Neferata: The Dominion of Bones (Warhammer Age of Sigmar) by David Annandale

Author:David Annandale [Annandale, David]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2019-10-11T16:00:00+00:00

Perception is the lie at the foundation of reality.

– Neferata, Strategies of Illusion

Chapter Nine

Shadowvel had been killed several times over. Death lay heavily over its ruins. Purged of the noxious taint of the Children of the Bell, it remained an empty tomb. Even with the thousands of Anvils of the Heldenhammer occupying it, the city did not stir back to life. Its deaths were too profound. It had been too long since there had been any mortal inhabitants. Rhasan wondered if things would change. If people returned to the city, perhaps it would become a living thing once more. It would resist resurrection, though. It had been dead a long time, and was used to it.

Its fortifications were eroded, corners rounded and ramparts crumbling like old bones. They were still solid enough to serve a purpose, and the Anvils had reinforced the walls since their arrival. The city would do as a base from which to launch a campaign, but it did not live. It was a shell containing Sigmar’s warriors, nothing more.

Rhasan walked with Venthor on the northern parapet. They looked out at the Stonepain Mountains. The sky beyond the peaks pulsed red, as if the chain were a cauldron barely containing the boiling venom of Graunos.

Venthor held the message that Skarveth had given to Rhasan. ‘Do you think what this says is true?’ he asked.

‘I think it might well be,’ said Rhasan.

‘No further reinforcements on their way to Angaria’s southern gate.’ Venthor smiled sourly. ‘How convenient for us. How perfect an invitation.’

‘Too perfect, you think.’

‘As a stratagem to lure us into disaster, it is hardly subtle.’

‘Which is why I think what she says is true. What good would it do her to try to mislead us? She could not have any expectation that we would fall for such a trap.’

‘We’ll have confirmation one way or another soon,’ Venthor said.

They were expecting the return of Knight-Venator Jehnneka Stormire. She had led a flight of Prosecutors over the mountains, gauging the enemy’s force in the Angarian south.

‘At any rate,’ Venthor went on, ‘what she tells us here will hardly matter. It has little bearing on when we strike. So let us assume that what she says is true. What is her purpose?’

‘A gesture of good will, her emissary called it,’ said Rhasan.

Venthor snorted. ‘I would find it easier to believe in a fastidious nurgling. But she certainly commits herself to that charade.’ He glanced down at the letter again. ‘She urges us to coordinate our attacks with hers.’

‘And there is no sign of when she plans to attack.’

‘That would have been convenient,’ said Venthor. The Anvils of the Heldenhammer were not basing the strategy of their attack on the daemon prince on the assumption that the two foes of Sigmar would be fighting each other. But that situation would have helped. Venthor could not engineer the outbreak of their war on his terms, but Rhasan knew the hope had been present in his mind. ‘She seems to want us to be fighting side by side,’ Venthor said.

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