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  Discover more stories set in the Age of Sigmar from Black Library

  ~ THE AGE OF SIGMAR ~

  THE REALMGATE WARS: VOLUME 1

  Various authors

  Contains the novels The Gates of Azyr, War Storm, Ghal Maraz, Hammers of Sigmar, Wardens of the Everqueen and Black Rift

  THE REALMGATE WARS: VOLUME 2

  Various authors

  Contains the novels Call of Archaon, Warbeast, Fury of Gork, Bladestorm, Mortarch of Night and Lord of Undeath

  HALLOWED KNIGHTS: PLAGUE GARDEN

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  EIGHT LAMENTATIONS: SPEAR OF SHADOWS

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  OVERLORDS OF THE IRON DRAGON

  C L Werner

  NAGASH: THE UNDYING KING

  Josh Reynolds

  NEFERATA: MORTARCH OF BLOOD

  David Annandale

  SOUL WARS

  Josh Reynolds

  CALLIS & TOLL: THE SILVER SHARD

  Nick Horth

  THE TAINTED HEART

  C L Werner

  SHADESPIRE: THE MIRRORED CITY

  Josh Reynolds

  LEGENDS OF THE AGE OF SIGMAR

  Various authors

  BLACKTALON: FIRST MARK

  Andy Clark

  SACROSANCT & OTHER STORIES

  Various authors

  ~ LEGENDS OF THE AGE OF SIGMAR ~

  CITY OF SECRETS

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  FYRESLAYERS

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  SKAVEN PESTILENS

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  BLACK RIFT

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  SYLVANETH

  An Age of Sigmar novel

  ~ AUDIO DRAMAS ~

  THE PRISONER OF THE BLACK SUN

  Josh Reynolds

  SANDS OF BLOOD

  Josh Reynolds

  THE LORDS OF HELSTONE

  Josh Reynolds

  THE BRIDGE OF SEVEN SORROWS

  Josh Reynolds

  THE BEASTS OF CARTHA

  David Guymer

  FIST OF MORK, FIST OF GORK

  David Guymer

  GREAT RED

  David Guymer

  ONLY THE FAITHFUL

  David Guymer

  SHADESPIRE: THE DARKNESS IN THE GLASS

  Various authors

  Contents

  Cover

  Backlist

  Title Page

  Warhammer Age of Sigmar

  ACT I

  Part One

  Part Two

  Part Three

  Part Four

  Part Five

  Part Six

  ACT II

  Part Seven

  Part Eight

  Part Nine

  Part Ten

  Part Eleven

  ACT III

  Part Twelve

  Part Thirteen

  Part Fourteen

  Part Fifteen

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘Book Title’

  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.

  My name is Vanik.

  Within the Eight Realms I am known by many titles. In Chamon, they call me the Warpclad, the Blacksteel and the Eighteenth ­Hammer of Chaos. In Ghyran, I am Bough-Sunder and Kindlefather. In the tribal cant-stories of the arid hills of Al’khut, I am the Dawn Hate, and to the worshippers concealed among the merchants of the highland ports of Entoth I am the foremost of the Coven of Iron. Somewhere in Ghur, amidst the fjords and ice-caves of the Splintered Coast, an aged chieftain calls me father.

  These titles are all of equal unimportance. Only one matters to me now, the one that I have sacrificed everything for.

  Varanguard.

  My name is Vanik. When I was a newborn, clad only in my ­mother’s blood, my father tried to dash my soft skull against the ice outside our lodge-hut. A daemon cut his head from his shoulders, and now his flensed bones sit among the countless trophies of the Great Warhound’s throne room.

  During my first winter, a pox-blessing was visited upon my lodge and the lodges of my entire village by a passing leper. The tallymen came for us seventy-seven days later. They taught me to count. I bear their marks still.

  During my ninth winter, the skinwolves attacked my tribe. They took me but did not kill me, and I lived among them for two more winters and three summers, hunting as one of their pups.

  On the last night of my eighteenth year I seized the eldest daughter of the chief of the Skorani in a feud-raid. The sixty-six Skorani bondsman scalps that were taken with her that night were a tribute to her beauty, a great blessing from the Golden Serpent. She bore me a son, my firstborn, and after his birth the Gods sent their ­heralds to me. My life ended that night.

  I am Vanik. Many of the tales told about me are false. Many of those untold are true. All of your lies will not change that. Yes, I know of your scheming, and I know too of the fear that you harbour, fear at my arrival here amidst your host, fear at what my coming portends.

  You are right to be afraid. I am Vanik, and you will bow to the will of the Three-Eyed King, daemonic wyrdspawn, or I will pluck the wings from your back, rip the horns from your skull and feed your essence to my steed.

  In the name of Archaon, Exalted Grand Marshal of the Apocalypse, submit.

  ACT I

  The Eighth Quest

  Part One

  The Barrow King and the Black Pilgrim

  In the Death-Realm of Shyish, the village of the Necris burned.

  Its people burned with it, their slaughtered bodies flung onto the pyres kindled from their homesteads. Those who attempted to flee were chased down, killed and immolated. The Black Pilgrim’s instructions had been clear – neither flesh nor bone was to escape the flames that night.

  The pilgrim himself saw little of the grisly work. He had ridden on from the village, leading his razor-fanged mount up the narro
w, snowy tracks that wound their way into the Barrow Hills. He carried on now on foot, the firelight of the burning village long ago swallowed up behind him, bitter darkness and eddying snow pressing in on every side.

  Hold your course, mortal. The voice echoed through the pilgrim’s head, colder than the biting wind.

  He climbed higher. He was a towering figure, tall and broad-shouldered, his natural bulk accentuated by his armour. The black plate was baroque, edged with burnished silver bands and inscribed with dark runes of protection. Over his shoulders was draped a pelt cape, the hard blue scales of a slain Dracoth, now thick with snow. His helmet bore a slit visor and a crest of red-dyed horsehair, flanked by two horns that curled outwards like those of a ram. At his left hip was a heavy sword, sheathed in a scabbard of cured aelf-hide, while two long daggers were crossed over his chainmail cingulum. A shield of thick warpsteel was strapped to his left vambrace, embossed with an iron crest – a sea wyrm coiling beneath an eight-pointed star.

  Glory awaits you.

  The voice in the figure’s head was growing louder, its sickly tones quickening with excitement. It wished for nothing more than to be free, and the Black Pilgrim represented a chance for just that.

  The man – if man he was – passed between the burial cairns of the ancient dead, the stone mounds almost lost beneath the thickening snow. He ignored them – he had not come this far for some brass trinket or rusting blade. His destination lay ahead, rising out of the swirling darkness, a pillar of cold stone set into the fallow earth at the heart of the hilltop.

  The barrow of the Frost King, eternal lord of the Necris.

  Step closer, my champion.

  The Black Pilgrim halted at the barrow’s entrance, which was framed by two cornerstones of snow-clad rock. For a moment, he might have been a statue, cast from black iron, set to guard the king’s tomb for eternity.

  The illusion was shattered as he reached out with his right hand, the spiked gauntlet passing just beyond the entranceway flanked by the two great stones. Immediately, a thick coating of hoar frost closed like a vice over the black metal, threatening to shatter it. The figure withdrew, flexing his fingers and breaking the ice with a crack.

  He raised the gauntlet again, this time to the left-hand stone. A crunching blow shuddered away the snow that clung to it in a white cascade, revealing the markings carved into the rock.

  The figure spent some seconds assessing them. Then, with abrupt force, he slammed the edge of his shield against the first of the etchings.

  Did they truly believe their corpse-wards would keep him at bay?

  The Black Pilgrim broke them with his shield, each in turn, until all were reduced to shattered stone strewn around the entrance to the barrow. Their power dissipated and he stepped into the darkness beyond, no icy death-spell closing about his heart.

  He had come to retrieve a fellow servant of the True Gods, and he would not be dissuaded.

  At first, he could see nothing in the barrow’s depths. He murmured a prayer to the Silver Fin, asking for guidance. Slowly, the interior of the burial place resolved itself around him, though whether that was because his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness or because great T’char had answered him, he knew not.

  The tomb was large, a circular space of drystone walls against which were set a dozen plinths. They were carved with mortuary emblems – skulls, bones, hourglasses and all the weak esotericism of the servants of the so-called Great Necromancer. Upon them rested the remains of twelve warriors, all skeletal, clad in ancient battle armour and with long, two-handed blades clutched to their rusting breastplates.

  They occupied the pilgrim’s attention only briefly. His gaze was drawn to the far end of the chamber, to the stone sarcophagus that stood there, flanked by the twelve plinths. Its upright lid bore a crudely worked depiction of a skeletal figure standing in triumph, praised by the outstretched arms of living tribe folk prostrate beneath it.

  Weak. So very weak.

  Yesss, hissed the sickly voice of Nakali in the pilgrim’s skull, slithering around like the Golden Serpent. He shrugged it off, approaching the sarcophagus and slamming his warpsteel shield against it without hesitation.

  The blow reverberated through the barrow, and sent a split running from the lid’s top to its bottom, breaking the effigy in half. He clenched his fangs and slammed home a second blow, then a third. The tomb continued to shake, and finally with a cracking sound the front of the sarcophagus crumbled and came crashing down before him.

  He took a step back. A figure lay slumped within, another skeleton. This one was more finely armoured than its guards, and bore upon its helm a circlet of bronze. It was not the barrow king’s attire that held the pilgrim’s attention though, but the weapon it clutched.

  The sword was large, its hilt gripped in two bony fists. The length was black steel, its double edge jagged and irregular. The pommel was crafted in the likeness of a golden serpent, its long fangs bared and its forked tongue darting out. The crosspiece was likewise fashioned into a two-headed snake, also cast in gold.

  It was no rusting barrow-blade. It was an exquisite weapon, forged in the daemon furnaces of the Varanspire. It was what he had been hunting for, the debaser of the Lightning Temple and the great serpent-daemon of Slaanesh.

  Nakali.

  There was a glimmer of illumination. It was not the wholesome flicker of flames, but was cold and bitter, like grave-dirt caught in the back of the throat. The pilgrim realised that blue deadlights had flickered into being in the sockets of the barrow king’s skull.

  The Frost King wakes, Nakali hissed. Quickly, champion!

  He reached out with his right hand to snatch the sword from the king’s grasp, but before he could touch it the skeleton shuddered. There was a rattle as its bones re-formed and straightened, dragged tight as though by the sudden twitch of a marionette’s strings. It stood fully upright, its armour scraping against the stone of its tomb. With a snap, its head turned to face the pilgrim, and the deadlights in its sockets flared with an unnatural, immortal awareness.

  Fool! Nakali shrieked.

  The Black Pilgrim drew his own sword, Serpent’s Fang, the sensation of the heavy blade in his fist sending a familiar thrill through his body. It was always a blessing to kill, even when the enemy was already dead.

  The Frost King stepped from its shattered resting place and hefted its own sword: Nakali, desperate to be free, desperate to be saved from the deathless grip of a warrior who could never be tempted by its whispers or tainted by its perverse aura. Though nothing but bone, the ancient undead champion carried the heavy blade without any difficulty, lent strength and vitality by the sorcerous tricks of its False God.

  ‘Come to me, corpse,’ the pilgrim demanded. ‘That I may release you from your long bondage.’

  He attacked. Serpent’s Fang met Nakali’s edge, the clash of Chaotic steel ringing through the barrow, and he knew at once that the king’s weapon was superior. The realisation brought a smile to his thin lips. It was good to know he was not wasting his time.

  He turned his right-handed stroke into an overhead blow, then a thrust, relying at first on his strength, then seeking to drive the reanimated corpse into the stone at its back. Neither tactic worked – the death magic binding the thing together was at least as strong as he was, and the master of the Necris had no human regard for self-preservation. It refused to take a backward step as he rained blows down upon it, its motions clumsy but enough to parry each strike. It was not trying to attack, he realised. After another flurry of blows, he understood why.

  More light had filled the chamber. He heard the rattle and clatter of bones and the scrape of worn armour, and noticed that the twelve guards had risen from their plinths. At first their motions were jerky and uncoordinated, but as they moved to surround him he knew his time was up. Soon every barrow and cairn across the hillsides would have awoken.
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  ‘Tzatzo!’

  The pilgrim roared the name, the sound shaking the burial place just as surely as the first impact of his shield against the sarcophagus. The undead were unperturbed – they had no eardrums to burst, no brains to addle. The word had not been uttered for them, though.

  The Frost King attacked. Nakali clashed against Serpent’s Fang once, twice, and then scored a jagged blow down the pilgrim’s left pauldron. He realised the corpse was becoming stronger and faster as it fought, the magics animating it taking a firmer hold of its remains the longer it was awake.

  He took its next blow against his shield. Nakali rebounded violently from the hexed warpsteel, and he seized the chance to thrust Serpent’s Fang into the king’s open guard. His sword punched through the rusting breastplate and split its ribcage. Half a dozen shattered bones came away as he dragged the steel free, but the undead champion showed no sign of injury – it attacked, forcing him to take a step back or risk having his guard opened. He snarled with frustration, fangs bared.

  The barrow-guard were upon him as well, and he was forced to turn away to meet them. They were slower and weaker than their king, but they were a distraction he could not afford. He shattered the skull of one with an upward thrust of his shield and cut another from collarbone to pelvis with a tight, spinning blow. The broadsword of another clattered ineffectually from his back, snagging in his Dracoth-pelt cape, but he was forced to turn to the king before he could break the one who dared strike him.

  The undead master of the Necris had used the distraction well. It struck with an overhead blow. Made with the likes of Nakali, it would have cut open even a favoured champion of the Four. The pilgrim barely managed to get Serpent’s Fang up to meet it, and the clang of the two blades striking one another jarred up his arm. The blow was too much – with a clatter, the upper half of Serpent’s Fang came away, sheared in two, its tip impaling the frost-covered soil at his feet. He just managed to take enough of a step back to avoid Nakali’s descent.

  The moment seemed to slow. Death was reaching for him, its icy fingers scraping along his skin and tightening around his heart and throat. He brought the shorn hilt of Serpent’s Fang up with all his strength, angling for the Frost King’s arm as it swung downwards, cutting towards the exposed bone just above its brass vambrace.