by Warhammer
‘I once heard someone say better ten innocents be punished than one guilty man go free.’
‘He was a dwarf, I suppose.’
‘He was the chief witch hunter of the Temple of Ulric.’
Felix glanced across the square at the huge temple of the Wolf God. He had been brought up in the Sigmarite faith of the Empire and had never particularly cared for that grim savage deity and his equally savage worshippers, but right now he would not have minded having a company of White Wolf templars by his side.
‘Still, it might be a good idea to keep your axe unbloodied till we establish his guilt or innocence.’
‘How are we going to do that?’
‘I wish I knew.’
Villem strode through the ducal palace towards the main council chamber. Even at this late hour throngs of people were still coming and going. In a city under siege there was always someone who wanted to see the leaders. Villem returned the salutes of the guards and walked in. He touched the hilt of the poisoned blade just to reassure himself it was still there. He wondered if he would get a chance to use it.
Enrik still sat on his throne, listening to his councillors debate what was to be done. He massaged his temples tiredly. His thin face showed some signs of the immense strain he must be under. Good, thought Villem, at least he was not the only one feeling the strain. He wondered why his brother even bothered to put up with these fools. They were always clamouring to make their little points heard. As if it really mattered which troop held which tower, or how the supplies were distributed to the men on the front lines. Tomorrow they would all be dead. Of this, he was quite certain.
He wondered if his henchmen were in position. He hoped so. Maybe this way they could make up for their bungled attempt on the girl. This was one assassination attempt that must succeed. All he had to do was lure his brother into position. It should not be too difficult.
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ he said in his suavest voice. ‘Cannot you see your ruler is tired and must take some time to rest.’
Enrik looked up and gave him a wintery smile. Villem forced himself to clamp down on the sickness that gnawed at his guts and smiled back.
‘There is no time for that, brother,’ he said. ‘We must see to the disposition of the troops, and decide how we will meet the Chaos worshippers on the morrow.’
‘Surely that can wait for ten minutes, brother. After all, we do not even know for certain that they will attack tomorrow.’
The Archprelate of Ulric glanced at him scornfully. ‘If you had bothered to attend the meeting earlier, you would know that all the portents point to an imminent attack.’
‘Portents have been wrong before,’ Villem said easily. ‘I remember when the Lector of Sigmar was certain that a shower of falling stars foretold the end of the world.’
Not even the reminder of the discomfiture of his greatest rival thawed the look on the Archprelate’s face. ‘Brother Amos today also spoke of treachery among the highest,’ he said darkly.
Villem cursed inwardly. That old madman had prophesied such things before and he was usually right. Someone should have stuck a knife in him long ago. Well, after this night it would not matter. There would be all the time in the world to deal with visionary ascetics… assuming they actually survived the coming bloodletting.
‘Such accusations have been made before, usually by those trying to spread dissension in the ranks of all true men,’ he said calmly.
‘Are you suggesting one of our senior brothers could possibly be a heretic?’
Villem made his smile a little broader, as if trying to suggest he was making a joke. ‘Well, he did warn you to beware of treachery in high places.’
A few courtiers, mostly from his own faction, sniggered at that. The Archprelate remained frosty. This was not good, thought Villem. He did not want to spend all night bandying words with this old fanatic. He needed his brother dead. It was regrettable, but necessary. And it needed to be done soon.
‘Come, gentlemen, won’t you allow me to have a quiet word with my brother while he eats? There are some things we need to discuss among ourselves.’
He saw a curious look pass across Enrik’s face. Obviously his brother was wondering what they could possibly need to discuss in private at this late hour.
‘His grace could use a little food,’ said the chamberlain. ‘He has had nothing to eat since this morning.’
Villem inwardly blessed the old man. There had been many a time when he could cheerfully have throttled the stuffy old mumbler, but he had just made up for all those long dull boyhood hours of protocol lessons.
‘I suppose we could take a break for ten minutes,’ said the duke. ‘What is it exactly you want to talk to me about, Villem?’
‘A private matter of some urgency,’ Villem said, glancing around them mysteriously. Enrik merely shrugged, as if to say have it your own way then. The members of the council had already begun to file their way out of the antechamber.
‘Come, let us walk to the dining hall, and you can stretch your legs.’
‘Now that is not such a bad idea. I could use a little exercise. It will loosen me up for tomorrow.’
Villem threw his arm around his brother’s shoulders and began to guide him towards the doorway that led to the dining hall. ‘You worry too much about tomorrow, brother.’
Felix looked around the antechamber, and recognised Boris, the captain of the ducal guard. So far, so good, he and the Slayer had managed to get this far without anyone attempting to stop them. Now all he had to do was find the duke. He gestured to get the guard captain’s attention. Boris saw him and came striding over at once.
‘What is it, Herr Jaeger?’
‘Where is the duke?’
‘He has retired to the dining chamber to get something to eat. The council will reconvene in a few minutes. Why do you wish to see him?’
Felix frantically searched for a reason that would enable him to speak to the duke in private. Inspiration suddenly seized him. ‘I bring him an urgent message from Herr Schreiber about the daemonic forces laying siege to the city.’
He could see that he had got the interest of many of those present. Wizard or not, Max Schreiber was obviously well respected by these people. Well, the first hurdle was crossed. Now all he had to do was work out a way of breaking the news to the duke without losing his own head in the process.
‘Where is the duke?’ he asked out of idle curiosity.
‘He’s just gone off to the dining hall to have something to eat, and a quiet word with his brother.’
Felix exchanged a shocked look with the Slayer. This might be perfectly innocent – or it might be something much more sinister. ‘Which way to the hall?’ he asked. Seeing the quizzical look on the captain’s face, he added, ‘I have heard many tales of the beauties of the tapestries there.’
‘It’s beyond the main audience chamber, near to the great stairwell. Where is your brave companion going in such a hurry? I was hoping to talk to him about his work on the walls.’
‘I think he seeks a jakes. He had a lot to drink earlier.’
Villem walked beside his brother through the shadowy halls of the palace. He was glad it was night, and he was glad it was gloomy despite the torchlight. He did not want to look too closely at Enrik’s face, and he did not want his brother to be able to see his. He feared that his intent and his guilt were written all too clearly there.
‘So, brother, what is it you wish to talk to me about?’
In his mind, Villem tried to work out how close they were to the place where Lars and Pavel waited. Not too far now, he thought, maybe thirty paces. They should be waiting in the alcoves there. He hoped they remembered their instructions. Clean thrusts. He checked the poisoned dagger once more, remembering the part of the plan he hadn’t told them.
It was going to be necessary for them to die, slain by the grieving brother after they had foully struck down their duke. A couple of nicks with his dagger would stop them. After that he
could rip up their bodies at will, and make it look like there had been a suitably bloody battle. Even as the thought crossed his mind, he wondered if he could bring himself to lead his brother to his doom. Had he really sunk this low?
‘You seem very preoccupied,’ Enrik added. ‘What is eating at you?’
His brother sounded concerned. It was actually a little touching. Now is the time to be ruthless, Villem told himself. You can’t afford sentiment. It’s him or you. It was an easy enough thing to think when he was dealing with strangers and rivals in the service of Tzeentch. It was a harder thing now. This was his brother after all, a man he had known longer than he’d known almost anybody else, who he had grown up with, whom he had played with as a child. A person who had known him in the old days before he had become entangled in the webs of dark gods and their followers, when life had been simpler and more innocent.
‘Do you remember when we were boys and were taking sword fighting lessons with old Boris?’
‘This is the important business you wanted to talk to me about?’ Enrik asked softly. He didn’t sound angry, he sounded surprised and a little affectionate. This was a side of him that most people did not see, who saw only the cold and haughty duke. This was a human being, Villem realised, that only he truly knew. He was a man whom Villem had served loyally for many years, and not all of that loyalty had been play-acting by any means, he now realised, even after he had entered the cult of the Changer. When he killed the duke’s assassins, it would be in part a real vengeance by a grieving brother.
He really would miss Enrik, and part of him was truly sorry that things had ever come to this pass. However, it was impossible his brother would survive the next few days anyway. Arek Daemonclaw’s horde would certainly take the city, and his brother would die along with all of his troops. In a way, Villem was doing him a favour by ensuring he did not live to see the bloodstained dawn.
Enough of this hypocrisy, he told himself. Your brother must die to ensure you receive eternal life at the hands of the Great Mutator. It is as simple as that. Yet, he knew it wasn’t. Too often in the past he had regretted his decision to join the cults of Chaos, and wished he had been brave enough to refuse them, and damn the consequences. He was sure when the moment came for Tzeentch to judge him, the god would see this, and hold it against him. He did not possess the ruthlessness and the drive to succeed within the ranks of the Lord of Change. He was damned whichever way he jumped. He could not turn back from the path he had chosen, and the way forward led to perdition too. He shook his head and sighed.
‘Are you ever going to let me in on this great secret you are keeping?’ Enrik asked lightly.
He was joking, of course, but Villem felt a sudden, suicidal urge to confess all, to tell his brother exactly what great secrets he had been keeping. He did not want to beg for forgiveness, he did not want to repent; he did not even want to be understood. He simply felt weary, and bowed beneath the weight of his forbidden knowledge. He wanted an end to this secrecy and standing apart.
It no longer made him feel superior to the common herd. It no longer made him feel like a member of a privileged elite. It simply made him tired almost unto death.
‘I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently, the fencing lessons,’ he said, just to end the silence and have something to say. How far were they from the alcoves now? Ten paces? Fifteen? It was hard to judge. ‘I was thinking about the time when I lost my temper, and hit you from behind and bruised your head, and you told Boris that it was an accident. I never thanked you for that.’
‘Its been preying on your mind all this time, has it?’ asked Enrik and laughed. It was a healthy, hearty laugh, the laugh of a man in his prime. It did not seem fair to cut that laugh off, thought Villem sadly. It came to him now that nothing he had done really mattered. He had killed a lot of people to no purpose, to further an end in which he had never truly believed, and now he was condemning his own brother for the very same reason. It was time for this madness to stop. Only how could he stop it now? Things had gone too far. They were almost at the alcoves. He was certain he could see the shadows of the waiting assassins. Suddenly Pavel sprang forward.
Villem was not quite sure what drove him forward into the way of the assassin’s blade: regret, love, loyalty… or perhaps a simple belief that his life had all gone wrong somehow and now he must atone. A deep-seated urge for self-preservation brought his knife from its sheath, and he shouted, ‘Beware, assassins!’ and pushed his brother back out of the way, sending him tumbling headlong. A sharp sudden stab of agony in his side told him that Pavel’s blade had found a home in his flesh. It would be a matter of moments before the poison finished him. Unless…
He reached down into his soul and found the spark of mystical power that had awakened so recently. It flickered feebly but he grasped it and instinctively sent it racing to neutralise the poison. He was aware that he had only partially succeeded, had merely bought himself a few more heartbeats of life but perhaps they would be enough. He lashed out at Pavel but the assassin was too quick. Villem watched surprise flicker across his face when Pavel realised who it was that was attacking him. It remained there only for an instant. All the followers of Tzeentch were only too aware that treachery ringed around them, and that the next blade that came at them might be from one of their allies.
Pavel reacted instantly, ducking back and stabbing once more. His blade pierced Villem’s side again. He felt a muscular arm loop itself around his neck and was aware that Lars had grabbed him and was holding him steady while Pavel plunged the blade into his body again and again. The pain receded. Strength drained from him. Everything in his sight seemed to be growing dimmer. He watched the floor rise to meet him and realised that his two erstwhile followers had dropped him. All the red stuff around him was blood and it was coming from his body. He had not realised that the human body could hold quite so much.
He looked back and saw his brother still lay sprawled on the floor. He had landed heavily when Villem pushed him clear. Regret filled him. All of his efforts had gone for naught. He had killed his brother, or at least made it possible for his assassins to do so, by accident. As from a great distance he heard a bellowed war cry and became aware of a large shadowy figure moving up the corridor. It was a dwarf, one he recognised: the Slayer, Gotrek Gurnisson.
How ironic, Villem thought. I spent all this time trying to have him killed and now I am praying for him to arrive in time and triumph. How the gods must be laughing!
Even as he watched he saw the dwarf advance upon Lars and Pavel. They turned to meet him but were no match for the Slayer’s ferocity. The axe flickered once, twice, and it was over. The red ruins of his fellow cultists lay dismembered on the ground beside him.
‘Thank you,’ Villem tried to say, but couldn’t get the words out because of the crimson tide that bubbled from his throat.
The darkness gathered round him, and he felt himself drawn downwards towards what waited beyond the doors of death. It was hot down there, and full of searing agony. The Lord of Changes waited there to greet him.
ELEVEN
Felix looked out from the walls near the Gargoyle Gate. Today was the day, no doubt about it. The legions of Chaos worshippers knew it. All the soldiers on the wall knew it. All of the citizens behind them knew it too. There was something in the air that you did not have to be a sorcerer to spot that told you so.
The clouds in the sky were red, streaked through with occasional flickers of black and silver. A crimson haze hovered over the surrounding land, turning the snow the colour of blood, and obscuring the more distant elements of the Chaos army from sight. Something about that glow made the skin on the back of Felix’s neck prickle. He did not need Max Schreiber to tell him that foul magic was at play here. Even as he watched, thousands and thousands of warriors moved to take up their positions.
Regiment was too disciplined a word to describe the mob out there, he decided. They were more like primitive tribesmen bound together in the service of
some potent chieftain. They seethed around the base of the daemonic war engines, eerily silent in the ruddy light. How many tribes of the Chaos scum were there out there?
He could count at least a dozen different banners belonging to the fur-garbed humans alone. There was a flayed man. There was a face with the lips sewn shut. Above one force fluttered a symbol of a three-headed howling dog. Above the heads of others floated banners depicting some sort of daemon. Felix wished he could be certain that the only Chaos worshipping humans near him were those outside the wall. The events of the previous evening had left him shaken.
He guessed he would never know whether Villem was a traitor or not. He had certainly been a mutant, the stigmata had already appeared on his body. But, according to the duke and Gotrek, he had fought to save his brother’s life when ambushed and had died in the attempt. I guess he was innocent, and it was all part of Jan Pavelovich’s plan to sow dissension among the leadership of the city. That was if Jan Pavelovich was the highest ranking cultist, a fact which Felix frankly doubted. He wondered if the young noble had really thrown himself out the window when Snorri and Bjorni were drinking, or whether the Slayers had given him a little help. It did not seem politic to ask, and there was no sense in falling out with the others now that the moment of battle was at hand. They would all need to stand together if they were to have the faintest chance of survival.
Felix shook his head wondering what he was thinking. Such thoughts would never occur to the Slayers. That was not why they were here. They were here to seek a heroic doom. There would be plenty of those to go around this morning, Felix reckoned. He glanced sidelong at the others to see how they were taking things.
Gotrek looked as grim as ever. His gaze never left the advancing horde; he seemed to be singling out individuals as if judging whether they would be worthy of his time in single combat. Felix smiled looking at the Slayer. There was one who was going to sell his life dearly, and drag dozens, at the very least, down to hell with him.
