Black Pyramid (Hallowed Knights Book 2) by Josh Reynolds

Author:Josh Reynolds [Reynolds, Josh]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2018-11-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter fourteen

WAYS OF RUIN

In ruin, there is beauty. And in beauty, potential.

Guym of Megado

The Harmony of Dissonance

‘Look upon ruin, and behold its ways,’ Albain Lorcus said. He stood atop the ziggurat, watching as a pair of great aurochs pulled a supply wagon down one of the immense ramps constructed by the Ironweld. The ramps – made from timbers and steel plates – had been made in Nordrath, and the first of them had been erected by duardin workgangs within hours of securing the central plaza.

‘Guym of Megado,’ Lord-Ordinator Taltus said, from behind him. ‘You surprise me.’

‘Oh?’ Lorcus turned.

‘Guym was one of the pre-eminent philosophers of the Lantic Empire. Or so he claimed.’ Taltus’ smile was so quick that Lorcus almost thought he’d imagined it. ‘I wasn’t aware any of his writings had survived.’

‘The Harmony of Dissonance was a… formative text for me.’ Lorcus peered at the Stormcast. ‘My grandmother spent a fair few comets acquiring copies of what few of his works she could find. Did you know him, then?’

‘We moved in similar circles,’ Taltus said. ‘I recall watching him get thrown out of a tavern, though I do not remember the context. I remember… that such was a common occurrence, where he was concerned.’ He frowned. ‘I remember that the world was hard, even then, for a man who sought beauty in the ugliness of life.’

Lorcus shook his head. As ever, the sheer age of the being before him was all but impossible to grasp. To have known a philosopher like Guym… impossible to imagine.

He turned back to the ramp. Construction was ongoing, all around the realmgate. The Stormcasts were turning it into a fortress, capable of withstanding a siege. Palisades had already been raised around the edges of the central plaza. Walkways were being built from these outer walls to the heavy frame of wood and stone being raised about the ziggurat. ‘Will there even be a plaza here, when you are done?’

‘No,’ Taltus said. ‘The whole of it will be made over into a Stormfort. The city will be rebuilt around it, plaza by plaza, street by street. From catacombs to eyries.’

‘It will take years.’

‘Decades. Centuries.’ Taltus smiled happily. ‘Years of work ahead of me.’ He looked at Lorcus. ‘Of us, I should say.’

Lorcus laughed. ‘I fear you’ll outlive me, Lord-Ordinator. Perhaps my children will see the final shape of this city, but I doubt I will.’ His hand fell to the pommel of his sword. ‘I never imagined it would be so much work. I knew there would be some, obviously, but this…’ He glanced at Taltus. ‘There are troggoths in the sewers.’

‘There’s a whole jungle down there, according to the Zhu’garaz. An ecosystem all of its own.’ Taltus tugged on his moustaches, his gaze unfocused. ‘I look forward to seeing what I can make of it.’

‘You’re not going to simply burn it?’

Taltus shook his head. ‘Why? Unless it is tainted in some fashion, it might be well to weave it into the city’s cycle, given how long it has had to spread.

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