by Rob Sanders
‘Don’t leave me,’ Kastner pleaded with his lord, ‘the plaything of fate. Show me a sign – in this place of all places. Anything, curse you.’ But nothing came. Kastner’s lifetime of devotion and service was rewarded with the kind of monumental silence only a towering statue could deliver. As the priestly gathering hushed and parted, Hedrich Lutzenschlager entered the Great Sanctuary. In robes of glorious white and golden thread, which trailed behind the Grand Theogonist for half the hall, the High Sigmarite made his way towards the throne. Lutzenschlager was known as an ardent but cold servant of the God-King. A puritanical and inflexible executor of his faith, his displeasure was easily earned. He wasn’t a physically imposing man. He didn’t need to be. The six Knights of the Fiery Heart escorting him in were imposing enough, in the gilding of their gold and silver plate, carrying the lengths of hammer-crowning pole-axes in their glorious gauntlets. Lutzenschlager’s short steps took him with business-like speed through the masses. With him hurried a small group of attendants, bearing the Grand Theogonist’s own ceremonial hammer, staff-sceptre and rolled readings. Lutzenschlager’s head was shaved short, leaving a black shadow that almost gave the appearance of a skullcap, while his feathered brow framed hard eyes and a beaked nose.
As the Grand Theogonist made his long approach, Kastner glowered back up at the impassive mask of the golden god. Pulling back his hood, he slipped his crusader helm back over a snarl that threatened to split his face.
‘You speak not,’ Kastner mouthed within the darkness of his helmet, ‘but I hear everything. Silence will be met with silence, God-King. Nothing so singularly personifies the prayer unanswered as a god powerless to save his people. So be it. You will watch your worshippers suffer and die – as I drag down your Empire into the embers of Armageddon. You will hear me then, God-King. You will hear me in the pleading prayers of your people, held under my blade. You will hear me in the ravenous fires – that will eat all you have lived to build. You will hear me in the deafening silence of the End Times, where I will leave your petty Empire no world left to conquer. Though half-blind, I see you for the fraud you have always been. The appealing ramblings of a mad friar. I renounce your false majesty – and will forge a path of my own making. I will champion my undoing and accept allegiance of those that already answer the hatred in my heart. I do this out of hatred for you, my lord. Out of hatred for all the fickle Powers of this world, who play at destiny with men’s souls. With darkness lies a new beginning, as with me lies the end of man and all godkind.’
‘Yessssss,’ something dark and deep within him said. With the word, Kastner felt his heart suddenly thud within his chest. Like the unfastening of a lock, the heavy chains and shackles of his infirmity fell away. A dread potential had bloomed within the knight, at once allowing him to access all he once had been and the fearful doom he would one day become. Kastner savoured the troubled birth of darkness within his soul. The feeling was new. It was exciting. And yet it had always been there, its mouldering seed forever planted in his heart. He knew nothing of birth. It was lost to the darkness of ignorance. He had been begotten by darkness and to darkness he would return. The templar allowed the cold rage to build within him, honing it like a blade on the eve of battle. It was time.
As Hedrich Lutzenschlager passed Kastner, he heard furious mutterings from within the templar’s helm. He turned to one of his escorting knights before ascending the steps leading to the statue of Sigmar, to take his place on the throne. The Knight of the Fiery Heart came to a stop beside Kastner and laid a gleaming gauntlet on his pauldron.
‘Silence, brother,’ the knight warned from within his own ornate helmet.
Kastner’s mail fist came up behind his helmet and reached down the back of his hood. As the knight turned to retake his place in the Grand Theogonist’s honour guard, Terminus cleared the scabbard at Kastner’s back. The blade sang overhead, before the templar brought its cleaving edge down through the knight’s own armoured shoulder. With the force of the storm stirring within Kastner behind it, the greatsword cut through the ceremonial plate like ripe cheese. Blood fountained from the stump as the arm clattered to the ground, the knight falling swiftly after it. Like the sigh of a stirring volcano, shock passed through the congregation. But Kastner had barely begun.
While Reikland reinforcements milled on the Templeplatz and horses dragged cannons across the Three Tolls Bridge, a gauntlet of knights in full plate sat tall in saddles. Sentries and men-at-arms stood in double their number at the cathedral’s archways and entrances. All waited without the great cathedral walls and doors for a threat that would never come.
Kastner had already announced his arrival within in blood. He called to his enemies with the death of their own. The world flooded the templar with its new sensations. He could hear the echo of confusion in Sigmarite hearts. He could taste the questions on their lips and drank in deep the fear filling their bellies. The rear three knights attempted the clatter of an urgent turn. Kastner wished them dead. And it was so.
The gold and silver of the knights’ ceremonial plate did not look as impressive with Kastner’s blade exploding from the chest plate or leaving the crimson of slashed throats cascading down its polished surface. There was running. And shouting. And screaming. The Great Sanctuary was emptying of Sigmar’s false prophets. They shrieked with unmanly abandon, tearing at each other’s vestments to get through the chamber doors and arches.
As his attendants fled with the only weapons the Grand Theogonist had – and called for the cathedral’s men-at-arms – Hedrich Lutzenschlager fell back into his throne. He wore the shock of a man watching an accident unfold but feeling powerless to stop it. His face was a paralysed mask of horrified acceptance. Two Knights of the Fiery Heart crossed their pole-axes before the throne to prevent Kastner getting through, while the remaining warrior came for him with the kind of confidence and fervour the templar himself had once reserved for the enemies of Sigmar. He swung the pole-axe with the full length of its haft, expertly guiding the weight of the hammer at its far end towards Kastner with irresistible force. The templar brought up his shield and leaned into the impact. As it smashed into the shield surface, Kastner was sent skidding to the side. As tiles came up before the sliding side of his boot, Kastner threw himself straight back at the knight. Circling in a graceful arc, the pole-axe came at Kastner again – from the other side. Again the hammer fell like a thunderbolt at the templar and again he got his shield before it. Crunching up through the shattered tiles and sliding Terminus between his arm and the shield, Kastner slipped the toe of his boot beneath the haft of a pole-axe lying across the body of one of his victims. Scooping the weapon up with his foot, the templar caught it in his mail fist before launching it at the knight. The armoured warrior caught the haft-spike of the axehead in his chestplate – the point rupturing the knight’s heart.
‘Your god has abandoned you, sieurs,’ Kastner told the two remaining honour guardsmen. ‘As he has done me.’
The knights were not interested in exchanging conversation with heretics and as the first grabbed his master below the arm and man-handled him from the throne, the second came forward to keep Kastner occupied.
‘One at a time,’ Kastner questioned. ‘Really?’
The Sigmarite held his pole-axe in two gauntlets, jabbing and thrusting at the templar with well-practiced lunges. Kastner didn’t even move to take Terminus from where the weapon was resting behind the handles of his shield. He watched the spear-point on the head of the weapon come for him and merely leaned back out of the weapon’s path. To one side. Then the other. Having pushed the stunned Grand Theogonist in the direction of his escape, the second knight rattled up behind to aid his compatriot.
Kastner slapped the haft of the first knight’s weapon aside with his shield before running straight at him. There was a clatter as the plate of the two knights clashed. Kastner had knocked the warrior back at the throne with his shield before
turning to meet the oncoming head of the other knight’s pole-axe. The Grand Theogonist, meanwhile, was backing rapidly towards the hordes of exiting priests, unable to take his eyes from the blood being spilled in Sigmar’s Great Sanctuary.
Kastner allowed the head of the pole-axe to glance from the rounded surface of the shield, turning with the force of the weapon and moving out to one side. His hand slapped down at his side to remove the battlehammer from his belt. The Grand Theogonist had not heeded the calls and entreaties of his priests to follow them, but upon spying Kastner move in on him with the hammer, Lutzenschlager turned and ran. Three more steps took Kastner to the trailing tails of Lutzenschlager’s extravagant robes. Stamping down on the material, Kastner stopped the Grand Theogonist in his tracks. As Lutzenschlager turned, gathering the robes in his hands to heave for his freedom, Kastner tossed his battlehammer with murderous force. Passing head over haft, the hammer struck Lutzenschlager in the chest, knocking him from his feet and turning him into a lifeless mound of robe and limbs.
The first mistake that Kastner’s opponent made was turning his helm to check on his master. The second was turning back. Pulling Terminus from where it nestled behind his shield, Kastner cleaved through the knight’s helmet. Dropping his pole-axe, the Knight of the Fiery Heart crashed onto his backside, struggling to push the rent visor up from his ruined face. Kastner could hear the footsteps of the knight behind him. The templar didn’t even turn to meet his attacker. The steps were not even, like those of a knight making a charge. They sounded irregular, like the kind you might make to throw a ball or the weight of a pole-axe around on the length of its haft. Kastner waited. He allowed the knight to line up his target. Kastner took a step closer to the knight on the floor, fighting to pull the mess of his face from the mess of his helmet. Then Kastner suddenly lowered his head and swooped to one side. The crowning hammer of the pole-axe came straight down on the head of the sitting knight, smashing what was left of his skull to mulch. The knight couldn’t believe what he had just done to his knightly comrade and his body remained frozen in stunned realisation. The Knight of the Fiery Heart had little time to contemplate the harrowing accident, as Terminus came down like the blade of an executioner’s axe and took off his stricken head and helm.
Tearing the priest’s robes from his muck-smeared plate, Kastner slipped his greatsword back in its scabbard on his back. Walking with a brisk clatter, the templar stood over the Grand Theogonist. Lutzenschlager – his former spiritual master. He picked up his battlehammer in one hand and the leg of the robed Grand Theogonist in the other. A novice priest stood apart from the fleeing crowd of Sigmarite priests. He looked at Kastner in stunned amazement, his eyes needlepoints of searing naivety and accusation.
‘Come on,’ another novice begged, pulling the boy but he resisted.
‘That’s it, boy,’ Kastner mocked. ‘Run along.’
He dragged Lutzenschlager back through the gore on the floor and towards his throne.
‘For Sigmar’s sake,’ the novice priest’s friend pleaded once more. ‘Let’s go. The Knights of the Fiery Heart will handle this.’
‘They will try,’ Kastner said to himself, as the novice was pulled away.
‘Wherever you go,’ the boy shouted, his voice tender with his years, ‘wherever you run, wherever you hide, the God-King will find you.’
‘He will not,’ Kastner barked back, his words echoing about the Great Sanctuary. ‘For I am already lost to him.’
‘He will punish you,’ the novice’s voice faded as he was pulled back through the fearful confusion of priests exiting the chamber. ‘For the desecration of his temple and the dark path your soul has taken.’
‘A path my craven god put me on,’ Kastner roared.
‘You are deceived…’
‘About a great many things,’ Kastner said, turning and looking up at Sigmar’s golden face. With the words dying on his lips, he set about tying the Grand Theogonist’s wrists and ankles to arms and legs of his throne with belts from his ample robes.
Kastner sensed them coming. He heard the rhythmic clack of plate: Reiksguard, Sigmarite knights and templars summoned and running across the Templeplatz. The flutter of confusion and fear to be found in the chests of common soldiery – fighting men forming a perimeter with their halberds and spears. The patience of cannons, loaded, primed and dragged into position across the cobbles. There was shouting and the clearing of swords from scabbards as armoured figures strode into the cathedral and began issuing orders. As the last of the priests fled the Great Sanctuary, a river of plate cut through their numbers. Knights of the Fiery Heart, full of imperious dread to learn that their defences had been breached, accompanied by Sigmarite warriors of other orders, at liberty in the Domplatz to aid their knightly brothers and highlight further their failure. Knights Griffon. The Hammers. The Knights of Sigmar’s Blood. Even a few of his own Order: the Knights of the Twin-Tailed Orb. Grand Master Schroeder was present but at the head of the deluge of devout fury was Grand Master Boschkowitz of the Fiery Heart. Helmless, immaculate in silver and temple gold and with his huge warhammer already in his hands, Boschkowitz’s great beard trembled with anger at the sight of the Grand Theogonist’s honour guard cut down before Sigmar.
Using the head of his battlehammer, Kastner lifted Lutzenschlager’s chin and held the unconscious Grand Theogonist’s head against the back of the throne. The gesture slowed Boschkowitz and the advance of the knights.
‘You’ll be Diederick Kastner,’ Boschkowitz bawled across the chamber, ‘out of the Gruber Marches. Late of the shadow of the Middle Mountains. The deep shadow.’
Kastner said nothing to confirm or deny the Grand Master’s accusation. He was not there to oblige Etzel Boschkowitz.
‘If you take another step further,’ Kastner assured the Grand Master, ‘he dies.’
The serpentine certainty of Kastner’s words halted the furious Boschkowitz, causing the knights to clash into one another. ‘You storm the sanctuary – he dies. If you still grace my sight at the end of ten seconds – he dies.’
‘You can’t expect us to leave the Grand Theogonist,’ Schroeder said, his eyes full of loathing for his own knight.
‘One.’
‘Would you?’
‘Two… Three…’
‘Out!’ Grand Master Boschkowitz commanded.
‘Four…’
‘We can rush him,’ Schroeder said.
‘Out, I say,’ Boschkowitz bawled, backing his knights out of the chamber and holding his warhammer out in front of the Master of the Twin-Tailed Orb. ‘Care for the Grand Theogonist’s person still falls to me and my knights. I have the Arch Lector’s confidence and you will do as you’re commanded.’
‘Six… Seven…’
As the knights withdrew, Boschkowitz gestured to Kastner with his warhammer.
‘I’ll kill you, Kastner,’ the Grand Master told him. ‘In Sigmar’s name, your life is mine.’
‘Hedrich Lutzenschlager is Sigmar’s representative in this world, Master Boschkowitz,’ Kastner said. ‘Concern yourself with his life, for it is only your cooperation and my forbearance that keeps him breathing. Now get out of my sight, blind pawn of a false god.’
Etzel Boschkowitz bit back a righteous retort and stepped back out of the Great Sanctuary, closing the archway doors with a boom. When Kastner turned his dark attentions back on Lutzenschlager, he found the Grand Theogonist’s eyes open and staring at him up the haft of the battlehammer.
‘What do you want?’ Lutzenschlager said. His words spoke of cold indifference but the beads of sweat forming at his temples said otherwise. Kastner removed the hammer, allowing the Grand Theogonist to support his own head. He slipped his head out of his crusader helm and placed it on the floor before the throne. He looked down on the Grand Theogonist.
‘What all men want,’ the templar told
him. ‘Answers.’
‘The God-King has nothing for you,’ Lutzenschlager said. ‘You have spilt blood, the blood of his servants, in his great temple. Sigmar only has vengeance in his mighty heart for you.’
‘I’m not asking Sigmar,’ Kastner said. ‘I’m asking you.’
‘I have nothing for you either,’ Lutzenschlager said, ‘but the assurance that it does not matter whether I live or die and the promise that you will fail. Every true son of Sigmar will stand against you. You will be a thing hunted. Your life will not be worth living. End yourself, dark pilgrim, here in this place – before the god you once loved, and receive his forgiveness.’
‘I’m not going to kill you, Lutzenschlager,’ Kastner told him – the words of comfort cold on the templar’s lips like a nonchalant threat. ‘You are weak. A weak man. A weak leader of the Sigmarite church. I like you just where you are. On the throne – divisive, inept – a slave to vanity. The God-King deserves you. As for killing myself, I already feel I’ve died a thousand times over. No more. No more. Death is easy. Death is quick. Only through the suffering and affliction that is a life long-lived can we expect to learn all of the answers to all of the questions that plague us. I’ll start with yours.’
Kastner brought the battlehammer down hard on the arm of the throne. The domed roof of the Great Sanctuary rang with the shrieking anguish that ripped its way out of Hedrich Lutzenschlager.
‘The heretic text I was escorting from the Hammerfall, back to the safety of these hallowed halls,’ Kastner said, his patience wearing away with every moment. ‘The Liber Caelestior. It had a page missing. A page torn from the tome, bearing the identity of a man who would be end to the world. You have this page? From your visits to the Hammerfall.’
