Wolf of Sigmar Page 13

  Many of Mandred’s nobles nodded in agreement. They had seen before the extraordinary efforts their sovereign could summon from his warriors. They had seen him push men beyond their endurance, pushed them past any reasonable expectation. And they had seen him prevail through such methods.

  ‘Where will you be?’ Baroness Carin wondered. Since quitting the Laurelorn, she had recovered much of her carefully calculated composure. There was just the right balance of royal indifference and emotional concern in her tone to do homage to both her position as Electress of Nordland and her personal interest in Mandred.

  Mandred didn’t hesitate in his answer. ‘I ask no man to go where I wouldn’t lead him,’ he said. The Nordland and few Drakwald nobles on the council protested his intention to take personal command of the army, but those from Middenheim were resigned to their sovereign’s convictions. Whether riding with the Knights of the White Wolf or marching shoulder to shoulder with Kurgaz’s dwarfs, the graf would be there in the thick of battle. Though they hated to see him put himself at such risk, none of them could deny the effect his mere presence had on the soldiers. Never had they seen peasants fight so fiercely as those who saw Mandred’s banner flying before them and knew their great hero was near.

  Baroness Carin smiled at his statement. ‘You risk much for Nordland. It is one thing to see you risk your army to return Dietershafen to me, but I am humbled that you would endanger your own life. What reward can I offer such bravery?’

  ‘Let us first win back Dietershafen,’ Mandred said. He drew back the map of Nordland, exposing a second map detailing the city and its environs. He looked up, meeting the baroness’s gaze. ‘You are certain of the fog?’

  ‘Only priests are ever certain of anything,’ she countered, ‘but at this time of year the fog has always rolled in with the dawn. The Breath of Stromfels, they call it, for it has brought many a ship smashing upon the breakers.’ The baroness leaned across the table, tracing her finger along the perimeter of the city. ‘Often the fog will crawl beyond the walls, leaving only the highest towers clear. They can be seen, like castles in the clouds, from leagues away.’

  Mandred frowned as he considered that point. ‘If the skaven post sentries in the towers they can see us advancing no matter the fog.’

  ‘The ratkin have poor vision in daylight,’ Kurgaz said. ‘They are vermin of the dark.’

  ‘They might have human sentries,’ Arch-Lector Hartwich cautioned. His time with Princess Erna had sapped the Sigmarite’s stamina, leaving him looking withered and drained. His ministrations to the noblewoman had been beneficial to her, restoring her physically and repairing some of the damage dealt to her mind. At the same time, his attentions were sapping his own vitality.

  ‘I have learnt much about our enemy from Princess Erna,’ Hartwich explained. He bowed deferentially to Kurgaz. ‘No offence to our dwarf friends, but the princess has lived among these creatures. She knows the way these vermin conduct themselves. They are arrogant in their strengths and paranoid in their weaknesses. If a human would serve them better in these watchtowers, then you will find a human there serving them.’ The priest shook his head sadly. ‘Many men would gladly serve these monsters to spare themselves even a fraction of the cruelties these beasts would inflict upon them.’

  Mandred turned his eyes back to the map, pondering the terrain beyond the city. ‘The skaven have established fields outside the walls,’ he mused, tapping his finger against the marks drawn by Baroness Carin’s scouts. ‘Crops to feed their teeming hordes.’ He stepped away from the table, waving his hand at a stalk of wild wheat sprouting up from the cracked foundations of the tower. ‘Tunnel-crawling vermin would know nothing of sowing and reaping. They would leave such tasks to the slaves they have taken.

  ‘The fields outside Dietershafen must be at least as ripe as this,’ Mandred said. ‘Ready for the harvest.’ He laughed. ‘Ulric favours us! Let every soldier in this army gather the wheat that grows wild in the Rol. Let him weave it into his armour, into his surcoat, into the barding and mane of his steed. Let him conceal himself in a cloak of wheat. The sentries, be they human or vermin, will be watching for the glint of steel, but they will think it is only the wind should the fields be disturbed by naught but moving grain.’

  ‘A bold plan, your highness, but it will deceive none once we draw close to the city,’ Duke Schneidereit objected.

  ‘When we are close enough to be seen, the fog will conceal us,’ Baroness Carin said. Her eyes shone with approval and admiration. ‘The first the ratkin will know of their peril is when we are already within the walls. Nordland owes you much, Graf Mandred.’

  Mandred chose to ignore the suggestion that was laced into the baroness’s voice. Instead he continued to describe his plans for his generals. Baroness Carin barely seemed to hear him, though her attention remained riveted upon him.

  From his place on the periphery of the council, Beck watched the baroness as she gazed upon Mandred. As he listened to the graf make his plans, Beck began to quietly make some of his own.

  Ar-Ulric climbed the wall of the valley, scrambling up the slope with an agility that belied his years. The priest was a servant of a fierce and warlike god. To allow his physicality to decay, to allow his vigour to deteriorate would be to be unfit to serve his god. When a priest of Ulric felt his years overwhelming him, he would choose a successor and make a pilgrimage into the wilderness. If he was wrong about himself, he might return. Otherwise it was better to die alone in the wild rather than become an embarrassment to Ulric.

  When he reached the top of the slope, Ar-Ulric looked back into the Rol. No campfires betrayed the presence of the army nestled within the defile. Mandred had ordered a cold camp, concerned that light and smoke would betray their presence to the skaven. A cautious leader, shrewd and wary as his father had been. Truly it was a remarkable man who had been baptised in Ulric’s Sacred Flame.

  The Wolf of Sigmar. Ar-Ulric almost laughed at the presumptuous title Hartwich had bestowed upon Mandred, yet at the same time it felt strangely appropriate. He hesitated to use the word ‘ordained’, yet such was his personal conviction. The Ulrican faith didn’t accept the divinity of Sigmar, but they did revere him as a mighty champion of their god. Whatever Hartwich’s own intentions, the title he had given Mandred worked from either perspective.

  He turned away from the valley, lifting his eyes to the heavens above. Sickly Morrslieb was but a faint glimmer on the horizon while Mannslieb blazed full and bright. Ar-Ulric could hear wolves howling to the moon from their distant forest lairs. It was a chilling, primordial sound, one that unsettled the blood of any man. Especially those who were of the Teutogen race.

  Ulric was a god of men, but he was also god of the wolves. In the dim days of their ancient past, the Teutogens had struggled for the favour of Ulric, vying against their rivals in the forest. Man and wolf. Wolf and man. Ever the competition for territory and game, ever the struggle to dominate. In those ancient times, many strange compacts had been forged between wolves and men, between mortals and gods.

  Ar-Ulric threw back his head. From the depths of his lungs, a fierce howl pierced the night. He waited for a time, letting silence wrap itself around him. The wolves in the distant forest had stopped howling, instead breaking into rapid, frightened yips as they withdrew deeper into their territories. The sound of their retreat gave Ar-Ulric pause. What he cried to was as abhorrent to beast as it was to man, a thing with one foot in each world.

  It took all of Ar-Ulric’s courage to repeat the howl. How he remained where he stood, waiting alone in the dark for the summons to be answered, he could never say. Perhaps it was Ulric lending him strength. Perhaps it was simply that he was too afraid to move.

  She came trotting out of the darkness, a great white wolf. There was a terrible cunning in her eyes, an understanding that went beyond the instinct of beasts. They were eyes Ar-Ulric had seen before. As she came toward
s him, the wolf didn’t snarl or growl, didn’t bare her teeth. She simply loped along until she was a few yards away. Settling down on her haunches, the wolf watched Ar-Ulric with an eerily human attitude of expectation.

  It wasn’t lost upon Ar-Ulric that he was within leaping distance of the powerful animal, that one spring would set those jaws about his throat. Such knowledge didn’t disturb him. It wasn’t the prospect of death that made his blood curdle, it was the shape that death had taken.

  ‘I hoped, I prayed that I was wrong,’ Ar-Ulric told the wolf. ‘I had even dared believe your kind a mere myth, an old parable, allegory for the viciousness inside all men.’ He paused, staring gravely into the icy eyes of the wolf. He didn’t feel foolish conversing with this animal. He knew she understood his every word.

  ‘Your kind are recorded in the oldest legends, those from before the Ulricsberg was discovered, before we made friends of the dwarfs. Ulricskinder, the Children of Ulric, those able to walk between the shapes of men and wolves. Things both beast and man yet neither.’

  The white wolf licked her fangs, ears flicking in a twitch of irritation. The fearsome intelligence in her gaze bore into Ar-Ulric’s face.

  ‘My ancestors believed your kind blessed by Ulric,’ the priest continued. ‘They rendered up their children to you, sacrificed them as Mad Albrecht was surrendered to the Laurelorn. When the moon was bright, they would cower in their caves and wait while your kind prowled the night, taking what they would. It took a long time for them to learn the truth. To understand that your kind weren’t blessed by Ulric, but cursed by him. It took them many generations to recognise the werewolf and drive it from his lands, whatever shape it chose to wear.

  ‘Now you return from the dark of legend to dominate men once more.’ Ar-Ulric reached into his robe, withdrawing a sprig of holly. The white wolf cocked her head and stared at the little plant. ‘I will not let you destroy Mandred. He is the chosen of Ulric. He is the hope of men. I deny your claim as an oracle. I deny your claim to speak for Ulric. Most of all, I deny you Mandred. I will not…’

  In a white blur, the wolf sprang at Ar-Ulric, her great weight dashing the priest to the ground. One of her paws raked against his hand, sending the sprig of holly tumbling down into the valley. The fur where the paw had brushed against it was singed, a little wisp of smoke rising from the scorched toe pads and claws.

  Ar-Ulric felt the wolf’s fangs at his throat, pressing against his skin. ‘Kill me, monster,’ he hissed at the animal. ‘Destruction has ever been your way. Kill me, and there will be none to know you for what you are.’

  The jaws about his throat didn’t tighten. Instead he felt the harsh rasp of the wolf’s tongue as it licked his skin. Slowly, the animal loosened her grip. Just as slowly, she backed away, never letting her eyes stray from the prostrate priest.

  Ar-Ulric pressed his hand to his neck, stunned to find that the skin wasn’t even broken. ‘You will have cause to repent your mercy,’ he said. ‘I will not be deceived. I know you for what you are and I will remain vigilant. I will not let you harm Graf Mandred.’

  The white wolf bent low on its forelegs, approximating an eerie semblance of a curtsey. She fixed Ar-Ulric again with her pale eyes, then turned and dashed off into the darkness.

  Ar-Ulric continued to rub his neck. ‘I pity you, woman,’ he said, his voice soft and sombre. ‘But pity will not keep me from doing what must be done.’

  Sylvania, 1121

  Ghoulish silence dominated the macabre corridors and ghostly chambers of Vanhaldenschlosse, the eerie desolation of an open grave.

  Cautiously, Lothar von Diehl approached the morbid throne of skulls. His magically attuned eyesight could see the streams of energy rising from the ancient dolmens about which the walls of the chamber had been built. He could see the coruscating bands of obscene force wrapping themselves around the gruesome entity ensconced upon that ghastly seat. He could read a little of the eldritch symbols that the energy formed itself into as it was drawn to the body of the master necromancer. Like whispers from a dark and primordial epoch, they sent Lothar’s very spirit shuddering. Some things were too profane for even a matricidal heretic to contemplate.

  The litter of mutilated assassins had been cleansed from the hall, but Lothar could feel the violence of their deaths clinging to the stones. He could hear the ghostly echo of their bestial screams; he could smell the noxious tang of their polluted blood. In a place like Vanhaldenschlosse, the residue of death had a firmer foundation in reality than the vibrancy of life.

  ‘Speak,’ Vanhal commanded as his apprentice crept towards the throne. The master necromancer’s voice was an eerie hiss, a tone from beyond the mortal veil.

  For a second, Lothar’s noble pride resisted the order. To be spoken to in such fashion by a mere peasant was an insult beyond bearing. He was more than some simple grave-robber! He was Baron von Diehl of Mordheim, able to trace his high-born ancestry almost to the time of Sigmar! Who was this fallen priest to treat with him as an equal, much less a superior?

  Lothar swallowed his pedigree and bent his knee before the ghoulish throne. With bowed head, he addressed the one man in all the world who could fill his heart with fear.

  ‘Master, an army poises itself to move against us,’ he reported. He cringed as he saw one of Vanhal’s eyes staring down at him from behind the necromancer’s mask of bone. ‘Not an expedition of Sylvanians, master, but an army from Stirland!’

  Vanhal made a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘They are men. They are mortal,’ he declared.

  Lothar nodded his head, but his words weren’t entirely in agreement with the fallen priest. ‘Surely the Stirlanders know this. For them to be so bold as to threaten our – your – occult power…’

  Vanhal lifted himself from the throne, dissipating the bands of energy coiling about him. Slowly he descended towards his apprentice. ‘Continue,’ he told Lothar.

  ‘They would not dare such action if they did not have, or at least think they possess, the means to oppose your magic.’ Lothar raised his head, meeting the ominous gaze of his master. ‘It has happened before. Great Kadon was destroyed by brutish orcs. Mighty Nagash was vanquished by a naked savage calling himself a god.’

  Vanhal stalked towards his apprentice. ‘What is your counsel? What do you advise so that your master might be spared the fate of Kadon and Nagash?’ There was a sneer, a challenge in his voice, a threat as keen as a naked blade.

  ‘You must confront them before they are ready,’ Lothar said. ‘Don’t wait here for them to come to you and unleash whatever magic they believe can overwhelm your power. March your legions out to them. Strike them down in their own lands; slaughter them in their own homes. Make your vengeance so terrible that not for a thousand generations will the men of Stirland dare to whisper your name!’

  Lothar could feel the piercing gaze of his mentor, feel the necromancer’s power probing the corridors of his mind. He trembled under that fearful scrutiny, struggled to maintain the mental barriers, which were his only defence. At his full power, Vanhal would have easily stripped away Lothar’s defences. In his current diminished capacity, however, there was just a chance that the apprentice would be able to retain his secrets. It was a chance he had gambled more than simply his life upon. Punishment from Vanhal would extend well beyond the grave.

  ‘That is the course you advise,’ Vanhal mused. There was a trace of suspicion in his voice that made Lothar shudder inwardly. He reassured himself that it was only suspicion and nothing more tangible. Nothing certain. Vanhal didn’t really know of Lothar’s betrayal.

  Vanhal marched through the great chamber. A wave of his hand evoked phantom spheres of light to illuminate his way. A spectral wind swept through the hall as the master necromancer made his withdrawal. He hesitated at the winding stair that climbed to the roof of the tower. ‘Come, Lothar,’ Vanhal beckoned, his pallid hand standing stark against the somb
re folds of his robe. ‘Together we shall set an example to remind all mortals of their place in this world.’

  With faltering step, Lothar followed his grim master. Even diminished, there was a terror burning inside Vanhal, a malignance that was beyond measure. He was nightmare made flesh. The vessel of apocalypse.

  Lothar’s heart quivered as he mounted the steps and ascended with the diabolic force he had accepted as his master. The fiendish power he had been insane enough to think he could betray.

  Vanhal stood upon the parapets of his fortress, his form reduced to a shadow by the gibbous light of Morrslieb overhead. It was with sickness in his stomach that Lothar looked upon the sky, recalling the awful vision he had seen here, the fearful testament of his master’s power. It was impossible to forget a sorcerer who could shred the fabric of time itself in order to feed his enchantments. The echoes of that terrifying invocation were all around him, whispering and moaning in the stones of Vanhaldenschlosse. The necromancer had promised to make the fortress a permanent magical fulcrum, an eternal engine of arcane power.

  What Lothar could do with such resources made his heart swell with avarice. What Vanhal would do with such power made his soul shrink in terror.

  All around the tower, from the base of the foundations to the fog-wrapped forest in the distance, stretched a vast bonefield. The decaying debris of war, the residue of carnage, the sprawl of bleached bones and blackened flesh was of an enormity that beggared contemplation. The dead from the Battle of the Plague Dragons, both the vanquished and the victorious, lay strewn about Vanhaldenschlosse like the neglected toys of a morbid god. Lothar knew the carrion affected the aethyric vibrations, colouring the magical energies flowing through the fortress, transforming them into necrotic vapours and spectral whispers. Death was both the result and the source of Vanhal’s power, a ghoulish spiral that fed upon itself.