02 - Sons of Ellyrion Read online

  A WARHAMMER NOVEL

  SONS OF

  ELLYRION

  Ulthuan - 02

  Graham McNeill

  (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.

  BOOK ONE

  HEROES

  CHAPTER ONE

  TEARS OF ISHA

  Ulthuan was weeping.

  Waterfalls and wailing rivers carried its tears to the sea. The clouds gathered in solemn thunderheads and the wind howled its sorrow through the air, which hung torpid and heavy over even its most carefree inhabitants. Not since the days of the Sundering, when brother had slain brother and a race favoured by the gods turned on one another, had the realm of the elves known such grief.

  The skies above the mist-shrouded island faded to black, the sun unwilling to bear witness to such horror. Only the shimmering emerald orb of the Chaos moon dared show its face on such a night, but the clouds over Ulthuan hid the torment of its inhabitants from such a leering gaze.

  Ulthuan’s brightest and most beauteous star had been torn from the heavens, and that grief was for her people alone.

  The masked statues upon the Shrine of Asuryan wept blood from their hidden eyes, and the waters around Tor Elyr broke and seethed with anger, shattering crystal bridges that had stood for thousands of years. Roaring waves heaved the surface of the Inner Sea, capsizing the few silver-hulled ships that plied its waters and dragging sorrowful mariners down to their doom.

  The lands of the Inner Kingdoms, golden realms of eternal summer, knew at last the touch of winter as cold winds blew from the north and ignoble rains battered the balmy plains. Magical sprites, capricious things of glittering mischief, transformed in an instant, their mischief turned to spite, playfulness to malice. The forests of Chrace echoed with the sound of enraged beasts, and lone hunters abroad in the shadowed depths sought the sanctuary of caves or tall trees.

  Towering breakers battered the rocky coastline of Cothique as the ocean surged with fury, desperate to spill over the land. Within the Gaen Vale, the mountain of the crone maiden rumbled as though ancient geological faults tore open, and black smoke clawed from its summit. From Sapherian villas and the coastal mansions of Yvresse, to the rocky, cliff-top towers of Tiranoc and palaces of such beauty that they may only be told of in song, the land of the elves knew pain and sorrow.

  The great statues of the Everqueen and the Phoenix King that stood sentinel over the mighty port of Lothern trembled upon their mighty footings. The light of a thousand torches illuminated Lothern, but the marbled Everqueen remained shrouded in the deepest shadows, and all who looked upon the regal features of the Phoenix King saw the stern and unflinching countenance crack, like the carven track of a single tear.

  Ulthuan’s warriors, mages, poets and peacemakers alike wept with their magical home. That shared woe passed from the elves to the land, and from the land to the air. And as Ulthuan mourned, it spread on the winds of magic throughout the world until even distant kin in ports as far away as Tor Elithis breathed in the sorrow of the Everqueen’s fate.

  The distant asrai of Athel Loren grieved with their long lost brothers and sisters, the slumbering Orion and fey queen Ariel dipping the branches of their forest home in shared anguish. Though the paths of the asur and asrai had taken very different turns through the ages of the world, their shared heritage was still a bright thread of connection between them.

  Even the crude and unsophisticated race of man felt something amiss in the world. Children—who alone of the race of men retain their sense of wonder—woke from troubled dreams with a scream on their lips, and those forced to pass the long watches of the night in wakefulness felt the touch of the grave draw ever closer. Dramatists and dreamers felt an aspect of beauty pass from the world, while those whose lives had been touched by the asur in some way felt an unreasoning grief they could not explain when the sun’s rays once again illuminated a world that seemed just a little less bright than before.

  If the dwarfs of the mountain holds felt anything of these events, none could say, for elf and dwarf had long since lost any love for the other.

  Only the fallen elves of Naggaroth revelled in this time of suffering. As drops of blood fell to the loamy earth of Avelorn, cold laughter echoed from the crooked towers of the druchii’s accursed cities of dark iron and bloodstained stone.

  Leading his army of invasion against the gates of Lothern, the Witch King himself, greatest and most hated son of Ulthuan, bellowed with laughter astride his midnight-skinned drake perched atop the Glittering Lighthouse. The ocean boomed and crashed far below him, but his mirth drowned the noise of the furious water.

  In her gaudy pavilion of debaucheries before the embattled Eagle Gate, Morathi the Hag Sorceress whipped her devotees into bloody paroxysms of opiate-fuelled madness before bathing in a cauldron of their hot blood.

  The myriad voices of the world spoke with a million voices in a million ears, subtly different every time, but all singing the same lament.

  Alarielle, the Everqueen of Avelorn, was dead.

  Eldain saw Caelir stab the Everqueen, yet still could not believe what his own eyes were telling him. He’d known his brother’s purpose in coming to Avelorn, but to see it enacted was worse than he could ever have imagined. Though it was over in an instant, Eldain saw everything, from the tiniest detail to the full panorama of the murderous deed. Alone of all those in the garlanded arbour, it seemed that he must bear witness to the full horror of events as they unfolded.

  Was this his punishment for being the treacherous architect of this assassination, to see every detail and feel every nuance of the bloody deed?

  He saw the black sheath of Caelir’s dagger crumble away, blown by perfume-scented winds like cinders from a dead fire. The blade itself, dulled by old blood and reeking of ancient murders, crossed the all too short distance between Caelir’s fist and the Everqueen’s chest. Yet though he had come to Avelorn on a mission of murder, Caelir’s face was not the face of an assassin, but that of a horrified witness.

  Eldain willed the magic of the Everqueen to turn aside the blow, hoping that some innate power possessed by the chosen of Isha to undo harm or malicious intent before it could be wreaked would save her. No such magic intervened, and the black wedge of ensorcelled iron plunged into her breast. Blood welled from the wound, each droplet that stained her gown of silk and starlight shockingly bright in the darkness that fell like the last night at the end of the world.

  The Everqueen did not cry out or scream or give voice to the pain of her wounding. A si
ngle tear spilled down her cheek as her body fell like the most graceful tree in the most magical forest hewn by the axe of an unthinking dwarf. Though no living race was quicker and more agile than the asur, not one amongst those assembled before the Everqueen’s gilded pavilion moved so much as a muscle to save her.

  Acrobats, poets, warriors, singers, musicians and taletellers had gathered in this leafy bower of Avelorn to witness the Everqueen walking among her people, to bask in her divine radiance and feel the joy of her breath play across the sculpted lines of their perfect features. The land had welcomed her arrival, fresh blooms springing up in her footsteps, and the leafy canopy parting with every grateful sigh of the wind to allow the sunlight to caress the Everqueen’s radiant skin. Those blooms now withered and died, and the treetops closed over this scene of murder with an ashamed rustle of branches. The patter of rain fell from a cloudless sky.

  The Maiden Guard, resplendent in their ivory robes, bronze breastplates and long spears, could do nothing as their mistress fell. Not since the days before Finuval Plain had they lapsed in their duty of protection, and each warrior woman felt as though Caelir’s blade had pierced her own heart.

  Eldain saw those closest to Caelir, a soft-bodied poet and a wiry woman with the body of a dancer. The male fell to his knees, his hands clasped theatrically over his cheeks as he howled with loss. The woman’s fists were clenched, the corded muscles in her arms and legs bunched in readiness to fight.

  No matter where his gaze fell, Eldain’s eyes were always drawn back to the Everqueen as she fell with languid grace to the soft grass. She struck the ground with a sigh of silk and a gasp of pain. Her eyes met those of Eldain, and he felt the awful weight of his betrayal in that tawny-gold gaze. She saw past the mask he presented to the world, and into the secret heart of him. In that unbreakable moment of connection, Alarielle did the one thing he could never do for himself.

  She forgave him.

  Her head rolled to the side and golden tresses woven from sunlight and joy fell across her face, mercifully covering her alabaster features. The moment of connection ended and Eldain’s splendid isolation from the flow of the world’s time was at an end.

  He slid from the back of his horse as an inchoate roar of aggression sounded from a hundred throats. Though the grief was too raw and too powerful for mere words, the sentiment was clear.

  Blood must answer for blood.

  * * *

  Caelir’s hand burned from holding the dagger, his palm scarred with the imprint of its hateful grip and his soul rebelling at the memory of the thousand assassinations and uncounted lives it had ended on the sacrificial altar. He watched the Everqueen fall away from him, as though she tumbled into the deepest chasm from which there could be no escape. Her gaze did not condemn him, such eyes could hold only love, and he looked away, unable to bear the shame of her forgiveness.

  Instead he looked across the twilight glade and saw an elf whose countenance was the mirror of his own. Softer and without the harsh lines of Caelir’s angular cheekbones, he finally recognised his older brother, Eldain. Rhianna stood beside him, and his heart broke anew to see the matching pledge rings upon their hands. Next to them, a warrior woman in the garb of a Sword Master had her blade drawn, but Rhianna’s restraining hand was on her shoulder.

  Caelir knew everything now. Washed up on Ulthuan’s shores without his memory, he had been a weapon primed by the Witch King and his hellish mother, and aimed at their most powerful enemies. Teclis of the White Tower had already been laid low, and now the Everqueen had fallen victim to Caelir’s unwitting treacheries. Yet even as he saw his part in these attacks, he knew that none of this would have been possible but for Eldain’s betrayal in Naggaroth.

  “You left me to die, brother,” he said, his voice softer than a whisper, but flying like blazing arrows to Eldain’s heart.

  His life was forfeit. There could be no return from a deed of such unadulterated evil, and Caelir awaited the pain of a hundred arrows piercing his flesh and silver lances plunging into his body to split his worthless heart in two. Briefly he cursed the Fates that he would die without first taking his revenge, but the fading light of the Everqueen spoke of the futility of such notions. Vengeance only begat vengeance and thus was the cycle of hatred perpetuated.

  Yet even as he awaited death, a voice in his head whispered his name. The sound was a zephyr of wind across the Ellyrion plains, the rumble of hoof beats from the Great Herd, and the boom of thunder from the Annulii. Soft, yet with a power stronger than the roots of the earth itself, it told him one thing, and Caelir could not disobey.

  Flee, it said. Flee and forgive…

  Rhianna saw Caelir’s blow as it landed, the magic within her leaping to her fingertips as soon as she felt the weight of the hateful dagger’s evil. As the Everqueen fell away from Caelir, she wanted to unleash that magic in a torrent of fire. Hotter than Vaul’s forge and brighter than Asuryan’s fire, it would unmake Caelir in a heartbeat.

  No sooner had that intent surfaced in her mind than it was quashed.

  This was the boy she had loved and had planned to wed.

  Caelir was the reckless scoundrel who had taken her on wild rides across the plains of Ellyrion upon the backs of the most incredible steeds of Ulthuan. He had taken her into the Annulii, higher than anyone else would have dared, and shown her the majesty of the untamed magic that boiled within the thunder-haunted peaks. His roguish charms had won her away from Eldain, but his loss in the Land of Chill had ended their dream of a life together before it had begun.

  She could not bring herself to undo the memory of that young boy. She had loved him once, and saw the same innocence behind his tortured face she had seen that day in the mountains when she had first lost her heart to him.

  Those around her showed no such restraint and she saw their horror turn to anger in a heartbeat. Bows were bent and silver-bladed lances brought to shoulders, ready to spill the blood of this traitor. Caelir stumbled away from his black deed, turning to Eldain and running towards him as though the whip of a Tiranoc charioteer was at his back. As fast as Caelir was, there was no way he could possibly reach his brother before the arrows of the Everqueen’s protectors cut him down.

  The dark-haired leader of the Maiden Guard that had brought them to the Everqueen’s bower had her horsehair bowstring taut, an arrow fletched with feathers from a white raven aimed at Caelir’s heart.

  Save him and you will save me…

  The words lanced into Rhianna’s mind, the mantra she had kept close to her heart ever since her journey into the cave of the oracle. Though they seemed contradictory, she knew better than to doubt the words of the high priestess of the Gaen Vale.

  A score of Maiden Guard bows creaked and loosed in the same instant, and each shaft arced through the air with accuracy no other race could match.

  This time the magic flew from Rhianna’s hands without restraint and she poured it into the towering oak beside her. Shimmering light spilled from its cracked bark, and the flurry of arrows arcing towards Caelir veered from their course like iron drawn by a navigator’s lodestone to hammer the ancient wood.

  Splinters of bark made her duck as a second volley was similarly torn from its natural course. Cries of anger and frustration echoed from the forested glade as the Maiden Guard cast aside their bows and took up their lances. They bounded through the crowds of panicking elves, intent on slaying the killer in their midst.

  “Caelir, wait!” yelled Eldain, but his brother was in no mood to listen. He vaulted onto the back of Eldain’s steed with the grace of one to whom being on horseback was as natural as breathing. Caelir settled onto the back of Irenya, the reins leaping into his hands as he turned the beast’s rearing into a curving turn.

  With a wild yell, Caelir leaned low over the horse’s neck and it surged to a run in the time it took to take a breath. The Maiden Guard were superlative warriors, but their martial skill could not defeat the horsemanship of an Ellyrion rider. Their lances st
ruck only empty air as Caelir twisted his mount left and right, and no arrow, no matter how skilfully loosed could find its target thanks to Rhianna’s magic.

  Caelir galloped into the depths of the forest, the trees closing around him as though accomplices in his escape. Groups of bronze-armoured warrior women set off after Caelir, but Rhianna knew they would not capture him. An Ellyrion horseman would only be caught if he wished to be caught. Only the forest could prevent Caelir’s escape, and Rhianna had a suspicion that the ancient sentience that dwelled in the soil, air, water and wood of Avelorn had prescience beyond even the asur, and would thwart every attempt at pursuit.

  Rhianna felt the magic drain from her and dropped to her knees as a keening wail of abject loss split the night with a depth of fury no mortal could know and sorrow beyond the reach of even the most broken hearted. Yvraine was at her side in a heartbeat as groups of warriors and poets gathered around the fallen Everqueen.

  “What did you do?” asked the Sword Master in disbelief.

  “What I had to,” said Rhianna, staring at the fallen Everqueen.

  Alarielle’s hair spilled around her head like a pillow of spun gold. A single droplet of blood marred the illusion that she was simply resting, and tears welled in Rhianna’s eyes.

  She looked up as a shadow halted before her.

  Through tear-blurred vision, Rhianna saw the leader of the Maiden Guard, her dark hair wild and unbound beneath her bronze helm. Cold fury glittered in her amber eyes, and a terrible grief was held in check only by centuries of training. Her lance was aimed at Rhianna’s heart, and the urge to drive it home was evident in every taut sinew and bunched muscle.

  “You will come with me,” hissed the Maiden.

  Ten warriors of the Maiden Guard led Eldain, Rhianna and Yvraine into a deeper part of the forest, one where what little light remained to the day was filtered through a damp mist of drizzle. Though the ride from their landing at the River Arduil had been frantic, Eldain had not been blind to the soaring magical nature of the forest, yet here its beauty was as flat and dull as any forest of the Old World. The trees here looked dead and withered, devoid of magic and light.