The Lightning Golem Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  The Lightning Golem – Nick Kyme

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘Soul Wars’

  A Black Library Publication

  eBook license

  The Lightning Golem

  By Nick Kyme

  Rassia trembled in his arms.

  ‘Rest now,’ he said.

  She half turned her head, her dark eyes blinking.

  ‘Rest, and fight no more.’

  Issakian Swordborne gently stroked the gryph-hound’s flank, his armoured fingers stopping before they touched the arrow that had killed her. He felt her heart thudding weakly.

  Rassia opened her beak. Her purple tongue lolled against her sharp teeth.

  ‘Rest,’ Issakian said again as he cradled her head in one hand. ‘No more pain.’

  She shuddered once and breathed her last breath.

  Issakian bowed his head, and fought down the grief. She had been with him since he joined the Celestial Knights, a bond that had lasted many years.

  ‘You have served me faithfully, Rassia,’ he whispered. ‘I could not have wished for better.’ Anguish turned to anger, and his fingers clenched into fists as he rose to his feet. He cut through the fog as he swirled his blood-red cloak. It was the same colour as the pteruges of his night-blue armour. The cloak revealed a sheathed sword. He uttered three words.

  ‘Judgement is coming.’

  Then he drew the blade, which shone like twilight. He knew they would see it. He wanted them to see it.

  A cry pierced the fog, ululating through the ruins of Harobard. Hammered footsteps came after, followed by panting.

  A brawny figure burst into being, tendrils of pinkish vapour clinging to his body like grasping fingers. Blood matted his beard. His bare flesh had the tattoo of the Hektate rune inked onto it, the hook and eye wreathed in flame. Feathers pierced his skin, pink and blue and purple. Eyes, wild and delirious, glared at Issakian from behind a half-bird mask.

  The axe whistled as it cut the air, arcing straight for Issakian’s head. The edge looked stained, notched. Well used.

  Issakian put his bracer in the way and the axe raked across it, spitting sparks like starbursts before the haft gave way and snapped. The axe head spiralled off as Issakian filled the Hektate’s gut with a foot of gleaming sigmarite.

  Scowling at the muddying of his blade, he shucked the Hektate loose as another of the barbarians came screaming for his blood. Issakian dropped to a crouch and impaled this one through the groin. He then rose to meet a third, hacking off a hand that had clenched a heavy hammer, before taking the head and ending the Hektate’s plaintive wailing. A jet of dark arterial blood shone brightly as it struck the Stormcast’s white shoulder guard.

  A fourth Hektate wielded a double-handed axe and let out an avian shriek as he swung for a killing blow. Issakian leaned aside a moment before the axe landed. The Hektate had overcommitted and pitched forwards, overbalanced and vulnerable. His head rolled off his shoulders a moment later. Issakian barely gave the wretch a second glance as he pressed further into the fog.

  By now, he had caught the faint echoes of the battle. Somewhere in this filth, Vasselius and his warriors fought hard. A muted lightning arc lit the sky, softened by the haze.

  ‘I am coming, brother,’ said Issakian.

  He sought out the fifth attacker, the archer whose arrow had ended Rassia’s life. A hastily notched arrow was turned aside by Issakian’s bracer. The archer retreated in fear, hoping to escape in the pink miasma.

  Issakian had a different fate in mind.

  ‘This is judgement,’ he said. ‘This is Sigmar!’ He hurled his sword like a spear and the blade struck the Hektate in the chest.

  Issakian closed the distance between them at a run, his pace inhuman. He wrenched his sword loose with a spurt of blood and plunged it into the Hektate’s throat before the wretch could fall. Death followed. Revenge felt hollow. The Hektate tribe, though corrupt, were not his prey. He had come here seeking something else, a creature more than a man, but he would not find it in this abysmal cloud. It had settled quickly, drowning out the larger battle and separating Vasselius’ forces, of which Issakian counted himself a part.

  He breathed hard, painting the inside of his helm with flecks of spittle, and tried not to take in too much of the fog. It put Issakian’s teeth on edge. He set his will against it. Magic threaded the air. He could taste it like acid on his tongue. His mind briefly filled with psychedelic images… The Summoner with the head of a purple crow… A cloak of variegated feathers… The lightning golem. He shook it off. He had seen them before, dreamed them before. He focused on his purpose. Vasselius would not be far.

  ‘Rassia… lantern,’ he called out, and then cursed under his breath. ‘Fool…’

  Issakian found the lantern where he had left it, thrust into the hard earth, shining like a beacon.

  He raised it high upon its staff, his arm fully extended.

  ‘Sorcery,’ he bellowed, ‘I abjure thee!’

  The unearthly fog recoiled as if burned. It shrieked, and like morning mist before the sun it steadily diminished until it was no more. The sight and sound of battle rushed in, abruptly renewed.

  All around him, Harobard burned. Its wooden arbours were aflame, its streets thronged with desperate fighters. Skirmishes had erupted throughout the city, the Stormcasts scattered by the fog and only now regaining some kind of coherency.

  Issakian found Vasselius amongst the warriors, right in the teeth of the battle. A warrior-god clad in the ivory armour and blue pauldrons of his Stormhost. He fought at the foot of the temple stairs against the dwindling Hektates. Statues carved out of glittering marble honouring the great beasts of the land rose up on either side of him, framing rugged stone steps. Vasselius quickly gained the stairway with his men and forced the horde back behind raised shields and cutting swords.

  On one flank were the pale-armoured warriors of the Knights Excelsior, on the other the spearmen of the Bruhghar Kings in thick furs and skull helms, who fought with the fury of the recently liberated, letting off horn blasts and setting up a thunderous drum tattoo.

  Issakian made for the narrow gap between the beast statues, where the fighting was at its fiercest.

  Nigh on a hundred Stormcasts battled shoulder to shoulder, pushing into arrows and flung spears. Now they were freed of the fog’s taint, nothing could stop them, though Issakian saw a white-clad warrior struck in the throat. He fell, lost to sight, before a lightning arc cascaded upwards.

  It was to be a last act of defiance.

  The Hektate broke and scattered, unable to match the ferocity of the Stormcasts or the warriors whose lands they had usurped.

  The Bruhghar roared, exultant. Stormcast Heraldors trumpeted the victory, shaking the very earth.

  Vasselius gave a shout that sent hunters into the skies and the ruins to seek out the fleeing Hektates and make sure they were dead. He turned, and raised his hammer aloft in triumph.

  Issakian raised his own sword in salute as he met him at the foot of the temple steps.

  ‘Don’t rest yet, brother,’ Vasselius told him. The Lord-Celestant went bareheaded, his red hair as bright and vivid as fire against his ivory armour, his eyes wild with the promise of further battle.

  ‘Ever since we met, you have bent towards violence, Vasselius.’

  ‘And you are too soft of heart, Issakian,’ he said with good humour. ‘A fine pair we make, eh?’

  ‘That we do.’

  Vasselius gestured with his hammer to the ruins beyond the temple.

&nb
sp; ‘My hunters are hard at work. Shall we join them? There are many of these wretches that yet live, despoiling Sigmar’s fine lands.’

  Issakian nodded. ‘I’ll follow you into the ruins, but leave the killing to you, Lord Ironshield.’

  ‘Still on the hunt then?’ asked Vasselius.

  ‘I haven’t found him yet. But if he’s here, if it’s here, I will.’ Issakian sheathed his sword. ‘I saw captives amongst the Hektate horde. Who will save them if you’re about the killing?’

  Vasselius smiled broadly, but his sharp green eyes betrayed a little of his inner sadness. ‘I’d say we best leave that to you.’

  Issakian gave a short bark of laughter.

  ‘That sounds like wisdom.’

  Vasselius didn’t reply. He grinned, revealing pearl-white teeth, and turned on his heel. He called out to his warriors and the Bruhghar, who needed little encouragement, urging them on.

  Issakian followed more slowly, leaving his lantern behind. No Hektate, if they even returned to this part of the city, could touch it. He didn’t need it for the moment and it was too unwieldy to carry into the narrow places created by the ruination of Harobard.

  As he searched, Issakian heard the slaughtering of the Hektates. A necessary task, but a grim one that left him wondering how much humanity the Stormcasts had surrendered to the lightning. How much of the soul remained each time he rode the storm?

  His thoughts clouded his senses enough that he almost missed the girl taking shelter under a half-collapsed arch. It had been a bridge once, but the Hektates had destroyed it. Only rubble and the broken arch remained.

  The girl, half shrouded in shadow, looked up as Issakian approached. She appeared scared and clutched something she had been playing with to her chest, as if afraid he would steal it.

  ‘It’s all right, child,’ said Issakian, crouching down as he lifted up his hands to show the girl he was unarmed, and then slowly removed his helm. His close-cut hair and beard felt damp with sweat, but a human face was preferable to one forged of unfeeling sigmarite.

  She appeared to relax, loosening her grip on the wooden toy and proffering it to Issakian.

  ‘What is your name, ch–’ he began, but found his eye drawn to the wooden toy. He had seen its like before, a zoetrope, a cylinder that spun upon its central axis, with tiny apertures cut into its surface that, when looked through, would reveal a moving image lit by a solitary candle flame.

  This device had exactly the same design, and the girl had already set it spinning.

  ‘Look…’ she invited, her voice soft and infantile. ‘See…’

  Issakian caught the edge of the flickering candle flame, and the smallest glimpse of the moving images within. He drew closer, thinking to earn the girl’s trust, but then felt a compulsion to watch the shadow play unfolding against the zoetrope’s cylinder walls.

  The scratchy man totters on sharp and scratchy legs. He walks and walks and walks, until he is struck by a bolt from the heavens and becomes the night-clad king. His head spits forks of lightning and he holds a starlit sword.

  Smash, smash, smash goes the night-clad king, smiting every monster and horror of the land until he finds the lightning golem and the purple crow upon its shoulder. And lo upon the slopes of the claw-handed mountain do the night-clad king and the lightning golem give battle.

  Swish goes the night-clad king’s sword; crash goes the lightning golem’s thunder; caw, caw speaks the purple crow, delighted at such spectacle. The mountain trembles and the night-clad king fights with all his strength, but he cannot best the lightning golem.

  Bleeding black, scratchy blood, the night-clad king can fight no more. He kneels before the lightning golem, powerless against it. And as the purple crow looks on, the lightning golem opens its maw as wide as a cave and swallows the night-clad king whole.

  Then there is only the lightning golem, a purple crow upon its shoulder, and the night-clad king is no more.

  Issakian gasped, suddenly starved of breath. He leaned over, sucking in great gulps of air as he tried to banish a heavy sense of foreboding. His left hand was shaking. He felt sore, as if from battle.

  The girl had gone, though when he heard footsteps approaching he turned and drew his sword.

  ‘Lord-Veritant,’ said one of Vasselius’ men. He carried a chipped shield, and a chin flecked with peppery stubble jutted out where part of his helm’s mask was missing. It had been hacked off during the battle. The mouth curled in surprise. The Knight Excelsior had half drawn his sword. Issakian heard it thrum with Azyrite power.

  ‘How long have you been standing there?’

  ‘Only a moment, Lord-Veritant. I was sent by Lord Ironshield,’ he explained. ‘They have him…’ Now the face changed again, surprise turning into the eagerness for retribution. A dark smile turned his lips. ‘The Hektate shaman.’

  Issakian donned his helm.

  ‘Take me there. Now.’

  The shaman kneeled in the blood and filth of the battle’s aftermath, his dead around him.

  One of Vasselius’ warriors, Agrevaine, had her axe blade against the shaman’s neck. Her eyes were storm-grey and thunderous. She wanted to kill him.

  ‘He is the last of them,’ declared Vasselius. He stood with the Bruhghar Kings, a little way off from where the shaman knelt in defeat. The prisoner looked cowed, like a beaten dog.

  Issakian walked up to him, urging the shaman to lift his chin with the tip of his sword.

  ‘Thunder and lightning… Thunder and lightning…’ murmured the shaman. An avian skull with a feathered headdress lay split and scattered nearby. He was old, his wiry beard painted blue and pink to please his god. Fever burned in his eyes. Issakian had heard the Hektates brewed potions to improve their prowess in battle and the potency of their sorcery. It had not availed them in the end. He met the shaman’s eyes and peered deeply. None alive could hide their true nature from the Lords-Veritant. He turned away, lowering his sword.

  ‘It’s not him,’ he said, unable to hide the frustration in his voice.

  Vasselius looked as if he was about to argue, but thought better of it. He nodded to Agrevaine. ‘Finish it.’

  She raised her axe for the killing cut, before the shaman spoke and she hesitated.

  ‘The purple crow…’ he rasped. ‘The purple crow and the lightning golem.’

  Issakian spun around and rushed up to the shaman.

  Agrevaine’s axe hovered, stuck mid-execution.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ demanded Issakian.

  ‘The purple crow…’ said the shaman, ‘and the night-clad king is no more…’ Then he laughed, shrill like a death scream.

  Issakian stepped back, both disturbed and enraged.

  Agrevaine’s axe fell. The laughter stopped.

  Issakian barely heard it. He had turned his back, walking away into the ruins where Rassia was waiting.

  She lay still, and Issakian confessed to a private hope that he might have been wrong and that she yet lived. It was not to be.

  Kneeling by her side, he unclasped his cloak and laid it down. Then he took off his helm and set that down too.

  Reverently, Issakian wrapped Rassia in his cloak. Then he laid his hand upon her body, closed his eyes and sang softly of his lament. He stayed like that for a while, remembering but also trying to forget what he had seen in the zoetrope. It haunted him, but he could not ignore its significance.

  ‘No arc of lightning for her,’ said Issakian as he heard Vasselius approach.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ answered the Lord-Celestant, offering a gauntleted hand, which Issakian accepted as he got to his feet, ‘but she will be reforged in our memory.’

  ‘A good thought.’

  ‘I hoped so.’ Vasselius had not come alone. The hunter, Agrevaine, joined them. She had a mane of white hair with a sheathed hand-axe and boltstorm pist
ol at her belt. She had cleaned her blade since dealing with the shaman. ‘Agrevaine, see that Lord Swordborne’s companion is properly tended to.’

  ‘Of course, Lord Ironshield.’

  She spared a glance for Issakian, lingering only a moment before she went to the body and gently lifted it, cloak and all, into her arms.

  ‘I am sorry…’ she whispered, and then she carried Rassia away.

  ‘I’ll see to it she is given proper burial and honour,’ said Vasselius once Agrevaine had gone. ‘I sense you and I are about to part ways soon and will have little time for such observances.’

  ‘You have good instincts,’ Issakian replied, looking out into the horizon where a savage land beckoned. ‘Have you heard of a mountain in these parts,’ he held up his hand and made the shape of it, ‘like this, like a claw?’

  Vasselius considered the question, then nodded.

  ‘I’ve seen it. The Ironshields have fought in Bruhghar for a while. We passed a mountain like that a few months ago, before you joined us. It’s near a realm-edge, where Ghur meets Aqshy.’ He sucked at his teeth, as if assessing Issakian’s mood. ‘What interest does it hold for you?’

  ‘I… saw it. Have seen it. I don’t know. Dreams, prophecies… These are odd times. Portents are as thick on the air as fire and death these days.’

  ‘A little melancholy, aren’t you? You have always struck me as more hopeful than that, Issakian.’

  ‘I am. Then I lost Rassia. Hope lives on, but it is still recovering from that blow.’

  ‘You dreamt of it, the mountain?’

  Issakian nodded.

  ‘And you think it is… what? Providence?’ asked Vasselius. ‘It will lead you to the Summoner?’

  ‘The lords of the Silver Tower are cunning but even they can’t escape my sight forever. This is Sigmar’s will. I can’t just ignore it.’

  Vasselius rubbed his clean-shaven jaw, thinking. ‘No, I suppose you cannot. The lands beyond the Bruhghar borders are perilous. There are beasts.’

  ‘I seek a beast.’

  Vasselius laughed. ‘I don’t doubt it, or that you’ll find one.’ He looked to the darkening horizon. ‘We’ll make camp here tonight. I doubt the Bruhghar will allow us to do anything else.’