02 - Dragonmage Read online

  A WARHAMMER NOVEL

  DRAGONMAGE

  Storm of Magic - 02

  Chris Wraight

  (A Flandrel & Undead Scan v1.0)

  This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

  At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl-Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

  But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering World’s Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever near, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

  PROLOGUE

  The eastern horizon glows nightshade-blue, then lavender, then ochre. The world turns. The Orb of the Makers rotates gently through the void, tracing the pattern of the Great Dance, just as it has done since the steps were laid down by those long departed.

  It all moves. It all changes.

  A new day. Much like all the others those eyes have seen, and they have seen so many.

  They do not blink, not like a human’s eyes would blink. Once every twelve heartbeats, a sliver of translucent flesh flicks across yellow sclera. There are no lids to lower. Folds of forest-green skin, mottled with tough knots of glandular eruptions, roll away from the jawline. A vast belly sags against the stone floor, cream-white like bone, gravid and misshapen. Huge hands rest against the curve of it, the long fingers extended.

  The watcher sees the first sliver of gold as the sun breaks the lip of the world’s edge. It sees the mist of the morning curl upwards, steaming from the tree canopy. It is already hot. As the sun rises, the air will shimmer with more of the wet, close heat. The sun’s fuel will warm the watcher’s blood, stirring its sinews into movement, animating the formidable mind within that domed, jowled head.

  The watcher sits in a courtyard of stone. The glyphs on the stone are worn. Cracks run from the flagstones of the square, up the steep-pitched steps of the pyramid behind it, up to the summit and its narrow corbelled arches.

  The watcher, hunched at the base of the pyramid stairs, pays the courtyard no attention. Its eyes are on the horizon, and they are as fixed and rigid as the axis of the world. They look out intently, watching the corona of colours flicker around the rising sun, colours no mortal would ever notice, colours that would send a human mad with desire and horror were he somehow ever to catch a glimpse of them.

  They are growing stronger, those colours. The world’s light refracts through them, distorting and changing. The watcher knows what the colours mean, and what their growth portends. The watcher has been observing the heavens for twelve years, as unchanging as granite, as silent as the black earth under the stone of the temple, determining whether the colours should be responded to, and if so, in what manner.

  And now, as the twelfth year reaches its end and the thirteenth begins, as the sun’s passage traces the dividing line between great cosmic periods, as the heat of the air swells through the trees and the insects circle in the pools of light, the watcher reaches its conclusion.

  From the shadows, other eyes slide open. Frigid, scaly limbs uncurl. Tongues flicker out, drinking in the aromas in the hanging air. They too have been waiting a long time.

  With a dry hiss like the scratch of quill on vellum, bipedal creatures pad into the sunlight. Their skin is pale blue and mottled, bleached to near-white by the baking sun. Wide, golden eyes stare from blank ophidian faces. Vanes and throat-frills waver, blotched and streaked with vivid colour.

  They wait. They stand motionless before the bloated giant in their midst.

  One long finger lifts by a fraction, wavering as it rises. The creatures track its movement, studying the path it takes intently.

  For a moment further, nothing happens. The courtyard is still. The stone swells with heat. The forest rings with its unearthly chorus.

  The finger descends. The creatures scurry back into the shadows, their sinewy limbs rigid with purpose. They move in concert, enacting the instruction of the watcher without hesitation.

  A muffled clatter of activity emanates from deep within the pyramid. Dull impacts boom out from the dark places, the sound of brass gongs being struck by snake-hide mufflers. A low chanting breaks out from one of the many hidden chambers, a hoarse dirge dragged up from reptilian lungs not made for song. More voices join it, drowning out the birdcalls in discordant ensemble.

  A great work has been started. A prediction has been made, and measures taken to respond to it. Forces will be summoned within the pyramid now, forces no warm-blood could come close to understanding. Such energies will take time to coalesce. On an as-yet unspecified day in the future, a day to be determined by the Great Dance and its many mysteries, those energies will be unfettered and much will be created, and much destroyed.

  But that day is still far off. The watcher remains in position, its limbs draped in vines. Heat is already rising from the stone, bathing the friezes in shimmer-haze.

  The boom of the gongs continues. The cries of the birds still break from the trees.

  The watcher is motionless. Unperturbed. Silent.

  For now, there is nothing to do but wait.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Two hundred years later

  Haerwal hauled the reins back and his steed pulled up, champing at the bit. The stallion’s eyes rolled and its hooves stamped on the dry earth. The rest of Haerwal’s detachment, now less than twenty strong, clattered to a halt behind him, safely back behind Caledorian lines after their last skirmishing raid.

  The captain, still breathing hard from the gallop, twisted round in the saddle and looked over his shoulder. He gazed out past the helms of his troops. The vista beyond was at once majestic and devastating.

  The wide Vanamar Plain was teeming with high elf warriors. Their weapons glittered like jewels in the fierce sun and the cries of battle rose up from the dust, fierce and proud. Bodies lay motionless on the fringes of the mighty infantry phalanxes, strewn upon the earth like discarded dolls.

  Two huge armies were locked in each other’s embrace, shrouding the dry earth in an unbroken sea of ithilmar and steel. As trumpets blared out from the command positions and arrows whistled through the air in flocks, squares of swordsmen and spearmen crashed into one another, fighting with the grim, stoic determination that ever marked the asur way of war.

  Beyond the sea of struggling bodies, over to the east of the battleplain, the land rose in rocky steps. Banners snapped in the stiff breeze, displaying the emblems of the Island City, Tor Elyr. Royal blue horseheads rippled across white fields, and gold pennants whipped out like the tails of lions.

  “Senseless,” spat Haerwal, wiping his mouth and preparing to ride back into the fray. The very sight of the Ellyrian devices depressed him. “By Asuryan, this is senseless.”

  All around him, the ranks of Caledor stood, strong and united. The soldiers’ sky blue helmets, each tipped with a spiked imitation of drakes’ wings, ran awa
y in close-ordered ranks towards the turmoil of combat ahead.

  As he recovered his breath, he saw a detachment of Caledorian cavalry muster for another charge. Their lances dipped and the percussive thud of hooves broke out again. Above them, the harsh sun made the steel tips of their lances glisten. The distant Annulii mountains were little more than a blueish haze, running away towards Lothern in the south-west. To the north, the still waters of the Inner Sea glittered like a field of diamonds.

  Lord Rathien’s forces were mighty. The Caledorian prince’s power had grown prodigiously in such a short time. Haerwal should have been pleased. He’d served the lords of Tor Morven for centuries and, like all his kin, had dreamed of a return to greatness for Caledor. So he should have welcomed the army his lord had dragged together using little more than willpower and promises. He should have welcomed such a show of force and intent.

  He felt sick. Fighting the greenskin was one thing, and he had never once shrunk from marching against the cursed brethren of Naggaroth. But the enemy this day were loyal subjects of the Phoenix King, just as he was. The contest between princes to be next in line to replace the ageing Bel-Hathor had long been acrimonious, but this was the first time that bad blood had spilled over into open war. Indeed, it was the first time in centuries that asur warriors had been forced into battle with their own kin. For a people beset with enemies and suffering a long, slow decline in numbers, such folly was almost unimaginable.

  Haerwal couldn’t even remember the roots of this particular dispute. There had been a gradually escalating sense of tension in Lothern for months. Rumours of assassinations abounded, and frantic whispers spoke of a new age of sorcery to come. The denizens of the cities had lost control of their emotions and allowed themselves to be swept up in the fervour of the succession race. All Ulthuan had drifted into a febrile state of uneasiness and the merest suggestion of an insult had become sufficient for arms to be drawn. There had been skirmishes between rival groups, some of which had escalated into pitched encounters.

  So it had been with Rathien of Caledor and Valaris of Ellyrion, two of the keenest contenders for the throne, and now two of its most bitterly opposed generals. In support of their conflicting ambitions, whatever the result of the battle on the Vanamar Plain that day, hundreds would die.

  “Senseless.”

  Haerwal yanked his mount’s head round and gave it a sharp kick in the flank. The horse broke into a reluctant walk, warming up for yet another plunge into the grind and harry of close combat. A youth ran up with a cluster of fresh spears and a gourd of water. All around Haerwal, the rest of his detachment was similarly replenished.

  Ahead, no more than five hundred yards distant, the two vast masses of infantry were intertwined with one another. There must have been over twenty thousand soldiers on the field, filling the plain from edge to edge. The formations were orthodox—regiments of spearmen in the centre protecting a fragile core of archers further back. On both flanks the cavalry prowled, looking for the opening to launch another charge. The heavy armoured charges of the Caledorian horsemen contrasted with the more rapid skirmishing of their Reaver opponents, but the result was much the same—a trail of twisted, broken bodies and long slicks of wine-dark blood in the furrowed earth. As yet though, neither side had broken the deadlock.

  Haerwal was no Dragon Prince; his low birth prevented entry into that elite cadre. Though none was closer to Rathien in counsel, his rank was merely captain of auxiliaries. Such troops were kitted out with kite-shaped shields and long spears, and they were there to harass the enemy, to soften them up for the real dealers of death. It was exhausting and dangerous work and half of Haerwal’s hand-picked detachment already lay in the dust with the bloodied corpses of their steeds.

  But there was no let-up and no time to mourn. Battle called again.

  “To me!” he cried, though there was no conviction in his hoarse voice. “For the honour of Caledor!”

  He kicked his horse into a canter, and the squadron began to pick up speed. Haerwal hefted his spear in his right hand and spurred the horse into the gallop.

  The wind raced around him, and the flanks of the enemy thundered into range. For all the excitement of the charge, Haerwal felt the irony in his rallying words.

  He would fight, just as he had always loyally fought. But there was no honour in this ruinous battle. No honour at all.

  Valaris of Tor Elyr watched as the mass of Caledorian riders mustered for another pass. His armour, an elaborate mail coat of ithilmar scales, an heirloom of his house, shimmered as he moved. He had yet to enter the fray himself, but the time had come at last. His forces were committed and their orders had been given. Now everything would be put to the test.

  He felt a warm glow of satisfaction. The brutal encounter, unprecedented as it was, was just one more step on the path to the Phoenix Throne. An unpleasant one, perhaps, but Rathien of Tor Morven, the headstrong fool, had forced his hand. Valaris took no pleasure in spilling the blood of his own kind, but given that the choice had been taken from him, he took some comfort from the fact that the blood would be Caledorian. Times had changed and the insufferably arrogant Dragon Princes respected nothing but the ruthless application of force, and even then only when it had been rammed down their pale throats and used to choke them.

  “My lord!” came the urgent voice of one of his adjutants, a blond officer from the Reaver corps. His young, elegant face was bruised and streaked with blood, but his gaze remained clear and steady. “The centre cannot hold. That cavalry—”

  Valaris held his hand up.

  “You fear horses?” he asked disbelievingly, taking up his own helm at last and placing it on his head. “What kind of Ellyrian are you?”

  The adjutant flushed, but held his ground.

  “The Dragon Princes are too heavily armoured,” he said. “Our riders cannot stand against them.”

  Valaris took up the reins on his charger, an ice-white destrier named Rhyleas. There were few horses in the world better—or more intelligent—than those of the wide grasslands of Ellyrion, and Rhyleas stepped proudly in full knowledge of its pedigree. The horse, at least, had no fear of the enemy, Dragon Prince or otherwise.

  “No,” said Valaris, drawing a longsword from its scabbard. The metal of the blade flashed sharply in the sun. “They cannot.”

  The adjutant looked exasperated.

  “Then what do you expect us to do?”

  Valaris smiled at the young officer coldly. So many of his troops expected bravery and ostentation alone to get them through their battles. If they lived long enough, they’d learn the need to be cannier than that.

  “When the enemy’s strength is unmatched,” said Valaris, feeling his steed’s urgency to charge into the heart of the fighting, “turn it into weakness.”

  The adjutant frowned, working hard to divine what that meant.

  “I do not—”

  “Ride with me,” said Valaris. “I will show you the meaning of guile. By the time the sun sets, this field will be stained black with the bloodied dreams of Caledor.”

  Lord Rathien of Tor Morven sat forward in the saddle, relishing the power of the charge, and lowered his lance. All around him, other Dragon Princes did the same. Their battle cries rang out over the surging tide of troops, as clear and vital as the flames of Asuryan.

  A massed charge of Caledor’s finest was a thing of wonder. The spearhead of cavalry thundered across the plain, hammering up clouds of dust in their wake and making the ground beneath them tremble. Four hundred horses, each barded with shining scales of silver and crested with plumes of sky blue. They tore into battle like the vengeance of the gods, irresistible and magnificent.

  Rathien was, as ever, at the forefront, goading his mount the furthest and hardest. The ranks of the enemy hove into view, masked by the churned-up clouds of dust. He saw regiments of spearmen struggling to turn their ranks to face the threat. Behind them, he knew the archers would be hurriedly taking aim, seeing the charge too
late and struggling to react.

  Rathien laughed. It was a laugh of savage joy, a glass-clear sound of exuberant battle-lust. He belonged in the saddle. He belonged on the field of combat. The long months of politicking and manoeuvring against his rivals had driven him close to madness, and even though Haerwal had counselled against war, Rathien had always known it would come down to that in the end. Haerwal was too cautious. The same, Rathien knew, could never have been said about him.

  “For Tor Morven and Caledor!” he roared, scanning the rapidly approaching ranks of the enemy for his first target. The Ellyrian spearmen before him held their ground, but their faces were pale with fear.

  “For Caledor!” his troops cried back, and the noise of their massed shout echoed across the plain.

  Then they were in, crashing through the meagre defences like a gale through saplings. The spearmen were thrust aside, downed under the churning hooves of the horses or impaled on the long lances of the Dragon Princes. The momentum of the assault carried the horsemen deep into the phalanx of defenders, hurtling through the scant resistance in a storm of whirling steel and flailing limbs.

  Rathien’s warhorse powered over the defenders, crunching them aside or riding them down. The prince’s lance impaled the nearest spearman cleanly, punching through his armour and lodging deep in the chest. The wooden shaft buckled and then shattered as the force of the charge carried Rathien deeper into the morass of breaking defenders, and he let it drop.

  With a fluid movement, Rathien drew his longsword and brought it round in a quick, whistling arc. Two more spearmen felt the bite of it, going down in a torrent of blood before they could get their cumbersome spears into alignment. Another half-dozen defenders were trampled or kicked by his steed, broken under the remorseless tide of driving hooves.