The Road to Helsmarch by Luke Scull

Author:Luke Scull
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2023-03-07T13:29:26+00:00

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Luke Scull is a British author who has penned the Age of Sigmar short stories ‘The Road to Helsmarch’ and ‘Boss of Bosses’.

An extract from Godeater’s Son.

Sometimes, when I look out over my world, I want it to end.

This time, the shadow of a sailing mountain drew my cold eyes to the burning flats. In its shade a woman staggered, her patent screams drifting up the way mirages do.

My spite warred with my pity. My soul groaned from the weight of my false indifference. Because I couldn’t not care. This was a priestess of Sigmar. Her Azyrite shrieks betrayed her, as did her ragged ­raiment and the worthless relics she carried.

The human in me wanted to help. Everything else screamed not to. Whatever the Azyrites claimed, they’d made beggars of us all. And I had not come here to save anybody. My conscience commanded me only to my sister’s word.

My eyes traced the priestess’ discarded baggage. Along that dotted thread, three figures gave chase. They were microscopic in the distance, yet lean and strong, accustomed to Aqshy’s heat. I saw it in their lanky swagger. I felt it in the glimmer of their sand-iron.

They were warborn of the Ushara, one of the Beltoll tribes. Centuries ago the Beltollers had submitted to Cardand and Bharat: the empires of my mothers and fathers, ruled by the great Yrdun houses and clans. That was a time of balance. Of restraint.

But this was the Age of Sigmar, and the old balance was gone. The Azyrites had destroyed the old order for the sake of their own. We were their prey, now. We were each other’s.

So I didn’t move. Let the priestess revel in the fires her people had kindled. Her tiny figure, swathed in bright clothes, stumbled. If her pursuers didn’t claim her, exhaustion would. If not that, then thirst.

If I didn’t help her, she would die.

And Varry would be disappointed.

My jaw hardened. I gulped a lungful of hot air. All I’d ever wanted was to make Varry happy. I’d seen her joy in guarded moments, in the dead of night. Twinkling in her smile, fading like cinderflies. But her joy was so rare. She took care of me, and I knew the toll those efforts extracted.

Always tired, Varry. Always bleak and forlorn. If I helped the priestess, I might see Varry smile. Something in that pleased me. Something covetous, something earnest. Most of all, something true.

Were this priestess sitting in my place, on the lee of this ridge – and were I in her place, in the shadow of leering mountains – she would not have helped me. Azyrites took everything and gave nothing in return. They’d never helped us. Not when we were rag-thin and roaming, nor when we built our home on the broken hill, digging our well into the rock until our hands bled.

But the Azyrites had never had what I had. Varry was all I lived for, the only mortal in blazing creation I would have died for.

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