Henge Hold Scroll: Summation #6

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As many of you probably already know, the initial run for the Henge Hold Scrolls has wrapped up. Our Director of Marketing, lead editor, and Henge Hold writer Mike Ryan wrote an Insider on the subject last week. That being said, keep an eye on the Henge Hold Scroll twitter account, because you never know when another vision might come to the Hermit.

And so without further ado, we present the final Henge Hold Scroll Summation.

***

She scrubbed her hands with the stiff brush, working the boar bristles into her skin until it was raw. Then again into a scalding basin of water.

Feora lifted her dripping fingers to her eyes.

A thin crust of blood remained beneath her nails.

More scrubbing, more rinsing. The hot water stung her hands, made them flushed.

“Traitors,” she said to the empty room. “Every one of them. What was I supposed to do? Allow him to lead them to die in the wilderness? Idiot. Traitor!”

Feora slapped the basin, spraying water across her chamber. Kreoss, too. The man had agreed to aid her but failed to prevent the refugee’s escape. Held back against the traitorous Order of the Wall, forcing her hand.

Her hand. Feora resumed her task with renewed anger. Scrubbing with the brush. Baptizing her hands in what water remained.

The warcaster studied her hands again.

It would not be the last time.

***

Intercessor Kreoss surveyed the collateral damage. No one had bothered to move the bodies of the paladins out of the street, and carrion birds wheeled overhead.

Teams of citizens struggled to put out the smoldering remains of nearby buildings. Devout warjacks, weapons and shields unbolted from their fists, slowly dragged wreckage from the street.

“Any sign of Durst?” Kreoss asked a senior exemplar. The officer froze. His enclosed helmet could not conceal his fear.

“No, Intercessor. We are still searching.”

“It should not be a challenge. The man would be difficult to miss. And Vilmon?”

The exemplar did not meet his eyes.

They exchanged no further words. The man reminded Kreoss of a frightened deer, frozen in place and not knowing if the lion before it was about to strike. When he dismissed the man with a gesture, he all but sprinted away.

Kreoss turned his attention to the spires of the Temple of the Flame.

“What are you doing in there, Feora?” he mused. He envisioned the priestess gathering her loyal lieutenants. Why else would she have left Temple Flameguard to their own devices following the battle?

Yes. That must be her ploy. She was no doubt preparing to dig her talons deeper into the halls of power.

Kreoss tapped a mailed knuckle on his faceplate. Perhaps, he thought, he should begin his own plan to prevent her.

***

This wasn’t the first time the kriels had come to the aid of Cygnar, but Gunnbjorn thought it might be the last.

The United Kriels were just that: united. But he wasn’t sure the Cygnaran commandos under his command appreciated this unity in cleansing Caspia of infernals.

He led both trollkin and Cygnaran forces street-to-street, chasing or being chased by disgusting things brought to life from nightmares. The destruction was widespread; the number of presumably soulless corpses was shocking.

That number consisted of no trollkin, he noted.

He’d made a single offer: all trollkin who would join the airship to the rumored safety of Henge Hold were free to go. He even checked his tone so it contained no judgment. Who could say? Survival of their kind might depend on that flight. Yet none fled.

He would never have said aloud there were those he might have preferred go.

An explosion shook the ground, and a large bluestone wall collapsed, taking a sizable factory’s chimney down with it. His forces ducked for cover, even as Gunnbjorn bellowed the all clear.

“Enough!” he shouted. “You wait for my command before launching even one more attack!”

From atop the snarling dire troll Dozer, the pyg Smigg pretended to grovel. “Yeh, yer commandin’, yerp.”

Gunnbjorn knew Smigg had to be here under his command—in Henge Hold, the pyg would have likely blown up refugees alongside infernals. But the idea of making him and Dozer someone else’s problem held appeal.

Trollkin standards  were hosted skyward once again his group resumed formation. The Cygnaran flag flew among them, though there was one in particular that caught him off guard.

“By Dhunia,” he breathed to himself. “The Hellslingers are here.”

***

He had kept the two of them well in the wake of the United Kriels cleansing Caspia, watching their banners to know when they were engaged. Behind the trollkin, among the dead bodies of infernals, the occasional gremlin crawled forth to frolick.

He paused, glanced at his partner Kushin, and attacked. The gremlin didn’t see him coming, and in moments, he had the hairless thing secured in a thick bag, its claws tied, its face muzzled.

He held up the bag for Kushin to admire, his third today, but she only sighed.

“You are so weird, Wendell,” she said.

***

‘Latest developments compelling but not fruitful.’

Lord Gyrrshyld finished writing the words and looked back over his pages of copious notes.

“You seem disturbed,” Hexeris said, breaking the long silence.

“Not at all,” Gyrrshyld said. “We can conclude that the most advanced weaponry of House Vyre’s arsenal can inflict incredible damage to it.”

“But not destroy it.”

Gyrrshyld sighed. “No.”

Iosan and skorne looked to the master. Gyrrshyld swore he saw a whisper of a smile at its lipless mouth.

“Lord Arbiter, I spent many years as a creature like that. Sustaining itself on the vital essence of others. It is not an overstatement to say I despise that thing.”

The skorne leaned in, smile revealing teeth filed to elegant sharpness. “Allow me to suggest another approach.”

***

Gathering his tools took some time. Hexeris was selective.

Soulless carried in an array of well-used implements, polished until their barbed edges gleamed in the faint light.

“Is this the limit of your imagination?” the void creature wheezed.

Hexeris raised a finger to his lips.

“Bring them in,” he ordered. As they came, he turned his full attention to the prisoner. In his tongue, he said, “These casteless things have volunteered for our experiment. Their families will not suffer the burden of their existence.”

The master squirmed.

“Yes, you must be starving,” Hexeris continued. “But their spirits are too thin to be much of a meal, I’m afraid. Too much time spent under the lash, I fear. But you can still taste them, can’t you?”

The master’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “You seek to poison me with weak essence?”

“Nothing of the sort. These spirits are worthless to you. I, on the other hand, find them quite…nourishing.” Hexeris rested a blade on the flesh of a waiting skorne. “You’ve tasted Iosan science. Let us see how you enjoy my art.”

***

Mortitheurgy was, in Gyrrshyld’s eyes, something to behold.

Hexeris wrung every drop of power out of the harm he inflicted on the volunteers. Gyrrshyld was relieved to have only soulless present to witness it. He doubted any other would have endured the sight.

Slivers of souls became fuel for dark magic. Their prisoner’s twitches increased in frequency and intensity. Gyrrshyld recalled unpleasant memories of his eldritch days and even worse ones from the days before.

Hexeris worked without rest, stopping only for the guards to collect an empty vessel and bring him a fresh one. The number of volunteers the lord arbiter went through grew. All met their fate with stoicism, with something like pride.

The master fared far worse.

Two days later, while Hexeris honed a blade outside the cage, the master finally relented.

“Please,” it said.

Hexeris’ eyes met Gyrrshyld’s. “Ah, at last. Now we can truly begin.”

“Shall I prepare my notes?” Gyrrshyld asked.

***

As if the woes of the world weren’t sufficient, Khador was now dangerously close to civil war, Empress Ayn Vanar knew.

Under other circumstances, she would assume victory and let the war erupt. But things were radically different now. She had to be wise.

The infernal invasion had necessitated closing the borders and cleansing the kingdom of the infestation. Cygnar faced a similar problem. Rhul and Ios had fallen silent such that even rumors had dried up. The tales coming out of Cryx were simply unbelievable.

She imagined the rulers in the lands of the Protectorate saw this as end of days, and for all she knew, they could be right.

And finally, there was the matter of the gathering at Henge Hold and what it might mean for the future of western Immoren.

But now… Now there was Great Princess Regna Gravnoy, who served the infernals and their invasion.

Assassination was preferable to war, but the empress was beginning to think manipulation was more preferable still.

If she could control Regna, she could access her infernal masters. And if she could undermine their plans or even guide their actions, she could change the seemingly inevitable outcome of this invasion.

She stared out over the dozen agents of Regna whom Orsus had uncovered.

For days, he’d been hunting, absent as her protector. And when he returned with the agents as prisoners, she thought Orsus had at last devolved too far to save. She wondered if he would need to be chained to control the wild-eyed fury he seemed to be losing the battle to.

He’d been rough with them, as evidenced by their wounds, but they were alive. She was pleased—Khadorans had an undeserved reputation outside the kingdom of being indiscriminate when it came to killing their own. Not so. And not here.

“You live,” she said to them, watching the guards around them step back so it was clear to whom she spoke, “because my gentle giant was merciful.”

Behind them, Orsus snarled something that sounded distinctly violent.

The agents, one of them a teenage girl, huddled together.

“I know you serve the White ‘Queen’, and she serves dark masters from beyond Caen,” she  said. “But here is the secret none of you know: those dark masters serve me.”

The bluff had the effect she wanted—they looked stricken, surprised, confused. The girl wept.

“And that is why I will send you all home alive,” she said.

More surprise. The teenage girl, whom Orsus had brought from beyond the city walls and who was unknown to the empress, wiped her eyes. She kept her head down and looked the part of captured spy.

She would serve them well, Orsus had said. She would do everything they asked, even if it ended with assassination after all.

The empress believed him because the Butcher vouched for no one.

***

Pyrrhus approached the Priestess of the Flame alone. The rare breach of protocol was not done to protect himself—rather, to protect his fellows. They had not seen her like…this.

Feora’s mask face snapped up as he came near. It was expressionless, but the eyes behind the mask were not.

“Spit it out,” she hissed.

“Exemplar gather in great numbers. The Intercessor has recalled High Exemplar Cyrenia from the field. The Wrath of Ages joins them.”

The priestess let out a long hiss, the sound of a laborjack bleeding excess steam.

“The ‘Intercessor’ should tread carefully. Bring me the Flame of Sorrow.”

That she called for an assassin was troubling. That she called for Thyra was more so.

“Mistress.” Pyrrhus cleared his throat. “She pursues the traitor Durant and his followers. On your orders.”

Feora clenched a gloved fist, letting slip a pained moan. “Nicia. Bring me Nicia, then.”

Pyrrhus did not respond at first. Rumors of the Tear of Vengeance’s new loyalties had reached even him.

“As you command,” he said. Feora dismissed him with a jerking gesture, rubbing the hand that troubled her. Strands of her hair had come free and dangled before her mask.

As the hero of the Flameguard gently closed the door behind him, he looked over the attendant protectors of the temple waiting outside. None dared to speak.

“Let none but myself or The Burning Truth enter,” he ordered.

A woman among them raised her voice. “What shall you do?”

Pyrrhus stared at the door behind him. Imagining the woman behind it, he said, “My duty.”

***

Gunnbjorn thought it was extreme arrogance to fly a banner—the Hellslingers were a strike force at best and were supposed to be secret operatives at least. They were not an army.

In fact, there were only two of them.

Ryan did all the talking. Watts just sat on a nearby rock, fiddling with his magelock rifle and looking uncomfortable. They both looked like death warmed over.

“So,” Gunnbjorn said, “where is he?”

When they hesitated, he weighed the idea of putting his bazooka in their faces. They’d flown a banner to get his attention, and now that they had it, they didn’t want to talk. He could only think of one reason why.

“Is he dead?”

Ryan shook her head. Watts looked up with a glare that implied Gunnbjorn had said something sacrilegious. And when Ryan finally spoke, Gunnbjorn began to put the pieces together.

“Last we saw him was in Blackwater. He’s raised an army to save his daughter,” she said in a rush. “She was stolen from him and taken to the Scharde Islands.”

“He’s there. You’re here,” Gunnbjorn said.

“Deneghra is the only person who knows where she is,” Watts grumbled. “She’s arsed off to Henge Hold to fight. He sent us to pick up something he stowed in Caspia.”

“We’re supposed to meet him at the henge,” Ryan added.

“We got nothing that belongs to him,” Gunnbjorn said.

“We’re here for his old warjack,” Ryan said. She paused and studied him. “That, and you.”

Gunnbjorn gave her a suspicious glower.

“Well, people like you,” she clarified. “He said we should grab anyone capable in a fight who might want to see the world survive another day. People who will put a boot in the infernals’ asses, so he can save his daughter. He wants people like you to help. Will you?”

She stopped to catch her breath, and Watts waited expectantly, as if the answer were a foregone conclusion. So, Gunnbjorn asked the most obvious question.

“Who on Caen would be desperate enough to have a child with Allister Caine?”

***

“Is it always so empty?” Hexeris asked.

They traveled the wide highway leading to the heart of Ios, the Fane of Scyrah. Other than watchful soulless sentinels like mile markers along the way, it was devoid of life.

“No, but nearly so,” Ghyrrshyld said.

He looked back at their captive. A pair of myrmidons acted like pack beasts, hauling the wagon that carried its arcane prison. After Hexeris’ ministrations, the creature had told them much—enough to warrant the risk they now chanced.

Uncertainty gnawed at Ghyrrshyld. A scratching sensation settled at the back of his mind, growing as they drew closer to the fane. He realized his skorne companion was looking at him expectantly.

“I apologize. My mind was elsewhere,” Ghyrrshyld said. “Did you ask something?”

“Do you believe its words?” Hexeris repeated. “I could slice away parts of its spirit, drain away what it had stored, but skorne who endure similar often lie to make it stop.”

“Of course I don’t,” Ghyrrshyld replied. “But I lack other options.”

***

Agathon’s prisoners led them to an ostentatious building flanked by silvery-green forests. They were weak, not as weak as they led their captors to believe, but weak nonetheless.

They had discerned the purpose of their treatment by inquiries in the final hours of their abuse.

One sought how the infernal’s essence could be repurposed to revitalize the lingering gods of the Veld. The other desired knowledge of a soul’s dissolution—and Agathon’s method of its use.

The first had won, for now. Agathon was to stoke the weakened spirit of the god waiting within.

They could feel its spirit, tinted with the flavors of new life and rebirth. But muted, weakened. Frail.

Agathon could sense something else within the building. Something that kindled their spirit. Something that made them smile.

***

“Our instructions were clear,” Ghyrrshyld growled.

“Instructions I don’t recall agreeing with,” said Lyesse Uithuyr. The priest regarded their procession with disdain. “You shall not stain the goddess’ presence with…this thing.”

If Hexeris was offended, he did not show it.

“You know who I am,” Ghyrrshyld said, “and what I am. You are endangering monumental work.”

“Yes, I am aware who you are and what you’ve done. I do not question the wisdom of the gods. Nor do I take their safety lightly.”

The priest brushed the air near his head as if swatting at a troublesome fly.

“Not all are ready to throw ourselves down to praise you,” the priest continued. “Some of us haven’t forgotten the war you started.”

***

Yes, thought Agathon. Not an offer, not a command, but a whisper to the mind of this one.

Yes, they thought again. This is your house. You have warriors. Defend it.

***

“If you refuse to stand aside, we will take action,” Ghyrrshyld warned. His hand went to the hilt of Voass and fingers of ice crept up his gauntlet.

Uithuyr stood his ground. “You entered here unwelcome once, Goreshade. You will not do so again.”

Behind the priest, the entrance to the fane filled with guardians.

***

Agathon worked with a speed fueled by desperation.

You are a great protector, they whispered. I can make you greater.

You are a wise priest, they whispered. None shall ever question you again.

They resisted. Of course they did. But the more these mortals pushed against them, the greater an offering Agathon suggested.

Bit by bit, the Whisperer in Darkness discerned the cracks in their spirits and levered them open.

***

“Lord Arbiter, prepare yourself,” Ghyrrshyld said. He drew Voass, plunging the area into an icy cold.

Hexeris gripped his gulgata. “I have no beasts.”

“Then we shall make do.”

***

Agathon watched with growing glee as the fane’s guardians surged forth. They stood little chance against the master’s captors, but it wasn’t their prowess Agathon required.

An errant spear, touched with the goddess’ blessing, impacted the cage.

It was not much, a mere nick in the arcane metal, but it would do. The goddess could not shield the souls Agathon had marked. As the Iosan and skorne warriors cut them down, Agathon fed.

The Whisperer in Darkness burst from the weakened prison glutted with souls. They wove together essence to forge lesser infernals, shadow warriors that distracted Ghyrrshyld and Hexeris.

Agathon did not wait to see the outcome.

They fled west. To Zaateroth.

To Henge Hold.

***

Ghyrrshyld was furious. It was a rare breach of his calm.

“Wait,” Hexeris said, in an effort to restore the Iosan’s peace. “Not all is lost.”

“If you know something—”

Hexeris offered a faint smile. “It has fled, but it cannot escape.”

The skorne produced a sliver of glowing stone, offering it to Ghyrrshyld. “A wounded basilisk returns to its nest. I have a piece of its…blood.”

“You kept a piece of it,” the Iosan whispered. “When you were working, you cut off a piece of its essence?”

Hexeris nodded.

“And we can find where it’s going. We can follow it.”

“Back to its nest,” Ghyrrshyld said.

“Back to the others.”

“Get your beasts,” Ghyrshylld said, “and assemble your warriors. We don’t have time to waste.”

***

She could not speak Khadoran, though she could understand it. In fact, she could not speak at all. She had been mute since her mother had died years ago. In the “care” of the estate owner where she was then enslaved, she’d had even fewer reasons to speak.

And when the Butcher slaughtered them, she’d been alone in the world with no one to talk to anyway.

Yet he had continued to appear in her life—at first, with food and coin, then with a woman who treated her kindly. A woman who gave her shelter. A woman who was with the kayazy.

She saw less of him over the years, but each time she did, she thought he’d become more feral. The last time, he’d struggled to explain what he wanted her to do. For him. For Khador. It was as if he’d forgotten she was Ordic.

She would do it anyway. Because she loved him.

Now she was being escorted, alongside a dozen others, into the presence of Great Princess Regna Gravnoy. The others were spies, sent by Regna to lay a foundation for conquest in Empress Vanar’s court. This was not her role, however. She was here to sway Regna. Or kill her.

Regna walked the line, conferring in low tones with each of them, until she reached the girl.

“You are not one of mine,” Regna said. She did not sound surprised. “Who are you?”

The girl handed the great princess the first note she had prepared.

I AM BRATYA.

Regna smiled. “I assume there is more?”

The second note: I AM ORSUS ZOKTAVIR’S DAUGHTER.

And the third: HE IS NOW ONE WITH THE INFERNAL MASTERS.

And the last: SAVE US.

***

Ayn Vanar felt control slipping away from her.

Her plans to lure Regna south, drawn by a belief that her infernal masters were active in Stasikov Palace, no longer mattered. The tales of refugees and gates and unfathomable alliances no longer mattered either.

By the time Orsus responded to her command to join her at court, she had dried her eyes and allowed the burning rage to enflame her chest. She would cry again at a later time; for now, her tears evaporated in the heat of her fury.

“Word has come,” she said. “Vlad is dead.”

She had no expectation of a reaction from Orsus—his emotions were those of a rabid dog on a weakened chain. Still, she was taken aback when he spoke.

“Too bad. What now?”

“Now—” she said but stopped. What was “now” at all? “Now” was an empty space that she could no longer fill. Vlad had been the only one who could help her do that.

“Now,” she finally continued, “I want the ones who killed him to suffer. I want to go to Henge Hold.”

She expected him to resist—she was not meant for the battlefield—so he surprised her yet again.

“Good,” he said. “Regna?”

A slow feeling of purpose rose in her. She stood, dizzy but in control again.

“When she gets here,” she said, “we’ll have her imprisoned.”

The Butcher scowled. “Killed.”

Empress Ayn Vanar faked a smile. “One step at a time, Orsus. Given her choice of allies, she may well be dead before she even gets here.”

***

“Intercessor, is this the best course?” High Exemplar Cyrenia asked.

Kreoss kept his eyes on the Temple of the Flame. “You weren’t there. She was merciless with the paladins and the lives of her Flameguard.”

“I heard a bit. Others say the Synod is discussing her fate.”

Kreoss was not impressed. “Yet again. The priestess seems immune to the consequences of her actions.”

Their Exemplar and warjacks advanced. The rattling of their armored tread reflected from the walls of Sul. A vanguard of errants cleared the streets of civilian refugees.

He would not let Feora repeat that mistake.

“And if the Synod rules in her favor, what will we do?” Cyrenia asked.

“If that happens, I will abide by their decision and face the consequences. As any true Menite would do,” Kreoss replied.

They converged with Reznik and his soldiers before the Temple of the Flame. Flameguard stood before the brazen gates as a hedge of spear and shield.

Kreoss spurred his mount to meet with the one at their lead, Malekus.

“By order of the Hierarch, I am Intercessor. It is my duty and right to prosecute the military strength of Sul. I come for the Priestess of the Flame.”

The Burning Truth’s breath wheezed out of his mask. “She is busy.”

“Your loyalty to her is noted, Malekus. But I will not hesitate to cut you down if you are in my way.”

The Burning Truth chuckled, a harsh, ugly sound. “Go on. Speed my way to the City of Man.”

The warcaster’s favored ′jack, the Eye of Truth, moved to protect its ward.

“Unlike her, I will not enjoy this,” Kreoss said.

He readied his spear Conviction and summoned Fire of Salvation to his side.

Before Kreoss could strike, the doors of the temple flew open.

Feora rode out wreathed in flames. Leaving a trail of living fire in her wake, she parted the temple guardians and charged the Intercessor. Hand of Judgement was with her, spraying Menoth’s Fury at Kreoss.

The Exemplar and Flameguard did not await an order. They crashed together in the shadow of the temple.

Once more, there was blood in the streets of Sul.

***

Pyrrhus watched his priestess and master hurl herself at fellow Sul-Menites. Her voice was a hoarse scream.

It had all happened too fast. Too fast for him to prevent it. But he might still be able to stop it.

Feora had lost her way. The escaped refugees eroded her control, forced her into the brutal murder of many. He hoped that she would go peacefully with the Exemplar.

She’d had other ideas.

Pyrrhus knew his duty.

Two lives for the soul of the people seemed like a fair trade.

Pyrrhus hefted his spear and waded through the storm of swords and flames. The Exemplars’ weapons found him time and again, tearing through his armor and flesh.

Blood-slick, he turned away enemy strikes with his heavy shield. When someone blocked his path, he wove around them or battered them aside with the head of his flame spear.

By the time he reached Feora, she was hacking at Kreoss, engulfing them both in fire.

The hero of the Flameguard cocked back his arm, set his eyes on his target, and let fly.

Two lives. Hers and mine.

His strength left him before he could see if the spear struck its mark.

***

They were marching, marching to Henge Hold, marching to the battle there. They were a sizable army, more than capable of having their way with war.

But Gunnbjorn was still undecided what he would do when they arrived.

The gate was not Gunnbjorn’s idea of a final resolution—it struck him as escape, not victory. But many others were convinced of its necessity.

This is how we dissolve as a nation, he thought bitterly.

A long rider, serving as a scout, approached him and dismounted.

“Blackclads,” the rider said. “Just ahead. Their leader would speak with you.”

Gunnbjorn resisted snarling. “No more allies. We aren’t here to protect everyone else.”

Still, he went out to meet them.

He could see from a distance there were actually quite a few of them, spread out in a manner meant to intimidate. But Gunnbjorn hardly felt threatened by leaf eaters.

A woman broke from the line to meet him astride a wolf bigger than any he could recall seeing before.

“I am Kaya,” she said.

“I am not interested,” Gunnbjorn said. “You’re in my way.”

She shrugged, dismissing this. “You go to the place of the gate. We are here to accompany you.”

“With your dog and your pointed stick? Go back to your gardens and leave the fighting to soldiers.”

Kaya smiled and gestured at the tree line. A savage warpwolf stepped into view, flesh shifting to produce long spines. “I have other weapons, no?”

Before he could reply, she waved him off. “The Iron Kingdoms are no more. The invaders have seen to that. Whether we wish it, we are all one people now. And as much as you, we have every reason to live, if it’s here or elsewhere.”

Her wolf growled as if it understood.

“We do not ask for your protection, nor do we offer ours,” she said. “But if the time comes when it’s needed, I do not doubt it will be given. So, if you do not wish to coordinate with us, we will have to discuss our battle plans while under attack on the field.”

Gunnbjorn grunted, muttered to her under his breath, and turned away. He refused to look back, though he could feel the eyes of her and her people boring into his shoulderblades.

Leaf eaters, he thought again.

A short while later, he rejoined his army, where Ryan of the Hellslingers greeted him. Soldiers gathered ’round them to hear their captain’s orders.

“Well?” she asked. “Who are they?”

Gunnbjorn shrugged. “New allies. Who talk too much.”

***

Midwinter could feel his very presence expand with each soul he claimed, a sensation like a glass of wine that finally tipped one over into drunkenness. So, he could not fathom Hauke’s personal fury with the Khadoran warcaster who had tried to kill him in a crevasse.

Yet his empathy returned in a furious rush when Midwinter saw Asheth Magnus alongside what appeared to be an aberrant glory hound Coleman Stryker.

“So be it,” Midwinter muttered and began to carve his way toward them.

***

“I taught him that!” Magnus shouted to anyone in earshot. He grinned as the Stryker archon decimated multiple horned infernals in two swift blows. “That’s my boy!”

Above him, the Cloudpiercer cast a long shadow as it reached the gate and began to disappear through it.

“Be safe,” he said, turning away from its departure, his grin fading. It felt like an ending to a tale, the refugees saved, the story wrapping up.

Then he saw Midwinter murdering his way across the battlefield toward him.

“Come get me,” he muttered, “my epilogue.”

***

I will not weep I will not weep I will not weep.

Every time Marshal General Baldwin Gearhart gunned down another cultist or howler, clearing a path ahead of him, he repeated this mental admonishment.

I will not weep I will not—

Mr. Clogg was heavy on his back. He knew the smart thing to do was to leave his body behind, but it was not the right thing.

—weep I will not weep I—

As he neared the gate, he could not hear the gatorman coming up behind him nor could he feel the tears on his own face.

***

There was something coming. Something big, nasty, powerful. Barnabas could almost smell it. Something rising among the invaders.

Something he could kill.

More important, something he could call apotheosis.

A path among victims cleared before him, and he charged down it.

Everywhere he could reach along the way, he found another victim. They crunched, splintered, snapped. He could feel his strength rising.

He was just thinking the gate ahead was still somehow important when a girl in white floated into reach. So, he reached for her.

***

She could feel the whispers of the Guardian birthing into the world, crawling up out of every shadow, seeping forth from the cracks of the world.

Already its power grew. It swelled to encompass her own, its essence like a dead star to eclipse the world.

Yoked to her spirit, every blade and spell, every bullet that found her form, could be shunted into the Guardian’s infinite expanse.

Zaateroth allowed herself to become insubstantial, to pass through the last line of defenders surrounding the gate.

Her prize was in reach.

 ***

A massive warjack with the Black Anchor logo on it began to hum with renewed power, catching Roget d’Vyaros by surprise. He had to concede he didn’t know much about warjacks, but he knew a warcaster was nearby.

He turned to scan just as the Blockader swatted him like a bug.

He could not remember such pain before. He landed in agony, curling up to contain a scream, as the Blockader rose to its full height and stepped toward him. A shadow joined the warjack, chuckling.

“Now where did you find this?” a voice asked.

Roget looked up into a battle-scarred face with a thick brown mustache. The man grinned almost maniacally as he picked up the cigar knocked from Roget’s lips.

“Well, damned good of you,” Drake MacBain said, “it’s still lit. But I like to light it myself, you know.”

He ground it out in on Roget’s exposed forehead.

 ***

Her presence muffled the sound of battle the way snowfall deadens sound.

Sorscha walked through a gallery of frozen statues. An aura of killing cold stretched out from her, rendering everything to brittle ice.

She cut down those who tried to flee with the wrath of winter, letting their shattered corpses fall in glittering fragments of ice.

Beast trailed behind her, pulverizing frozen bodies beneath its tread. Together, the pair advanced on Sorscha’s target. The only thing on the battlefield she cared about. The willowy infernal creature that had earned her wrath.

 ***

Our enemies are twofold, the Harbinger prayed as she neared the gate. Menoth, grant me power to do what must be done to the first and your soldiers strength to defeat the second.

Menoth was with her, she knew. The gate would fall, and souls about to be lost would be saved.

But she did not react quickly enough to the will and warning of the Creator. Her very being trembled to receive the glory of Menoth, but she could not heed the admonition in time.

A claw slashed across her face, and her blindfold fell away.

***

The gate is ours, Omodamos conveyed to the other masters. The Guardian rises. The end is upon us.

And yet souls still defied him. A man encased in armor, a small soul in an enormous machine. A warwitch more dead than alive. And the one who had died twice already.

And somewhere still was that time witch. But first, these three.

He tore free from the shadows they had set against him, pleased by their surprise, and struck at the warwitch and the lich to take their souls at last.

He was not prepared to be surprised himself.

***

He stoked his armor’s boiler until his skin blistered. Treading through a mire of mud, blood, and corpses, Karchev slammed his full weight into the Black Gate.

The impact sent them both flying into lesser infernals and soldiers, their combined mass flattening bodies.

Grappling the infernal with his steam-powered fist, Karchev hacked at its masked head. Sunder rose and fell, dripping with its corrupted blood.

Karchev kept chopping.

He poured every ounce of his rage into the attacks until his axe buried itself deep into the soil.

Gasping, Karchev struggled to his feet and stumbled back.

The infernal’s broken, bleeding head began to coalesce.

Power built within the warcaster, swelling with his rage. An eruption of arcane power exploded with his frustrated scream.

“Why won’t you stay dead?”

 ***

Karchev is done, Asphyxious scoffed. Count not on Khador to do what Cryx does better.

But as the infernal master before him turned the land black and the air dark, Asphyxious thought, I did not gain this new form to surrender it to the likes of thee.

Beyond the gate, he knew, waited mortals in need of his rule. Let the others remain on this side, fighting an never-ending chain of infernalists and infernal masters. In fact, if the gate could be destroyed from beyond…

He turned, and there stood Deneghra.

“If you want to be a god to rule men,” she hissed, “do it here. Flee, and you leave it to Menoth, Morrow, Cyriss, or that.”

She indicated the infernal master.

“All will obey you, and all will loathe you. Except me. Would you betray my loyalty by leaving Caen behind?”

What do thee know of gods? Asphyxious thought bitterly, but he turned back to the battle against the infernal master.

***

Aurora stood between the rippling tides of the gate and the imperious infernal. Her spear felt feeble and ineffective against this… this thing. But she would die to keep it back even a moment longer.

The Weaver of Shadows reached out to her, foul runes forming as she evoked a spell of darkness.

A trio of lightning strikes flashed, rocking the infernal back as they struck.

Exponent servitors swarmed it, scorching its flesh with their aperture beams.

On either side of Aurora, her mother and father joined her. Both their bodies were battered, but they attacked without hesitation.

***

Krueger directed the fury of Orboros against the infernals, calling down a field of lightning that banished their unnatural shadows in flashes of blue-white brilliance. His woldwardens smote the infernal beasts with their massive rune-covered fists.

Piece by piece, the Stormlord began to disassemble the formations of the infernal army’s back ranks, destroying their commanders and casting the rest into disorder.

He could feel the world stir. He had caught the attention of natural chaos.

From the bones of the earth, two figures rose. Twin archons of primal power.

***

The Voice in the Darkness fled. From shadow to shadow, they crossed the world. They could feel the mortals sniffing on their trail.

I must find help, Agathon thought.

On the western coast, Agathon could sense the eminence of Zaateroth and the Black Gate and a profundity of souls. If they could reach them, there would be enough to regain strength, to summon an army. Enough to destroy those who came so close to destroying them.

They had to be swift. Agathon’s pursuers drew ever closer.

***

On Baldwin Gearhart’s back, Mr. Clogg moved.

Gearhart initially refused to believe it was so—it must have been a death rattle from his manservant’s lifeless lungs. Or perhaps it was just the body shifting in the harness he had fashioned.

But then Clogg moved again.

As quickly as possible, Gearhart lowered him, swallowing the glee that rose in his chest. Best not to give the old boy too much ego boosting for surviving.

“I say, Clogg old boy,” he said gruffly, “would it be asking too much for you to stand on your own two—?”

Clogg was enveloped in a sickly yellow glow that spit tendrils of green. All around the two of them, others pulsed with the same light, struggling to their feet despite horrific injuries or obvious death blows.

“Here now, Clogg,” he whispered. “What’s all this, then?”

Even if Clogg had been alive to answer, Gearhart would not have known what the word meant.

Witchfire.

***

From the dying horse, the Guardian took strength, stamina, and the shriek of its voice.

Clawing its way up from the pit, it spread tendrils across the battlefield. Flowing over and into nearby corpses, it absorbed the spirits of dying warriors: their memories, their fears.

The Guardian’s shape began to form.

There was so much glowing essence here—more than it could have wished.

From the floundering spark of the wounded down to the pinprick lights of single cells, this realm contained multitudes. The Guardian welcomed every mote of life into its darkened form.

But what form? It flowed over a scuttling insect and toyed with many legs, with an armored shell. It threaded a piece of itself through the collapsing lungs of a man’s crushed torso, enjoying the arc of ribs and flesh of his organs.

The Guardian felt the tug of its reins toward the Weaver, the one called Zaateroth. She would guide its actions.

But she would not dictate its form.

Spreading like a slow tide, the Guardian picked over the terrors of dying men and women. Across its inky surface, it played with the faces of their loved ones and orphaned children.

No, these would not do.

The Guardian flowed from one shape to the next, but none of them suited its purpose. No horror these mortals could fathom could contain its power for long.

The Guardian paused, flowing from every crack and crevice of shadow, out of every split skull and dead man’s mouth. Cyclonic in form, it coalesced in the heart of the fighting, drinking in the whispering spirits of the dead and the fragile touch of the light.

If I cannot be one thing, then I shall be them all, it thought. The thought pleased the Guardian.

It informed Zaateroth it was ready.

***

There is a world beyond Everblight, Saeryn had said, where he is not welcome.

Rhyas was conflicted. Her sister knew they were in disfavor with the dragon for past indiscretions, so a world without him may be one to conquer. Or one to flee to.

Rhyas would not flee.

They stood hip-deep in bodies both dead and dying, allies and enemies, infernals and not. The gate was so close, Saeryn could hurl her spear through it, were she so foolish.

And Rhyas thought she could be. Her sister, the Omen of Everblight, was shaded by doubt now.

They were long separated from the gatormen they had arrived with. Saeryn had guided them on a bloody path to within striking distance of the gate, and Rhyas did not challenge her. Still, she wondered if that part of her sister she could not read was now leading them.

“The Messiah will come,” Saeryn said to her.

Rhyas said, “He is no longer one with us.”

Saeryn pointed with the tip of her spear at the gate. “Still, he cannot resist this for the same reasons I cannot.”

Rhyas was about to ask why when Saeryn raced for the gate.

She was briefly lost in the waves of refugees fleeing, her spear high enough that Rhyas could still track her. But she was blighted and she was Nyss—the refugees scattered from her proximity, and Rhyas watched her sister cast aside the spear as the reached the gate.

It was a betrayal of Everblight, and not one that would be misconstrued, as had been their acts at the end of the Great Hunt.

This was abandonment.

As Saeryn passed through the gate, a great light enveloped her. Running, Rhyas reached down for her sister’s spear.

There was a sound like the gate taking a great breath, and then a flash. Refugees cried out, scattering, momentarily deafened and blinded. Rhyas could still see where Saeryn had vanished, but worse, she could see the bloodied shard left behind in her sister’s wake.

Saeryn’s athanc. Her piece of the dragon.

The blood and flesh on it spoke to how violently it had been ripped from her body.

Rhyas picked it up, her hand trembling. Refugees gave her a wide berth as they continued to flee through that gate that had consumed her sister.

Rhyas, Sigil of Everlight, one of the Talons of the dragon, clutched her sister’s athanc to her chest.

She wailed.

***

There is not much of the scroll left to decipher. Beyond this, my ability to tell what it truly is from what might be wanes. Still, as they come to this place where I, too, will make a last stand, fine lines etch themselves anew into the scroll.

There will be more to tell.

I do not need to see the twisted runes to know death is coming for many. Yet those twisted runes come just the same. And soon enough, despite my reservations, I will read and transcribe those runes. While I live.

But will there be anyone alive to hear me?

The battlefield that was once my home is now littered with the soulless, both moving and still. Great enemies ally to face even greater enemies. I see them all, even from where I approach the henge. And they see me. Some of them, far more powerful than I, are coming for me.

I have done all I can for the world. It has not done all it can for me, but these are the prices one pays to know what I know.

I should be afraid right now. They approach with fury in their eyes.

But I am tired. And I am uncertain if I—

TO BE CONTINUED

***

He perched on the deck of the Coiled Serpent. She was an elegant ship, fine as a rare wine. Around him, the crew pulled on ropes and trimmed sheets. Doing sailor stuff, he presumed.

He never pretended to be a sailor. His skills were in a far different field.

He busied himself by cleaning his guns. That was something he understood. A good, oiled gun was reliable, the way he was confident the captain of the ship thought her vessel was. Take care of your tools, and they’ll take care of you.

One of the officers threaded her way through the crew. She stood, no, she hovered near him, looking for an excuse to strike up a conversation.

“I heard that you—”

“You heard wrong,” Caine muttered.

The Satyxis tripped over her tongue. He didn’t intend to be brusque, but he tired of rumors and speculation. Stories about him seemed to gather like flies on dung.

Caine changed tack. “I’ve heard,” he stressed, “that there were three of those things. One’s gone missing.”

The Satyxis nodded, her horns threatening to knock in his skull. “Aye. The worst two are at the hold, so the scrying says.”

Caine grunted. “Put some cat blood in a bowl and call it a day, did yeh? Damn scrying. Takes all the fun out of a fight.”

She puzzled at him as he lifted one pistol and then the next, squinting down the barrel to check the polish of his front sights.

“The two there match any warrior in skill. So says the hag.”

“I bet,” Cain replied. He fished for a file to hone a dull spot out of his sight.

“Our admiral has agreed to help you,” she pressed, “but you haven’t shared your planning with her.”

Caine fought a smile. “Ravenmane knows better. My plan is pretty cut and dry.”

The Satyxis stood there, chewing her lip. Caine watched her curiosity override her discretion.

“So what do you plan to do?” she asked.

Caine shrugged. “Two infernals. Two guns. I figure I’ll start shooting, and I won’t stop until one of us is dead.” He looked east, to the growing line of Immoren’s shore. “After all, it’s worked so far.”

Read Part 5 Here

HORDES, Insider, Iron Kingdoms, WARMACHINE, Web Extra
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