‘We wait for Sigmar’s Last Warning,’ they answered in voices brimming with fervour. ‘We watch for the signs.’

‘And when the last warning comes, my Chosen, what then shall we do?’ she cried.

‘We shall return! We shall pass through the open gates of Azyr and be offered succour in his realm forevermore.’

‘And what, my Chosen, what shall become of the unbelievers?’ she demanded, voice hard as stone.

‘Eternal suffering in the fires of the Dark Gods as they consume the Mortal Realms and transform them in their blighted image!’ they answered, some descending into wails of religious horror, others tearing at their garb or their hair. There were some, newer converts or the less suggestible, who looked alarmed at these outpourings of religious fervour, yet not one of them took a step away. Krysthenna smiled a hard smile and produced a tattered chap-book from within her robes. Riffling its well-thumbed pages, she opened it to a passage she knew well and read aloud.

‘And lo, though the tribes of Azyrheim did return to the Mortal Realms, their exodus was but a test from the God-King to ascertain their worthiness and their faith, for the heavens had no room for the unbeliever. And the Mortal Realms were beyond salvation and only the Realm of the Heavens had known not the touch of the daemon nor the daemon’s deluded thrall. And in those places where Chaos had lain its taint, there the servants of Sigmar would know no true succour, but only suffering and pain and the slow erosion of the soul. For we are made of the stuff of the stars themselves, my Chosen, and unto them the truly faithful shall return when the clarion call doth sound. But to his truly faithful Sigmar did tell this secret, and he did instruct that they seek his signs, and answer his challenges of their worthiness, and listen always for his warning upon the last day. And on that day Sigmar did say that his Chosen should return unto him through the gates of High Azyr, abandoning all those too foolish or too lost so that the fires of Chaos might consume them and all of these tainted realms forevermore.’

She slammed the book shut, sweeping her gaze across the faces of the Chosen, reading the avid hunger, the self-righteous fear and single-minded faith that burned in their eyes. Prayers rose from the assembled mass, which heaved and stirred like a single beast. An electric charge of faith filled the warehouse, seeming to expand until the rafters must surely creak and the windows shatter with its pressure.

Krysthenna held up her hands and her followers stilled.

‘You know, do you not, my Chosen?’ she asked, knowing well the cause of their fervour.

‘It comes, Lantern Bearer,’ cried one old crone.

‘The last day!’ shouted a young nobleman near the front of the mob.