Blighted Empire tbp-2 Read online

  For their sins, the people of Albrecht’s Close rallied to a new and terrible redeemer.

  Middenheim,

  Sommerzeit, 1118

  Ar-Ulric cast an appraising eye over Brother Richter as the priest seated himself at the right hand of Prince Mandred. The High Priest of Ulric teased his snowy moustache with a wrinkled hand as he walked around the Fauschlagstein, the great stone council table carved from a single block of mountain granite, and took his seat near that of Graf Gunthar. Even when he was seated, the old cleric couldn’t keep his eyes from straying towards the Sigmarite or an amused expression from tugging at his face.

  Mandred found Ar-Ulric’s demeanour puzzling and consequently annoying. The priest was getting on in his years, far older than any wolf-priest before him. Age had lent him a taciturnity that made a dwarf seem chipper by comparison.

  Thoughts of dwarfs made him look over at Thane Hardin Gunarsson, chief of Middenheim’s dwarf population. More properly, the dwarfs lived beneath the city, deep inside the Ulricsberg — the mountain they called Grungni’s Tower — itself. The halls of Karak Grazhyakh ran through the whole of the mountain and, it was said, its mines delved deep into the bedrock below. Thane Hardin was a stoic, studious representative for his people, speaking rarely and then only with cautious deliberation.

  Others gathered about the table represented the noble families of Middenheim, such as Duke Schneidereit and Margraf von Ulmann. The graf’s chamberlain, the pessimistic Viscount von Vogelthal, was also in attendance, wearing his usual cynical scowl. Grand Master Vitholf of the White Wolves, successor of Grand Master Arno, sat beside the chamberlain, trying to ignore Mandred’s presence. The knight blamed Mandred for Arno’s death, a grudge that hurt the prince all the more because he himself felt it to be justified.

  All those seated around the Fauschlagstein stood as Graf Gunthar entered the room, dressed in the rich blue raiment he always affected at such meetings. The graf nodded respectfully to Lady Mirella and Brother Richter, then circled around to the wolf-armed seat at the head of the table. As he lowered himself into the high-backed chair, his councillors resumed their seats.

  For the better part of an hour, the graf and his council listened attentively as Mirella and Richter described the situation in the south, the political climate in Altdorf and the status of the Imperial court. Rumours of much that they had to relate had reached Middenheim already, carried by the trickle of refugees who managed the dangerous journey, but to have the facts related to them by persons who had actually been there was accorded far greater import. Graf Gunthar was particularly struck by the theft of Ghal Maraz, the Hammer of Sigmar and one of the holy regalia that lent the Emperor the authority to rule.

  ‘Stolen by a young knight?’ the graf marvelled. ‘Right from under the nose of old Boris!’

  ‘Prince Sigdan’s intention, I believe, was to bring the hammer here, your highness,’ Lady Mirella said. ‘Baron Thornig was to conduct the thief, a captain of the Reiksknecht, to your court. Sadly, the baron was killed by the Kaiserjaeger.’

  ‘And this captain? You say that he escaped?’ Graf Gunthar asked.

  ‘He did, your highness,’ Brother Richter stated. ‘Adolf Kreyssig, the so-called Protector of the Empire, has posted a three thousand crown bounty on the head of Erich von Kranzbeuhler.’

  The amount of the reward brought appreciative whistles from some of the councillors. Viscount von Vogelthal turned towards the graf. ‘With such a large bounty, it is obvious this von Kranzbeuhler still has the hammer.’ The chamberlain frowned and shook his head. ‘Or at least Kreyssig thinks he does. Just because he didn’t reach Middenheim is no reason to think he might not have sought asylum in the court of another count.’

  Brother Richter shook his head. ‘He didn’t,’ he declared.

  ‘You seem rather certain of that,’ Mandred observed.

  ‘I am,’ Richter agreed. ‘Because not six months ago I encountered von Kranzbeuhler in a small village south of the Reikwald.’

  ‘Quite a risk, merely to consult a simple friar,’ Ar-Ulric commented, a knowing gleam in his eye. He smiled when Richter gave him a worried look.

  ‘Did he still have Ghal Maraz?’ Grand Master Vitholf wondered.

  The priest nodded. ‘You see, I didn’t seek him out. He sought me. He wanted my advice on what to do, where to take the hammer.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’ Graf Gunthar asked, leaning forwards in his chair, his face anxious.

  ‘I told him to hide it,’ Brother Richter said. ‘I told him to keep it safe. That Sigmar would reveal to him when the time was right for Ghal Maraz to return.’

  ‘Outrageous!’ exclaimed Duke Schneidereit. ‘If you had access to the hammer, why not keep to the plan and bring it here? This entire story is preposterous!’

  Graf Gunthar fixed Brother Richter with his gaze. ‘You understand that with Ghal Maraz I could have made a claim upon the throne? I could have cast this peasant tyrant from the Imperial Palace. I could have restored order to the Empire.’ His voice became a bitter growl. ‘But a Sigmarite wouldn’t stomach an Ulrican on the throne.’

  Thane Hardin snorted derisively at the graf’s statement. From anyone else on the council, Gunthar would have taken it as a grave insult. Instead, he turned to hear what the dwarf had to say.

  ‘You really think holding Ghal Maraz would make all the other kings bow to you?’ Thane Hardin scoffed. ‘All you’d get would be a bunch of scoundrels yapping for your blood and calling you a thief. Few men have the honour to set aside their own interests to do what’s right. Even fewer when they wear crowns and titles. To be blunt,’ he added, as though his speech had been restrained, ‘I’m amazed your Empire has held together as long as it has.’

  ‘Thane Hardin makes a good observation,’ Margraf von Ulmann said. ‘There are many who would refuse to acknowledge any claim on the throne. With the example of Boris Goldgather, they might justifiably fear the domination of another tyrant of his ilk. Then there are men like this peasant Kreyssig, who won’t relinquish power unless it is pried from his dead fingers.’

  ‘Men must wallow in the depths of darkness before they will strive towards the light,’ Ar-Ulric said, quoting an ancient Teutogen parable. The wolf-priest’s wrinkled hands slowly came together, fingers entwined. ‘The strength of the pack is tenfold against the lone wolf,’ he told the other councillors. ‘But until that strength is needed, how much will the lone wolf struggle to keep his freedom?’

  Graf Gunthar sat back, sober contemplation knotting his brow. ‘That is why you hid the hammer?’ he asked Brother Richter.

  ‘It is, your highness,’ the Sigmarite answered. ‘By itself, Ghal Maraz cannot bring unity. What it can do is bring legitimacy to that unity.’ He swept his gaze across the council. ‘The Empire is beset on all sides. The Northmen have razed Westerland and are encamped in the rubble of Marienburg. Drakwald is a depopulated shambles. This you know, but things are even more dire in the south. Sylvania is in the grip of the walking dead, stirred from their graves by a terrible necromancer. Averland is beset by orcs from the south. The city of Pfeildorf…’

  Richter hesitated, wondering if he dared continue, if any about the table would believe him if he related the fate of Solland’s capital, a fate that had also descended upon Wissenburg and nearly claimed Altdorf itself. Would they believe him if he said the Underfolk had scurried straight from the pages of legend to become loathsome, hideous reality? Would he have believed it himself had Kranzbeuhler not shown him the severed paw of one of the monsters?

  ‘Pfeildorf has been lost to inhuman creatures,’ the priest stated. ‘Beastkin of the most abominable cast in numbers such as even the Drakwald has never seen. Entire villages and towns have been enslaved by the fiends, forced to toil for their monstrous masters.’

  Mandred gave a start as he heard Richter speak. He was thinking of that ratty beastman in the Kineater’s herd, of the similar creature he had thrown from the walls of Middenheim years ago. A shiv
er passed through him, those old legends scratching at his mind. He started to speak, but decided better of it. He didn’t want to look foolish before his father and the council.

  Beastmen came in all shapes and sizes. The ratmen had been nothing but especially degenerate examples.

  After all, everyone knew there was no such thing as the Underfolk.

  Far below the halls of the Middenpalaz and the streets of Middenheim, the subterranean darkness echoed with the crack of pick and hammer. The low grumble of an old miner’s chant whispered down rocky tunnels, catching in fissures and crevices to become a chorus of echoes. The glow of candles and coal-lamps cast a flickering island of light amid the black pits of Grungni’s Tower.

  The dwarfs smelt of beer and sweat, leather and steel. The reek of the goat fat used to starch their beards was especially pungent, an odour that announced their presence even more loudly than the glow of their candles and the stink of their lamps. Under concealment of the Khazalid work song and the din of tools, dark shapes crept furtively through the tunnels.

  Intent upon the little ribbon of gold they had pursued through the mountain for decades, the dwarfs were oblivious to the foe that stalked them through the tunnels. The vein had been entrusted to their clan by the powerful Engineer’s Guild, becoming not simply a source of wealth to them but a matter of pride and honour as well. The work itself was as important as the rewards to be reaped from the golden nuggets they chipped from the walls. A dwarf who didn’t put himself fully into his work wasn’t fit to wear his beard.

  Such was the devoted concentration they put into their labour that the miners didn’t notice when one of the picks fell silent. They didn’t hear the soft gasp as a sharp dagger was thrust through dwarfish back to pierce dwarfish lung. They didn’t notice the change in their song as one of its voices was silenced. They didn’t see the shape cloaked in black that carefully lowered a limp corpse to the floor of the shaft.

  One by one, the miners were dispatched. Sinister shapes stole upon them from the shadows, striking in deathly silence with the expertise of accomplished killers.

  It was the rats that finally alerted the miners to their danger. The vermin were a constant presence in the shafts, an annoyance that the dwarfs endured for the pragmatic fact that the rodents had an eerie ability to sense vibrations in the rock. Even before a dwarf’s keen senses could warn him of a cave-in, the rats would be scurrying for safety. An experienced miner would even encourage a few rats to linger in any shaft he was working with scraps of food. Always he would keep half an eye on the animals, wary of any change in their habits.

  A grizzled old dwarf rested his pick on his shoulder as he noticed the rats on the floor near where he was working. He’d never seen the creatures so agitated before. It wasn’t the mad scramble for safety a collapse would cause. No, the creatures were crawling about, low to the floor, looking for all the world like whipped dogs. Sometimes they would lift their heads and sniff at the air, only to chirp a frightened little squeak.

  The old miner raised his gaze from the floor, and his eyes grew wide with alarm as he saw one of the candles further down the shaft snuffed out. The entire length of the tunnel behind him was in darkness, though he knew there should be half a dozen dwarfs between himself and the main shaft. Grimly, he shifted the pick from his shoulder, hands closing about it as they would around the grip of a battleaxe.

  Before he could move, a mass of darkness swept towards the miner. His eyes picked out the hunched figure, the lean body of a bestial shape draped in the folds of a long black cloak. He saw beady red eyes gleaming from a furry face, the long muzzle twisted in a toothy snarl. He saw the hand-like paw lick towards him, a crooked blade clenched in its fingers. For an instant, he felt the sizzle of the poisonous blade as it slashed his throat.

  The dwarf’s killer caught his body before it could collapse to the floor. Carefully, the assassin lowered the corpse to the ground, scattering the frightened rats. The murderer stared down at the ghastly slash he had inflicted, watching as the traces of warpstone from his dagger continued to burn and bubble at the edges of the wound.

  Then the skaven reared back, turning his eyes away from the miner. In a single hop, he was at the little niche the dwarf had been working. The assassin’s paw flashed over the candle yet burning there, snuffing it out. As darkness enveloped the ratman once more, he cast his gaze further down the shaft, where the sounds and smells of dwarf yet prevailed.

  Deathmaster Silke twitched his whiskers in amusement.

  There was nothing quite like killing helpless prey to make a skaven feel pleased with himself.

  Chapter VI

  Altdorf

  Vorgeheim, 1114

  Cold fire seared through Kreyssig’s arm, an agony that seemed to stab down into the very core of his being. When he thought he could take no more, the pain intensified, forcing him to endure.

  ‘Pain heals,’ the witch’s soft tones whispered through the desecrated chapel. ‘Pain is life. It is through pain that we find our strength.’

  From the corner of his vision, Kreyssig could see the Baroness von den Linden pace around the room, her delicate fingers gliding across the ruined masonry and smashed statuary on the walls. As always, there was a fearful fascination about the witch. Her every step had a grace beyond mere woman. She was like some great feline on the prowl as she circled the stone altar.

  ‘How strong do you want to be, commander?’ the baroness mused. ‘What are your limits?’

  Through clenched teeth, Kreyssig hissed an answer. ‘There… are… no… limits.’ He squeezed his eyes shut, clenched his jaw as spasms of suffering pulsed through his flesh.

  An almost coy smile teased the corners of the witch’s mouth as she watched her patron’s ordeal. If the decision were left to him, she did believe he would allow the pain to mount until the aethyric harmonies caused his heart to burst. It was an impressive display of determination, and the baroness wasn’t one to impress easily.

  ‘The will may be a thing of iron, but the body is still mere flesh,’ the witch declared. She waved her hand, the obsidian gargoyle circling her forefinger blazing with an eerie light as she siphoned off the magical emanations surrounding the altar. Before they could build again, she stepped forwards and brushed away the herbs and offal surrounding Kreyssig. The Protector rose, grimacing as pain shot through his body.

  ‘I could have taken more,’ he complained, flexing his arm, the arm he had been told would never mend.

  ‘All things in their season,’ the baroness cautioned him, extending her hand and helping Kreyssig down from the altar. ‘Power must be marshalled slowly and with care.’

  Kreyssig gave a pensive nod, deferring to the witch’s knowledge of the black arts. ‘These dalliances, pleasant though they are, have become somewhat dangerous.’ He marched across the chapel, retrieving his clothes from the dusty floor. ‘Just today, my Kaiserjaeger captured a man who was following me here. It didn’t take long to make him admit he was a spy in the service of Duke Vidor.’

  ‘You pulled the duke’s fangs when you made Soehnlein the new Reiksmarshal,’ the witch pointed out. ‘Surely there is nothing he can do to you now?’

  Kreyssig paused as he buttoned his tunic, frowning as he noticed he was employing only his right hand. It was a habit he was going to break, a legacy of his former weakness he would purge.

  ‘Ordinarily, I would squash Vidor like a bug,’ Kreyssig said, enjoying the twinge of anxiety mention of insects provoked in his benefactress. ‘But it is too soon to act out of hand. The nobles need time to understand the new status quo, to appreciate the authority Emperor Boris has bestowed on me. As you have said, all things in their season. Vidor will attend the Scharfrichter. But until then he can make trouble.’

  The baroness swept forwards, assisting Kreyssig as he dressed. She leaned close to his ear, her voice lowering to an alluring purr. ‘You are the Protector of the Empire, surrogate of His Imperial Majesty. What man would dare challenge you?’


  ‘Even an Emperor must beware the gods,’ Kreyssig said, recalling a bit of wisdom the departing sovereign had given him. It wasn’t a warning about impiety, however, but rather an admonition to pay close attention to the clergy. The Emperor was master of the bodies of his subjects, but their souls were claimed by the priests and their gods. The power of faith and superstition was one any ruler ignored at his peril.

  ‘The ravages of the plague have aroused strange ideas in the heads of the peasants,’ Kreyssig explained. ‘With every new outbreak, the people descend a little further into their morass of superstitions. They turn to plague doktors, bonesetters and leeches to preserve them from the disease. And when these measures fail them, they flee into the shadows of superstition. They cling to faith in the gods, hearken to the words of zealots and fanatics, in their despair.’

  Kreyssig pulled away from the witch’s arms, turning around so that he could stare into her eyes. ‘Witch-takers stalk the streets of Altdorf, burning old midwives and herb-mongers, alchemists and astrologers. They have stirred the fears of the rabble and from that fear they have claimed their own brand of power.’

  ‘Your power is greater,’ the baroness said, a slight trace of fear creeping into her voice. ‘You could exile these murderers or hang them from the city walls.’

  Kreyssig shook his head. ‘It is not so simple. These madmen have preyed upon the faith of the commoners, given them a new hope, however irrational. Hope dies hard, and never with more tenacity than among people with nothing left to lose.’

  ‘What will you do then?’ the baroness asked. The witch had good reason to worry. Rumours about her unnatural talents had long been a subject of gossip among the intimates of the Imperial court.

  ‘First, I must know how much longer I must attend these treatments,’ Kreyssig said. ‘Vidor’s next spy may prove more capable than his last one. I can’t have him using my connection with you to foment unrest among the rabble.’ A caustic laugh hissed through his teeth. ‘I’ll have to redirect the hopes of the peasants. Channel their superstitious fears away from the witch-takers and to a more respectable institution.’