Wolf of Sigmar Read online

  Kurgaz brought his axe flashing down into the skull of a crook-nosed ratman, splashing its brains across the beasts behind it. He slammed the spiked boss of his shield into the breast of another skaven, feeling the spike pierce its squirming flesh as he drove it back upon the bodies of its comrades. His boots became sticky with the black, stinking blood of the vermin, his beard clotted with the gore of the beasts he killed and still it was not enough.

  ‘Khazukan Kazakit-Ha!’ Kurgaz repeated. ‘Beware! The dwarfs come for blood!’ The ancient war-cry resonated through the bones of each bearded warrior who heard it, swelling their hearts with ferocity. It echoed through the glands of the skaven, withering their valour and sending fear pulsing through their veins. Foot by foot, yard by yard, the indomitable shield-wall advanced, throwing the skaven back, pushing them in upon themselves. The bodies of hundreds of ratkin lay strewn in the wake of the dwarfs, crushed beneath their steel-shod boots as they marched ever forwards.

  Inevitably, the reeling ratmen threw more forces into the fray. The vermin squeaked in horror as robed plague monks came charging through their ranks, swinging censers that exuded noxious vapours. Scores of ratmen perished as the corrosive smoke seeped down into their lungs, scorching their insides and leaving them to choke on their own blood. Frantic ratkin flung themselves with renewed desperation at the dwarfs, but despite the savage desperation in their attack, they found the shield-wall as impregnable as ever.

  As the last of the panicked clanrats fell, a small group of dwarfs rushed out from the shield-wall. They charged towards the censer bearers, seeking to keep them and their deadly smoke away from the rest of the formation. Several of the plague monks fell as the dwarf skirmishers flung hand axes into their diseased bodies, others perished under the heavier battleaxes and warhammers of their enemies as they charged into the lethal clouds of decay. The brave warriors knew they would perish with the monsters, brought down by the noxious smoke, but they died gladly in the knowledge that by their sacrifice, the rest of the formation should be preserved.

  The failure of the plague monks brought a new tide of skaven swarming down the street. Brawny, black-furred monsters wearing heavy armour and wielding an assortment of cleavers, axes and halberds, the elite of Clan Mors crashed into the dwarf line. Foam dripped from their fangs, blood dripped from their eyes and noses as the abhorrent black hunger drove them into a murderous frenzy. The stormvermin threw their own comrades onto the blades of the dwarfs, using them as living shields so that they might leap forwards and drag the embattled dwarfs down.

  Into this carnage, this maelstrom of death and butchery, stalked a monstrous white skaven. Kurgaz froze when he saw the beast, his mind retreating back through the years to the dark mines of Karak Grazhyakh and the ratkin warlord that had killed his brother and stolen Drakdrazh. He was uncertain if this was the same creature, for if it was then the monster had become still more massive and muscular in the years since their last encounter, swelling into something that resembled a troll as much as it did a skaven.

  Then Kurgaz saw the immense hammer the creature bore, saw the havoc the ratman dealt when he brought it crashing down into the dwarf line. Armoured warriors were tossed into the air as though they weighed nothing, iron shields folded as though made from tin beneath the sweep of the ratman’s hammer. Kurgaz’s lip curled back in a snarl of outrage as he realised that the weapon was Drakdrazh, its splendour and dignity defiled by bands of warpstone and the scratch-mark sigils of skaven runes.

  Roaring his outrage, Kurgaz bulled his way through the stormvermin, smashing them down, crushing them beneath his boots. Desperately he forced his way towards the white warlord. The huge ratman swung around, its lips peeling back from its yellowed fangs. The brute uttered a mocking chitter as it brought the head of Drakdrazh sweeping around.

  Kurgaz, in his fury, had forgotten the incredible speed with which the skaven could move, even a monster such as the white warlord. Drakdrazh crashed into the dwarf’s chest, flinging him high into the air. He crashed in a heap among the bodies of his slain comrades, blood bubbling up from his mouth. Blinking through the pain, Kurgaz struggled to regain his feet. His grip on his axe broken by his fall, he groped among the dead for a weapon.

  The mocking chitter again sounded in Kurgaz’s ears. Groggy from his injury, he struggled to focus his eyes on the hulking beast as the warlord lumbered over the dead and the dying. The ratman’s eyes glittered malignantly as it came to finish the prey who had somehow survived the blow of its hammer.

  Kurgaz lurched to his feet, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the ground. If he were to die this day, by Grimnir, he would do so on his feet!

  The warlord turned suddenly, its snout raised as it sniffed the air, its ears pressed close against the sides of its head as it detected a scent both familiar and frightening. Any thought of finishing Kurgaz was abandoned as the warlord started to back away.

  Dimly, through ears still ringing with the violence of Drakdrazh’s strike, Kurgaz heard the sound of hooves and the blare of a trumpet.

  The skaven had taken too long to break through the dwarfs. Mandred was bringing forces around to engage the ratmen closing in upon the rear of his army.

  Great Warlord Vrrmik shook his head in disbelief as he caught the scent of Man-dread in the air. There was no mistaking that smell, hadn’t he engaged the best thieves Clan Eshin could provide to steal garments cast off by the human warlord so there could be no mistaking the creature’s scent? What alarmed Vrrmik was that the scent was so near. Man-dread should be off fighting Rictus and Skab, obligingly annihilating Warlords Ransik and Hakrr for him. He should be so far away that only the heightened sense of smell of Skrittlespike cave-rats should be able to pick him out.

  It was part of Vrrmik’s great plan that he should be the one to kill the feared Man-dread and wear the creature’s pelt as a trophy, but that plan called for the human’s army to be overwhelmed and annihilated, crushed between the valiant warriors of Clan Mors and the scabrous traitors of Clans Rictus and Skab. The plan was to decimate the human’s followers, leaving them strewn about him in mounds of dead and wounded, to sow despair and terror in Man-dread’s heart, to shatter his mind with the understanding that his army was destroyed and that everything he’d fought for was lost.

  This… this wasn’t the way Vrrmik had expected things to be. The smell of horses and man-thing knights, the clamour of hooves as the cavalry came charging towards his stormvermin. The fatigue and exhaustion of his warriors as they reeled from the effects of the elixir they’d imbibed to help them smash their way through the dwarfs.

  The dwarfs! Their stubborn defiance had spoiled Vrrmik’s cunning plan, yet why should Man-dread leave such bold warriors so far from his assault forces? Unless of course he knew of Vrrmik’s trap! Unless some simpering traitor had warned the humans, perhaps so that Rictus and Skab would be spared the full fury of their attack! Or maybe it went still deeper than that. Puskab Foulfur and his less than fruitful attack on Man-dread’s camp, his inability to poison the human food stores and drive them into the panicked desperation that was key to Vrrmik’s battle plan! Yes, that was it! Clan Pestilens jockeying to usurp Vrrmik’s position! Not content with three seats on the Council of Thirteen, the plague priests coveted the Twelfth Throne itself, to sit beside the Great Throne of the Horned One!

  From the rear of Vrrmik’s warriors, in the direction of Averheim’s outer walls, came the stink of fear musk and the frightened screeches of hundreds of skaven. Something was unfolding at the walls, some new threat to Vrrmik’s elaborate trap! The flicker of a suspicion grew in the great warlord’s mind. The horsemen Man-dread had sent away from his camp. Where had they gone? To fetch new forces? To bring another human army against Vrrmik’s rear?

  The clatter of hooves was nearer now. Snarling, Vrrmik roared at his stormvermin to fling themselves at the enemy as a company of knights came charging down the street. Their advance was hindered
somewhat by their timidity, trying to circle around the surviving dwarfs. The skaven suffered no such weakness, trampling their dead and dying underfoot as they rushed at the enemy.

  Vrrmik rushed towards the hated scent of Man-dread. If he could kill the human leader, he might yet overcome the man-things, route them from the field even as they tried to close their trap around him!

  The great warlord lashed out with Skavenbite, the mighty hammer smashing down the only knight between himself and Man-dread. He snarled as he looked upon the human warlord, rage boiling up inside him as he realised that even he, Mighty Vrrmik, was intimidated by this infamous adversary.

  Man-dread’s eyes narrowed when he saw Vrrmik and he dug his spurs into the flanks of his steed. The man came galloping towards Vrrmik, the sword in his hand aglow with magic.

  Skavenbite struck out as Man-dread came charging towards Vrrmik. The awesome power of the magic hammer obliterated the head of the horse, sending its carcass crashing against the wall at the other side of the street, pinning its rider beneath its dead weight.

  In the same instant, however, Man-dread’s blazing sword came slashing down. Vrrmik felt his head exploding in pain, blood gushing down his neck. He clamped a paw to his head, felt the jagged gash where his right ear had once been. Chittering in pain, the smell of his own blood now combining with the musk of fear rising from the glands of his followers, Vrrmik’s savagery collapsed into blind panic.

  He might have fought down the horror coursing through his veins. Indeed, Vrrmik took a few vindictive steps towards Man-dread’s fallen horse. Then he saw the human pull himself out from underneath his dead steed. He saw the unbridled rage in the man’s face, the blazing fury in his eyes, the malevolence in his scent.

  It was too much for Vrrmik. Uttering a frenzied howl, ordering his minions to shield his retreat, Vrrmik rushed back towards the moat. Gone was the idea of victory and glory, of punishing traitors and eliminating rivals. The only thought in Vrrmik’s bleeding head was escape. To live to plot and fight and kill another day.

  For there would be another day. Vrrmik would make certain of that. Man-dread would suffer for the audacity of striking skavendom’s greatest warrior!

  When next they met, there would be no mistakes. Vrrmik would make certain of that!

  Altdorf, 1124

  The private chambers adopted by the Protector of the Empire were situated at the very heart of the Imperial palace. They had been designed as a vault to hold treasure, engineered as a stone box with thick walls and stout double-doors of iron-banded oak. Ceiling and floor were of granite blocks some three feet thick. The walls were thicker still and reinforced with iron rods.

  Despite the efforts at refinement, the lavish rugs and tapestries arrayed about the vault, it was still a cold and cheerless place. There was no hearth, so heat and light were entrusted to bronze braziers. Circulation was poor in the tomb-like chamber and it needed a strange contraption that was part bellows and part windlass to keep the fresh air flowing and disperse the smoke from the braziers. That device was an invention of the dwarf revenue collectors who continued to serve Kreyssig as they had the Emperor before him. Reviled as ‘gold grubbers’ by noble and peasant alike, the dwarfs had been engaged for such duties by Boris when it was discovered that they couldn’t contract the Black Plague and so could venture boldly among even the most severely afflicted districts in Altdorf. They still performed their duties with exacting precision and fidelity. If not for their strange codes of honour, Kreyssig would have happily inducted the dwarfs into his Kaiserjaeger. As it stood, he had to limit them to tasks that wouldn’t offend their exacting sensibilities.

  Kreyssig leaned back in his chair, tapping his foot impatiently as his manservant Fuerst scurried about him with a razor and scraped the stubble from his cheeks. The servant was nervous, fussing over his master with only the most timid, delicate strokes. Fuerst scowled at the braziers and the sputtering light cast by their flames. He cursed the numbing cold of the vault. He lashed out with his foot as one of Kreyssig’s cats rubbed up against his leg, nearly causing him to stumble and nick his master with the razor.

  ‘I wish you would take other accommodations,’ Fuerst complained. ‘It feels like being buried alive down here.’

  ‘You know my reasons,’ Kreyssig reproved his servant. Fuerst grimaced, closing his eyes against the image of ratmen creeping behind the walls. Here, in the vault, they were safe from such intrusions. The only way the skaven could reach this chamber was by way of the door, and Kreyssig had a dozen of his best Kaiserjaeger standing guard in the corridor outside. The same held true for any human assassins, be they from Gazulgrund, Vidor or Mandred.

  Fuerst bowed in apology. ‘It is difficult to attend you properly here,’ he said. ‘The light is poor, the cold makes my hand shiver…’

  ‘And your thoughts are troubled,’ Kreyssig stated, craning his head back so that his servant could shave his throat.

  Fuerst hesitated. ‘What you are doing… are you certain it needs to be done?’ He hurried to appease the irritated glare Kreyssig directed at him. ‘It is not… I know you’ve thought it through. You always do. But the danger involved…’

  ‘A man who risks all may gain everything,’ Kreyssig told Fuerst. ‘By sending that outlaw to me, Mandred has made it clear that he is not going to negotiate with me. He will dictate terms. He has Ghal Maraz now, and coupled with what he has already done – not to mention that ridiculous “miracle” he supposedly benefited from in Middenheim – even Gazulgrund won’t be able to deny him the Imperial crown.’

  ‘You might still be given something,’ Fuerst said. ‘The people of Altdorf celebrate you as a hero. That has to be worth something.’ He hurriedly pulled the razor away as Kreyssig shook his head.

  ‘Too many tongues have already poisoned Mandred against me,’ Kreyssig said. ‘Von Kranzbeuhler, that strumpet Erna, even that scum Hartwich. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted Thorgrad when he said plague had taken Hartwich. Mandred has more dead men in his court than that necromancer in Sylvania!’ He chuckled grimly. ‘No, I shall be fortunate if Mandred’s beneficence extends so far as to spare my life.’

  ‘But to break your alliance with him…’

  Kreyssig gave a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘You forget, it will not be me who breaks the faith. Why do you think I kept von Kranzbeuhler and the dwarf here and sent one of my own men to carry the treaty back to Mandred?’ All the humanity evaporated from his face, leaving only a reptilian visage of mercilessness. ‘I have two problems: Gazulgrund and Mandred. I must remove the first and prevent the second from becoming Emperor. The only way to accomplish that is to assassinate the one and place the blame on the other.’

  Fuerst drew back, his hand trembling again. ‘You don’t mean to use that, that thing?’

  ‘Too unpredictable,’ Kreyssig said. ‘I couldn’t trust it to do what needs to be done. No, I’ll make it look like von Kranzbeuhler did it. The fool conveniently still wears the armour of the Reiksknecht and we have plenty of that lying around from when Grand Master von Schomberg was executed and his rabble outlawed. It will be easy enough to disguise one of the Kaiserjaeger. He’ll strike down Gazulgrund and escape in the confusion. Von Kranzbeuhler will be captured and blamed.’

  ‘He will protest his innocence and Graf Mandred will support him,’ Fuerst objected.

  Kreyssig laughed. ‘He won’t have a chance to say anything. After he’s captured, he’ll accidentally fall into the hands of the peasants. As attached as they are to Gazulgrund, they’ll rip him to pieces with their bare hands before he can say six words to them! When I accuse Mandred of ordering his man to kill the Grand Theogonist, the peasants will turn on him too. Murdering the High Priest of Sigmar will blot out all the victories, all the omens. Mandred will be fortunate if he can keep Middenheim from deposing him, much less become Emperor.’

  ‘If something should go wrong,’ Fuerst persist
ed.

  ‘Nothing will go wrong,’ Kreyssig declared. ‘Nothing will be left to chance. The Palace Guard are even now taking charge of von Kranzbeuhler and the dwarf. They’ll be removed to safer accommodations until I need them.

  ‘All I need now is for Mandred to finish mopping up the skaven in Hochland. Then the final pieces will fall into place.’

  Blood was dripping down the side of Erich’s face as he was half-pushed, half-dragged down the corridors of the Imperial palace. A leather cosh had opened his scalp and rattled his senses. It was difficult for him to focus his gaze or get the ringing to fade from his ears. By contrast, the tang of blood in his mouth from the tooth he had knocked out when he struck the floor was shocking in its distinctness and there was a weird smell in his nose, which his muddled mind kept telling him was the aroma of the colour blue.

  ‘Come to your senses, manling!’ a gruff dwarfish voice bellowed. The rattle of chains punctuated the dwarf’s angry outburst.

  Erich managed to turn his head and focus his vision enough to see his comrade being dragged along beside him. Kurgaz Smallhammer’s brawny body was wrapped in heavy chains, his face bruised and bloodied. Despite the chains coiled around the dwarf, the four guards who had taken charge of him were taking no chances. As they walked, one of the soldiers kept the edge of his blade against Kurgaz’s throat.

  Painful memories rose from the fog inside Erich’s skull. It was his fault that the dwarf had been captured. Left to his own devices, Kurgaz would have chosen death over surrender. When the Palace Guard burst into the room the emissary and his bodyguard had been given, Kurgaz had been the first to engage them, braining one soldier with a chair and breaking the leg of another with a powerful kick of his boot. While the slayer was on the attack, Erich made the mistake of trying to reach the table where his sword was resting. One of the guards caught him before he could reach the weapon, stunning him with a blow to the head.