Dead Winter Page 5

  ‘The dwarf-meat will be slaughtered,’ Vecteek pronounced, ‘but first we will enslave the humans. We will use their fields and their herds to make us strong, to feed new armies. Then we will annihilate the dwarf-things.’

  ‘The man-things are still too many,’ insisted Kreep. ‘We will lose too many fighting them. We will be too weak to conquer dwarf-things.’

  ‘Who said we will fight them?’ Vecteek chortled, his wicked laugh echoing through the Grey Chapel. ‘Arch-Plaguelord Nurglitch has brought us a new weapon.’ Vecteek extended his claw, gesturing for the Poxtifex to speak.

  Nurglitch reared up in his seat, his corpulent mass undulating in a loathsomely boneless fashion. The Arch-Plaguelord was cloaked in a decayed habit of leprous green cloth, split in many places where the diseased ratman’s buboes had swollen past the raiment’s ability to restrain. Great thorns sprouted from Nurglitch’s spine and shoulders, dripping a foul green sludge from their tips. Clouds of black flies swarmed over his rotten mass, crawling about the tattered hood which cast his face into shadow. When he spoke, the plaguelord’s pestilent breath sent squadrons of flies dropping to the floor.

  ‘Glory to the magnificence of the Horned One,’ Nurglitch coughed, ‘in His true aspect,’ he added, shifting his hooded face towards Seerlord Skrittar. ‘By his divine grace, we, His true servants, have discovered the most blessed of His contagions!’ Nurglitch unclasped the heavy tome he wore chained about his neck, pulling away mouldering pages until he exposed a hollow within the book. His warty paw emerged clasping a glass vial. The other Lords of Decay cringed away from the plaguelord, each waiting for one of the others to leap from his seat and start a rush for the many exits hidden within the Grey Chapel’s walls.

  ‘The Horned Rat brings to us a new holy plague!’ Nurglitch chortled, brandishing the vial aloft. His boast did nothing to ease the fears of the other lords. The slicing voice of Vecteek, however, reminded them that there were other things to fear.

  ‘Coward-trash!’ Vecteek snarled. ‘Sit-stay! Hear-listen! The plague is harmless to our kind. It will only kill man-things.’

  First among equals, Vecteek’s word was law among his fellow Lords of Decay. It wasn’t belief, but obedience, that kept the council in their seats. Only the connivance of the Verminguard could have allowed Nurglitch to bring his poison into the Shattered Tower, and no ratman in Clan Rictus was insane enough to dare such a thing without Vecteek’s permission. As they stared at the vial, the council members saw not only the power of Pestilens, but the dominance of Rictus. The reminder wasn’t a pleasant one.

  ‘How do we know it will kill man-things?’ Rattnak Vile asked. His lips curled away from his fangs. ‘How do we know it will not kill skaven?’

  Vecteek rose from his seat, clapping his paws together. At the sound, a gang of Verminguard came slinking into the Grey Chapel, wheeling a great glass cage ahead of them. Inside the cage, a motley confusion of scrawny ratmen and dirty human slaves moaned and whined, clutching weakly at the transparent walls of their cell. The assembled Lords of Decay shifted uneasily as they noted the markings on the pelts of the skaven locked inside the cage, finding a representative from each of their clans among the captives. One piebald ratman even displayed tiny horns, making him resemble the grotesque grey seers.

  Another signal from Vecteek and Nurglitch oozed out from his chair and approached the cage. The plague priest dragged open a tiny portal, then dropped the little vial into the cage. The vessel shattered as it struck the floor, expelling a black fog into the cage. For a moment, the captives were lost within a veil of darkness. Then the veil fell away as the fog dissipated, condensing into a black soot. The skavenslaves continued to paw madly at the glass walls, squealing in terror. The human captives, however, lay strewn about the floor, their flesh marked with weeping sores and suppurating buboes.

  ‘No sickness,’ Nurglitch coughed. ‘Plague is for man-things. Won’t kill ratkin. My apprentice, Poxmaster Puskab Foulfur, test new plague on many man-things. Nine of ten die!’

  The statement brought greedy glitters to the eyes of the assembled ratmen. Nine of ten? The humans would be so decimated that even if they were united they would pose no threat at all to the hordes of the Under-Empire! The ratmen would be able to sweep the humans aside and claim the surface for their own! Fat from the plunder of the man-things’ empire, they would be stronger than ever in the history of skavendom!

  Sythar’s tail twitched as he studied Nurglitch. The plaguelord was a zealot, a religious fanatic whose clan had once tried to enslave the entire Under-Empire. If the plague priests truly had a weapon of such potential then the power of Clan Pestilens would grow beyond measure. He cast an envious glance at the Twelfth Throne. Wresting the seat away from Warmonger Vecteek would be hard enough, but to usurp control of it from Clan Pestilens might be impossible. He turned his gaze across the table to Seerlord Skrittar. As much as it galled him, Sythar would have to side with the grey seer when things came down to a vote.

  ‘I have seen the effectiveness of Puskab’s disease,’ Seerlord Skrittar declared, leaving unsaid whether such intelligence had come from sorcerous visions or flesh-and-blood spies. Nurglitch growled as he heard the grey seer bestow credit for brewing the disease upon his apprentice, an insult made all the more vexing for the truth behind it.

  ‘This new plague has the potential to leave our enemies helpless, to decimate them in their thousands,’ Skrittar continued. Sythar waited for the grey seer to twist these seeming strengths into reasons why the council must oppose Nurglitch’s new weapon. Instead, the grey seer shocked the other Lords of Decay by endorsing the contagion.

  ‘The Horned Rat displays His beneficence in strange ways,’ Skrittar said, tilting his head towards the empty Black Throne, almost as though he were listening to some unseen speaker. ‘He has overlooked the… eccentricities of Clan Pestilens and through them bestowed upon us the weapon which shall bring about the long-prophesied ascendancy!’ The prophet-sorcerer turned towards Vecteek, bowing his head. ‘We should ask the council to vote. I say we endorse this new weapon and use it immediately against the man-things!’ Again, Skrittar cocked his head towards the empty seat. If needed, there was no mistaking which way the Horned Rat would cast his vote.

  Vecteek stared suspiciously at the Seerlord. At the moment, Vecteek seemed to be considering using his Verminguard and stopping whatever scheme Skrittar was hatching before it could start. However murdering the Seerlord was one of the few things beyond Vecteek’s power. It would give the many enemies of Clan Rictus the justification they needed to band together and overthrow the Warmonger. Nothing was more guaranteed to incite the rabble of skavendom like a holy war.

  ‘This new plague will achieve more than a hundred armies,’ Vecteek said. ‘The Boris-man has made the man-things divided and suspicious. That will make them vulnerable to the plague. Before they know what is happening, it will be upon them. Because they are divided, they will not be able to stop its spread.’ His black paw clenched into a fist. ‘They will be broken and beaten before our first warrior leaves the tunnels!’

  With both Seerlord Skrittar and Warmonger Vecteek supporting the plan, the vote was purely ceremonial. In the end, only Warpmaster Sythar and Great Warlord Vrrmik of Clan Mors opposed the plan. Sythar couldn’t stifle the feeling of alarm that coursed through his glands every time he caught a sniff of Nurglitch’s gloating putrescence. The new plague might benefit all of the Under-Empire, but there was no question the plague priests would reap the dragon’s share of the plunder. Of course, there was the possibility he was certain had occurred to every warlord on the council: if Pestilens could make a plague to kill man-things, certainly they could create another one to turn against their fellow skaven. Whatever they were up to, Sythar was determined that Clan Skryre would be watching and waiting.

  Warlord Vrrmik’s opposition was less complex – there was no creature above or below the surface he hated more than Grey Lord Vecteek. Sythar wondered if that would be eno
ugh to make him an ally against Clan Pestilens when the time came. Because there was no question the new plague would do what Nurglitch promised.

  The uncertainty lay in what would happen after.

  Nuln

  Nachgeheim, 1111

  The Black Rose sat perched along a hilly road in the riverside section of Freiberg. From its threshold, a patron could stare straight down the street to the clear waters of the Reik and see the grey rocky spires of Helstrumoog, the little island rising at the joining of the rivers. The distant spires of the abandoned Cathedral of Sigmar were visible in the morning light, deserted since the great fire that had claimed the old Grand Theogonist and much of Wissenland’s Sigmarite priesthood. Beyond the ruined temple stretched its farmlands and pastures, desolate and unused after months of bickering among the nobles over who had the greater claim to lease the now tenantless land.

  Walther sighed as he looked down the road. Nuln was a city in the grip of change. Emperor Boris had removed the capital to Altdorf following his ascension, removing the lustre from the place that had been called the ‘jewel of the Empire’. When Grand Theogonist Thorgrad was elected as head of the Sigmarite faith, he had stopped reconstruction of Helstrum Cathedral and relocated the seat of the temple to Altdorf. In the space of only a few decades, Nuln had lost its position as centre of both the Empire’s secular and spiritual worlds. A feeling of malaise and bitterness gripped the hearts of Nulners, an impression that their greatness was past and all that was left to them was a slow slide into decay and ruin.

  The rat-catcher shook his head. There was nothing he could do about Nuln’s lost glory. That was for Count Artur and the Assembly to worry about. His own problems gave him trouble enough. They might not be the sort of thing to vex a baron or a duke, but to Walther they were more important than the Great Mysteries of Verena.

  Dawn found the Black Rose almost deserted. The bushy-bearded Bremer was tending the bar, cleaning out clay tankards and leathern jacks. A few lamplighters and chimney sweeps were scattered about the tables. The real custom happened between sunset and midnight, when sailors and stevedores trooped up the hill from the docks and companies of students descended from the Universität. Then the place would be a bustling confusion of songs and jests, of hard-drinking river-traders and brawny lumpers, their clothes reeking of fish.

  Walther preferred it quiet. He was used to silence, the stillness of the sewers where the only sounds were the crackle of his rushlight and the furtive skitter of the rats. Noise, the racket of too many people crammed into a small place, was to him a frightful thing. Sometimes he was happy that people shunned the company of a rat-catcher. It made it so much easier.

  Except in one area. Walther’s pulse quickened as he looked out across the tavern and spotted the woman making her way from the kitchen with a platter of black bread and frumenty. His eyes fixated upon her shapely figure, upon the way her body pressed itself against the simple wool kirtle and linen apron she wore. Even in the tavern’s gloom, her long golden tresses seemed to shimmer like pieces of the sun. He watched as she rounded one of the tables, setting the platter before the grey-faced militiaman seated there. Walther’s gaze darkened when the soldier made a grab for the woman’s waist.

  ‘Just a little kiss, Zena,’ the militiaman suggested, starting to rise from his chair. The woman placed her hands on his shoulders, pushing him back down.

  ‘None of that, Meisel,’ she scolded him and twisted away from his clutch. ‘Eat your porridge and be content with a full belly.’

  Meisel frowned at his meal. ‘I’ll miss your cooking, Zena,’ he said. ‘Almost as much as I’ll miss those big blue eyes,’ he added with a wink.

  ‘Leaving us, Herr Meisel?’ Bremer called out from behind the bar.

  Meisel shifted his chair around so he could face the bar. ‘I’ve been discharged,’ he said. ‘Me and a hundred like me. Emperor Boris has placed a new tax for every dienstmann a lord retains.’ He dipped his spoon into the bowl of frumenty. ‘The nobles are scrambling to cut their expenses.’

  ‘They’ll cry a different song if the goblins come again,’ Bremer cursed. ‘Or if the beastmen decide to come down from the Drakwald. Then they’ll be begging you fellows to take up arms again.’

  The militiaman clenched his fist. ‘They’ll be begging before then,’ he swore. ‘There’s a knight named Engel who is organising a march on Altdorf. We’re going to petition the Emperor himself and make our demands known!’

  While Meisel and Bremer continued their exchange, Zena retreated back towards the kitchen. Walther knew she detested talk of politics and religion, of anyone wasting their time arguing about things over which they had no control. She might endure the groping fingers of a drunken dock-walloper, but she couldn’t abide a beerhall agitator.

  Walther intercepted Zena just as she reached the kitchen door. ‘Zena,’ he whispered, catching her by the string of her apron. She spun around, her hand raised to strike her accoster. When she recognised the rat-catcher, her expression softened from anger to annoyance.

  ‘Schill,’ she sighed. ‘Of course. No night is complete without being pawed by a ratman.’

  Walther winced at the reprimand, releasing the apron string as though it had suddenly been transformed into a hissing serpent. ‘I didn’t mean…’

  ‘You never mean anything,’ Zena said. Her eyes dropped to the rat-catcher’s hands, becoming hard when she saw the blood on them. ‘You might have washed a bit before coming here.’

  ‘I’m sorry. A few of them nipped me tonight,’ Walther explained, trying to wipe his hands clean on the rough wool of his breeches.

  ‘One of them is going to gnaw off your fingers,’ Zena warned him. ‘I’ve told you before you should find better work.’ Her eyes softened when she saw the ugly gash Walther’s efforts had reopened. ‘Oh! One of those filthy things is going to bite off your fingers!’

  The rat-catcher made no protest when Zena unwound her scarf and ministered to his wounded hand. The sting of his torn flesh was nothing beside the warm rush that pounded through his heart.

  ‘No hunter is completely safe from his quarry,’ Walther said. ‘It is just one of the risks he accepts.’ He reached down, cupping Zena’s chin in his hand, lifting her face until her eyes met his. ‘I’m doing it all for you. I’ll make enough to support you, to raise a family.’

  Zena pulled away, her expression becoming angry again. ‘A penny a tail?’ she scoffed. ‘You’ll raise children on a penny a tail?’

  Walther smiled, reaching to his belt and removing the coins Ostmann had paid him. An exultant feeling filled him when he saw Zena’s eyes light up at sight of the silver. She snatched them from his hand and stared at them in wonder, almost as though she couldn’t believe they were real.

  ‘That’s just the beginning,’ Walther assured Zena. He was thinking of the steadily increasing numbers of rats he’d been seeing in the sewers. He was also thinking of Ostmann’s empty shelves and the embargo against Stirland.

  Gently, the rat-catcher closed Zena’s fingers around the coins and kissed her hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ he told her.

  ‘The happy times are coming.’

  Chapter III

  Middenheim

  Kaldezeit, 1111

  Snarling wolves glowered down upon the oblivious men, stone fangs bared. The flickering fire of an enormous hearth cast weird shadows across the lupine gargoyles, the shifting play of light and dark lending the marble wolves a semblance of savage life.

  Far below the stone wolves, two men sparred across a polished wooden floor. The boards creaked and groaned as heavy boots stamped down on them, as thrust and parry whirled the combatants along the empty gallery. The clash of steel against steel rang through the concourse.

  One of the combatants was a middle-aged man, lean of build, his close-cropped hair in retreat, his thin moustache displaying a scattering of grey. His face was thin and hard, his eyes as sharp as the edge of a knife. He wore a simple leather tunic, his only affectation
being the golden pectoral that hung about his neck. He wielded his sword with suppleness and surety, his every move bearing the cool confidence of long experience.

  His opponent was much younger, little more than a boy. Thick black hair hung to his shoulders, catching in the high collar of his garment. Unlike the simple tunic of the older man, the boy’s gypon was extravagant, stripes of silver thread woven into the burgundy cloth, gold buttons crisscrossing the breast. An enormous buckle, cast into the profile of a running wolf, fastened a belt of dragonhide about his waist. The scabbard which hung from the belt was gilded across most of its length and engraved with elaborate scrollwork.

  The boy’s face was handsome, stamped with all the finer qualities of noble blood and careful breeding. There was pride in his deep blue eyes and a swagger to the curve of his mouth that betokened an innate confidence that needed neither practice nor experience to engender it. The will to accomplish was enough to embolden the boy and drive him to success.

  His swordsmanship displayed a less refined, more primal style than the studied motions of the older man. It was emotion rather than skill which governed his blade, but such was the fire of his passion, the quickness of his reflexes that his guard was impenetrable, his attacks avoided only by the narrowest margin.

  The older swordsman smiled as he twisted his wrist and blocked a slash from his adversary’s blade. ‘That would have been an impressive feint – if you had intended it as such,’ he told the boy.