Epilogue

Tagada slammed into the water. His body rocketed down into the water as if it might never stop. Sigmar’s luck must have been with him as just near the end of his descent, he felt the seabed beneath his feet. He launched upwards. He offered up another prayer to Sigmar - though warm, the water wouldn’t boil him alive.

Within several long heartbeats, his head was above the surface and he was gasping for air.

The beacon of the burning manor on the hilltop provided a perfect compass for him. He kept it to his left and swam back along the coast to that beach he’d seen earlier that day (yesterday now?). He discarded most of his things but kept his long white cloak. If he left it, the heat during the day would kill him just as surely as drowning would.

He swam for what felt like ages. After a time, he realized that his gaze was spinning. He was getting lightheaded. He couldn’t sweat in the water, and it was overheating him.

His view started to spin when he bumped into the chair he’d thrown through the window, bobbing along in the water. He latched onto it and rested for a moment.

Then he kept swimming past the point where rational thought existed in his head until he could hear a difference in the sound of the waves. They were no longer crashing on a rocky cliff but now … spreading out over a beach of shells?

He turned and swam inland. Now that his safe haven was so close, his energy rapidly dwindled and when his feet met crustacean shells underneath, it was all he could do to lurch out of the water, crawl up the shore, and pass out.

When he awoke, the light of Hysh was starting to lighten the sky.

Slowly levering himself up, he looked himself over. He was fine. Healthy. Just a few cuts on his palms and knees from when he’d crawled out of the water.

He draped the cloak over his shoulders and pulled the hood up before walking back to the Ember Road, where he stood motionless.

Tagada looked up the road to the burnt crisp of the manor. And then back down the road to the small town he’d left some days prior.

There was nothing left for him in the manor. He couldn’t even continue his pilgrimage without the comet.

It was that fact that decided him. It was made of pure chamonite metal. Perhaps it would have survived the blaze. He set off towards the manor.

As he walked towards the manor, he saw several sets of tracks heading in the opposite direction. He paused to inspect them. Mostly children and youths, a few adults.

A lightness entered his step as he walked. He realized, that even if he found the comet, he wouldn’t continue his pilgrimmage immediately. He would track down those refugees, and if they had criss crossed scars on their forearms, he would kill them.

It felt good to have purpose again.

As he walked, he remembered the sigmarite priest from the small town who had directed him towards the manor. The priest with the criss crossed scars on his forearms. Looks like he would be travelling backwards, at least a bit. The heart of this web might be burnt out, but the tendrils went further than he’d initially realized.

He smiled grimly.

He searched for hours. He threw rubble, levered up masonry, scattered ashes. But the metal twin-tailed comet, the one that he had carried around his neck for a thousand miles barefoot … it was nowhere.

Nor was there any trace of the metal it contained, even should it have melted. He thought about abandoning the search, but the idea of returning empty handed without anything but his word to explain its disappearance, well that thought had him searching for far longer than he thought was productive.

And so, finally, in the centre of the manor around where he had initially spoke with the stormcast masquerading as his mother, he found an odd looking rock. Bracing himself, and lifted it up.

Underneath was a sword, a waterskin, and a piece of paper. There was something written on it in a messy scrawling script that he recognized was his mother’s.

Tagada,

I knew when I came down and saw you that Sigmar intended me to find you. It soothed my soul to see you alive and well. Oddly, I find myself happy to find you in Aqshy and not in Azyr leading the Bluestar tribe, where I had assumed you would be. You’re meant for more than that.

I remember pronouncing judgment and then I don’t remember anything after the first few moments of meting it out. Then I awoke to find myself in this ruin. I can only hope that you survived, and that I didn’t cause the death of any innocents. I am heading back to Azyr and I took the comet with me. I don’t know by what measure or magic it allowed you to summon me, but it’s something my fellow stormcast must study. Tagada, may the breeze carry you forward to great love, great life, and great glory.

Your mother, Jrayana.

Tagada took a swig from the waterskin, folded up the paper and tucked it into his waistband. He grabbed the sword and set off after the tracks he’d seen.

As he did, one single tear rolled down his cheek.