Sigmar's Fist by Sarah J Daley

Author:Sarah J Daley
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Dark fantasy (FMT)
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2024-05-13T00:00:00+00:00

About the Author

Sarah J Daley is a fantasy writer and former chef based outside of Chicago, Illinois. Her first novel Obsidian was a finalist for the Compton Crook Award for Best Fantasy Debut and picked as Library Journal’s Debut of the Month, January 2022. ‘Sigmar’s Fist' is her first story for Black Library.

An extract from Godsbane.

‘This world,’ she says, ‘in fact, all the Mortal Realms, are riddled with cala­mities, just waiting to happen. They lie in wait like the mundane cast-offs of a merchant’s caravan. They moulder, forgotten, in sealed chambers and beneath long-fallen keeps and towers. Sometimes, they wander of their own accord, seeking the perfect victim to aid in their ultimate manifestation.’

Her students baulk. How could that be? The weapons of daemons and gods, artefacts of monstrous power, treasures capable of blights and ­miracles – just lying about, like a child’s toys? Clearly, they do not believe her.

‘I shall show you,’ she says, and looks to the apprentice at her elbow. The supplicant moves forward, eager to be rid of the heavy chest she’s been holding for her mistress throughout the lecture.

When the ark is laid upon the pedestal before her, Thelana Evenfall deactivates its magical wards, opens each cunning lock in succession, then lifts the heavy lid. In the high tiers of the amphitheatre, some of her students rise on their benches, necks craning to get an early glimpse of the thing she’s about to reveal.

Thelana’s elegant hands display the object for all present: simple, old-fashioned, its lines clean and graceful, miniscule script engraved upon its surface.

‘Here,’ she says, ‘we have a diadem, forged in an elder age, before the Ocari Dara. Not much to look at, is it? And yet, the power once contained within this forgettable bauble could have been used to tear Hysh itself asunder.’

Murmurs and whispers from the risers. Incredulity. Disbelief.

‘How’d it come to be here, then?’ one of them asks. ‘At this university?’

‘You say it once contained power – where’s it all gone?’

‘How do you know it was powerful? Were you ever present for its use?’

Reasonable questions, all.

‘I was present when a would-be claimant unearthed this particular treasure and put it to use,’ she says, knowing already that such a claim will not suffice. They will want more. More than she would like to recount.

‘Tell us,’ more than one of them now beg. ‘Tell us the story.’

Thelana sighs. Stares at the diadem. Remembers.

‘Very well,’ she says, and that is how the tale begins…

Between the Lothil Delt and the Stoical Vast lies a long, deep, twisting canyon that cuts through the southern desert of Ymetrica Coreward known as the Saratrai Chasm. Legend insists that the chasm is a scar upon the land – evidence of an aspiring despot’s immense power and stunning destruction. As you should all know from your studies, Spirefall – which we Lumineth call the Ocari Dara – was the era of this blessed realm’s permanent ruination and disfigurement, a price paid for the titanic hubris of its offspring. The tales of sundered cities, fallen towers and shattered landscapes are too numerous to recount.

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