Time of Legends 07 - Nagash the Unbroken by Warhammer

Author:Warhammer [Warhammer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

91

TEN

The Hour of the Dead

Cripple Peak, in the 76th year of Khsar the Faceless

(-1598 Imperial Reckoning)

The storm was the worst of the season by far, and it broke upon the shores of the

Sour Sea with little warning.

It had been a cloudy, windy day, with sudden gusts of rain interspersed with long

periods of drizzle—nothing out of the ordinary for that time of the year. But shortly

after sundown the wind picked up, howling like a chorus of hungry ghosts across the

barrow fields, and flickers of lightning danced behind the roiling clouds out to sea.

The barbarians along the north coast heard the ominous rumble of thunder, saw the

height of the waves dashing against the shore, and rushed to their low, rounded huts.

Lowland tribes flocked to the hills, begging the hetmen for shelter from the

coming storm.

The reaction was altogether different among the Keepers of the Mountain, as the

barbarian priests were known. Their lookouts reported the rising winds and the

ominous clouds to the High Keeper, and after a moment’s thought he ordered the

patrols of the barrow fields doubled until the storm had run its course. The High

Keeper was an old and cunning man, or he never would have risen to claim the God’s

Eye in the first place. The elder Keepers were certain that the grave-robbing monster

who’d killed their brethren had been driven away by their hunting parties, but the

High Keeper wasn’t convinced. He was certain that the creature was still close by,

perhaps hiding somewhere on the mountain in spite of his order’s best efforts to find

it. If so, the storm would draw it out of hiding. The wind and the rain would conceal

its movements, providing the perfect opportunity to resume its grisly deeds. And

when it did, the Keepers would be waiting.

A few hours later, well past nightfall, the storm broke upon the coast in all its

fury. The wind raged, lashing at the men out on the barrow fields with blinding

sheets of rain. Visibility dropped to twenty feet, then fifteen, then ten; had the

Keepers not known the plain like the backs of their hands, they would have been

utterly disorientated. Even still, the patrols could do little more than huddle together

against the furious gale and creep from one mound to the next, trusting that the

Burning God would lead them to the monster if it were about.

Then, around midnight, with the storm still scouring the plain, the patrols spied a

pillar of green fire blazing fiercely to the south, towards the older barrow mounds.

The sight lifted the Keepers’ hearts. At first, they believed their prayers had been

answered, and, in a bitterly ironic sense, they were right.

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