Dead Winter Read online

  Kreyssig was annoyed by the failure of his subhuman confederates. He was just beginning to think the mutants had outlived their usefulness when he reached down and retrieved the scrap of letter. As his eyes read the fragmented sentences, he chuckled cruelly.

  ‘This is good,’ he said. ‘Your people have done well.’ The mutant bobbed its head as Kreyssig complimented it. He, however, had already dismissed the creature from his thoughts. He was too busy thinking about the letter and how he was going to tell Emperor Boris that his most favoured general was colluding with a conspiracy to depose him.

  First his marriage to Princess Erna, then his destruction of Reiksmarshal Boeckenfoerde’s career. Great things were ahead for Adolf Kreyssig.

  There was no limit to where a man with his kind of ambition could go.

  Skavenblight

  Vorhexen, 1111

  Panic rippled through the streets and rat-runs of Skavenblight. Every eye glistened with fear, musk dripped from every gland. The stormvermin of Clan Rictus and their thrall clans poured through the sprawling confusion of dilapidated buildings and subterranean tunnels, viciously trying to maintain order. No less than a dozen slave uprisings had broken out in different warrens. Several lesser clans had exploited the anarchy to pursue vendettas against rivals, ransacking each other’s burrows and slaughtering enemy breeders and their pups.

  The source of the unrest lay within the infested tunnels of Clan Verms. More ratmen had become victims of the plague, and this time Wormlord Blight hadn’t been able to keep news of the disease from leaving the Hive. The exuberance with which the Black Plague had been regarded as it decimated the man-things by the thousands now turned to absolute terror as the skaven came to understand the same plague might be loosed among themselves.

  Blight Tenscratch had been present at the hasty meeting of the council. A vote had been taken to decide what measures must be instituted to control the plague. It came closer to any vote in the history of the council to being unanimous. Blight was the only one who was against the immediate seclusion of the Hive and the extermination of every living thing inside it. Only extensive bribes had allowed Blight to escape the fate of his warren. Except for himself and a cadre of cronies, the skaven dwelling in the Hive were to be sacrificed for the common good of skavendom.

  By design, Puskab Foulfur was one of the few Blight selected to be spared. Each ratman allowed to escape the Hive had cost the coffers of Clan Verms dearly, but of them all it was the plague priest who Blight felt offered the most potential for reclaiming his lost fortune.

  The Black Plague had struck almost immediately after the failed assassination of Arch-Plaguelord Nurglitch. Blight didn’t think that was a coincidence. Puskab’s theory that Nurglitch was using traitors to spread the disease among Clan Verms had been proven. But Clan Pestilens had been more subtle than Blight had given them credit for. Rather than move against Verms openly, rather than depend on the plague to wipe them out, Pestilens had instead turned the whole of skavendom against them!

  Puskab scurried through the winding passages of the Hive, keeping pace with the mob of chieftains. He was careful to keep a particularly sharp eye on Nakkal Blackfinger, the Treasure Hoarder of Clan Verms. Charged with cataloguing and protecting the income from worm-oil, Nakkal was among the most important of Blight’s functionaries. Even more so since there was no question that the treasurer had skimmed a fair portion of the clan’s profits for himself and squirreled his loot someplace far from the Hive. Blight would want to get his paws on that plunder, but to do that he would need Nakkal alive. At least for a little while. If any of the Wormlord’s minions had been given accurate instructions for how to escape the destruction of the Hive, it would be Nakkal.

  There were several groups of chieftains and warlords racing through the tunnels, abandoning their underlings to the cruel fate that awaited them. The others, however, had been given false trails to follow. Their escape routes ended in tunnels bristling with black-furred stormvermin and withering fusillades of jezzail fire. The shrieks of those who had been betrayed by Blight’s deception echoed through the doomed burrows.

  Puskab was thankful for the Wormlord’s foresight, even as his glands clenched at the notion that his group might likewise be hurrying to its own massacre. The lesser skaven of Clan Verms were hardly content to sit back and wait for death to claim them. Those that had not thrown themselves into a mindless rampage of looting within the main warren had gathered in large packs, stalking after the refugee chieftains, hoping to join them in escape.

  Few skaven followed Puskab’s group. The plague priest had been viewed with fear and suspicion from the first, but now he was shunned as the source of all their woes. Their panic hadn’t risen to the point where they would forget their fear and try to attack the horned sorcerer; there hadn’t been enough time for hate to put some mettle into their spines. Before it could, Puskab intended to be far away.

  Down the cramped tunnels, the walls crawling with bugs of every size and shape, the skaven hastened. Sometimes their little group would dart into a side passage as a larger pack of refugees came rushing past. Once they waited while a gigantic scorpion, loosed from its cage, came scuttling down the tunnel, a half-eaten ratman clenched in its claws. Twice they were forced to retreat before the waddling bulk of a skaven brood-mother, an entourage of eunuchs and slaves trying to guide the brainless females to some place of imagined safety. The husky scent exuded by the frightened brood-mothers was enough to compel even a few of the chieftains to forget about safety and rush after the females, instinct driving them to protect the breeders despite their certain doom.

  The crack of jezzails ahead announced that the refugees were nearing one of the dozens of egresses from the Hive. The sharp tang of skaven blood, the acrid smell of warp-powder and shot, the musky reek of fear-smell, all of these joined to form a stench peculiarly redolent of merciless despair.

  The narrow tunnel widened as it climbed towards an archway of stone. Dozens of skaven bodies, some of them still twitching, lay strewn about the gateway. Beyond, a phalanx of Clan Rictus ratmen, hulking in their patchwork armour of plate and chain, stood with spears at the ready. Between the spear-rats, their red eyes shining maliciously in the flickering light of worm-oil lanterns, weedy Clan Skryre sharpshooters huddled. Each of them clutched a massive tube of steel in his paws, the front spitted upon a triangular firing rest which had been driven into the ground. The jezzails were taller than the ratmen who carried them and it took two skaven to pour powder and shot down their cavernous barrels.

  Puskab’s eyes narrowed as he saw the formidable cordon that had been thrown about the Hive. His magic would be useless against such numbers. He might slay twenty or thirty with a ball of burning putrescence, but after that his body would be shattered by the jezzails. His only hope now lay in his usefulness to Blight and whether the Wormlord had spoken truly about a way out.

  ‘Tenscratch eat-slay traitor-meat!’ Nakkal barked out, his voice shrill and terrified. It was the password that had been arranged between Blight and the fangleaders he had bribed. If the treachery had been discovered, or if the guards had reconsidered the agreement…

  A scar-faced stormvermin, a battered human helmet crushed down about his skull, a nugget of glowing warpstone dangling from the lobe of his ear, stepped slightly forwards, pushing aside the spears of his henchmen. ‘Late-late, fool-meat!’ the fangleader snarled. He cast an anxious look over his shoulder, then waved his arm in imperious fashion. ‘Hurry-scurry or stay-burn!’

  The warning didn’t need to be given twice. Puskab scrambled along with the Verms chieftains, shoving Nakkal out of his way as he reached the gap that had opened between the stormvermin. His haste was quickly justified. A sharp squeal sounded from somewhere up the tunnel – the cry of some unseen sentinel. In response, the fangleader’s warriors closed ranks once more, blocking the escape of the slower chieftains. Callously, the fangleader growled a command. The stormvermin lashed out with their spears, skewering the ref
ugees still before them. Those few who eluded the spears and tried to flee back into the Hive were shot in the back by the chittering sharpshooters.

  Puskab could see the reason for the fangleader’s sudden sense of duty. From the broad tunnel beyond the archway a great mob of skaven was scurrying into view. Foremost among them were a number of huge cask-shaped carts pushed along by packs of emaciated slaves. Riding atop the carts were groups of leather-clad ratmen, their paws and forearms covered in thick oilskins, their heads encased in weird fur masks that had been soaked in something that was at least partly vinegar to judge by the smell. The scent of Clan Skryre lingered about the masked skaven and each of them fussed about a confusion of brass wheels and ratgut hoses.

  ‘Make way!’ the fangleader snarled, casting a warning look in Puskab’s direction. The plague priest did as he was told, scurrying aside as the weird carriages came trundling past him. A second pack of stormvermin followed, these bearing the red fur and scorched armour of Clan Volkyn. They fanned out as the bulky Clan Skryre carts passed through the archway and down the entrance into the Hive. Excited squeaks rose from the warriors as a ragged mob of skaven appeared at the far end of the tunnel. Anxiously they clashed swords against shields until the entire corridor boomed with the clamour.

  The mob of Clan Verms skaven hesitated for only a moment, then gave voice to a savage howl. Like a crazed thing, the horde of desperate ratmen came charging down the passage. As they rushed towards the carts, the warlock-engineers mounted atop them began to work the machinery of their arcane contraptions. Some of them fiddled with pressure valves while others worked networks of pumps and windlasses. At the fore of each cart, a strongly-built ratman raised a heavy hose with a broad metal nozzle.

  In response to the efforts of the warlock-engineers, smoke began to rise from the mouth of each hose. Then a tiny flicker of green flame sputtered into view. It danced about the metal nozzle for only an instant before it was drowned by a great rush of shimmering emerald fire.

  The charging horde shrieked as the green flames washed over them. Ratmen leapt into the air, their fur blazing, their flesh melting from their bones. Dozens of them were reduced to piles of steaming meat in the blink of an eye. Scores more wailed in agony, trying to drag their mutilated bodies back into the darkness of the Hive.

  The warlock-engineers laughed at the havoc wrought by their hideous weapon, the warriors of Clan Volkyn cheered at the spectacle of burning bodies strewn before them. Encouraged by the ease of the slaughter, the warlock-engineers shouted down at the slaves chained to the sides of the carts, ordering the wagons pushed deeper into the boundaries of Clan Verms.

  ‘They will burn out every inch of the Hive.’

  Puskab turned about, surprised to see Blight Tenscratch standing beside him. He had been so fascinated by the display of Clan Skryre’s admittedly heretical techno-sorcery that he had failed to notice the scent of the Wormlord and his remaining guards.

  ‘Warpfire they call it,’ Blight hissed. ‘I am told it uses a mixture of worm-oil and warpstone.’ His head suddenly darted to one side, then the other, eyes searching among the ranks of the Rictus stormvermin.

  ‘Nakkal lost-gone,’ Puskab said, guessing who Blight was looking for. The plague priest felt a twinge of amusement as he stated that the chieftain had suffered an accident.

  Blight’s lips pulled away from his fangs. ‘This is all that flea-sucking pimple-arsed Nurglitch’s fault!’ The Wormlord shook his fist at the roof of the cavern, muttering curses under his breath.

  ‘We will-must try-try again,’ Puskab said.

  Blight fixed the plague priest with a crooked smile. ‘We?’ he snickered. ‘No-no, not we! You!’ The Wormlord’s claw trembled as he pointed it at Puskab. ‘You will kill-slay Nurglitch! Challenge him for his seat on the council! Take his place-pelt as Arch-Plaguelord!’

  Bylorhof

  Ulriczeit, 1111

  When Frederick roused from his stupor, the monster was gone. Retrieving a spike-headed mace from the cells once inhabited by the templars, the priest made his way outside to inspect the temple grounds. The cold wind blew snow across the rows of graves, headstones vanishing beneath a mantle of white. In the distance, the mournful cry of a dog rose, invading the eerie quiet of the night. Mannslieb was nearly full now, the greater moon’s silvery light eclipsing the sickly glow of Morrslieb.

  By moonlight and rushlight, Frederick circled the temple, the heavy mace always at the ready. Snow crunched under his feet as he scoured the ground for any trace of the undead creature he had seen. If the thing had left any tracks, they had been obliterated by the new-fallen snow.

  The priest uttered a nervous laugh. If the thing had been there at all. If it hadn’t existed solely in his own mind. If he wasn’t going mad.

  Then Frederick’s steps brought him to the side of the temple and the ornate window looking into the sanctuary. His skin crawled as he stared at the ground below the window. Sheltered by the eaves of the roof, the ground here had been spared the attentions of the latest snowfall. Pressed clearly into the snow were the marks of unshod feet, feet like none he had ever seen. Visible in the snow were the prints of toes, toes that were like scraggly claws. Toes from which all the flesh had been peeled away. As a final sign that the creature had been real, Frederick found a strip of decayed skin caught upon the window frame, left there when the undead horror had pressed itself against the glass and peered into the sanctuary.

  Clenching the mace tighter, Frederick turned away from the window. His eyes scanned the silent rows of graves, wondering where the monster had gone. He felt an obligation to track down the abomination. Despite the heretical spell he had evoked, he still regarded himself as a priest of Morr and it was a priest’s duty to bring peace to the restless dead.

  The open door of the old vault swayed in the wind, banging against the carved granite walls. Frederick felt a chill run down his spine. There was no one who would have opened that door. Even the most desperate looters shunned the gardens of Morr, if not from fear of the plague then from the dreadful memory of Arisztid Olt and his frightful abuses of the cemetery.

  Forcing himself towards the mausoleum took more courage than Frederick believed he had. At every step he felt the urge to flee, to retreat into the temple and cower behind the altar. His flesh crawled, his breath came in icy gasps, his hair stood on end. Every part of his being could sense the unnatural aberration which had preceded him and left the door swinging in the wind.

  Somehow he managed to reach the mausoleum. The priest hesitated upon the threshold, gazing in silence upon the confusion of prints which had disturbed the centuries of dust inside the vault. Clumps of marsh grass and mud littered the steps as they descended into the musty darkness. Furtive sounds rose to scratch at the edge of his hearing and Frederick did not need to be told it was not the noise of rats.

  Frederick started to pray to his god, then hesitated. After what he had done, the blasphemy with which he had profaned Morr’s temple, he had no right to presume upon the god’s benevolence. He had failed his god. Perhaps this was a test, a trial to redeem himself. If so, he was determined he would meet the challenge on his own.

  The darkness wrapped itself around Frederick as he descended into the ancient vault. The illumination of the rushlight lessened with each step, as though the tomb resented the intrusion of its flame. As the light began to fail, raw panic threatened to overcome the priest.

  Again the furtive shuffling sounds slithered across Frederick’s ears. They were closer now, close enough to startle the priest. He had imagined his quarry to be deep within the catacombs by now, not lingering so near the entrance. Casting a worried glance at the doubtful flame of his rushlight, he strode towards the noise.

  Before he had gone more than a few steps, a sweet, rotten stench struck his senses. From the gloom, a shape emerged into the faltering light. Frederick recoiled in shock as he found himself gazing into the decayed face of a Bylorhof peasant, the man’s visage reduced almost to a
skull by the ravenous attentions of marsh vermin. Worms writhed in the peeling flesh, the scaly carcass of a scavenger fish protruded from the creature’s cheek, ugly water beetles crawled through hair matted with slime.

  Frederick swung the heavy mace into the monster’s hideous face. The rotten skull shattered beneath the terrified blow, spattering the wall of the crypt with stagnant muck and slivers of bone. The creature swayed for a moment, as though unaware its brain had been pulverised. Then the thing collapsed on the dusty floor.

  Zombie! The grotesque word came unbidden to Frederick’s mind. Walking revenants without purpose or motive, slinking horrors that were the antithesis of life and of death. They were the lowest form of undead abomination, mindless corpses devoid of either will or soul.

  Yet, as Frederick’s mind turned back to the dark lore of Arisztid Olt, a troubling thought came to him. A zombie was a thing that existed because of dark magic, it could thrive only at the direction of some outside force, some greater will to sustain its empty husk. Suddenly he understood why these things had appeared. Some terrible fiend had descended upon the graveyard, might even now be lurking among the tombs. Witch or daemon, it was summoning the unhallowed dead, drawing them from their watery graves.

  The priest’s heart pounded in his breast. Somewhere, in the black catacombs, a malevolent power was gathering its strength. It had to be stopped, stopped before it could threaten the town.

  Frederick followed the sunken passages, the spiked mace held in a white-knuckle grip. His eyes struggled to pierce the gloom, strove to compensate for the increasingly poor illumination of the rushlight. The shuffling steps echoed ahead of him. He could tell they came from more than one source, but whether there might be a dozen or a hundred, he could not say. If fate favoured him, he might never need to know. There was only one enemy he had to face – the occult power that had summoned the zombies from the marsh.