Dead Winter Page 26
On through the blackness the priest crept. Sometimes the decayed hulk of a zombie would loom out at him from the shadows. A blow from the mace quickly drove the things back, shattering decayed limbs and crushing rotten bones with each frantic strike. Frederick’s skin crawled as he noted the unnatural way the zombies reacted to his assaults. Making no move either to defend or attack, the things simply wilted beneath his blows, staggering aside as he forced his way past them.
Perhaps their sorcerous master was as yet unaware of the priest’s presence. Perhaps the fiend had exhausted its power resurrecting the dead and was now resting, trying to replenish its energies. Frederick hoped such was the case, that he could steal upon this malignance and destroy it before it was strong enough to oppose him.
Movement ahead arrested the priest in his tracks. Whatever was ahead of him moved with an energy and vitality absent from the shambling zombies he had encountered. Images of ghouls and vampires flashed through Frederick’s brain. Again, he felt the urge to flee. Again, he forced himself to be brave. Whatever was ahead of him might still be unaware of him. He might still be able to take it by surprise.
Wailing an inarticulate cry, the priest charged into the blackness, the mace flying forwards in a brutally violent sweep. Frederick cried out in pain as the mace crashed against some unyielding force, sending tremors throbbing down his arm. Reeling from the injury, he thrust the faltering rushlight at his antagonist.
An incredulous smile crept onto Frederick’s face as he looked ahead. There was no fiend in the darkness, only the smooth blackness of an obsidian pillar, a monument to some long-dead templar knight. The pillar was marked by a scratch, the best his mace could do when it had smashed into the immovable stone. The pillar had retained its polish down through the years, reflecting the glow of Frederick’s rushlight and the man who held it.
Trying to attack the fiend who haunted the catacombs, Frederick had attacked his own reflection. The absurdity of the thing brought bitter laughter to the priest’s lips.
His laughter died as the sounds of shuffling steps filled the passage behind him. Frederick’s attack on the pillar might have been absurd, but it had borne terrible fruit. The zombies were aware of him now, guided to him by the malignant power of their master. He could see them groping their way into the light, faces purple with rot, swollen tongues protruding from mouths clenched in the final rictus of death.
Frederick shifted the mace to his uninjured arm and braced himself to confront the undead horde. ‘Keep back,’ he warned the creatures.
To his shock, the zombies stopped advancing. Like ghastly statues, the things froze in place, their lifeless eyes staring emptily at the priest.
Raising the mace, trying to encourage the rushlight to greater effort, Frederick took a step towards the waiting zombies. The undead monsters moved not so much as a muscle. A dreadful cold settled around the priest’s heart, a suspicion so monstrous he refused to accept it.
‘Let…’ Frederick’s voice failed him. Licking his trembling lips, he tried again. ‘Let me pass.’
His mouth opened in horror as the ranks of zombies shifted, pressing their decayed bodies against the walls of the catacomb, clearing a path for the priest. The display of mute, unquestioning obedience sent a thrill of terror rushing through Frederick’s soul.
Without a sidewise glance, Frederick ran past the zombies, fleeing with all haste from the vault and the awful discovery he had made.
He could run from the zombies, but Frederick could not run from the truth. The undead had been called by a terrible power, a force great enough to bind them to his will. He was the fiend who haunted the cemetery. He was the malignance that called the dead from their graves.
Frederick van Hal had surpassed the legacy of Arisztid Olt.
He was now the necromancer of Bylorhof.
Chapter XIV
Altdorf
Vorhexen, 1111
Arch-Lector Hartwich walked slowly into the calefactory. The priest was dressed in a coarse linen robe, a simple rope belt tied about his waist, his shaved scalp grey with ash. Across his palms, the symbol of the twin-tailed comet had been cut, his blood still clotted about the ceremonial wounds. To either side of Hartwich marched an armoured knight, the steel scales of their mail etched in gold, their white surcoats displaying the skull and hammer heraldry of the Knights of Sigmar’s Blood, the templar guard of the Great Cathedral.
Before the humbled arch-lector, crouched in his chair between the roaring bonfires, Grand Theogonist Thorgrad stared sorrowfully at Hartwich. ‘Have you contemplated your heresy?’ he asked, his voice sounding more ancient than even his withered body should produce.
Hartwich raised his head. ‘I beg your indulgence, your holiness, but it is not heresy and I shall not recant.’
Thorgrad leaned forwards in his chair. ‘If you die with wilful sin blackening your soul you will be denied the grace of Sigmar. Your spirit will be cast out, condemned to wander until the daemons of Chaos claim it for their own.’
‘My heart is pure, your holiness,’ Hartwich insisted. ‘If I must die without ceremony, then so it must be. Sigmar will judge my deeds.’
A hint of pride crept into Thorgrad’s eyes. ‘A man may risk his life for what he believes to be right. It needs a saint to risk his soul for what he knows to be right.’
Hartwich rose from the floor, a puzzled expression on his face. Thorgrad laughed at the other priest’s confusion, but it was a mirthless, weary laughter.
‘When you say Sigmar will judge you, perhaps he has,’ Thorgrad said. He gestured to the roaring bonfires, to the trappings of his audience chamber that had been removed to the calefactory. ‘I am a frightened man. I am afraid to die. I am afraid of the plague. I am afraid to face Sigmar and answer for my crimes.’
Thorgrad reached to the neck of his robe, tugging it open, exposing the ugly black buboes. ‘Despite all of my precautions, the plague has found me. I will die. I know that now. Like you, I must face Holy Sigmar and atone for my heresies.’
‘Your heresies, Holiness?’
‘Yes,’ Thorgrad nodded. ‘I was the Lector of Nuln, you know. I served under Grand Theogonist Uthorsson. I saw his slow decline into degeneracy, blasphemy and idolatry. I watched as he turned away from the light of Sigmar and embraced the darkness of Old Night.’
The Grand Theogonist sank back into his chair, tears in his eyes, a rattle in his voice. ‘I was there when Uthorsson began to call upon the Prince of Pleasures. I stood by as he profaned the temple with the most unspeakable atrocities. I was afraid,’ Thorgrad stared into Hartwich’s eyes. ‘Do you understand? I was afraid to speak out against what I knew to be an obscenity because Uthorsson was Grand Theogonist and I feared his power! I hid behind oaths and vows, telling myself it was not my part to question the acts of the Grand Theogonist. I sat by and watched as Uthorsson’s outrages grew. I did nothing, Wolfgang, nothing to stop this vile degradation.
‘I did act, in the end,’ Thorgrad said. ‘When it was forced upon me. When I understood that if I didn’t oppose Uthorsson I would be branded as his accomplice. The inquisitors of the temple of Verena were investigating the rumours of midnight orgies and human sacrifice being committed in the cathedral. I knew they would uncover everything in time, and I understood that this was Uthorsson’s plan – to put such a stain upon the temple that the Sigmarite faith would be discredited and dishonoured for all time. This was the great offering he wished to make to Slaanesh.’
Thorgrad’s hands tightened about the arms of his chair. ‘I stopped him,’ he said. ‘Before his shame could become something more than rumour and suspicion, I stopped Uthorsson.’ A fanatical gleam filled the old priest’s eyes. ‘I waited until he and his filthy coven were practising their obscenities in the sanctuary. I locked them in, barring the door with cold iron that he might not call upon his daemons to set him free. Then I set fire to the temple. The flames consumed the defiled sanctuary and the foulness within!’
The strength draine
d out of Thorgrad and he slumped back against the chair. ‘Is it wrong to murder evil? That is something only Sigmar can judge. Like you, I am willing to let him decide.’
Hartwich shook his head, trying to digest the revelation he had heard. Certainly there had been stories about some heretical taint upon Grand Theogonist Uthorsson’s reign, but he had never imagined so monstrous an aberration, nor Thorgrad’s role in ending the fallen priest’s sacrilege.
‘I admire your courage, Wolfgang,’ Thorgrad said. ‘I wish that I had possessed such valour when I needed it. But it is too late now. My fate has been decided.’
‘And mine?’ Hartwich asked. It was an impertinent question. He had already undergone the rituals preemptory to a religious execution. He already knew that such a resolution had been demanded by Kreyssig and Boris Goldgather.
Thorgrad smiled. ‘Wolfgang Hartwich must die,’ he said. He lifted his hand and pointed to a corridor leading out from the calefactory. ‘He is lying in his cell right now, meditating upon his crimes against the Emperor. In the morning he will be consigned to the pyre.’
‘I don’t understand. What are you saying?’
‘It is strange how much Wolfgang Hartwich resembled one of my attendants, the unfortunate Brother Richter, who has contracted the Black Plague. After the fire, I do not think even Commander Kreyssig will be able to tell the difference.’ The Grand Theogonist smiled and gestured to a door at the other side of the room.
‘Through that door, you will find raiment and provisions, my son. These good knights will see you clear of the city and accompany you where you need to go. I am sorry there is nothing I can do to help Wolfgang Hartwich and his cause, but I will trust you to honour his name.’
Hartwich kneeled before the dying Grand Theogonist once more. ‘I shall make it my life’s work, your holiness,’ he said. ‘By Sigmar’s grace, I will carry on Wolfgang Hartwich’s work.’
Middenheim
Vorhexen, 1111
From the walls of Middenheim, Mandred had a clear look at the squalid shantytown crouched between the causeways. Miserable little cook-fires rose from the tents and shacks, scrawny pigs and goats shivered inside ramshackle pens made of sticks and thatch. Sometimes there would be a flash of white among the squalor, the robes of a Shallyan priestess as she made her rounds among the sick. Over the weeks, the sight of a priestess had grown more and more infrequent. The prince tried to tell himself it was because they were kept busy inside the barn-like infirmary. He didn’t like to think it was because they were succumbing to the very plague they were trying to stop.
Every day miserable caravans of wretched humanity came trudging through the snow. Most accepted fate and simply added their misery to the squalor of the shantytown. A few, however, made the long journey up the causeways. These were turned back at the bastions, warned that Middenheim was closed to all outsiders. Some few refused to accept this dashing of all their hopes, racing desperately past the bastions in a mad effort to storm the city gates.
Mandred always turned away before the mad fools were brought down by archers. A family of lepers who lived in a cave at the foot of the Ulricsberg would come later to clear the bodies away.
It sickened the prince to be able to see the suffering going on down below, to be so near and yet able to do nothing. His father had forbidden even the smallest intervention, telling his son that it was best to think of the refugees as already dead. He had to harden his heart against them. It was the only way to keep Middenheim safe.
Mandred refused to resign himself to such callous pragmatism. The Graf’s obligation might be to the people of Middenheim, but he had another and greater obligation to his fellow man. To turn his back on these people diminished him, made him something less than human in Mandred’s eyes. He had always been close to his father, but he no longer recognised the man who sat upon Middenheim’s throne and wore the crown of Middenland.
A blur of activity at the edge of the shantytown drew Mandred’s horrified attention. He watched as a pack of dark, shaggy shapes burst from the trees, charging towards a group of children at play. Before any of the adults could react, several of the children had been caught up by hairy claws and were being carried off into the forest. Mandred sobbed a prayer to Ulric, asking that the men rushing to stop the abduction would be in time.
For an instant, it seemed his prayer had been answered. Mandred whooped in triumph as a hulking refugee tackled a goat-headed monster, smashing the beast to the ground. The screaming girl squirmed out from the stunned monster’s clutch. Before the brute could rise, the enraged man straddled its body and seized it by the horns. With a savage twist, he snapped the beastman’s neck.
The triumph was short-lived. A second beastman charged at the heroic refugee, while a scraggly half-man circled around to grab the fleeing child. The hero clenched his hands into fists, refusing to flee before the goat-headed monster. The brute’s harsh bray carried all the way to the mountain. Swinging its stone axe, the beastman cut the refugee down where he stood.
Mandred forced himself to watch the tragedy play itself out, to look on as the beastmen retreated back into the forest, dragging the dead with them into the darkness. None of the refugees pursued them, stopping well away from the trees and shaking their fists in impotent rage.
It was a scene that had repeated itself over and over in the past weeks. At first, the beastmen had been skittish, rushing out from the trees only when their prey was alone and darkness cloaked their actions. Each success had made them bolder, however, and their raids into the shantytown had become more and more frequent. Realising the refugees were sickly and largely unable to defend themselves, the beastmen had claimed Warrenburg as their own private hunting ground. Not an hour went by that they didn’t rush out to snatch a child or drag a sick old woman from her bed. A hideous effort to placate the monsters with the bodies of the dead had only increased their lust for manflesh.
‘Maybe the filth will catch the plague and die,’ Mandred snarled aloud.
‘They won’t die off soon enough to do those people any good,’ observed Arno Warsitz, the brawny Grand Master of the White Wolves. Like Mandred, the knight frequently toured the battlements, staring forlornly at the cluster of shacks at the foot of the mountain. ‘The belly of a beastman is the toughest thing in the world,’ he added, his face twisting with distaste.
Mandred slammed his fist into his palm. ‘If we could just get weapons to them…’
‘It wouldn’t do them any good, your grace,’ Arno said. ‘Even if most of them knew how to use a sword or swing a hammer, they’re too weak to use them.’ He nodded his head sadly. ‘Those people down there are beaten, and they know it. They’re just waiting for the end now.’ The Grand Master’s eyes turned to the sprawl of the forest. It looked so beautiful, the firs covered in snow, icicles dripping from their branches. It was difficult to picture the monstrous evil lurking beneath such beauty.
‘The beastkin won’t wait long,’ Arno said. ‘Patience isn’t something those brutes understand. What they do understand is strength and weakness. Once they realise that Warrenburg can’t stop them and that we won’t help, they’ll come storming down out of the trees like the second coming of Cormac Blood Axe.’
The image of such a massacre brought a chill to Mandred’s heart. ‘We can’t let that happen.’ He stared hard into Arno’s eyes. ‘You understand, we can’t let that happen.’
The Grand Master scratched at his beard. ‘These monsters will be the dregs of their herds, the ones too weak or cowardly to join Khaagor Deathhoof’s warherd. Any show of real force might be enough to break them. Let them come out of the forest, show their faces in the open and fifty good men would be enough to send them bleating into the hollows.’
‘Find me fifty good men,’ Mandred told Arno. Colour flushed to the knight’s cheeks as he appreciated what he had been saying and how the prince had interpreted his words.
‘Your grace, I was just thinking aloud,’ the Grand Master protested. He pointed
down at the causeway where the lepers were clearing away bodies. ‘Anyone who goes out there can’t come back. The plague can’t be allowed inside the walls.’
‘Take only volunteers,’ Mandred said. ‘Men who understand the risks.’ He pointed at the bastion on the eastern causeway. ‘Once the brutes have been routed, the men can take shelter in that bastion. There is food and drink to last the winter and staying there they will pose no risk to the city. The garrison can keep to the top floors of the tower and avoid any contact with the men who relieve the encampment.’
Arno nodded sombrely. ‘I will get your men. They can be billeted in the Altquartier, their animals stabled in the horseyards.’ A cunning smile spread across the Grand Master’s face. ‘If we are careful, we should be able to keep the Graf from finding out.’
Mandred gripped the old knight’s arm. ‘This is the right thing to do,’ he told him.
The Grand Master smiled. ‘I know, your grace. Sometimes the measure of a man isn’t his wisdom, but his courage.’
Mandred sighed when he heard those words. They were the exact opposite of his father’s philosophy. To him, cold reason was the only thing that could govern a leader’s actions.
Mandred only hoped he could show his father how wrong he was.
Altdorf
Vorhexen, 1111
‘Does everything meet with your approval?’
The question was asked in a frantic, almost panicked tone.
Princess Erna turned away from her cursory inspection of the master bedroom, making no effort to hide her distaste. Adolf Kreyssig had spent a considerable amount furnishing his home – far more than his income as commander of the Kaiserjaeger should have allowed – yet his peasant background was betrayed in every chair, every table, every blanket and pillow. Gold could buy possessions, but it couldn’t buy refinement and taste. Walking around the townhouse was offensive to her sensibilities. If she were in Marienburg and wandering about the tent of a Norscan jarl, she could have found her surroundings no less barbarous. At least the Norscan wouldn’t have any pretensions about himself.