A palpable tension is in the air as the Faithless warriors navigate the treacherous landscapes of Aqshy, haunted by the specter of their past decisions. Tsupa Brim, the steadfast Steelhelm of the 14th Leaden Bulls, grapples with the weight of leadership amidst a backdrop of uncertainty and betrayal.
‘Ignax’s burning jowls, of course. Realm of damnable Fire, and of course we can’t get a light to take.’
Tsupa Brim, Steelhelm of the 14th Leaden Bulls, snarled before throwing down the wick. The kindlewood stacked within the ring of stone smouldered, its light catching off the dried river valley’s sloped crags, before winking out. It was getting beyond a joke now, and it hadn’t been especially amusing to begin with. But that had described matters since the Twin-tailed Crusade had begun: one long litany of murderous error.
It wouldn’t have happened if First Marshal Vedra was here. That wasn’t the Lioness’s fault. Tsupa would take a dirk to any who said so. Vedra hadn’t wanted to leave the Dawnbringers when she’d been called back to the capital, to defend walls left vulnerable when the crusade marched out against the siege that had – inevitably – struck the city. Typical Conclave second-guessing, that; typical Azyrite cover-your-own-backside wheedling.
That was when the ‘Wheel Nuts’ and their withered Pontifex had taken over. Not at once; they’d been clever. They’d waited until Marshal Malchorn, Morrda guard him, had fallen in the Trucebreak debacle before spreading the worship of their soul-grinding Great Wheel. So slowly, so subtly, that by the time right-thinking folks had realised, it was too late. For the Faithless – a moniker the naysayers had eagerly seized for themselves – there had never been a choice but to eventually part ways.
Sighing, Tsupa rubbed his hands and stood. Amidst the motley assemblage of lean-tos and wagon-hovels, other crusaders tried to stoke campfires. Lilting strings described an old Bataari tune, though it was almost drowned out by the groans of the many wounded carried upon makeshift gurneys, the buzz of flies around recent corpses, and the muttering of quartermasters checking over what dregs of ammunition they’d been able to seize before leaving. But elsewhere, folks laughed as they raised shelters or cooked rodent meat on heated rocks. Faithless, yes, but not hopeless. Better to die free than be ground under the Wheel.
Tsupa stopped to help set up a palisade, trading a laugh with Old Heg and his Fusiliers, before pacing through the makeshift camp. Aimless steps ended before the wagons that the Faithless had dubbed ‘Smold’s Font’. Here was where they kept the decanters of water they had seized in their flight. Already reserves were running thin.
‘Frowning, Tsupa?’
Tsupa snapped to attention as he turned to face the speaker. Throne of Azyr, it sounded foolish, but Thungist Smold seemed to glow amidst the Aqshian eve. The lad was clean-cut, even after weeks of hard marching. Dust-covered and worn as his uniform was, the inquisitive violet glimmer of his eyes hadn’t faded.
It was when things had looked bleakest that Thungist Smold had stepped forwards from the ranks. Folks called him the ‘young corporal’ to his face, and ‘Malchorn’s lad’ amongst themselves. The resemblance had never been formally acknowledged, but was so uncanny as to be beyond argument. More than that, though, Smold would butt heads with the Wheel Nuts without flinching. When debate had finally proven fruitless, it was Smold who’d rallied the Faithless battalions to break camp in the night, bloodlessly taking their leave of the crusade. His words kept strength in flagging limbs, and his vision – to march back to Hammerhal and detail to the Conclave exactly how their vaunted crusade had been going – had become the renegades’ guiding light. Amongst the more ardent Sigmarites of the Faithless, there was already talk of pushing for canonisation.
Tsupa wasn’t sure if he believed in saints. He believed in Smold.
‘No, corporal,’ Tsupa said. ‘I’m committed. It’s just… well—’
‘I know,’ Smold said. ‘You’re wondering about those we took the water from.’
There had been no major confrontation when the Faithless had fled and seized much of the water. If there had been desperate knifings in the dark, that wasn’t any of Tsupa’s business. Still, he grimaced.
‘They had their chance,’ Tsupa said at last. ‘They all knew things were coming to a head. I don’t grieve, corporal. Still. They were friends and comrades. Thirst’ll have its hooks in their guts.’ He grimaced. ‘Maybe we could have argued harder. Tried to make them see sense. We could have subdued the Pontifex. Not killed, just subdued. But you spoke of returning to Hammerhal, and it sounded right.’
‘You couldn’t keep going east,’ Smold said, resting his hand on Tsupa’s shoulder. ‘It would only have led to needless, endless strife, even while good work was being done. Necessary work.’ A firmer expression crossed Smold’s face. Storm and thunder, it was a face you could trust. It seemed to contain the likeness of every wise elder Tsupa had ever known, every sergeant that had shown him the ropes.
‘Come now. Did you really believe in the crusade? How many of you were conscripted from the prisons, or had your homes burned down in Faloria’s Bonfires and were left with nothing? Faith is for the high and mighty. You have something better: hope.’ Smold snorted. ‘And when you return to Hammerhal, you’ll tell them all where faith got you.’
Pride, devotion, relief beyond words: all swirled within Tsupa like some concoction from Pyromancer’s Tor. They had been about to ignite before the strangled scream of a sentry stole his attention.
A silvered arrow had lodged fast in the hapless man’s flesh. Slick, shimmering tentacles burst from the wound, coiling round to strangle him as he wailed. More arrows whispered from the night as the perpetrators skimmed down the valley. They were tall even for beast-kin, muscled bodies studded with feathers. Each rode a flat disc that trailed iridescent aether-stuff, and they carried bows wound from crystal and quicksilver. They snapped at the air with their beaks, before taking aim again.
Soldierly instincts suppressing his panic, Tsupa drew a pistol, clicked back the hammer, and let it bark. The bullet tore the throat from a beaked monster, pitching it from its disc and seeing it crash into the earth with a wheeze. Its mount dissipated like a swarm of polychromatic fireflies, as the other beasts passed by with a hiss before pressing deeper into the camp.
‘Ambushers, Corporal,’ Tsupa called out, turning towards the encampment. Flames licked from tents, glowing every impossible hue, as beaked shapes leapt from the crags above. With them came nightmares whittled from flame, trilling as they sprayed whirlygig gouts of mutagenic fire about themselves. A Steelhelm burst from the inferno, ablaze and screaming, before detonating in a puff of mist.
‘Hmm,’ said Smold, lips pursed. ‘They arrived earlier than expected. Typical in their enthusiasm.’
The Corporal extended a finger. From its tip, a tongue of warpflame uncoiled towards the Steelhelm’s feet. Tsupa screamed raggedly as his legs warped into ash-pale trees, branches embedding into the ground. The slightest motion felt like it would rip him apart.
Pistol dropping from trembling fingers, Tsupa forced himself to focus on Smold. ‘We… trusted you…’
‘You did,’ Smold said – and screeched, and sang, and cackled, and grunted, and sobbed, and soliloquized, and whined, and chanted all at once, as his battered officer’s garb unspooled into fine cobalt robes. Tsupa could only watch as Smold’s left arm split into three, while the right reached to grasp a serpent-twined staff that manifested from the air.
‘And I never lied. We could not have too many of you going east. Fate is tangled most delicately there. But your hopes, so vibrant, were sublime. You believed not in the Pontifex. Now you believe not in I. So you die as you chose to be,’ the entity said, as its crafted face transformed into roiling blackness beneath a hood. ‘Faithless.’
Beaked gor-kin were approaching. They carried sacrificial knives. With shaking hands, Tsupa groped for his pistol. The hooded being folded its arms in some esoteric sigil. A wail left the Freeguilder as his fingers were transmuted into dribbling stalk-mouths that whined in dismay.
‘And one more gift I shall bestow,’ the daemon said in its ninefold voices. As Tsupa watched through bleary eyes, its transformation into an abomination paused. Instead, it became something worse. Arms folded back into themselves as the uniform of a Hammerhalian Steelhelm knitted into being. A face began to protrude from beneath the hood, eyes bulging, before snapping into more human proportions. The facsimile of Tsupa Brim looked down at its mutated, moaning opposite. It smiled.
‘You will, indeed, bring your words to the Grand Conclave,’ the daemon-doppelganger said. ‘If there’s any Conclave remaining, that is.’
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