Then, suddenly, a red-armoured form bulled into the creature from the side, rocking it away from Arkhan. The minotaur stumbled back, lowing in confusion. Krell stomped forward, pursuing the creature. The two axes met in a crash of steel again and again as beast and wight fought. The minotaur was the stronger of the two, but Krell was by far the better warrior, and the wight’s greater skill with the axe began to tell. The minotaur staggered in a circle, pursued by Krell, who opened wound after wound in its hide. Blood splashed onto the ground as the giant, bull-headed beast sank down onto all fours and gave a piteous groan. Krell planted a boot against its shoulder and sent it flopping over onto its back.
As Krell finished off the minotaur, Arkhan shoved himself to his feet and looked up, hunting for the flying creature he’d seen before. That one was the true danger, he knew. That one had the ear of the Dark Gods, else why would it be able to fly?
But the creature was nowhere to be seen. It had vanished, and, as Arkhan watched, its followers departed as well. Crude horns wailed and the beastmen began to retreat in ragged disorder, streaming back into the night, not altogether reluctantly. They had been eager enough for a fight when they’d arrived, but the dead made for bad sport.
He looked around. Fidduci had finally succumbed to the spear that had pinned him to the earth. His spectacles had fallen from his nerveless fingers to shatter on the ground, and his black teeth were wet with blood. Ogiers lay nearby, still twitching in his death throes. Arkhan felt the weight of his army settle on his shoulders, like a sodden blanket.
He wondered, as he leaned against his staff, if this had been his enemies’ intent all along. His trusted servants were dead, and his effectiveness lessened. Now he had only Kemmler to help him. Kemmler, who had already proven himself as unreliable as ever. Kemmler, who was more powerful now than Arkhan had ever seen him.
Kemmler cackled nearby as he jerked Fidduci’s and Ogiers’s bodies to their feet. He appeared unconcerned about the state of affairs, and his coarse, chilling laughter echoed over what had, only moments before, been a scene of slaughter.
Arkhan watched him, pondering.
Castle Sternieste, Sylvania
Volkmar was on the plain of bones again, the stink of a hundred thousand charnel fires thick in his nose and lungs. His hammer hung broken and heavy in his hands, and his armour seemed to constrict about him like a giant hand clutching his torso. He was tired, so tired, but he couldn’t give up. He refused to surrender.
Catechisms sprang unbidden to his lips and rattled through the stinking air. Passages and entire pages from holy books shot out into the grey emptiness. He shouted out Sigmar’s name, and shrieked out the story of the Empire’s founder.
Sigmar.
Sigmar.
Sigmar!
The name pierced the emptiness like a well-thrown spear, and it hung quivering there for a moment, gaining strength. Then, as it had before, the ground began to move and shift, as if something vast were burrowing beneath it. The bones rattled and fell as the thing drew closer to the surface and ploughed after him.
He heard Aliathra’s voice, somewhere far above and behind him. Though he could not make out her words, he knew that she was calling out to him, pleading with him not to fight this time, but to run.
Volkmar hesitated, and then did as she bade. The thing, the force, the daemon, wanted him to fight. He knew it in the marrow of his bones. It wanted him to fight, so that it could sweep over him and bowl him under. So he ran. And it followed him. A hideous voice, as loud and as deep as the tolling of the monstrous bells of Castle Sternieste, smashed at him, trying to force him to make a stand.
Instead, he ran harder, faster, forcing his body to keep moving. And he shouted Sigmar’s name as he ran. Every time the word left his lips, the terrible voice seemed to weaken a little bit. But it did not cease its hunt.
Bones slipped and rolled beneath his feet. The hands of the dead clawed at his legs as they always did, dragging him down. Fleshless jaws bit down on him, and bony fingers tore at him, and he swung about with his hammer, trying to free himself. Too late, though. Always too late.
A mountain of bones rose over him, blotting out the grey light. The bones shifted and squirmed, shaping themselves into a vast countenance, titanic and loathsome. Eyes like twin suns blazed down at him, and a breath of grave-wind washed over him, searing his lungs and withering his flesh. He felt his skin shrink taut on his bones, and his marrow curdle as the wind enveloped him. He lifted his hammer, too weak to do anything else.
And then, Volkmar the Grim woke up.
Volkmar stirred groggily in his chains. Sleep still held him in its clutches, and the faintest ghost of a distant howl rippled through the underside of his mind. He felt the air stir, and knew that they had a visitor. He smelt the stink of old blood, and stale perfume, and knew that the new mistress of the castle had come to visit.
Mannfred was gone. Where, he could not say, but he had suspicions aplenty. That left a castle full of vampires still, and there was no hope of escape. That realisation had come to him slowly but surely, with insidious certainty. There was no hope, of escape or even survival. But perhaps whatever Mannfred was planning could still be thwarted. Perhaps the Empire could be spared whatever monstrous evil the vampire sought to unleash.
Then, perhaps not.
He heard the vampire as she drew close, passing amongst Mannfred’s collection. Did she linger over the Crown, perhaps, and let her fingers drift over the books?
‘What would you give me, if I were to kill one of you?’ the vampire asked, without preamble. She looked up at Volkmar with something approaching loathing. The Grand Theogonist hung in his chains like a side of beef, his eyes not quite closed, his breathing shallow. ‘That being the only way to defeat our lord and master, of course. He had nine. Now he has eight. He can do nothing with seven.’ She cocked her head like a falcon sighting prey, and her eyes slid towards Aliathra, who hung nearby, head lolling, her blonde locks spilling over her pale face, matted with blood and filth. ‘I know that you are conscious, elf. I know that you are listening.’ Her eyes slid back to Volkmar. ‘As are you, old man. Pretending to be unconscious will avail you nothing.’
‘Your kind only bargains for two reasons,’ Volkmar rasped. He had nine… Lupio Blaze was dead, then. They had come and taken the knight in the evening. They had not brought him back. He had suspected that the Tilean was dead. ‘Either you are bored… or afraid,’ One blood-gummed eyelid cracked wide. ‘Which is it, Elize von Carstein?’ The old man laughed as her eyes widened slightly. He allowed himself to feel a brief surge of pleasure at her momentary discomfiture. ‘Oh yes, I know you, witch. I know all of your cursed clan, root and branch. The witch hunter Gunther Stahlberg and I even made a chart, before Mannfred killed him. The Doyenne of the Red Abbey, Handmaiden of Isabella von Carstein, cousin to Markos von Carstein, of the red line of Vlad himself, rather than by proxy. You are as close to royalty as your kind gets.’
‘Then you know that I can give you what you wish,’ Elize said. ‘I can help you, old man.’ She turned towards Aliathra. ‘I can help you as well, elf. I can free you. I can kill you now, to spare you pain later. I can kill your fellow captives, if you are too proud to ask for yourselves. All I require is that you ask.’ She glided towards him and leaned close, her palms to either side of his head. Volkmar glared at her with his good eye. ‘Ask me, old man. Beg me, and I will put you out of your misery, like an old wolf caught in a trap.’
‘Frightened, then,’ Volkmar coughed. His lips cracked and bled as he smiled. ‘You are frightened, and I think I know of what. Something so dark and hungry that you pale in comparison. You can feel it, can’t you? In whatever passes for your heart,’ he said. He closed his eye. ‘Mannfred has left you here, and now, like a rat that scents a snake, you want to squirm away. So be it woman. Kill us, and run.’
‘Beg me,’ she growled.
Volkmar wheezed hoarsely. It wasn’t quite a laugh, but it was as close as he could man
age. ‘No, no, I think not. Run away, little rat. Run and hide before the snake gobbles you up.’
Elize raised a hand, as if to tear out his throat. It trembled slightly, and then fell. Volkmar said nothing. He opened his eyes to watch the vampire leave. ‘You should have let her do it, priest. You should have asked her to kill you,’ someone croaked, as the chamber door rattled shut. ‘You should have begged.’
‘Be quiet, witch,’ Volkmar rasped. It was hard to get air into his lungs, hung on the wall as he was. It was all he could do to speak. The manacles bit into his flesh, and he felt his blisters pop and weep as he shifted in his chains.
‘Your arrogance has doomed us, Volkmar. And you most of all – I am damned, but you will be doubly damned,’ the Bretonnian witch yowled. Volkmar heard her chains rattle. ‘He is coming for you, old man.’
‘I said be silent,’ he snarled, trying to muster something of his former authority. He knew he’d failed when she began to laugh and wail.
There was no hope.
Volkmar closed his eyes and tried not to sleep.
Elize stood staring at the wall opposite the door to the chamber for some time. She could feel the burning gazes of the two wights, who now guarded the chamber, on her back, but she didn’t move away. They were no threat to her. Mannfred had seen to that.
She considered simply going back in and killing one of them – the nature priest, perhaps. He was little more than a mindless husk, after all this time in captivity. There were ways that it could be done that would leave no one the wiser. Mannfred would assume that he’d simply expired, despite the sustaining spells he’d etched into the prisoners’ flesh. Unless he didn’t, in which case she’d have some explaining to do.
Elize didn’t fear Mannfred’s wrath any more than she had feared Isabella’s incandescent and unpredictable tantrums, or Vlad’s quietly menacing disappointment. She knew which strands to pluck to see her safely out of the von Carstein web, and which to pull in order to get back in, should it be necessary. Mannfred was guileful and cunning, but not especially subtle. He strode across the landscape like a warrior-king, and expected his opponents to fall at his feet in awe of his majesty and political acumen.
He was, in short, a barbarian. Vlad had been much the same – a man out of time. The difference between them lay in the fact that Vlad had had an almost childlike delight in learning the ways of the Imperial court, and navigating the choppy political waters of the Empire. Vlad had been subtle: patient and unswerving. Mannfred was not patient. He never had been. He was a creature of passions and selfish demands, and he only understood those things in others. Patience, to Mannfred, was simply fear. Dedication was foolishness. Subtlety was hesitancy.
But this time, Mannfred had bitten off more than he could chew. They could all see it, even if the sisters of the Silver Pinnacle hadn’t been whispering it into every ear. It was madness, what he planned, and in everyone’s best interests to see that he failed.
Elize looked back at the door, thoughtful now. The old man hanging on the wall in there was no different, really. An obstinate, obdurate relic, sitting athwart the stream of history, determined to bend it to his will. Again, the temptation to simply kill him rose. But… no. Best to wait, until there was no other option. Best to wait until all of the pieces were in place.
‘Think carefully, child. Think, before you do something we will all regret.’
Elize turned. Alberacht Nictus lumbered down the corridor towards her, more or less a man. His wings had shrivelled to flaps that could easily be folded in the narrow corridors and he wore a set of armour purloined from somewhere. His face was still a tale of horror, but his eyes shone with kindly madness. He held out a taloned paw. ‘Come away, my sweet girl. Come away, and let the Sigmarite rot in his tomb.’
Elize took his claw gingerly. Alberacht pulled her close, like a doting uncle. ‘You always were a risk-taker, my little stoat. Always going for the throat,’ he gurgled. ‘That is why Isabella loved you best.’
‘Unlike Mannfred,’ Elize said. She allowed Alberacht to guide her away from the chamber. The big vampire chuckled harshly.
‘Mannfred heeds your words,’ Alberacht said. ‘After all, we are here, are we not?’
Elize tensed. ‘What do you mean? Speak plainly, Master Nictus.’
‘Oh, is it Master Nictus now? Have I offended you, cousin?’ Alberacht peered at her owlishly, and showed his teeth in a ghastly smile. ‘You were here, at Sternieste, before the wall went up, and before Mannfred made his bid for secession. It was you who advised him to raise the Drakenhof banner and call the order to war. You asked him to set the black bells to ringing, while you rode out to find your pet and Markos.’
‘Anark is hardly my pet,’ Elize murmured.
‘Was I speaking of him?’ Alberacht leaned over and kissed the top of her head. ‘You are as clear as glass to these old eyes, my girl.’
Elize pushed away from him carefully. They had come to one of the places where the wall of the keep had crumbled away, and she leaned against the gap, looking out over the courtyard far below and the plains beyond. The dead were still mustered amongst the barrows, waiting for an invasion that might never come. Screams echoed up from the courtyard, where Mannfred’s court were engaged in their early evening amusements. She’d had to put a guard on the larder once Mannfred departed, to keep the greedy parasites from emptying Sternieste’s dungeons of every breathing human in an orgy of indulgence and slaughter.
‘He left me,’ she said softly, after a few moments.
‘Aye, he did,’ Alberacht said. He loomed behind her, his claws on her shoulders. ‘Though I think he regrets it. I think the Crowfiend regrets many things.’
‘I care not whether he regrets it,’ she hissed. ‘He. Left. Me. I made him and he left. No one leaves me. I leave. I go where I will. Not him!’
‘Ah,’ Alberacht breathed. He was silent for a time. Then, he said, ‘Sometimes, I think that Vlad did us a disservice. There is something in the von Carstein blood that encourages duplicity and madness. Konrad, Pieter, Nyklaus with his ambitions of admiralty… Isabella.’
‘I am not mad,’ Elize said.
‘I am,’ Alberacht said. ‘Then, I was a von Drak, and they were all mad.’ He leaned close. ‘I was speaking of your duplicity, in any event. All of this, simply for the Crowfiend?’ He leaned around her, so that he could peer up into her face. ‘Tomas – dead. Anark elevated to a position he is unsuited for. Markos’s predilections with succession encouraged, and Mannfred warned of that burgeoning treachery. Are any of us out of your web, my child?’
‘You and the Vargravian,’ she said, smiling slightly.
‘Ah,’ he murmured. ‘Am I to feel slighted, then?’ She tensed again. There was no way of telling which way the old monster would jump at the best of times. His mind was lost in a red haze.
‘No,’ she said carefully. ‘But you are impossible to predict. And the Vargravian is an unknown quantity. I know him only by reputation. Tomas elevated him to the inner circle. The others I know.’ She pounded a fist against the crumbling edge of the gap. ‘They are fixed points, and I can weave my web, as you call it, about them.’ She smiled thinly. ‘Mannfred taught me that.’ She looked at Alberacht. ‘It is not all for Erikan. It is for us, as well. For the future. For too long we have clung to this place. Sylvania was a prison even before the wall of faith surrounded it. There is a whole world out there, past the borders, where we can spread and take root. But before we can flourish, certain branches must be pruned.’
‘And what of Mannfred’s plans, child? You know what he intends. You know what awaits us, when they return.’
Elize turned away. ‘It will not come to that. Even Mannfred is not so blinded by ambition that he would risk unleashing the Undying King upon the world.’ She smiled. ‘Anark will do his part, and Markos as well. Nagash will not rise, but when this farce is done… we will.’
TWELVE
Beneath Mad Dog Pass, the Border Princes
&nb
sp; The skaven screamed and died as the bodies of the Iron Claw orcs, torn and savaged by the ultimately futile battle that had seen the entire tribe decimated by the forces under Mannfred’s command, launched themselves through the crude pavises of wood and rope, and hacked down the clanrats manning the ballistae behind. More zombies shoved through the gap created by the dead greenskins, flooding the tunnels beyond the chamber where the skaven sentries had chosen to make their stand.
Mannfred urged his skeleton mount through the sea of carnage that his servants had left in their wake, his face twisted in an expression of disdain. This was the tenth such cavern he had ridden through in as many hours, and impatience was beginning to eat at him like acid.
Never before had he felt so pressed for time. It had always seemed a limitless commodity for him. But he felt it closing in on him now, cutting off his avenues of manoeuvre. It was as if he were being surrounded by enemies on all sides, trapped in an ever-tightening noose. He clutched Kadon’s staff to him, and took comfort in the Claw of Nagash, its withered fingers twitching and gesturing mutely.
Power. That was what it was all about. That was what it had always been about. The power to see his journey to its end. The power to control his own destiny. Too often had he been at the mercy of others, his desires supplanted by the whims of those who considered themselves his superiors. Vlad, Neferata, his father… They had all tried to keep him from achieving his destiny. But no longer. He had outlived, outfought, outschemed them all. He had thwarted his enemies at every turn, and thumbed his nose at every empire.
That you have, my boy. Your famed subtlety has deserted you, it seems. Or perhaps you deserted it, eh? The skies are blood-red, the gallows scream hungrily and Mannfred von Carstein has come into his own, Vlad murmured.
The End Times | The Return of Nagash Page 22
