Blighted Empire tbp-2 Read online

  ‘Dismount,’ Beck called out, putting actions to words. Grimly, the rangers followed suit. They were brave, valiant men. They didn’t demur. Though the odds against them were high, they knew that if they didn’t try then none of them would be able to call himself a man ever again.

  ‘Stay downwind,’ Albrecht hissed, removing his bow from his saddle. ‘We’ve one chance to surprise them.’

  ‘Strike fast and strike hard,’ Mandred echoed the trapper. He frowned at the whalebone bow his aunt had given him. He’d been so impressed with the finery of the weapon he’d never stopped to consider its practicality. He hoped it wouldn’t fail him.

  Emulating the ghostly silence of Albrecht, the men crept through the trees. It wasn’t long before the crackle of flames and the rough grunts of inhuman voices reached their ears. Soon, they were within sight of the clearing.

  Mandred quickly looked away from the horrible vision of the campfire and what smouldered among the embers. He gazed instead at the monstrous creatures ranged about the clearing. They were a motley confusion of fur and horns, hooves and claws. Some of the brutes stood a full head taller than a man while others were short, hunched things. A few of the beastmen affected the rudiments of armour, strips of chain and plate plundered from those they had killed. Others had branded their fur with primitive glyphs and crude symbols, brazenly sporting the marks of their savage gods.

  The prince gave a start when he spied a scrawny, slinking shape among the herd. While the other beastmen favoured goats and bulls and beasts of the field, this one had a verminous cast to it. He was reminded of the disgusting mutant he had fought on the walls of Middenheim so many years ago. The horror he looked upon now was very much made in the same loathsome image.

  Memories of ratmen faded as Mandred’s gaze fell upon the prisoners Albrecht had seen. There were two of them, a slightly flabby middle-aged man and a rather comely woman. Both had been stripped and bound to the trunk of a tree at the edge of the clearing. As he watched, a gigantic beastman stalked towards the captives, a butcher’s cleaver clenched in an almost human fist.

  Mandred knew this must be the Kineater. While a few of its herd affected strips of armour or simple loincloths, this brute draped itself in a primitive parody of a nobleman’s cloak, stitched together from a horse’s tabard and with a collar of human scalps. The thing’s hooves were polished to a bright sheen and the massive horns that spread from its forehead were decorated with a litter of silver chains, jewelled necklaces and other gaudy plunder. Below the horns, the monster’s face was horribly human, a maddeningly handsome visage, the countenance of some ancient forest god.

  The Kineater’s lips pulled back in a grisly smile as it reached towards the woman. Mandred saw her flinch as the cold metal of the cleaver touched her bare back. The monster’s fingers pawed at her long hair. She struggled to avoid the brute’s touch, provoking a bray of laughter that had nothing human in it.

  The whistle of a thrush reached Mandred’s ears, the sign Albrecht had positioned the last of the men around the clearing. The prince didn’t linger. In one smooth motion, he raised his bow and loosed a shaft into the Kineater.

  The beast chief cried out in pain as Mandred’s arrow caught it in the small of the back. It reared back, throwing aside its cloak and exposing a left arm that was swollen into the clawed limb of a sea creature. The Kineater barked and howled, its fury throwing the rest of its herd into a frenzy.

  More shafts came flying from the trees. The rangers struck true with their aim, every arrow hitting its mark. Several of the monsters collapsed, twitching in the dirt. Others whined in pain, struggling to pluck the shafts from their hairy hides. Albrecht had positioned the men well, catching their foe in a murderous crossfire. A second volley sent the beasts into a panic.

  The luxury of picking off the monsters with archery, however, was one that the captives couldn’t afford. With three arrows sticking from its body, the Kineater turned once more towards the woman, its man-like face twisted into a mask of vindictive hate.

  Before the beastlord could raise its cleaver, Mandred burst from the trees. Shouting at the top of his voice, he loosed one last arrow into the monster and drew his sword. The Kineater swung around, eyes glaring at the man who had dared attack it. The last arrow had hurt it, to be certain, but not enough harm to slow it down. Stamping its hooves, the beast charged straight at Mandred.

  ‘Aid the prince!’ Beck called out. From the trees, men were leaping into the clearing with drawn swords. Several of the beastmen that might otherwise have rallied to their chieftain turned about and leapt upon these new foes.

  The Kineater wasn’t distracted. Straight as one of Albrecht’s arrows, the beastman came for Mandred, horns lowered and cleaver upraised. The prince awaited the brute’s charge, diving away as those jagged horns came at him. Lashing out with his blade, he caught the Kineater just inside the pit of its arm. Steel slashed tendon and muscle in a welter of gore. The beastman screamed in pain as its arm fell limp at its side, and the cleaver tumbled from nerveless fingers.

  Mandred followed up the crippling blow with a vicious slash across the Kineater’s back, slicing a great flap of hide from its flesh. Before he could attack again, the brute’s claw came whipping around. The enormous pincer closed tight around him, only the mail beneath his coat preventing him from being cut in half by the jagged mass of chitin. His sword arm, however, was pinned to his side, locked within the pincer’s embrace. He could feel the bones grind together as the Kineater increased the pressure and dragged him to the ground.

  Mandred glared up at the monster’s handsome face as it leered down at him. His fist slammed into the Kineater’s nose, splashing its visage in its own blood. The brute reared back, wailing in pain, but didn’t release the pressure of its claw. Savagely, it drove its hoof down upon Mandred’s free arm, pinning it to the earth. Bloodied lips pulled back in a malicious smile.

  Slowly, the Kineater bent over Mandred, bringing its sharp fangs towards his throat.

  Before the brute could strike, a white blur swept between it and its foe. Mandred turned his face as hot blood sprayed over him. He felt the claw’s pressure vanish, the imprisoning hoof lift away. Quickly he rolled onto his feet, raising his sword to fend off a renewed attack. What he saw made him marvel. The Kineater was staggering about the clearing, its claw clamped about its own neck trying to staunch the torrent of blood streaming from its torn throat. The brute stumbled about for a moment, then collapsed, its beauteous face slamming into the embers of the fire.

  Mandred could only shake his head in wonder at his strange rescue. He didn’t have long to ponder it, however. The clamour of battle yet rang within the clearing. The Kineater was dead, but the fiend’s herd was still in the fight.

  Ignoring the hurt of his battered body, Mandred rushed to help his embattled patrol.

  ‘Voller and Gustav,’ Mandred said, his voice sombre as he stared down at the dead rangers. Victory over the beastmen hadn’t come without a cost. Not one man of the patrol was without his wounds, but Voller and Gustav had made the ultimate sacrifice. ‘They will be remembered,’ he vowed.

  Leaving the surviving ranger and Albrecht to prepare the bodies for transport back to Middenheim, Mandred walked across the bloodied battlefield. A few of the beastmen had escaped the destruction of the Kineater. He looked in vain for the carcass of the rat-like monster, so he knew at least that obscenity had gone free. It was just as well. The survivors would seek places in other warherds and take with them the story of this fight. It might make some of the chiefs think twice before straying so close to the Ulricsberg.

  ‘How are they?’ Mandred asked Beck as he approached the tree where the captives had been bound. The knight had already cut them from their bonds and the two prisoners were sitting huddled together on the ground. The middle-aged man was draped in Beck’s cloak and doing his best to share the warmth of the garment with the shivering woman beside him. Mandred noted with some interest the Kineater’s cloak lying i
n a heap a short distance away.

  ‘Cold and scared,’ Beck answered. He sighed and pointed at the woman. ‘She refused to wrap herself in the chief’s cloak.’

  The woman looked up at Mandred. Despite her ordeal and the less than dignified condition she was in, there was a firmness, a pride in that gaze that impressed the prince. ‘Can you blame her?’ Mandred asked, unfastening the brooch that pinned his own cloak. With a courteous bow, he offered it to the woman.

  Beck shook his head. ‘Damn foolishness,’ he grumbled. ‘Preferring to freeze.’

  The woman shot him a scowling look. ‘You… didn’t have… the experience of… knowing your hair was going to end up adorning that… filth.’

  The knight’s face flushed and he was unable to hold the woman’s glare. ‘I’ll… I’ll see about the horses, your grace.’ Almost unconsciously, he glanced back at the woman, then hurried away when she tightened Mandred’s cloak about herself with an angry tug.

  The man paid no attention to the knight’s withdrawal, more interested in the address Beck had used. ‘Pardon my insolence,’ he begged in a voice that was at once cultured and deferential, ‘but that man called you “your grace”. Would I be correct in believing we owe our deliverance to Prince Mandred von Zelt?’

  ‘You have me at a disadvantage,’ Mandred answered. He smiled benignly at the two wayfarers. ‘I don’t know how my name is regarded in your land. I would be right in detecting the accent of Reikland in your words?’

  The traveller chuckled and bowed. ‘There are some who are envious of Middenheim and would like to see her rulers strung up like a Sigmarsfest goose,’ he admitted. ‘But, that sort tends to stay in Altdorf.’ Mustering what dignity his state of undress allowed, he presented himself with such formality as circumstances would afford. ‘You see before you Friar Richter, a humble priest of Holy Sigmar and confessor to her ladyship, Mirella von Wittmar.’

  Mandred nodded to the priest. ‘Brother Richter,’ he said. Turning to the woman, he found his eyes lingering on her proud face. ‘Lady Mirella,’ he said, bowing to kiss her hand.

  ‘I thank you for your gallantry,’ Mirella returned. She hadn’t blushed under Beck’s scrutiny, but colour rushed to her cheeks as the prince released her hand. Mandred pretended not to notice and quickly looked away.

  ‘Would I be correct in the belief that you are seeking refuge in Middenheim?’ he asked. It was a foolish question. There wasn’t any other reason for a Reikland noblewoman and her confessor to be traipsing about in the Drakwald.

  ‘We beg asylum from your father,’ Brother Richter answered. He sighed and seemed to shrink visibly as a great sorrow depressed him. ‘Circumstances make it imperative we surrender ourselves to the consideration of Graf Gunthar.’

  Mandred stared hard at the priest, puzzled by his manner of speech. Perhaps it was an affectation of the Sigmarite temple, but for a mere confessor, Brother Richter spoke as though he were the social equal of Lady Mirella. His surprise must have shown on his face, for the noblewoman gave the priest a warning glance.

  ‘There is a price on my head,’ Mirella stated, trying to give Mandred something else to think about. ‘I was implicated in Prince Sigdan’s plot against Emperor Boris.’

  Mandred smiled at her frankness. ‘Then you are doubly welcome in Middenheim,’ he said. He turned as he heard Beck coming back with the horses. A thought occurred to him. ‘I fear we’ll need one of the horses to carry our dead,’ he admitted with a touch of awkwardness. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to ride double.’

  Brother Richter’s face curled in a sly grin. ‘I fear I’m a poor horseman,’ he confessed.

  ‘You can ride with me then,’ Mandred decided.

  The flustered priest sputtered a protest. ‘Oh, I’ll be quite all right on my own,’ he said. ‘I just… Well… riding double might… be inconvenient.’ Rolling his eyes he nodded his head towards Mirella. Mandred smiled when he caught Brother Richter’s meaning.

  ‘Lady Mirella, may I offer you my saddle?’ the prince asked. Lowering her eyes, the noblewoman sketched the slightest nod of her head.

  As they prepared to quit the grisly clearing, Mandred gave one last look at the carcasses of the Kineater and its herd. In accordance with custom, the head of each monster had been cut from its body and staked to the branch of a tree, a warning to others of their breed. Only the Kineater’s head had been kept, lashed to Albrecht’s saddle, a trophy that would bring a ray of cheer to the people of Middenheim when it was set upon the walls.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Lady Mirella asked Mandred. Seated behind him in the saddle, she had felt the prince start. She followed the direction of his gaze, but saw only an old log lying just at the edge of the clearing.

  Mandred, however, found himself staring into the frosty eyes of a great white wolf. A wolf with blood on its muzzle.

  ‘Those with a destiny are watched over by the gods.’ Seated upon Voller’s horse, Brother Richter was also staring in the direction of the log. Mandred glanced at the priest, but when he looked back, the wolf was gone.

  ‘It guided me here,’ Mandred told the priest, feeling a chill run through him. Even at its most benign, there was an unsettling wrongness about magic. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Only time may tell,’ Richter admitted. ‘But is it not reassuring to know that the good gods have not abandoned us?’ He nudged the flanks of his horse with his bare feet, urging the steed through the trees with a display of expert horsemanship. Mandred smiled and shook his head.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Mirella asked, confused by the exchange between prince and priest, and even more at its cause.

  ‘Your confessor claims I am meant for great things,’ Mandred said. Without any warning, he spurred his horse forwards, drawing a gasp of surprise from the woman. Mirella wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight.

  Somehow, Mandred was sure the trip back was going to feel much shorter than the journey out.

  Carroburg

  Brauzeit, 1114

  The appointments within Schloss Hohenbach had no part of the grim, imposing exterior of the castle. Inside, the halls were panelled in cherrywood and teak, the floors lined with expensive furs and exotic rugs, the ceilings bristling with chandeliers of silver and crystal. Lavish tapestries, exuberant sculptures and vibrant paintings were displayed in profusion wherever the eye was turned. Rich perfumes rewarded the nose, the melodies of master musicians delighted the ear, silks and satins caressed the skin. The plunder of an Empire had been poured into Boris’s palatial hermitage, exhibited in obscene splendour to astound and awe the chosen elite.

  While a nation starved, while entire communities perished from want and disease, those within the castle were subjected to every delight they could imagine. Fine foods from every corner of the known world, dancers and performers, liquors and stimulants of every stripe and provenance. Each of the Emperor’s noble guests was nightly presented with a chalice of gold filled with elven wine looted from prehuman ruins by the most daring of adventurers. To enhance the richness of the flavour, a pearl of matchless colour and size was dropped into the cup, dissolved in the eldritch inebriant.

  For most of his guests, the delights of the Emperor’s retreat were exhilarating, allowing them to abandon themselves in the pleasures of the moment and forget the horrors that raged beyond the castle. The Black Plague might reign in Stirland and Sylvania, in Averheim and Altdorf, but it had no place here. Here, the plague could not touch them.

  Princess Erna could not share in such wanton indulgence. Each extravagance only increased her contempt for the Emperor and all that he represented. Only a monster could surround himself with such luxury while his subjects were decimated by famine and pestilence, while his realm was wracked by war and disease.

  There were others, to be certain, who shared Erna’s loathing, but they were too afraid not to hide their disapproval. The castle offered sanctuary. If they displeased the Emperor, he might eject them from their refuge, cast them once m
ore into the horrors of a world on the brink of apocalypse.

  Erna knew she wasn’t alone. She saw the way Markgraf Luther von Metzgernstein glowered whenever the Emperor wasn’t looking, fuming over the imprisonment of his six-year-old son in the castle dungeons. She watched Baron von Kirchof’s alarm when the Emperor’s eyes lingered on the shapely figure of his niece. She saw the pious shock in the kindly eyes of Matriarch Katrina Ochs, the Empire’s supreme priestess of Shallya, when the Emperor cast aside decency in order to placate one of his jaded whims.

  Unlike her, however, these dissidents hid their true feelings. Day by day, she saw their convictions slink deeper and deeper inside them, shrinking a little more with each outrage the Emperor presented. Whether it was making crippled halflings dance a waltz or forcing a stuttering buffoon to recite the line of emperors, Boris’s perverse amusements went unchallenged by the sycophants he had gathered to him.

  It was strange that while the convictions of others should wither under the influence of Boris, her own courage should be awakened. Kreyssig had failed to beat the heart from her and the daily offences perpetrated by the Emperor and his court caused Erna to rediscover her idealism. From shuddering fear, she began to treat the Emperor with disdain, even insolence. She knew there would be punishment for her openness, her refusal to condone the Emperor’s wickedness.

  What she didn’t know was the shape that punishment would take.

  One day, after an opulent luncheon of roast pheasant and minced truffles, the Emperor led his guests out onto the parapet overlooking the approach to the castle. Servants waited upon the dignitaries, presenting the Grand Prince of Stirland with a goblet of Bretonnian wine, offering the High Duchess of Nordland a trencher of pickled sturgeon eyes, enticing the Arch-Count of Averland with a platter of smoked swan. Boris waited while his guests sampled the extravagant fare, then, with a smile that Erna knew was directed solely towards her, he strode to the battlements and beckoned his guests to join him.