Dead Winter Page 9

  ‘Vecteek is friend-ally of Pestilens,’ Puskab snarled. The fat monk backed away from Krricht’s perch, his black teeth still threatening the warlord. ‘Lord Nurglitch plan-plot much-much to sick-kill man-things. Rictus have many-strong warriors to conquer-take surface.’ A hacking laugh oozed up from Puskab’s belly. ‘Mors not so many-strong.’

  The plague priest let his last barb echo through the vault as he and his entourage made their retreat. Krricht glared after them, his fangs grinding together. It was tempting to leap down and cut the diseased vermin to ribbons, but too many within Clan Pestilens knew about the meeting and where to place blame should the Poxmaster fail to return.

  Which was why Krricht had already made other plans. The crux of his pact with Vrask was the removal of Puskab. That was the real purpose of this meeting – to determine if Puskab might prove a better ally than Vrask. Now that the plague priest had made his mind known, Krricht would simply fall back on the original plan and fulfil his agreement with Vrask.

  The warlord growled at two of his stormvermin. Chittering maliciously, the armoured warriors scurried away, darting down one of the narrow side-tunnels connecting to the vault. Krricht watched them go, lashing his tail in vicious anticipation.

  Poxmaster Puskab would never sniff the Pestilent Monastery again.

  Puskab Foulfur stalked along the dank, mucky tunnel, his splintered staff tapping against the bare earthen walls. The doleful chant of the monks accompanying him shivered through the stygian darkness, singing the praises of disease and decay. The rustle of rats creeping through the refuse littering the corridor was the only other sound.

  The plague priest’s mind turned over the treacherous proposal made by Warlord Krricht. The hatred and rivalry between Clan Mors and Clan Rictus was well known. Several times the warlord clans had clashed in open conflict, great armies of stormvermin making war in the tunnels and burrows of the Under-Empire. But there were times when the two clans had cooperated as well, conspiring together to crush some third clan between their combined strength. There was a great danger in trusting too much in the antagonism between them.

  Krricht had been much too forthcoming about the supposed scheme to unseat Vecteek. True, he had made it sound like nothing but the slip of an excited tongue, but Puskab wasn’t believing the subterfuge. The warlord’s body posture had been too restrained, too controlled to make his careless excitement believable. The ‘slip’ had been deliberate. The question was, what had Krricht hoped to gain by it?

  Puskab ran a claw across his chin as a new thought occurred to him. The meeting had been arranged between Krricht and Vrask, but what if they had intended Puskab’s acolytes should intercept the messenger? What if they had planned on Puskab, not Vrask, leaving the Pestilent Monastery?

  Vrask was ambitious and impatient, unwilling to wait for the Horned One to acknowledge his worthiness. The scheming efforts of Seerlord Skrittar to turn the Arch-Plaguelord against Puskab might have inspired Vrask to begin his own intrigues. With Puskab out of the way, Vrask would become Poxmaster and chief architect of the Black Plague’s further development.

  The plague priest’s ears curled up against his skull. From the way Krricht had talked, it seemed Mors was aware of what shape the further development of the Black Plague would take. Pestilens had created a plague that would target humans. The next step would be to refine its properties so that it would strike down other races as well. Dwarfs, goblins, beastkin… and naturally any skaven that refused to accept the true aspect of the Horned Rat. Spies might have learned of the plague monks’ intentions, but there were few spies who could survive the noxious atmosphere of the Pestilent Monastery for long.

  No, there was another possibility. Vrask might be trying to cultivate allies outside Clan Pestilens and the Pestilent Brotherhood. It was just possible he had disclosed plans for a wider-reaching plague to Krricht.

  Which again left the question of why Vrask would want Puskab to meet with Krricht.

  The plague priest whipped around, his staff clenched in his paws, his bloated body heaving as his frightened heart hammered in his chest. His eyes darted about the dank tunnel, gazing suspiciously at every darkened niche and shadowy hole. He snarled a warning to his entourage, stilling their cough-squeak chant.

  There was a very good reason why Vrask would want Puskab to make the journey from the Pestilent Monastery. Uncertain if Puskab still enjoyed the favour of Nurglitch, Vrask needed a partner from outside to eliminate his rival.

  Puskab now viewed the tunnel around him through the lens of paranoia. This far below the streets of Skavenblight, the corridor should be alive with skaven hurrying about their business. In winter, cold descended upon the surface, making the swampy lanes slick with frost and ice. But below, warmed by the fecund heat of thousands of ratmen, the tunnels retained an almost stifling heat. There should be hundreds of skaven scurrying through the corridor, squeaking and shoving as they hurried between warrens. Even allowing for the instinctive fear and abhorrence most ratmen displayed towards Clan Pestilens, there should have been at least some traffic present.

  The plague priest raised his nose, sniffing for any trace of what had caused the other skaven to shun the tunnel. His mind raced with thoughts of warlock-engineers rigging the corridor to collapse or packmasters unleashing rabid wolf-rats into the passageway. Whatever was set to happen, news of it had spread among the skaven of this district and caused them to avoid the tunnel.

  Puskab forced a slobbering orison from his throat, drawing upon the profane power of the Horned One. The air about his body began to grow murky, surrounding him in an aura of green smog. The rats creeping along the corridor squealed in fright as the scent of Puskab’s magic reached them, fleeing as quickly as they could from the plague priest’s presence.

  ‘Swords,’ Puskab hissed at the monks with him. The word had scarcely left his mouth before the tunnel was filled with fierce battle cries. From a dozen hidden holes and concealed pits, a mob of snarling skaven spilled into the dingy worm-light of the passage. They were ragged, hideous creatures, with scraggly fur and pallid skin. Scraps of filthy cloth and tatters of rusty mail clung to their scrawny frames, while stone-axes and bone knives were clenched in their paws.

  The attackers had taken pains to smear themselves in dung to mask their scent, but the plague monks did not need to smell their foes to recognise them. Each of the attackers was malformed, huge flappy ears drooping from their skulls and enormous black eyes bulging from their faces. There was no mistaking the cave-rats of Clan Skrittlespike. Their kind dwelled in the warp-mines far beneath Skavenblight, eking out a troglodyte existence far from sun and surface. It was rare for them to ever venture higher than the under-warrens, and even then they did so only to scavenge supplies or steal pups from the brood-mothers of more prosperous clans.

  Puskab snarled as the cave-rats rushed towards him. It seemed Vrask wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to be blamed for the Poxmaster’s murder. Krricht must have taken pains to engage the swords of Skrittlespike’s warriors. Already despised and outcast, the cave-rats didn’t have anything left to lose by murdering such a renowned skaven.

  There was only one problem with Krricht’s plan. He had underestimated the strength of the Poxmaster.

  Puskab stretched forth his claw, pointing his rotten fingers at the foremost of the charging ratmen. A sickly glow gathered about his fingers, then shot forth to pierce the cave-rat in breast and belly. The attacker crumpled, his fur turning pale and leprous where Puskab’s spell had struck. The stricken ratman cried out in terror, but his shriek was cut short as the skaven behind him trampled his body underfoot.

  The spell had accounted for one cave-rat, but there were a dozen more to take his place. Fear of Puskab’s magic was not enough to overwhelm fear of their own clanlord. The plague priest’s spells might strike them down one by one, but the clanlord’s wrath would claim them all. In their craven hearts, each of the cave-rats was secure in the belief that it would be a comrade and n
ot himself who would fall prey to the Poxmaster’s magic.

  In focusing upon Puskab, the ratmen made a critical mistake. The spell had killed only one of their number, but it had done something more. It was a physical manifestation of the power of the Horned Rat, a reminder that the path of Clan Pestilens was the true faith. The noses of the plague monks twitched as the smell of divine disease erupted from Puskab’s fingers. Their ears filled with the anguished howl of the dying cave-rat, their eyes fixated upon the fast-spreading leprosy.

  Before the cave-rats could reach him, Puskab’s entourage was leaping into their path. Foam flecked the muzzles of the enraged plague monks as they lashed out against the goggle-eyed skaven. With the maniacal zeal of fanatics, the green-robed ratmen brought their rusty blades crunching through fur and flesh. The anguished whines of the wounded rose in a shrill cacophony, echoing through the empty tunnel.

  The enormous ears of the cave-rats were too keen to endure their own shrieks. Their faces twisted in expressions of agony, their paws clapping against their heads in an effort to blot out the sound. Though they outnumbered the plague monks four to one, the cave-rats were unable to withstand the frenzied resistance of the robed skaven. Their attack faltered and they began to retreat down the tunnel, leaving their dead and dying strewn across the floor.

  Puskab watched the havoc with narrowed eyes. It was all too easy. Much too easy. There was a reason why Clan Skrittlespike was despised and outcast. It was because they were weak. No matter how desperate, no murder ring would depend upon them to finish…

  The plague priest whirled about just as a brown-furred ratman brought his sword chopping towards his neck. Puskab’s staff intercepted the blow, the serrated blade of his adversary digging deep into the wood. His attacker snarled at him from beneath the brim of a steel helmet, his beady red eyes narrowed with hate. The powerfully built sword-rat brought one of his feet slashing upwards, kicking at the Poxmaster with his claws.

  Puskab chuckled wickedly as the ratman’s claws raked harmlessly against the mail hauberk he wore under his green robes. Like most skaven, the sword-rat hadn’t given enough thought to what might be hidden under a plague priest’s robes. His effort to disembowel Puskab thwarted, the skaven thrashed about, trying to free his sword from the plague priest’s staff.

  He discovered the deed to be more difficult than it should have been. The ratman strove with all his might to wrench the sword free, but instead there was only a grinding sound. Flakes of brittle red rust trickled from the edge of his blade. Horror filled the skaven’s eyes as understanding began to assert itself. He glanced down at his foot, gazing in disgust as the fur began to peel away, as the exposed flesh began to ripple with decay.

  Puskab chittered with loathsome laughter as his would-be killer tried to flee. The skaven was experiencing first-hand the protective magic that had been summoned by the Poxmaster’s orison. The green smog surrounding Puskab was a concentration of the Horned One’s putrid majesty. Harmless to true believers, but corrosive and deadly to all infidel-meat.

  The sword-rat whined in terror, abandoning his corroded blade and moving to disengage from Puskab. Before he could flee, the plague priest’s staff whipped around, cracking the skaven across the jaw. The rotten bone, weakened by Puskab’s magic, shattered like an eggshell. The stricken ratman wilted to the floor in a quivering heap as he choked on his own blood.

  The blade of a halberd came chopping down at Puskab, snapping the tip of one of his antlers and missing the bloated priest’s head by a matter of inches. Puskab leapt back, moving with a frantic ease that belied his corpulent bulk. He found himself staring up at a snarling ratman looking down at him from a hole in the ceiling. No scrawny cave-rat from Clan Skrittlespike, but another brawny brown-furred warrior. It seemed Clan Mors had employed the cave-rats as a distraction and scapegoat, leaving the actual murder to their own stormvermin.

  Puskab decided to show the vermin-meat the price of such arrogance. As the halberdier dropped down from his hole, the plague priest’s voice croaked out a glottal incantation. Green fire flared from his eyes, the air filled with the repugnant sound of buzzing flies. The armoured stormvermin struck out with his halberd once more, trusting that the long reach of his weapon would keep him safely away from Puskab’s corrosive aura. He did not reckon upon the priest’s other spells.

  From the very walls of the tunnel, writhing streams of maggots emerged. In the twitch of a whisker, their wormy bodies moulted, transforming into a legion of hairy flies. Clouds of the vile insects took wing, swarming about the stormvermin, ignoring his shrieks of pain as they bit into his flesh. The halberd clattered to the floor as the ratman tried to flee, his body now carpeted with gnawing flies. Blinded by the swarm, he crashed into the wall, toppling to the floor in a screaming heap. If there were other sword-rats lurking above the ceiling, the agonies of the halberdier made them reconsider challenging the plague priest’s sorcery.

  Puskab Foulfur watched his enemies with vindictive amusement. So would die all his enemies – slowly and in great pain. The suffering of these would be but a prelude to what would come.

  Chapter V

  Altdorf

  Kaldezeit, 1111

  The scene outside the Kaiseraugen was one of white tranquillity. The roofs of Altdorf were powdered with snow, the icy banks of the river shining like a field of diamonds in the early-morning sun. Tiny figures moved about upon the frozen docks, unloading cargo from the few ships still travelling upon the Reik. So small and frantic, they seemed like busy little ants.

  Emperor Boris dismissed the men from his thoughts. Shifting his shoulders, snuggling his body deeper into the nest of warm furs draped about his throne, he restored his attention to the men seated around the table. Lord Ratimir was just finishing a particularly long-winded and tedious summation of the state of the Empire.

  ‘Half of the provinces have had a poor harvest this year, either through war or pestilence,’ Ratimir concluded. ‘Disease has run rampant among the peasants in six provinces, spreading faster than it could be contained. Many fiefs have been left without enough men to gather the harvest, forcing them to leave crops to rot in the fields. Worse, this misfortune has attracted vermin in unprecedented numbers… Mice and rats which gorge themselves in the abandoned fields and then turn their appetites upon such food stores as have been collected.’

  Boris waved a jewelled hand, motioning his minister of finance to silence. ‘Exaggerations,’ he sneered. ‘A petty effort to cheat the Imperial Treasury. I want excise men sent into each province – outsiders, not natives – to evaluate the situation in each district.’ A cunning smile spread over the Emperor’s face. ‘Have taxmen from Nordland sent to evaluate Middenland, ones from Sylvania to inspect Stirland.’ He chuckled when he saw his smile infect Lord Ratimir’s lean features. He didn’t need to tell the minister to have provinces that already shared bad blood between them to police the accounts of the other. It would serve a twofold purpose. First it would ensure that each province would have its yields exaggerated by the inspectors dispatched by the enemy court. Whether such yields existed or not, the provinces would be taxed for them and the blame for this excess burden would fall upon the rival province, not the Emperor. Second, if a famine did develop, the Emperor could point to his tax records to show that ample supplies had been harvested and shift the responsibility over to greedy local lords engaged in speculation and hoarding.

  ‘There is another problem, your Imperial Majesty.’ Adolf Kreyssig rose from his seat, removing a scroll from a wooden tube as he approached the Imperial throne. ‘My Kaiserjaeger have discovered not less than six incidents of plague in the last two days. We have been able to remove the infected peasants to Mundsen Keep without even the Schueters taking undue notice. It is not uncommon for us to remove peasants for interrogation.’

  ‘Then there is no problem,’ Emperor Boris said.

  Adolf Kreyssig shook his head and opened the scroll, unveiling a map of the city. ‘I’m afraid there is, y
our Imperial Majesty. The cases of plague we have found were in the vicinity of the south docks, the Niederhafen district; all of the victims were sailors of one stripe or another. That part of the city is cramped and overcrowded. Whatever fell influence brought the disease here, we can only assume that others have been exposed. It is only a matter of time before more incidents of plague begin popping up.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’ Lord Ratimir asked. ‘That we burn down the Niederhafen district? Do you have any idea how much commerce enters the city from those docks?’

  ‘The plague may be entering the city from those docks,’ Kreyssig countered. ‘I have warned you that ships from Stirland and Talabecland should be turned away.’

  ‘Your point is noted, commander,’ Emperor Boris declared. The scheming gleam was back in his crafty eyes. A bejewelled hand drummed against the arm of his throne as his mind turned over the possibilities that now occurred to him.

  ‘I do not think you understand the potential here, Kreyssig,’ the Emperor said at last. He leaned forwards in his seat, pointing a finger heavy with rings at the commander of the Kaiserjaeger. ‘You didn’t find those people in the Niederhafen. They turned up near the Altgarten. The plague isn’t entering Altdorf from the docks, Engel’s rabble have brought it with them.’

  Kreyssig’s head dipped in a grim nod. ‘I will have my men attend the peasants we have detained. It will look as though they died of the plague. We will leave the bodies close to Breadburg, conspicuous enough that someone will find them sooner rather than later. A bit of public fear will lend justification to future activities.’ Like Grand Master von Schomberg, Kreyssig was well aware that the Emperor was only biding his time before unleashing his knights against the Marchers.

  ‘Do not allow the panic to go too far,’ Emperor Boris cautioned. ‘I must be seen to be boldly leading the way, not reacting to the demands of peasants and petty lordlings. A day or so, then we ride against Engel’s rebels.’