Visions from the Henge Hold Scroll continue, and now we see the fruition of the strange and unlikely alliances that have formed in the response to the infernal invasion.
If you haven’t been keeping up with the events unfolding in the Iron Kingdoms, you can find previous summaries of the events here:
And you can follow the Henge Hold Scroll on Twitter and discover the events unfolding in Immoren as they happen at https://twitter.com/HengeholdScroll.
***
Tristan Durant pulled a hand through his hair as he studied the ledger before him. The scroll detailed recent deaths needing final rites.
It was far too long.
Whole towns’ worth of names written out, with little art or care, another tally of victims to cross his path.
“What troubles you?” asked Nadira Ad-Bukhari. The Idrian monk of the Order of the Fist had taken to acting as his personal guard, keeping watch over Tristan both day and night.
He looked at her, shaking away his clouded thoughts. “Nothing. Some bookkeeping.”
She studied him, paring one nail down with a short knife. “Troublesome books, Sovereign? You curse under your breath when you read them.”
Tristan furled the scroll and pressed it back into its case. “You could call it an… unbalanced amount.”
Days later, they walked among the people again. Survivors from the outlands, refugees who fled the encroaching infernal menace, reached for the hem of his robes. They wept and begged for his aid.
Tristan’s escort brushed another hand aside. “There are more than usual.”
“Many,” Tristan said, voice muffled by his mask. “Infernals have reached the Erud Hills.”
“Kreoss and Feora defend the city,” Nadira said.
“But not the people.”
The pair reached the steps of the temple where he was to perform yet another funeral rite.
Tristan looked down at the congregation. Dirty, bloody, desperate souls, all their shining eyes turned up to him for hope. No matter how deep he reached, he could find none to offer them.
He was silent, thoughtful, and then he spoke.
“Be joyful,” Tristan began the familiar words, “for those we see to the other side did not die—”
His voice faltered. The ceremony no longer sufficed.
Tristan cleared his throat and started anew.
“Your family and friends did not die in vain. They gave themselves to show you, show us, that our salvation does not lie behind walls of stone or within old words. They sacrificed themselves so we all may yet live.”
The exemplars in the crowd stirred.
“I have heard, as have we all, of those among the cities who seek out refugees. Though their god is not our own, they offer hope and mercy where there is none. They exhort us all to join them!” Tristan’s volume increased until he was shouting at the throng.
“I have seen too many widows and orphans,” he shouted, “too many abandoned souls! I beg you all, if there is hope, you must grasp it. If there is survival, you must chase it! Let not this moment escape you!”
Nadira grabbed him by his elbow.
“Do you want to die?” the Idrian hissed in his ear. Already, the exemplars worked their way through the crowd toward him.
Tristan turned to her. His mask was too heavy. It had always been.
“No,” he said. “I want them to live.”
***
For weeks, Aurora had been on high alert as her mother sent attackers against her growing ranks. So engineers and priests could continue their desperate work, she patrolled the skies in a constant vigil. But now she was cold and exhausted from so many days spent aloft.
It was near twilight, and Aurora had readied to return to the temple when a ragged shape appeared on the horizon. It was like a winged serpent, flying erratically on half-broken wings. It descended sharply and crashed south of the temple among the trees.
She instructed her clockwork angel cohorts to keep their distance and flew down to where the thing had fallen. Snapped branches clung to a body of rotting meat and tarnished metal. Its skull-like face jawed weakly at the air.
The figure of a woman was slumped on its back, clutching something to her chest.
The woman stirred.
“Who are you?” Aurora demanded.
The woman looked up, her face corpse white. “I seek Ghil Lucant. Mortenebra said he might be here.”
The name conjured stories from Aurora’s youth. Dark fables Axis would tell her about the Convergence’s earliest days.
“You won’t find him here,” she replied, keeping her thermionuc lance level with the woman’s heart.
“Please. He needs help,” the woman begged.
Aurora looked at the stranger’s mount. “Whatever this thing is, you won’t find help for it here.”
“No,” the woman said. She revealed her cargo: a bleached white skull with an eyepiece bolted over one socket. She also held a small piece of jewelry, like volcanic glass framed in black iron.
The way she held the objects reminded Aurora of her with Nemo’s soul vessel.
The woman said, “I bring you Lich Lord Asphyxious, and I beg you to help me restore him.”
***
A dirty and callused throng shuffled to the western gate of Sul. The dust of the marches and the smoke of the pyres stained their skin. Something much deeper stained their spirit.
Loss. So much of it stacked so high that it bent the backs of the strongest among them.
Tristan walked at the heart of this flock. Many eyes looked upon him, glistening and expectant. They eyes of the saved looking upon the savior.
They approached the outer wall, where a cadre of Exemplar and Flameguard waited. Astride her horse, Feora was wreathed in fire and glory. Intercessor Kreoss lacked her ostentation but made up for it with his steely presence.
Feora spoke before Kreoss could. “Your companions look tired, Durant,” she said. “Perhaps they should return to their homes and rest.”
“We are leaving, Feora,” he said, gently making his way to the fore. “You know why.”
“Stories from heretics’ mouths? We expected better of you.”
Tristan gripped Veritas. The weight of people behind him was crushing. “And we of you, mistress.”
Feora spurred her mount, summoning flames from its barding. A corona of fire sprung to life on its mane and tail.
The priestess and protector of the Flame rode up to meet him. The might of the scrutators’ iron fist waited behind. It was an impossible union, forged by his own actions.
“You will not lead my people to death,” she snarled.
“All life belongs to Menoth,” came another voice, heavy as stone, echoing from the very walls of Sul.
High Paladin Dartan Vilmon emerged from the crowd at Tristan’s side, his sword gleaming in his hands.
Dozens of other paladins came forward, moving between the throng.
Vilmon’s eyes locked on Feora’s. “You harm no one today, priestess.”
The warcaster Durst moved up on Tristan’s other flank, gaze hard as flint. Heavy warjacks pressed forward at their sides, creating a wall of iron.
Feora silently regarded the high paladin for a moment. Tristan could feel her assessing and calculating their two forces.
In a low tone, she asked, “Is this what you want?”
Dartan Vilmon’s face split with a smile.
***
The sad truth of the world is this; no hero lives to see the end of their story. Some must vanish to the world beyond, not knowing if their actions added more goodness or misery to the final tally.
Worse yet, others outlive their moment, that time when they had the chance to save the world. They must endure with the ghosts of everyone they could have saved, and didn’t, calling to them in their sleep.
—Hermit of Henge Hold
***
Ashlynn d’Elyse had long ago decided that her last moments in life would not be spent in fear. Yet as the nightmarish horrors with slobbering, fang-filled mouths swarmed the corridors of the queen’s palace, she had to remind herself forcefully of this decision.
So much blood. Deep-water blue from the infernal monsters, bright red from the Llaelese soldiers. All of it spilled for the most brutal of reasons. Not for land, not for patriotism, not for power, not for revenge. All of it spilled for bloodlust. An eagerness to kill.
The invading infernals cracked men open as if they had seams. They devoured men like meat on a stick until those men screamed themselves to death, watching limbs with old familiar scars from their childhood chewed to pulp.
They were completely overwhelmed, Ashlynn already knew. And for all the times she’d acknowledged death was inevitable for everyone and she would face it with a specific mindset, she couldn’t find it now. Speculation had finally become fact.
She was about to die.
The queen cried as Ashlynn barred the door to the throne room. It wouldn’t hold back the tentacles and claws and mouths like abysses lined with fangs, but it would give them another minute to pray for the least pain in giving up their lives for Llael.
“You know, my Queen,” she said to Kaetlyn de la Martyn, “your tears are just going to make my death worse.”
The queen choked but nodded, trembling as she dried her eyes with the back of one hand. Ashlynn was surprised to see a slender dagger in that hand.
“Is that for them,” she asked, “or for us?”
“For me,” Kaetlyn admitted. She tried to smile. “I know it is a coward’s way and beneath you, my Blade. But I’m scared.”
Ashlynn could not argue as a loud clamor of approaching killers rose on the other side of the great doors.
“They’re here.”
Kaetlyn groaned, head back, eyes closed. “I wish I’d gone to Henge Hold.”
Ashlynn bit her tongue; shaming her queen for such words in these last moments wouldn’t ease the girl’s terror. She could only offer different comfort.
“I’ll tell you when.”
“Thank you, Ashlynn,” Kaetlyn whispered. Ashlynn could not recall having heard the queen speak her name since taking the throne.
“You’re welcome, Kaetlyn,” she answered.
Something boomed against the doors.
“Ready your blade,” Ashlynn said. She lifted her estoc and assumed a battle stance to face whatever came through. Behind her, the queen murmured a prayer. When Ashlynn glanced back, she saw Kaetlyn press the edge of her dagger to her own throat.
The doors rattled in their frames as something huge and heavy crashed into them.
“Goodbye, my Queen,” Ashlynn said.
Kaetlyn said, “Goodbye, my Blade.”
And then the fear savaged both their souls as the doors burst open to admit their infernal murderers…
***
As the ancestors promised, the wounded gods of the Lyossans’ offspring proved the perfect bait.
A pale ocean of beasts rolled on the border of their kingdom. They trampled the forests flat, snapped the trees, stirred the land like the storm that split the world.
Morghoul waited.
The Supreme Archdomina’s desires were clear. Only the worthy would face the fangs of these beasts.
Warriors waited in blocks, ancestral statues before them, and a wave of slaved beasts behind. As the wave of trembling trees grew closer, tyrants exhorted their soldiers to glory, to exultation.
Morghoul waited.
A snarling wave of flesh emerged from Ios’ forests to hit the defenders with the sound of a falling meteor. Venators’ reivers whined. Catapults thudded. Streaks of starlight arced from the Iosan forces behind them to fall on the mob.
Soulless Iosans emerged from the shadows. The void beasts seemed blind to these assassins, who plucked the mortal servants like ripe mazakh fruit.
Still, Morghoul waited.
His escorts honed his sword, Mercy, and tightened his boots. Thousands of warriors fell to the void creatures, their souls plucked and devoured. Titans waded through the carnage, scattering bodies to vanish among the trees.
At the rear of the void-borne army, a slender figure emerged from the trees. Swaddled in shadow, it watched dispassionately as the battle waged.
Morghoul shed his cloak. It was a dominar’s garment. Tonight, he was an assassin. He gripped his sword and bade his escort farewell with a silent nod.
Drawing on a battlefield of pain, he flashed forward in mystic shadows. The world drew distant as he leapt from one darkness to the next, a storm of vanishing souls boiling around him.
The chosen would die. It was their privilege. But Makeda was a skorne of her word. Their deaths would preserve the get of Lyoss. The Gate of Mists would remain. Morghoul’s undertaking would ensure it.
He stepped between shadows until the figure of the infernal master loomed large. With the instincts sharpened from a lifetime of murder, Morghoul sprang from the darkness. His sword streaked at the creature, driven by every ounce of his spirit.
It intercepted him, palm slapping into his throat, as if it knew the attack was coming. The void creature let Morghoul dangle in its grip and whispered to him, “Tad kar m’wrii.”
Old words in an old tongue. Remember, you will die.
Morghoul dropped his sword. He would not need it.
The dying members of the warrior caste had opened the gate. As a paingiver, he had walked through the door. The final piece fell to Zaal and the extollers.
He held a cracked sacral stone up to the infernal’s face.
The dominar of the paingivers crushed the stone in his fist. It exploded like a vat of venohar, hurling his body back. The spirit within howled out, an ancient kovaas from old Halaak, mad and starving from the weight of generations.
Morghoul watched the creature as it learned the true horror of the void.
***
Asphyxious learned that transcendence worked a transformation on those who underwent it. Nemo, for instance, claimed to feel the tides of time and space as they moved around him. That his new form offered him understanding beyond that of his mortal life.
Of course, this was Nemo’s first time dying; Asphyxious had experienced such a change long, long ago. He didn’t feel a transcendent uplifting from the prison of mortal flesh. His perspective had merely sharpened.
The fighting below him was beautiful in its own way. Two armies like silvery serpents wound around each other, swallowing each other’s tails. Fleshless bodies turned to broken bits lay on the ground. The glitter of blade on blade, glinting in the shallow light.
As the serpents wound tighter below, Asphyxious soared above the battle. His attendant angels cut a path of annihilation that he flowed along, stopping momentarily to pierce a soul vessel left unwatched. To his pleasure, he could still harvest the spirit within.
“The battle bodes ill,” he said to his companions. Ill for thee, he silently added. The clockwork armies would dash each other to bits, but Asphyxious would prevail, no matter the outcome.
“The Archnumen calls for aid,” called the one named Hypatia.
So she did. The woman cut her way to the head of the serpent. Blood from her living flesh stood out against her steel armor. She was relentless, pressing forward to where her mother stood like a machine goddess in Henge Hold’s heart.
He considered leaving the Archnumen to her fate.
“Movement to the north,” one of the other angels said.
“To the east!” cried another.
Friend or foe, Asphyxious wondered. If the former, it would be better to be seen by Aurora’s side.
If the latter, he suspected it wouldn’t matter soon.
***
Aurora climbed the stone steps leading to the heart of Henge Hold. The gate her mother built filled the air with a thin wail and warped the light like a lens.
“Stand down, Mother!” she shouted.
Iron Mother was flanked by a throng of clockwork priests. Lucant was among them, as was Orion. An army of vectors held their weapons steady on Aurora.
“I have tolerated your childishness for far too long,” Iron Mother said. “You will not rob us of this moment.”
“You will not rob us of a future,” Aurora shouted back.
“Enough. Axis, deal with her,” her mother said. He moved forward, hammers ready to strike her down.
The clockwork priests turned back to the gate, preparing it to call Cyriss. Its sound rose from a whine to a roar.
“Guard up. Watch your opponent, not his weapon,” Axis rumbled, still treating her like his charge.
Aurora readied her lance. “Shut up, old man.”
***
Asphyxious and the angels descended like falling stars.
First, among the clockwork priests, who fell like grass beneath the scythe. Too focused on carrying out their mistress’ orders to keep watch on the skies.
Then, to the warcasters. Flocks of angels swooped around them, pulses of energy scorching and blades flashing.
Asphyxious was much more selective.
His annihilation servitors struck Iron Mother in quick succession, a moment before he plunged his spear through her body. A mortal wound against a mortal target, yet Iron Mother was anything but. She fought back, slashing at him with her cloak of blades.
He flickered behind her before they could land, turning to unleash hellfire. The flames rendered Iron Mother’s blades to slag, leaving her open to a thrust at her soul vessel.
Aurora watched Asphyxious about to destroy Iron Mother.
“Stop!” she cried. Axis turned his attention to the damaged Iron Mother.
“Look thee beyond the battlefield,” Asphyxious said. “Others draw near. We must be swift.”
Iron Mother cast her eyes on Aurora. “Do it. We both know it is what you want.”
Before Aurora could respond, voices called out. The fighting slowed as both forces saw what approached.
Machines glided forward, strange masses of Convergence machinery bearing erratically built structures akin to steamships. Before them was a whirl of colors. Cygnaran blue and Khadoran red to the west. The yellow of Ord to the north. A drab procession of citizens among them.
Thousands moved on the gate. Tired, dirty refugees drawn by their courage and a faint glimmer of hope.
Aurora and the others were silent for a while, watching the masses congregate. There were more people than she could have imagined; there were fewer than she desired.
Aurora turned to her wounded mother. In a voice just above a whisper, she said, “This, Mother. This is what I want.”
***
In the bowels of forgotten Ios, two figures awaited their captive. The tools that had once held a dragon’s soulstone prisoner were ready. The unlikely pair, Lord Arbiter Hexeris and Lord Ghyrrshyld, both possessed unique experience suited to the task ahead.
The door to the chamber opened.
The hooded Iosan in the door spoke, “Morghoul has succeeded. He’s bringing the prisoner now.”
Ghyrrshyld remained emotionless. Hexeris could not say the same.
“Let us see what this creature can tell us about the soul,” he said.
His Iosan companion turned his empty eyes on the lord arbiter.
“Remember our agreement. The gods come first. You may have what remains.”
***
Ashlynn expected fangs and tentacles. She was prepared to confront the most horrific nightmares possible, the kind that are even more terrifying when seen than when imagined. She assumed her killers would be agony to watch as they bore down on her.
It was worse.
Beyond the throne room door, drenched in infernal blood, stood armored men. Red armor. Men in Khadoran armor led by a smiling homicidal maniac who had devastated Llael years ago with his brutal military invasion. Beside him, a massive bald man, blood covered, in blue armor.
“No,” she hissed. “Not you. Never you.”
“I suppose that means you know me,” said Supreme Kommandant Gurvaldt Irusk, removing his headgear. He gestured to the bald man. “Have you met Major Brisbane of Cygnar?”
“We,” Brisbane grunted, “are familiar.”
***
Behind Ashlynn, the queen suddenly cried out, “For Llael!”
Ashlynn whirled to face her as Kaetlyn de la Martyn drew her dagger across her own throat. “I did not give the word, my Queen!”
Red flashed on both sides of her—a bright line formed across the queen’s throat, expanding rapidly, as a rush of soldiers crushed past Ashlynn and surged toward Kaetlyn as she fell. Ashlynn moved then, barring Irusk with her estoc.
“I know that blade,” Irusk said.
She pointed it at his heart. “You should—it was my father’s. You are the one who killed him. So, I intend to sheath it in your chest.”
Irusk’s infuriating smile didn’t fade. “Perhaps after we save your queen and your people.”
All that kept her from eviscerating the Khadoran was the presence of Brisbane, who watched stoically as Irusk’s soldiers tended the queen’s self-inflicted wound. Still, Ashlynn felt her lip curl in disgust.
“When did you become a part of the Khadoran Empire?” she asked.
“There’s no more Khador,” Siege muttered. “No more Cygnar. No more Llael. There’s the infernals, and then there’s us. You’d better get on board with this if you want to ever see your people again.”
Ashlynn looked at her injured queen, who would not meet her eye.
She moved to the window, her heart heavier than it had been when she expected to die moments ago. The streets below were a mix of old enemies killing new ones—Khadoran soldiers battling infernals. Lightning flashed where Cygnaran troops confronted horrors their own way.
“It’s about survival now,” Siege said. “That’s all it is.”
“Then this isn’t the world I want to live in,” she countered.
Turning from the injured queen, Irusk wiped infernal blood from his unshaven jaw. “I would argue it’s no better or worse than the last one, d’Elyse.”
Ashlynn challenged him with her glare, but Irusk waved her off. “Your sullen look changes nothing. Not the way the world is now or the way we have to see it. We are all dying. We fall like raindrops, by the hundreds of thousands.”
Siege said, “I heard that Caine—”
“I don’t care.” Ashlynn closed her eyes. “And what does your mutant alliance propose we do now? Die as allies instead of enemies?”
As one, Siege and Irusk said, “Henge Hold.”
In a blood-filled voice, the queen, her back set against her throne, gasped. “Henge…Hold.”
Ashlynn thought of the years she’d given to defend and liberate Llael. She thought of her father, whose life had been sacrificed to protect their land. She thought of those who had already fled, their patriotism beginning and ending with their own lives.
“Henge Hold,” she finally said. “Dammit.”
***
This is how the end begins. From the wide sweep of the world, figures of destiny approach the field of reckoning, the field of oblivion. The fates and fortunes off all lie upon their mortal shoulders.
Uncertain about what tomorrow holds, these rare few feel the weight of fate upon them. They stand at the gulf between hope and despair. The divide that splits the future from the past.
They stand united. For now.
—Hermit of Henge Hold
***
The burly warcaster approached Henge Hold, gnawing on a foul cigar. His posture was casual. The presence of Nemo and Asphyxious in their new bodies seemed to faze him not at all.
“King Julius sends his regards,” Drake McBain said.
“But not his army,” Aurora observed.
McBain spat out the cigar, smoothing his moustache with a mailed hand. “Nah. They’re cleaning up the streets of Caspia and Steelwater. I doubt they get this far west.”
Aurora looked out on the Cygnaran refugees—and the mercenaries escorting them. “What have you brought?”
“About three chapters of Steelheads, a crazy Searforge dwarf, and too damn many civilians,” McBain said. “If Julius didn’t agree to my substantial fee, I wouldn’t be here.”
Aurora looked north, to another throng of refugees. “What about them?”
McBain shrugged. “Damiano, I suspect. You can spot the shine of his armor a league off. Some Crucible boys and girls, too.” He gave Aurora a meaningful look. “They weren’t part of my contract. Neither were you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Good. We understand one another.”
The mercenary’s flippant attitude bothered her.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
He shrugged again. “I’m being paid to be here. Rumor is that you are planning something. Maybe you’ll get some people away from all this.”
He gestured, as if to encompass the entire world.
“And if we can?” Aurora asked.
“Those people down there are betting their lives on it,” he said. “Julius thought so, too. Opened the coffers of Cygnar to see them protected. So, here I am.”
Aurora looked on the throng of desperate Cygnarans and their counterparts from Khador and Ord. Dozens of families looked up at the gate in silent desperation.
“Move the people closer to the henge. Prepare a defensive line to the east. Be ready for anything,” she said.
“I always am,” McBain said with a smile.
***
Vlad awoke to the sound of a raven’s croak.
His sword was in his hand before the rheum cleared his eyes. He pointed its tip at the silhouette perched at the foot of his bed.
“Don’t be afraid, little prince,” its voice creaked.
Moonlight through the window rimmed an ancient face, glinted from iron talons.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
The Old Witch of Khador gestured out the window. “Time. Ve can slow its march, but ve cannot stop it. I have held back the clock’s hands as long as I am able.”
He had never heard her voice like this—she sounded tired.
“You need something,” he said.
“Yes. I go south. Vith me go all the bad dreams. You go to Umbrey. Tonight.”
As she spoke, the Old Witch’s words rang in the cool air. There was an irresistible gravity to them.
Vlad couldn’t refuse her, but he needed to know more.
“Why?”
“Your blood knows vhy,” she said. “It burns vith the blood of kings. It pulses to the drumming of hooves. It quickens at the scent of battle.”
The horses in the stables of Stasikov Palace began to whinny.
“What do I need to do?” Vlad asked.
The Old Witch rose, gently running a talon down his jaw. “Oh, little prince. Vhat you are born to do. Lead the horselords to their deaths.”
***
The Oathkeeper appeared in the heart of the gathering.
This was an auspicious meeting, attended by the omnipotents of the Circle Orboros and representatives from each of the three dominions. They stood, silent sentinels, watching and waiting.
“Wurmwood speaks thus,” Cassius began. “The creatures have offered us a compact to ensure our order’s survival in the days ahead. If we stand aside and allow them to claim their due, they agree to leave untouched all among us who do not oppose them.”
The conclave of the Circle’s greatest powers murmured at his words. Furtive glances across the throng spoke of alliances forged in haste, and just as quickly abandoned. The blind Desertwalker called for silence.
“What promise do we have of this offer?” Mohsar asked.
“The Weaver of Shadows has given us an agreement most binding,” Cassius said, “and sealed it with rituals of indestructible nature.”
The druids began to chatter, debating the proposal. Loud voices argued for the pact. Others proposed how to rebuild following this claiming, their opinions gaining traction among the mob.
A stern voice cut through the chatter. “Idiots.”
A slender figure stepped forward, a hood hiding his face. “When a gorax tastes a bit of meat, do you think you can debate it into stopping its feast? Or make accord with a ravenous troll, perhaps?”
The conclave went quiet as the man moved to the center of the circle.
“What know you of such things?” Mohsar asked.
Krueger the Stormwrath pulled back his hood. “About dealing with hungry beasts? Far more than any of you.”
Cassius felt Wurmwood writhe in Krueger’s presence. A mix of anger and anticipation surged through him.
“The Beast of All Shapes hungers,” Krueger said. “Always seeking to devour. These things would strip Caen of its life and leave nothing behind. With nothing else to consume, how long do you think we would survive? I say act now.”
Mohsar shot back, “What do you propose?”
Krueger gestured beyond the conclave to the east, beyond the trees and hills surrounding them.
“There are more hungry things in the world than the Wurm or infernals. I propose we invite them to the feast.”
***
No dawn rose. A swallowing darkness took its place as the infernal masters devoured the light of the sun.
From that shadow came the wailing of a thousand-thousand souls.
The infernals had arrived.
***
Alain Runewood had once been someone noble. An archduke. A lord among lords. A patriot. A commander leading gallant soldiers into battle.
Now he was a lord of ash leading the most evil fiends ever seen in western Immoren to annihilate his former allies.
He sat atop his mount, his faceguard lowered, staring down a hill at the refugees streaming into a crowd gathered on the coast. They came to Henge Hold to find salvation of some sort. But Runewood knew otherwise—they were gathering to expedite their own slaughter.
Valin Hauke rode next to him, the fallen knight’s horse as twisted and unnatural as its rider. At times, Runewood thought of Hauke as a statue; he watched children butchered with a carven, impassive face. Runewood hated his chaperone, but he also envied Hauke’s emptiness.
“Stop it,” Hauke suddenly said.
Surprised, Runewood looked behind them. The lumbering, slithering, crawling, leaping, limping horrors they led were amassed, but they waited obediently. He looked back at Hauke.
“Who do you—?”
Hauke said, “You. Stop pitying them. Now.”
An enshrouded figure approached on foot, seeming to limp and float at the same time. These wretched ones were scattered among their forces, and Runewood wondered if this one had known him in another time—it avoided him every time they were near one another. It judged him.
It hissed something secretly to Hauke, who seemed to translate conservatively for Runewood.
“The Weaver of Shadows comes soon. She brings more forces to tear down their gate,” he said. “We are ordered to claim the ones who’ve come to use it.”
Runewood instinctively scanned the expanse below for this so-called gate, but his attention was quickly captured by a military force gathering to approach. Hammers rose into the sky.
“Dwarves,” Runewood said, scanning them. “I believe Durgen Madhammer is at their head.”
“Kill the head,” Hauke said, “to kill the beast.”
“On my command, we—” Runewood began, but Hauke was already gone, charging down the hill, bellowing. Cultists and monsters streamed around Runewood on both sides as if he were just a rock in a river.
By the time he joined the charge, the first dwarves were already dead.