Graham McNeill - Defenders of Ulthuan

This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the worlds ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

An ancient and proud race, the high elves hail from Ulthuan, a mystical island of rolling plains, rugged mountains and glittering cities. Ruled over by the noble Phoenix King, Finubar, and the Everqueen, Alarielle, Ulthuan is a land steeped in magic, renowned for its mages and fraught with blighted history. Great seafarers, artisans and warriors the high elves protect their ancestral homeland from enemies near and far. None more so than from their wicked kin, the dark elves, against whom they are locked in a bitter war that has lasted for centuries.

These are bleak times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the heartlands of the human Empire, and the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering Worlds Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever nearer, Ulthuan, and all of the civilised lands, need heroes like never before.

Survivors

Thunderous booms echoed from the cliffs as the surf crashed against the rock and exploded upwards in sprays of pure white. The icy, emerald sea surged through the channels between the rocky archipelagos to the east in great swells, rising and falling in foam-topped waves that finally washed onto the distant shores of a mist-shrouded island.

Amid the great green waves, a splintered shard of wreckage was carried westward towards the island, the last remnants of a ship that had fallen foul of the obscuring mists and shifting isles that protected the eastern approaches to the island. Clinging to the debris was a lone figure whose golden hair was plastered to his skull and tapered ears, and whose clothes were torn and bloodied.

He clung desperately to the wreckage, barely able to see as salt spray stung his eyes and the hammer-blows of the waves threatened to tear him from the wood and drag him to his doom beneath the water. The flesh of his fingers and palms was torn as he gripped tightly to all that remained of the ship he had sailed in.

Clinging to the hope that the sea would bear him to the islands beaches before his strength gave out and water claimed him for its own, he kicked feebly as he was pitched about like a rider on an unbroken colt. His every muscle burned with fire and blood streamed from a swollen gash on his forehead, the dizziness and nausea threatening to part him from the wreckage as surely as the waves. The sea was carrying him towards the island, though the glittering mists that shrouded its cliffs seemed to distort the distance between him and his salvation; one minute promising imminent landfall, the next dashing those hopes as the land appeared to recede.

Not only did the mists confound his sight, but also, it appeared, his hearing. Even amid the tumult of the waves, he fancied he could hear the slap of water on the hull of a ship behind him as it plied the treacherous channels. He turned his head this way and that, seeking the source of the sound, but he could see nothing save the endless expanse of ghostly mists that clung to the sea like a lover and the tantalising sight of the white cliffs.

He swallowed a mouthful of sea and coughed saltwater as his body shook with exhaustion and cold. A dreadful lethargy cocooned his limbs and he could feel the strength ebbing from his body as surely as if drawn by a spell. His eyelids felt as though lead weights had been attached to them, drooping over his sapphire blue eyes and promising oblivion if he would just close them and give up. He shook off the sleep he knew would kill him and ground his torn palms into the splintered edges of the wood, the pain welcome and necessary even as he threw back his head and screamed.

He screamed for pain and for loss and for an anguish he did not yet understand.

How long he had been in the water, he did not know. Nor could he remember the ship he had sailed on or what role he had fulfilled as part of its crew. His memory was as insubstantial as the mists, fragmentary images scudding across the surface of his mind without meaning, and all he could remember was the cruel sea battering him with unthinking power.

The ocean lifted him up, high atop a roaring curve of water before slamming him back down into yet another bottle-green trough, but in the instant he had crested the wave, he spied the landscape of the island through salt-encrusted eyes once more.

Tall cliffs of pearl-white stone crowned with achingly beautiful greenery were closer than ever before, the echoes of powerful waves splintering to crystal shards at their base now deafening. Fresh hope surged in his blood as the mists parted and he saw a golden curve of beach beyond a spur of marble rock.

Hysterical laughter bubbled up inside him and he kicked desperately as he struggled against the tide to reach the soil of his home. He gritted his teeth and struggled with the last of his strength to reach the salvation of the shore. Angry at being denied its prize, the sea fought to retain him, but he plumbed the depths of his desperation and courage to break its embrace.

Slowly the bow of beach grew larger, sweeping around the edges of a rocky bay upon which numerous watchtowers and lighthouses were perched. He felt his strength fade as he passed into the more sheltered waters of the bay and pulled himself further onto the timbers of his lost ship as the currents carried him onwards.

His vision dimmed. He knew he had pushed his tortured body too far and he had nothing more to give. He lay his head down on the smooth surface of the timber and felt his limbs relax as consciousness began to fade. He smiled as he watched the coastline of his homeland draw nearer, tall poplars and hardy grasses marching down to the shoreline from the cliff tops high above.

Winged shapes pinwheeled in the sky above him and he smiled as the sea birds filled the air with their cries, as though welcoming him home once more though he could not recall why or for how long he had been gone. His mind drifted as the current carried him towards the beach and it took him several minutes to register the soft impact of his makeshift raft against the shore.

He lifted his head to spit saltwater as his eyes filled with tears of joy at the thought that he had returned home. He wept and pulled himself from the timbers that had carried him through the cold green waters of the sea and rolled into the shallow surf.

To feel the soft sand beneath him was ecstasy and he gouged great handfuls in his bloodied fists as he clawed his way to dry land. Inch by tortuous inch, he dragged his sodden frame onto the beach, each herculean effort punctuated with wracking sobs and gasps of exhaustion.