tell me, Vahis,’ Sareth said behind her. ‘Will you face me?
Though if you are not ready, I understand. You look a bit…
tired.’
Silence slammed down over the chamber. The other
sisters did not even pretend to be practising; instead they
watched, listening and whispering to each other. Ages had
passed since Vahis had a serious rival, and now they wished
to see just what drama and hate would arise.
Vahis stepped out of the circle, tapping her sciansá
against her thigh. Then she turned to regard Sareth with a
cold glance.
‘Of course I can,’ Vahis said, noting the hoarse note in her
own voice.
Sareth cocked her head slightly, her eyes narrowing. Then
she stepped to the edge of the ring and bowed towards the
centre of it, as did Vahis.
‘In this way, we dedicate ourselves to Khaine,’ they said
together. ‘To hone each other that we might remain strong
and deadly in your name.’
With that, they stepped into the ring and they began to
circle each other, sciansá shifting in the light. Vahis watched
her opponent as the larger woman circled. She moved with
little grace, every step landing heavily, her breathing loud
and slow. Every move she made had a mechanical touch,
like a clockwork toy ticking through its movements. Vahis
moved like water, each move flowing into the next without
thought. Every shape she created pleased the eye.
A hard smile crept onto Sareth’s face and she lunged
forward, one sciansá leading, the other held back. With a
flick of her wrist, Vahis blocked the strike and slashed out to
block the other. Sareth flinched back, clearly startled by the
older woman’s speed. But the smile on her face remained.
No matter. The brat was merely over-confident. Vahis would
teach her the error in her thinking.
Snarling, Sareth charged into her once more, blades
flashing. Vahis skittered back, blocking every strike in an
easy rhythm. Round and round they went, darting around
the sand. Vahis let Sareth chase her. It would be all the more
delicious when she put the aelf on her back.
Then Sareth thrust out with her sciansá and pain flashed
across Vahis’ bicep. Shocked, she glanced down. A line of
blood welled up on her pale skin.
Anger blossomed in Vahis’ chest and she darted forward.
She was going to cut every tendon in the brat’s body. Their
blades banged together, the harsh metallic ringing echoing
through the chamber. Leaping, darting, rolling, they danced
together in that terrible way that the Daughters did.
Yet Vahis just could not land a blow. She could not even
touch Sareth’s skin. Always there was a sciansá parrying, a
vambrace blocking. Her breathing quickened with effort,
whistling out of her throat. Her hip burned. Her grip on her
sciansá was vice tight where it needed to be loose and
shaky where it needed to be firm.
Sareth backed away and she circled, one blade high, the
other low. ‘You should have had me on the sands minutes
ago,’ she said.
‘Allow me to rectify that, then,’ Vahis hissed, trying to
tamp down on her frustration.
Vahis slashed in once more, thrusting her sciansá at
Sareth’s chest. Impatience boiled. It took only a moment for
Vahis to realise that she was coming in too hard. Sareth
dropped her parrying blade, snatched her arm and hurled
her over her shoulder.
Vahis twisted in mid-air and landed on her feet, still
caught in Sareth’s grip. Yet, when she tried to jerk away, the
woman’s greater strength kept her tight. With a triumphant
shriek, Sareth drove her lone sciansá at her gut. Vahis
slashed at her face in an act of utter spite.
‘Enough,’ Lilithan’s voice rang out.
Both blades stopped within a moment of cutting into flesh.
‘You have both proved your devotion today,’ she said.
‘Behold, you are the greatest of our servants.’
Sareth released her and they drew away from each other.
Vahis shook with fury as Sareth looked at her like a wolf
might look at a drevar. Lilithan had just saved Vahis from
being humiliated by a rival that she had been toying with for
decades.
Vahis glanced at Cheba once more. The woman looked
away from her slowly, her chin high in disdain. The others
were no better. Some looked away in pity; others, like
Melaka, watched her with a vengeful avarice.
The second time that she had needed saving in as many
days.
Vahis resisted the urge to rail at Lilithan, swallowing her
fury in a hard knot that ached all the way down her throat.
Instead, she bowed gracefully and left the ring. As she
walked down the aisle, whispers reached her ears.
‘Why does she wait?’
‘How can she exist in such a state?’
‘Has she gone mad?’
Sareth’s boots rang on the floor of the arena. ‘Vahis, what
does it feel like to owe one such as me?’ she said.
Vahis froze at the entrance to the chamber and turned.
Then she laughed at the absurdity of it. Her sisters stared at
her, wary once more.
‘I admit that it brings me shame to owe one such as you,’
Vahis grated. ‘I would not put too much stock in your
meagre success. I have watched sisters better than you
come and go. Some of them, I crushed myself.’
Sareth balked for an instant, though it seemed the
remnant of an old habit than real fear. She snorted in
disdain. ‘Yes – that was before,’ she said. There were a few
sniggers.
With a hiss, Vahis turned on her heel and stalked out.
Perhaps not tomorrow, not in a month, but in a short time,
they would kill her. It might not be Sareth, but one of them
would put her out of her misery. And they would be right to
do so. A Daughter that lost Khaine’s favour deserved to die.
And somehow, Vahis had.
Vahis held her head high as she strode from the duelling
chamber. No mind did she pay to the stares, the furrowed
brows of her sisters. Even the leathanam paused, their black
eyes widening at the sight of her. She maintained the calm
facade until she reached the sanctity of her private
chambers.
With sudden fury, she slammed her door shut. Her
leathanam backed away, scuttling into the corners as she
cursed in every language she knew.
A mirror, she needed a mirror. She was not usually one
given to preening; had no need to surround herself with her
own image. But she needed to see. How fast were the years
creeping up on her? She tore apart her rooms as her
leathanam cowered against the walls, scampering out of her
way. Bottles of perfume, fine silks, blades of various sorts
toppled onto the floor. From one room to the next, like a
hurricane she went.
Until she found a small silver mirror in a drawer, and
gasped.
Her cheeks were hollow, her hair streaked with grey. Fine
lines crossed her face and her skin sagged from her skull.
She touched her throat, her cheeks, the bones sharp and
angular under her fingers. Her muscles shivered, her joints
grated as she moved. Scars that once had been so beautiful
now seemed only to enhance her years. As she stood there,
she felt the years crawling through her veins.
This was too fast.
Ageing was a taboo subject among the sisters, simply not
spoken of in polite company. But those morbid sorts who
studied it noted that the older the aelf, the faster she aged.
And such ageing usually followed some sort of tragic event;
a defeat in battle or a severe illness. Something that tore at
the mind as well as wearing down the body. Vahis had only
weeks before she was too feeble to defend herself. Or
worse, simply crumbled into dust. It seemed like mere days
since she had been at her peak. Now she withered,
becoming trapped in a shrivelled sack of bones and skin,
her mind crumbling into a ruin. This could not be happening.
There had to be other options.
Some tool, some artefact, some foul magic. Something.
Anything!
She turned to her leathanam and clicked her fingers at
two of them.
‘You, dress me,’ she snapped. ‘The rest of you clean this
up.’
Her mind whirled as they swiftly straightened her hair and
brought her new fluttering silks. Once she looked
presentable, she swept from the room. As she stalked down
the dim halls, she noted those who lingered at the doors
and crossed her path, their dark eyes veiled.
There was only one place where she could find what she
sought: the library. There had to be some record of such an
affliction as hers. One of her foremothers must have
experienced this. She could not be the first. There were
crones that were older than her. Had they defeated this
moment?
Though not as grand as the libraries of Hagg Nar, the
library of Thraik contained many secrets and desires in the
dark corners of its many shelves and alcoves. Magics
banned by hag queens, scandals of affection, moments of
cowardice all slipped away into dark corners. Stuck between
the tomes, fixed to the undersides of shelves, hidden
between stones in the wall, the place oozed with scandals.
One of the few places in the dark temple with windows, a
thin grey light shot down its centre, doing little to illuminate
the vast shelves with their rows of gilt books. A thick, musty
smell rose from the millions of pages. Somewhere a mouse
squealed in pain, and a shadow scrabbled in the dark.
Her eyes adjusted to the blackness as she walked
between hundreds of years’ worth of knowledge. Leathanam
lurked among the shelves, stooped and timid even by their
standards. One slunk forward and she waved him away.
Though these wretches had their tongues carefully sliced
out, they could still communicate. Some of them had
summoned enough wit to learn to read a few words, and
that was more than enough to answer questions by other
less friendly sisters. Better for them that they knew nothing.
She searched out tomes and scrolls, the old forgotten
dialects posing no barriers to her. Books were removed,
flicked through and put back. Hours passed like seconds.
She sought out dark secrets in the depths where dust
gathered and spiders roamed with impunity. Yet hours
stretched into a day, and no answers presented themselves.
Hopelessness set in and she found herself wandering amidst
the stacks, aimlessly noting tomes so withered that their
titles were no longer decipherable.
Then she noticed a strange tome tucked behind a faded
gift of alliance from the Stormbloods and a thick folio on the
rise of the great Macol of the Khelt Nar. Vahis realised that
she was in the section of personal histories, which were
more propaganda than any real accounting of one’s deeds.
When she opened it, it was a handwritten account in the
deeply formal verb tenses of a hag queen. Nareka the
Reaper. Not the sort that would be hidden away.
‘So, why are you here?’ Vahis muttered. She sat down in a
chair, and began to read.
At first, it was a typical account, carefully written to feel
candid without actually being candid. Small shames, minor
errors, harmless trifles. Nareka of course spoke endlessly of
the faults and scandals of her predecessors, which was
quite amusing.
Then there was a spelling error. Then another. Her writing
began to skew and wobble, bulging and slumping down the
page. Vahis sat up in her chair and flipped through the book.
The baths, they no longer work. No matter how many
gallons I spill, nothing changes.
Why has Khaine turned his sight from me?
Vahis went still. At last, someone admitted that it
happened. The hag described her search, as she deployed
ever more elaborate rituals and exotic materials, bathing in
daemon’s blood, a cauldron made of tainted sigmarite. All
apparently in vain.
The faults grew worse. She began to misuse symbols,
exchanging one for another. Gradually the sentences
shortened, the writer growing angry and childish. At the
end, it was a last agonised scratch on the page and a few
drops of blood.
‘Wretched woman,’ Vahis hissed, slapping the book
closed. ‘I will not die like you. I will not. I am not as weak as
you.’
She put the account back where she had found it. Her
anger flared, and then snuffed out under a flood of despair.
Was this all there was at the end? Just this cruel waiting. No,
she would not wait for death to find her, as the old hag had
done, in denial until the moment she was murdered by her
sisters. She would seek it out.
A scraping sound reached her ears, dry and light, like a
knife over a whetstone.
‘Tell me, ancient one,’ a voice whispered out of the dark.
‘What is it that you seek so fervently?’
Vahis swallowed and bowed slowly, unnerved by the
speaker’s voice.
The melusai slid out of the dark, her purple coils
gleaming. Her aelfish upper half was lithe and beautiful, her
skin so deep that her pale hair glowed and her eyes seemed
lit from within. Pearls glowed over her skin as she moved. A
bow was lashed to her back.
‘Forgive me, as I am a visitor,’ the melusai said. ‘I am
Relath, handmaiden of the Oracle Morathi.’
‘Relath, one who is closest to the word of iron, what do
you want from me?’ Vahis said.
Relath arched an eyebrow. ‘Blunt as ever the Draichi
Ganeth are,’ she said. ‘But no, there is nothing that I desire
at this time. Though I can guess at what you seek.’
Vahis flushed. ‘You know?’
‘Yes, and there are ways around it. This doom of yours.
But it will not be easy, or without cost.’
Vahis was immediately suspicious. ‘I suppose that you
want some favour owed at some future date?’
‘Nothing so official. Often we must do what is best for the
order we serve, not ourselves. Khaine would be furious to
lose a servant such as you.’
‘It is about faith, then?’
‘Of a kind.’
The melusai smiled and it was not an aelfish smile. It
stretched too far over the aelf’s bones and Vahis caught
sight of a pale forked tongue between the melusai’s thin
lips.
‘The Stormbloods captured an artefact that allegedly
returns the user to their peak,’ she said. ‘They are keeping it
at a hidden temple out in the Skelcar Mountains called
Sigmar’s Shadow. Not very imaginative, I know. Still, it
would return your youth to you, the point when you were at
your best. Beware though, this thing is dangerous and the
Stormbloods will miss it.’
‘What is the nature of this artefact?’ Vahis asked.
The melusai looked at her from under her lashes. ‘It is one
of the Clawing One’s elixirs.’
Vahis took a step back. ‘I should not,’ she said, shocked
that one of the handmaidens would suggest such a
blasphemous endeavour. ‘The taint.’
‘Is it worse than dying?’ Relath said. ‘I know a ritual to
keep the taint from you. That is when the favour will come
in. A debt owed, no sooner or later.’
‘But the Stormbloods. You know the dangers of acting
against their interests. They cannot be truly killed, and they
see everything.’
‘Well,’ the melusai said, slithering around the table and
retrieving the hag queen’s account from its hiding place. ‘It
is something to consider.’ She dragged a sharp nail down
the spine. ‘I remember this one, she turned craven. This is
the fate of those who wait too long to seek death. I would
not choose to linger under such a destiny.’ She looked at
Vahis as she put the book back. ‘May your blades always
strike true.’
With that, the melusai slid away.
‘As may yours,’ Vahis said, knowing that the melusai
would hear her.
Relath was right, though she clearly had her own agenda
to fulfil here. Vahis did have a choice of sorts. Either she
pursued the artefact, or she chose a death that was
preferable to her like some deranged duardin.
‘I will not die,’ she muttered.
Someone gasped from behind one of the towering shelves
and pelted away.
Definitely not one of her older sisters, more likely a
novice. Vahis sprinted back towards the entrance to the
library. While there were other secret entrances, a novice
would not know them. The shelves flickered by and Vahis
caught sight of her spy.
Avara.
Vahis darted down an aisle and tackled the youngster into
a shelf. Dry tomes toppled, and brittle paper rustled as it
fell. Her hand closed on a great fistful of pale hair and Vahis
slammed Avara’s head back, cracking her skull against the
wood. Then Vahis spun the girl around as she screamed in
pain, and drove her to her knees.
‘Great One,’ Avara stammered. ‘I was just…’
Vahis jerked on her a little to silence her. She was a
gullible girl. Her mother was the esteemed high priestess
Sethosh, a steadfast warrior and charismatic speaker who
currently lived in Azyr as an emissary to Sigmar’s court.
Unfortunately, Sethosh had kept her daughter at her knee
for too long, instead of sending her away to be hardened as
she needed to be. The only reason she was not dead was
the power of her mother’s name.
‘What do you want?’ Vahis snapped.
‘I saw Sareth approaching others,’ Avara said. ‘Along with
Melaka. Sisters that hate you, like Imyana and–’
‘Imyana? She is a surprise, I confess,’ Vahis grated. ‘I
thought that I had her cowed. Clearly not. Thank you for the
warning. I will deal with them in time. Why come to me?’
‘You are the strongest,’ she said. ‘My mother said that I
should find the strongest and–’
‘Engage in blatant flattery?’ Vahis said, relaxing just a
little.
For a moment the other aelf hesitated.
Vahis drew a sciansá and with excruciating slowness,
pressed the blade to Avara’s face.
‘Who are you really working for?’ Vahis said. ‘Answer me,
young one. Before I take off your nose.’
‘Just me,’ she said, her liquid eyes wide.
Vahis hooked a nostril with the tip of her sciansá. ‘What
did you hear just now?’ she hissed.
‘Not much,’ Avara said, wincing. ‘Something about a
temple to the Stormcasts.’
‘So you are merely a fool,’ Vahis said. Time to bluff the
idiot, she might be useful still. ‘I’ll be getting rid of you,
however.’
‘I can still be of use to you,’ Avara said, eyes wide. ‘I’ll do
anything. Just stop.’
Vahis kept from smiling. This ruse always worked. Novices
were so gullible. Threaten them with death and let them talk
themselves into being a servant in exchange for their lives.
‘Really?’ Vahis said. ‘I fail to see how you could be of
service.’
‘I can ingratiate myself with the others,’ Avara said. ‘I can
help you with Sareth and her allies. Sareth is easy to flatter,
I can tell.’ Something hard flickered in her eyes. ‘I can tell
them what you want them to hear. I could even help you
find others that could help you with the vault. Even you
could not do this alone, and you have few friends.’
‘And how do I know that you won’t say the same thing to
them?’ Vahis said, twisting the sciansá just enough to draw
a bit of blood. ‘Or that you are not going to betray me at an
inopportune time. Prove your loyalty. Speak a secret.’
‘I know something about Thesobhe,’ Avara gasped.
‘This should be good,’ Vahis said, smirking at her.
‘Thesobhe desires to join the Sisters of Slaughter. What
secrets can she have? The woman is so devout it is a
wonder she does not sweat blood. Besides, she has no love
for me. How does this help me?’
‘She had a son – by someone not of aelven blood,’ Avara
said.
‘It’s embarrassing, but it happens. As I recall, he died.’
Avara shook her head. ‘No, no he didn’t.’
Vahis blinked. ‘Go on.’
‘I know from my mother, and I swore to keep her
confidence,’ Avara whispered. ‘Thesobhe would do anything
to keep this secret hidden. She would be a powerful ally in
dealing with your troubles. She is held in high regard by the
others.’
‘And what are the details of this secret?’
Avara told her. And Vahis listened with a smile like knives.
Vahis stalked through the halls in that prowling way that she
did when something pleased her. Her sisters, sensing
danger, slid out of her way. While she took care of
Thesobhe, she had given Avara the difficult task of bringing
others into her quest for the Stormblood’s artefact. While
Avara might have been gullible, she had the advantage of
her mother’s name. And she knew how to use it.
Vahis caught Thesobhe alone in the shrine in the temple’s
eastern corner.
‘Hello, sweet one,’ she said, kneeling next to her.
Thesobhe looked at her out of the corner of her eye. She
was tall, pale and almost painfully thin. Her hands rose and
fell, her thin steel bracelets ringing as she worshipped. As
she turned her head to look at Vahis, her hair shimmered in
the light, still tinged with old blood.
‘Not your usual haunt,’ Thesobhe said, her voice never
rising above a murmur.
Vahis leaned over to her. ‘I have a request to make of you,
There’s a–’
‘I want nothing to do with your issues,’ Thesobhe
interrupted, her bracelets ringing rhythmically. ‘Your
struggles with Sareth are your own problem.’
‘Listen to me,’ Vahis snapped. ‘I know of the shame you
conceal from your sisters, and if you do not do as I ask, I will
expose it.’
Thesobhe turned even more pale as she turned away from
the icon. ‘You know nothing.’
‘I know that you flouted Khaine’s laws,’ Vahis said. ‘You
allowed your boy-child to escape his marking and sent him
off where he will exist without his sisters there to ensure he
knows his place in the world. Some might call that
blasphemy.’
Thesobhe stared at her. ‘No. I do not want to be indebted
to you,’ she hissed, rising to her feet. ‘Anyone but you!’
‘You will come with me on a journey,’ said Vahis, looking
up at her. ‘If you survive, I will keep my silence. And you will
go to the Sisters of Slaughter with my full weight behind
you.’
Thesobhe’s shoulders slumped. ‘My sister, you will own
me forever.’
‘I give you my word, I shall not,’ Vahis said, waving her
hand dismissively. ‘Do you know how many secrets I have
forgotten?’
Thesobhe watched her as if she were an asp, poised to
strike.
‘Look at me,’ Vahis said, gesturing to herself. ‘I am
ancient. Once your task is done, I will have no reason to
remember your sordid little scandal. It isn’t that interesting
to me. Assist me, and I will forget that I ever heard it.’
‘You give your word?’ Thesobhe said.
‘Of course. I have no patience for keeping ledgers of
blackmail and grudges. These games were always Lilithan’s
forte.’
Thesobhe’s face cleared just a little, and she bowed her
head.
‘That’s a good girl,’ Vahis said with a smile. She cut off a
small lock of greying hair and burned it in the offering fire
before leaving Thesobhe alone in her misery.
As soon as Vahis was prepared, she went to the temple gate
during the height of the day, her bags packed with
provisions. The great mouth of needle-like teeth loomed
open, a giant stone image of Khaine with sword and heart in
hand standing watch. Graceful as eagles, khinerai drifted
above them, keening to each other. Vahis found that the
khinerai were a distant sort, the allure of the sky pulling
them away from affairs on the ground. Just as well, given
their strange ways.
She waited for a time before Avara and Thesobhe arrived.
Avara vibrated with excitement while Thesobhe still
wallowed in self-pity.
‘Why don’t we sneak out at night?’ Avara said, nervously
looking about as the temple guards performed their shift
change. Thesobhe rolled her pale eyes.
‘Sneaking out at night will look suspicious,’ Vahis said.
‘And the others will try and find out what we are up to.
Whereas now…’ She gestured around the yard as sisters
and leathanam went about their business. ‘No one cares.
Besides, for all our sisters know, I am leaving at the request
of Melusai Relath. There is no reason to sneak about.’
‘I thought you wanted this to be a total secret though,’
Avara said.
‘My purpose is secret,’ she said. ‘Relath’s instructions are
not. Start acting smarter, or I’ll be rid of you before we even
leave.’
Something hard flickered in Avara’s eyes before the wide-
eyed innocence returned. Vahis had been alive for too long
to miss it. Many tried to act the naïf, but they rarely
succeeded in the ruse. While Avara might just be that
inexperienced, there was too much steel in her glance.
She opened her mouth to speak, but snapped her jaw shut
as she saw who approached.
‘I will be coming,’ said the newcomer. Sareth,
accompanied by Melaka, both Daughters dressed for travel.
The younger woman smiled, its wickedness reaching all the
way to her eyes. A skulking thing, Melaka tended to remind
Vahis of a lizard, always creeping where she did not belong.
‘You,’ Vahis snarled at Sareth. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Our queen has spoken,’ she said, her smirk deepening.
‘What makes you think that I will believe such an obvious
lie?’ Vahis snapped.
Sareth produced a seal from under her robes. A metallic
scroll with a thin metal lining, it could be etched and then
wiped clean many times. Upon it was an edict and the hag
queen’s mark. Vahis snatched it from her and read it with
increasing fury.
‘How did you get this?’ she said. ‘What lies did you
concoct that she would believe?’
‘I didn’t,’ Sareth said. ‘She gave it to me. I am to aid you.
Those are Queen Lilithan’s orders. I have already saved your
life once.’
‘As you keep reminding us every breath you take,’
Thesobhe muttered.
Vahis took a deep breath. Why in Khaine’s name was
Lilithan sending her?
‘If the hag queen demands that you accompany us,’ Vahis
said, ‘then I suppose that you do not have a choice. Just
stay out of my way or I might decide that you should not
come back at all.’
Sareth chuckled and leaned in closer to her. ‘Do you not
think that I don’t know what is happening to you? How long
before you are sucking gruel through a toothless mouth and
leathanam must bathe your shrivelled body clean of your
own filth? I want to make sure that you live so that I can see
that. And I will come to see you every day.’
Vahis rolled her eyes but said nothing. As much as the
threat bothered her, she would not let Sareth know she was
jabbing such a tender nerve.
‘How remarkably petty,’ Thesobhe said, pulling a face.
Someone coughed as another walked up to them,
shrouded in robes.
‘And you are?’ Vahis said through clenched teeth.
‘You know me,’ Cheba’s voice hissed from underneath a
hood, and Vahis caught a hint of steel.
‘Worthy one, how did you know of this task?’ Vahis said,
blinking in surprise.
‘I had the strangest dream. It involved the Clawing One,
and you,’ Cheba said. ‘The temple cannot afford to lose one
of your skill. Not now. There are other battles on the horizon.
And Lilithan will need your blades.’
They all stilled. The gift of sight was rare, and in Cheba it
was more accurate than not. Vahis did not like this one bit.
Had Relath known that champions of the enemy might be
present? If so, why had she not warned her?
It was hard not to second guess every move that a
handmaiden made. What did they know and when did they
know it? And most importantly of all, how did their mistress
factor in, and what did they tell her?
‘I am pleased to have your strength at my side,’ Vahis
said, bowing her head slightly.
Cheba bowed in return. ‘I am pleased that our strength
has found unity under the gaze of Khaine.’
Vahis turned towards the gate.
‘Let us go,’ she said, walking out. ‘Before the rest of the
temple decides to join us.’
‘You fool,’ Vahis said, jumping to her feet. She stalked over
as the younger Daughter quailed.
‘She was going to kill you,’ Avara said.
‘I needed that wretch alive,’ Vahis barked. ‘You are a
corpse!’
Vahis raised her blade to end the girl, but Cheba caught
her wrist.
‘Your judgement is clouded. She is right.’
If it had been anyone else, Vahis would have killed them.
However, as the Sister of Slaughter gazed at her, she knew
she was right.
‘She would have killed you,’ Cheba said. ‘She was going to
pass the test you set for her.’
‘You cannot do this to me,’ Vahis hissed at Jened’s corpse,
breathless. ‘You cannot deny me. Not this way.’ She
shivered.
It didn’t matter. She was stuck in this maze with allies who
were fools and enemies in equal measure. Her
disintegrating body could not take much more of this
punishment and every second ticked by with dread finality.
And there were the vile Slaaneshi that thirsted for their
souls and would hound them through the halls. No matter
where she turned, horrid bleak deaths waited for her.
‘What shall we do with him?’ Sareth asked, as the last
remaining human snivelled against the wall.
Vahis broke out of her reverie. Grinding her teeth
together, she squatted down next to Jened’s corpse. She
rifled through the human’s clothing but there was nothing
like a key as the humans knew them.
‘Khaine curse this human,’ Vahis said. ‘Unless I can find
the key, I will fail.’
And I will die in a miserable, helpless state.
The final wordless scrawl of the old hag’s account crept
into her mind. A withered hand dragging a quill across the
page as sentient thought crawled to a stop. The final
moment when a body became a mere sack of meat. When
her sister put her out of her misery, ending her muttering
forever. Or was it worse than that? Had her body ceased to
function but her mind remained sharp? What would Vahis’
rivals do to her if given such a chance? What would their
revenge be like?
Then she remembered that the human had constantly
checked her watch. It had seemed like a nervous habit, but
what if it wasn’t?
She reached into Jened’s blood-soaked pocket and pulled
it out. It seemed nothing more than a common steel-crafted
pocket watch. She held it up by the chain like a dead rat. It
spun in the air, shining dully in the light. A smear of blood
obfuscated the case. So scratched, so mundane. Bandits
would have tossed it aside as junk. She closed a fist over it
in preparation to throw it to the floor. Then she stopped.
‘Clever,’ she said, smiling. ‘Very clever.’
Bouncing it gently in her hand, something small rattled
inside. She opened the lid and studied the face with its
black hands. Something glimmered underneath it. A small
groove lay etched into the rim, and she pried it open with
one long nail.
The false face came up with a click. Behind it was a small
silver key, shorter than her thumb.
‘Well, there you are,’ she murmured, lifting the key out.
Calmly, she slipped it into a pouch at her belt. ‘You. I bet
you also know how to reach the central vault don’t you?’
He moaned in terror, but nodded all the same.
With the human leading them on they encountered no traps,
though the Slaaneshi cultists still stalked them. Their
perfumes filled every hall, and their gruesome handiwork
lurked around every corner. Slaanesh had granted them a
capacity for cruelty not unlike the Daughters of Khaine’s,
though with none of their superior discipline. And the further
down the halls the sisters went, the worse that cruelty grew.
It was as if they were descending into the Realm of Chaos
itself. Even Vahis felt disgusted by their horrors.
The physical suffering was terrible enough, bodies flensed
like butchered drevars, or wrenched into knots of limbs.
However, the worst were those that seemingly had nothing
wrong with them at all. Instead, they lay limp, their eyes
blinking and darting in their sockets, their breath leaking out
in unvoiced screams, sweat and waste soaking their clothes.
Their minds laboured under some ghastly torture that only
they could see, and they would live on for long days and
nights until at last their bodies gave out from the strain of it.
Vahis took to killing them when she saw them.
‘You are getting soft in your advanced age,’ Sareth said.
‘Am I?’ Vahis said. ‘Tell me. What fault would be great
enough that you would consign someone’s soul to
Slaanesh’s vile gullet? To this? Even I have my limits.’
‘It’s pathetic,’ Sareth said. ‘They were killed by Slaaneshi
cultists. They deserve everything coming to them for being
so weak.’
Vahis turned on Sareth, her disgust with her deepening.
For some reason, Sareth’s casual attitude towards the fate
of these mortal souls enraged her. Sareth had little
appreciation for what they fought against. She simply lacked
the imagination to understand the true threat of Slaanesh.
The scope of their struggle. For her, only aelf souls
mattered, never mind how all the races could be found in
the ranks of both Chaos and the dead.
‘Sigmar, Teclis, Alarielle,’ Vahis said. ‘I could not care less
who possesses which souls. But Slaanesh must be denied
every morsel. Every crumb. Even the smallest particle. Is
that not our purpose?’
‘It is, but is it yours?’ Sareth asked. ‘You are desperate, too
desperate. You have never been one that was eager to
please others, to perform tasks for others. What drives you?’
‘What drives me?’ Vahis repeated. ‘They call us Khaine’s
executioners. We cull the weak that would fall and
strengthen those that remain through whatever cruelties
that are required of us. It is for this purpose that we kill. To
deny Slaanesh a glut of weak, feeble souls. Until all that
remains is strength, and Slaanesh is destroyed.’
‘That does not answer the question,’ Sareth snapped.
‘Does it not?’ she said. ‘Let me ask you this. Why did
Lilithan send you here? Even in my… condition I can still kill
you, and you know it. Even if you find out this supposed true
purpose of mine, I will just kill you. She knew you wouldn’t
survive. So, why are you here?’
Sareth swallowed but Vahis saw the doubt creep in. The
wretch shied back, suddenly unwilling to look at her. Vahis
was grateful for the silence.
They set off again. Sareth still refused to look at her as
they moved deeper into the maze.
As Vahis mused, they delved deeper into the mountain.
The air became cold and dry and dust lined the edges of the
corridors. Bloody footprints and trails of clear slime marked
the floors. The artefact called to the cultists. And there were
a lot of them, easily outnumbering the Daughters. Was it
worth facing them? Surely there had to be worse things than
dying. She should just run, now. Find some quiet shadow
and let the cold hand of death find her. Yet, the idea that
Khaine would not pull her into his arms in the afterlife stilled
her thoughts. A quiet death was not a death for which
Khaine would embrace her. Instead, it was a death that
would hurl her into Slaanesh’s mouth.
There were many fears that were hidden so deep that it
seemed not even Morathi dared ferret them out. And the
greatest of these was simple: what if the Daughters were
not free of the taint, as they had been promised? What if
Morathi had been mistaken? What if their wretched souls
wended their way back to Slaanesh as soon as they slipped
their mortal bonds?
No other race lived with such a terrible fear. Even the
vampires with their endless gluttony for survival, enduring
terrible deprivations to eke out one more miserable moment
of undeath, did not fear death as the Daughters did. Nagash
was a heartless and greedy god, but the only thing he
threatened them with was an unknowable oblivion. There
was worse. So much worse.
Vahis snarled to herself. What was this wretched thinking?
She was not dead yet, though her body was giving way. How
it burned and ached. Joints ground and popped. All the tiny
wounds slowed her. With a growl, she pushed herself
onward.
Avara lifted a hand and they slowed. The reek of a
Slaaneshi host assaulted them, bringing up bile in their
throats. Choking, they stumbled, swallowing the coughs that
threatened to alert the monsters that were so close by.
Unnatural, warbling cries crashed down the corridor to
them. And a certain piercing voice stabbed through the air,
an assault on hearing itself.
‘Zelintha,’ Vahis snarled. ‘I should have killed him.’
‘Yes, you should have,’ Sareth said, her words biting.
They crept down the hall and found the next room was
massive, a vast killing field of flat stone without a scrap of
cover anywhere. High above, great white stalactites many
yards long hung down like ivory chandeliers, lending an
alien glow to the room. A wide circular abyss dominated the
chamber. A large stone block was suspended over it, held up
by great chains that gleamed hard as diamonds in the light.
The pit below was so deep that not even echoes escaped
from it. Curiously, a small bridge of silver led to one of the
block’s blank faces.
Vahis glared at their human captive. ‘What is that?’
‘The block is hollow,’ the human said. ‘There’s a ritual
chamber inside. If something goes wrong, the block can be
cut loose and fall. No one could reach it down there. Not
that it matters.’
Between the sisters and their goal was an army of
writhing, oily bodies. The human cattle shrieked and slashed
themselves, their self-torture giving them no peace. Fiends
loped around the rim of the abyss, their distorted bodies
rippling with unnatural muscle, their too-human legs
splaying as they ran. Daemonettes lashed at the stone block
with their whips, slithering over its surface like insects.
‘Give it to us!’ they cried, like distraught lovers. ‘Please,
give us the essence of our mistress. It is all we ask.’
The block swayed as the Slaaneshi daemonettes hacked
and clawed at the stone. Even stone could not withstand the
weapons and flesh of daemonettes. Given enough time,
they would break into it, like cracking open a turtle shell for
the meat inside.
Beside Vahis, their human captive whimpered, a scream
working its way out of his throat.
‘Thank you for your help,’ Vahis said. Coolly, she slit his
throat before he made another sound. His corpse dropped,
blood pouring out. Then Vahis looked out of the shadows
into the chamber.
Near the edge of the chasm, there was an empty space
where not even the daemonettes dared to dance. And
standing within that space was an incongruous pair. One,
lean and white and cringing and the second something
entirely other, and far more deadly. The stranger was the
opposite of Zelintha. Where Zelintha had pale purple skin,
the other had skin of a deep dark blue. Where Zelintha’s
armour was white, his was black. Where Zelintha was slim,
this man was powerfully built and thunderous. Where
Zelintha carried a sword, this creature had an immense
steel mace strapped to his back. He had a terrible aura, a
cold inky air that radiated from him like the breath of a
blizzard.
‘Be generous, priest,’ the powerful man boomed at the
block. ‘We will give you such gifts if only you would come
out and speak with us. Though you are a heretic that
chooses another god, we come to you in good faith. I am
sure that we can come up with a compromise that works for
all.’
It was difficult not to be moved by that voice, by its
powerful, reasonable tones. By its cooing softness. Its
promise of a peaceful resolution. That was often the way of
Slaanesh, sweet promises of whatever the target might
desire most.
‘All this way and we must plead with this fool, Srayma,’
Zelintha’s voice piped.
Zelintha cringed by his brother, crouching like a beaten
dog. He no longer wore armour on his upper half, revealing
pallid, inhuman flesh. Strange bony protrusions stretched
out of his skin and muscle rippled weirdly across his torso.
He flinched as his brother looked at him.
‘Cease your mewling, elder brother,’ said the other. ‘It is
your fault that we are in this situation to begin with. You
failed to keep the relic from the Stormcasts and you failed to
bring me the Daughters.’
‘They are so beautiful, save for the one,’ piped Zelintha.
‘You should worry about that one more,’ Srayma said.
Then the man sniffed the air, breathing deep as if inhaling a
fine perfume. ‘Shouldn’t he, she-aelf?’
The whirling mass stopped their frenzy and stared with
eyes glassy and black as a leviathan’s. For a brief moment,
the Daughters nearly broke and ran. Memories rose, cloying
and stinging, dancing just beyond their mind’s eye.
‘Don’t,’ Srayma said, as one of the daemonettes jolted
towards them. Then he beckoned to the Daughters with a
gentle motion, like he was coaxing out a kitten. ‘Come, let
me see you.’ They stayed still, sciansá poised. ‘Or – I could
order my army to fetch you. Come.’
Compulsion roiled in that voice, smooth and shimmering
as the silk of a bizhab spider.
‘I will go,’ Vahis said.
‘You cannot,’ Avara said. ‘They’ll kill you.’
‘They will kill us if I don’t go,’ Vahis said. ‘I have a plan. I
think I understand how these Twins work.’
‘But–’ Avara started.
‘I know these creatures, they do not frighten me,’ Vahis
said. ‘Not any more.’ Then she walked out into the vast
cavern, knowing that Khaine was with her.
She felt a presence at her side. She turned and saw Cheba
walking with her.
‘I will not wait for them to come for me,’ the Sister of
Slaughter said, her face twisting in hate. ‘We are Draichi
Ganeth, and we do not shrink from a fight.’
Then she heard quick steps behind her and found that
Avara and Thesobhe also followed. Not willing to linger on
alone, Sareth grudgingly caught up with them.
With their heads high, the Daughters strode out into the
wide, open chamber. All around them, the Slaaneshi fiends –
daemonettes, marauders, knights and cultists – purred and
chattered. Tongues slid over lips, hands worked and
caressed whips of daemon-skin. The daemonettes
whispered promises of tortures unimaginable. Yet Vahis
walked as regally as a queen and did not look about her at
the sadistic crowd. They were beneath her notice.
‘No matter what happens,’ Vahis said, ‘we are sisters with
one purpose. Despite our bickering, we are the Draichi
Ganeth. Our purpose is to destroy the followers of Slaanesh.
Nothing else matters.’
‘Sikia Khaine mors,’ they said.
As they closed in on the cultists, the crowd crept in,
slithering ever closer.
‘Don’t any of you touch them, especially not her,’ Srayma
said, pointing at Vahis. ‘She is mine.’
‘Yours?’ Zelintha chirped, offended. ‘She cut me.’
‘One moment, dear ones,’ Srayma said, holding up a
finger.
They stopped, wary, their blades shimmering in the light.
Srayma whipped around and punched his brother to the
ground. Shrieking, Zelintha crumbled under the onslaught
as Srayma hammered him with both fists. Raining down
blows, Srayma stood over the other, his face twisted into an
inhuman snarl. Finally, he stopped as the other feebly
covered his head, silently weeping in pain.
‘Understand, brother,’ Srayma said. ‘I am at my zenith.
You are the weaker. So you obey me.’
‘When it is my turn, I will remember this,’ the other
howled, bloody tears streaking his face.
Vahis watched them, loathing them. She hated their
stench, their voices, their gleaming black eyes. It went
beyond revulsion and horror to a deep seated disgust, as if
she were looking at some thrashing vermin. The instinct to
lash out, to cut them down, was nearly impossible to resist.
But that was how the Slaaneshi cultists worked – how they
won. They would die to pull you into their embrace. To drag
another into depravity even in spite of themselves. More
than any other quality, the Draichi Ganeth prized precision,
and fear was anathema to that trait. That well-honed sense
saved her here as the two lords bickered. She stayed cool,
observing.
With a final kick to Zelintha’s unprotected gut, Srayma
took a deep breath.
‘Now be silent,’ he said, turning back to Vahis. ‘As I was
saying, you are mine. You will be my plaything.’
‘I will not be,’ she said. ‘He could not defeat me, and
neither can you. Pray try it.’
‘The rest of you will wait until I have defeated this wretch,’
he bellowed.
Hissing, the Daughters huddled together, their sciansá
jutting out around the group like thorns on a vine.
‘Vahis,’ Avara shouted. ‘We can help you.’
Vahis waved her away, not taking her eyes off Srayma.
The aelves hunched down, alert, watching her, but stayed
where they were. With a deep breath Vahis relaxed. She did
not have to worry about them interfering. They would obey
her orders.
Srayma charged forward, ripping the great mace free from
the strap on his back. Sheathed in iron, it was coated in
square spikes and the pommel sported a squat, brutish
head. Not a beautiful weapon, but one of sheer power. As
one, the crowd scuttled away from their lord’s charge,
screaming with joy. They howled in a dozen languages,
some melodic, some noble, some clipped and harsh. But
they all screamed his name.
Vahis danced away, tilting back as the mace whooshed
past her face, ruffling her hair. Srayma left himself open, his
flank exposed. She whipped back, lashing both sciansá
across his breastplate. Sparks sprayed out as two deep lines
appeared in the black armour. Snarling, she reversed the
stroke in a second, sciansá rasping across the plates once
more to little effect.
The club swung back around at her head and she ducked
under it, then scampered back. There was no way she could
parry the massive weapon, not when wielded by such a
heavy fighter. Instead, she gave ground as he pursued,
swinging the club in short quick chops. He wielded the club
as if it weighed nothing in his hands.
Sudden instinct ran through her and she spun away as a
thin sabre flashed by her face. She parried the stroke as
Zelintha flicked the blade down, narrowly missing her arm.
Desperation etched itself onto his bruised face as he jabbed
at her, eager to draw blood.
Srayma drove in, swinging a backhanded strike at her
shoulder, missing only by a hair’s breadth. As he drew it
back she powered herself into a reverse flip, kicking
Zelintha in the jaw as she did.
She landed, then sprang back at Srayma in the same
motion, her sciansá leading. Driving one weapon low, she
hooked the other at his face. He blocked the blow aimed at
the thin gap between his breastplate and the fauld that
protected his hip, but could not block the other.
‘You are dead,’ she hissed.
The sciansá struck his cheek – and snapped in two with a
metallic bang. She leaped back in horror as he threw back
his head and laughed.
‘Fool!’ he said. ‘I am not so easily–’
Snarling, she slammed the broken blade into his open
mouth, crunching it into his teeth and slicing his wagging
tongue. Screaming, he jerked away and clutched his
bleeding mouth.
‘Brother!’ Zelintha shrieked.
The daemonettes stopped laughing.
‘Kill her, fools,’ they howled. ‘Kill her. Stop playing.’ They
hopped and skipped around the perimeter of the fight,
anguish etched onto their alien faces.
Srayma backed away, clutching his destroyed face, his
black eyes gleaming with hate. Vahis’ ears stayed pricked,
listening to every boot scrape as he stumbled around.
Zelintha hurled himself back into the fight, his sabre
dancing. She parried as the flurry of blows came in. Flexible
as a drevar whip, his blade angled and curved like a living
thing in search of her flesh. Pain flashed into existence as he
nicked her collarbone.
Then he opened his mouth and sucked in a breath to
scream.
No, absolutely not. She slashed her sciansá in and he
swept the blow aside, leaving his torso open. He was
accustomed to having armour to cover his mistakes.
‘Sloppy,’ she whispered.
She kicked him in the gut, driving her heel under his ribs.
His breath blasted out with a paltry squeak and he doubled
over, choking.
‘Same,’ Srayma slurred through broken teeth.
She spun away but it was too late. The mace brushed her
ribs and frail bone cracked under the blow. Such was the
force of it that she tumbled onto the earth, scrambling on all
four limbs like a dog. Srayma stalked after her, breathing
liquidly, blood dribbling down his breastplate. As she tried to
regain her footing, Zelintha lunged back in and skewered
her calf.
Shaking in shock, Vahis cursed. She was over-focusing on
one Twin, and she could not find the discernment to track
the other. Was it age? Or was it fear? She was better than
this.
‘Khaine, behold,’ she hissed, drawing the god’s eye to her,
daring herself to fail.
She jerked her leg off Zelintha’s blade and spun back onto
her feet. As she came up, she kicked Zelintha in the face
with her heel.
Whimpering in false pain, she favoured the injured limb. If
she had been less experienced, this might have been the
end. But it was not the first time someone had tried to
cripple her in such a manner. Her strength would see her
through and Khaine would reward that strength with his own
greatness.
‘You witch,’ Zelintha said, rubbing his jaw. ‘How could you
do that to him? To me?’
The lordling came in for the killing blow, slashing at her
throat. She hooked his sabre with her remaining sciansá,
and with a grinding scream, she twisted. Metal creaked as
blood-blessed steel tore at daemonic metal. For a moment,
they strained together, Zelintha trying desperately to
withdraw the weapon.
With a ringing bang and a burst of sweet smoke, the sabre
broke. He held the hilt like the hand of a dying lover and
screamed.
The noise.
It banged off the walls of the cavern and the foul audience
writhed in agony. His voice drove through Vahis’ skull like a
pike, reverberating in her skull. Tears rolled down her cheeks
as she staggered. Her thoughts scattered as the sound filled
her mind.
She ground her teeth against the shrill scream, steadied
herself and stalked in. Snarling, Vahis slashed at Zelintha’s
neck, even as he sucked in another breath.
The blade whipped through his flesh.
For a moment, Zelintha stared at her in total shock. He
could do little more than gurgle wetly before his head
toppled from his shoulders.
She straightened up, despite her injured leg. The pain
receded to the back of her mind and a chuckle bubbled out
of her throat. Turning towards the growling Srayma, the
chuckle turned into cold laughter. It echoed through the
silent chamber as the favoured of Slaanesh realised their
existence on this plane lay in the hands of a single mortal.
Her sisters began to keen, their voices cutting through the
silence like a knife through flesh.
‘Is this really all you have?’ Vahis crowed. ‘Is this it?’ She
turned and looked at the crowd. The fear on their faces was
delicious. She smiled. Even if death caught her, she was still
strong. Even now.
Srayma drove himself to his feet, breaths choking out of
his shattered face. With a gurgling bellow, he charged her.
She leaped to the side as he chopped the mace down. Stone
burst under the blow, dust and rubble scattering over the
floor.
She flitted away as he laboriously pursued her. Her leg
burned like fire but she did not dare falter. The force of his
passing blows beat over her skin like the breath of a
hurricane. It was a careful dance, keeping just close enough
that he kept coming on instead of falling back and waiting
for her to come to him.
His desperation and fury led him on, his desire to possess
her enslaving his mind. Frothing curses coursed from his
mouth and his black eyes seethed with malevolence. With a
scream, he darted forward faster than he should. Vahis
leaped back as the mace crashed down once again, but her
weakened leg crumpled as she landed, sending her
sprawling on the floor.
‘Die, witch,’ he hissed, hefting the mace above his head.
Vahis struggled away from him, unable to rise quickly
enough. Her hands scrabbled over thick gravel.
She grabbed a fistful and hurled it into his face.
With a choked bellow, he reared back, the stroke swinging
wide. Snarling, she finally leapt to her feet as he tore at his
eyes. Coughing, he looked up with one reddened eye just as
Vahis plunged a sciansá into his socket.
He stiffened and then went slack, the mace dropping from
his hand to crack on the floor. Slowly, he toppled over and
landed with a crash.
Breathing heavily, Vahis turned and staggered towards
her sisters. Everything hurt: her hip, her calf, her shoulder,
all with their own special pain. A shudder rolled through her
body and she stumbled a little. Sweat soaked her hair and
ran down her skin. She wanted nothing more than to rest,
but that was not going to happen.
Something squelched behind her.
‘Khaine’s bloody hand, what now?’ she said, shoulders
sagging. She turned.
Srayma’s body contracted, curling and twisting
unnaturally as if his flesh was separating from his bones. His
muscles shuddered and shifted as if a thousand worms
seethed under his skin. His eyes split, and thin tendrils
flickered out of his mouth and nostrils. Then the black skin
stretched, tentacles oozing their way out of his ruined flesh,
which sloughed off like melting wax as new, slimy pink flesh
uncoiled from within. The newly birthed spawn stretched
outward, weird shuddering tones murmuring from a dozen
pouting mouths.
Apparently, Slaanesh was not about to lose because of the
weakness of his champions.
‘Of course, why not?’ she growled.
Where another might have hesitated upon seeing this
horror, Vahis leaped straight in to attack. She hurled herself
into the air, intent on the disappearing nodule that had been
Srayma’s head.
Tentacles rose up to meet her, brightly coloured as poison
and covered in barbed suckers. She did not see them, so
focused was she on her target. Burning welts erupted over
her skin where the tentacles touched her. Curling and
slurping, the beast lunged at her with every limb, eager to
devour the creature that had hurled itself into its maw. Pain
seethed as the vile fluid spattered her, but it was not
enough to stop her.
She stabbed her broken sciansá into the blob of flesh
before it could sink into the central mass of the spawn,
pinning it in place. With her other blade, she lopped it off,
revealing a tumorous mass of skull, brains and hair. The
tentacles thrashed just for an instant and then collapsed, as
limp as silk rope.
With a flourish, she flipped back out of the horrid mass
and landed lightly on her toes. Turning the gruesome trophy
this way and that, she looked around her at the stunned
followers of the Twins of Emrolond the Swift. She hoisted the
severed head above her, her face hard as stone.
‘Your masters are dead,’ she shouted, her hoarse voice
ringing. ‘I bid you be gone.’
The daemonettes shrieked and wailed, and then began to
fade, their colours bleaching. They clawed and writhed as
their grip on reality loosened, and their screams thinned and
quieted. Then they were gone, as if they had never been.
Only the faintest note of perfume lingered to mark their
existence.
The remaining mortals howled, clawing at their faces and
weeping like children.
And they leaped to attack.