What he saw was a wall of greenskins charging right back at him, their faces contorted with fury. There was no time to organise a defence. The greenskins had realised their mistake and were coming back to correct it. From inside the Keep came the noise of fresh troops arriving to bolster them. Drassler had taken the gates, but he was caught between the returning sortie and the mustering Keep defenders.
“You take the ones inside, I’ll handle the rest!” snapped Drassler to Hochmann, and braced himself for the coming impact.
Around him, his men did their best to form into some kind of defensive arrangement. Under the shadow of the open gates they clustered together, watching as the horde rushed back towards them. There was no escape, and no chance of surrender. If Bloch got his timing wrong, they were all dead men.
“We’ve done our part,” he muttered, watching as the nearest orc warriors thundered into range. “Now damn well do yours.”
Bloch charged into the fray, his halberd held low, his throat hoarse from hurling invective at the enemy. He had his men around him, the Reiklanders who’d stood at his side since the march from Altdorf. All did the same, barrelling into the charge, levering the long halberds with expert hands.
There were few armies across the wide earth that could cope with a massed charge of close-serried infantry, and the orcs before them were no different. The steel sliced through them, tearing apart leather, ripping sinew and breaking bones.
“Onward!” Bloch cried, his blood hot with the exhilaration of battle. “Tear them apart!”
Drassler’s charge had done it. The orcs had seen the mountain guard spring up as if from the stone itself, and the force of their assault had wavered. Now Bloch had to press home the advantage, pile on the pressure before they could regroup and take back the gates.
“No mercy!” he bellowed, breaking into a run. All along the lines, his men were doing likewise, striking back at the greenskins and turning the counter-assault into a rout.
Even as he went after them Bloch could see the indecision in the orcs’ inhuman faces. Some opted to stay and fight, while others had broken from the horde and were racing back to the Keep. Speed was of the essence now. If Drassler’s men were left isolated for too long then all they’d achieved would fall apart.
A hulking warrior loomed up before him. It crouched down low and let fly with a spittle-laced roar of defiance.
“To me!” cried Bloch, calling to the two halberdiers on either side of him. As one, they charged the greenskin, blades aimed for ribcage, legs and face. The orc was big, clad in plate armour and swinging a mighty warhammer around its head, beckoning the charge with wild-eyed relish.
The halberdier on Bloch’s right plunged his blade in high, aiming to catch the shoulder. The orc whirled around, smashing him aside with the hammer, before lurching back to counter the thrust of the other blades.
Bloch ducked low, feeling the hammer-head whistle above his ears, before stabbing the shaft of the halberd up. The blade struck true, halfway up the orc’s torso, but deflected from the armour and left nothing but a long scratch on the metal. Bloch staggered back, arms jarred from the impact.
The halberdier on his left had better luck, and his blade bit deep into the orc’s muscle-bound arm. The creature roared in pain, shaking off the fragile shaft and swinging the warhammer round in response. Bloch’s companion sprang back, but too late. The iron head crunched into his ribcage, crushing the bone and sending him sprawling in agony across the ground.
Bloch was exposed. There were men all around him, grappling with the ranks of orcs, but none were close enough to come to his aid. He grabbed the halberd from the first soldier who’d fallen, picked it up on the run and charged straight back into range. The orc saw him coming and heaved the warhammer round for the killing blow.
He had to strike hard and true. If he missed, the hammer would do for him as it had done for the others.
“Sigmar!” Bloch bellowed, plunging forwards with all his might, keeping the tip of the halberd high and controlling it with both hands.
The steel bit deep between the orc’s breastplate and collar, driving into the flesh beneath and sending up a spray of hot, black blood. The warhammer flew from the orc’s flailing hands, spinning into the air and sailing high over the heads of the struggling warriors. Bloch pushed the halberd in deeper, twisting the blade, churning through the flesh and severing the head from its massive shoulders.
The roars were silenced. The orc crashed to the ground, taking the shaft of the halberd with it, hitting the stone with a dull thud.
Panting, Bloch looked around for a fresh weapon. Time was running out.
“Faster!” he roared, stooping to collect the halberd of another fallen soldier and breaking back into a run. His men were still on the offensive, hammering at the retreating orcs, trying to hack their way through to the Keep. “Faster, damn you!”
Ahead of him, Bloch could see the Keep looming closer, still cut off by the horde of greenskins. The fighting was frenzied and brutal—both sides knew what was at stake.
Bloch raised his halberd, the blade streaked with blood, and roared his defiance. From every direction men answered his call, hurling obscenities at the orcs and slamming into their disordered defences. The counter-assault was in full swing, the fruit of the tactics he’d spent so long devising. All their hopes were with Sigmar now.
Bloch got his head down, picked his next target and charged.
Drassler’s men were hemmed in, surrounded on all sides by the orcs and pinned back close against the open gates of the Keep. The two companies had formed up into ranks three deep on either side, fighting under the shadow of the mighty ramparts and repelling the assaults coming at them from both directions.
The orcs returning from the sortie were the biggest and most aggressive—they’d been the vanguard of the attack and were the most heavily armoured greenskins left. Those remaining on the inside were the weaker breeds, less nakedly belligerent than their larger kindred though nearly as deadly at close quarters. Seeing the danger of losing the gates entirely, scores of them had torn across the courtyard and thrown themselves at the rear of the mountain guard position, heedless of the steel fence waiting for them when they arrived.
Drassler heard the cries of anguish as the lines clashed, but he couldn’t pay them any attention. Hochmann had taken the rear ranks, and he was busy enough with his own counter-assault. The first of the returning orcs slammed into the ranks in front of him, tearing their way back to the Keep with desperation. The orcs lived for fighting, but even they could see when their position had become exposed. As savagely as they’d fought to break out of the Keep, they now fought to recover it.
“Form up!” Drassler shouted. In the midst of the ranks of defenders, he’d assembled a detachment of his own. Twenty men, all from his home village, all experienced and tempered by a lifetime fighting the greenskin. As the battle raged around them they formed into a tight column, four men deep and five across. Drassler stood in the centre of the front rank, leading as ever from the front.
“Charge!” he roared, breaking into a run. The men swept forwards, thrusting aside their comrades as they surged to the front. All were swordsmen, carrying the blades of their fathers, handed down from each generation to the next and stained with the blood of countless orcs.
Drassler’s unit crashed into the front rank of the enemy, sweeping it aside and ploughing onwards. The greenskins were disorganised, broken up by their headlong race to recover ground. Each of them alone was twice as strong and quick as a man, but by acting in concert a disciplined detachment made up the shortfall.
“That one! Break them!” Drassler pointed to the right, spotting a vast, dark-skinned monster hammering away at the mountain guard’s right flank. It was surrounded by a heavily-armoured bodyguard, all wielding human weapons. There were swords, maces and warhammers. Not a curved scimitar or cleaver to be seen.
Drassler’s unit swung into battle, keeping their formation as they assaulte
d the knot of larger orcs. Drassler himself got into position quickly, pulling his sword back to strike, knowing his back was covered by those around him.
His bladed flashed, slicing clean through an orc’s extended forearm. The greenskin bellowed with pain and swung a halberd straight back at him. Drassler dodged it, and a swordsman to the left of him leapt in with another strike. The orc, bleeding heavily, turned to face the new threat. Then the man on Drassler’s right struck, plunging his blade deep into the orc’s back.
Working in unison, swords spinning and jabbing in a united front, Drassler’s men carved their way into the heart of the fighting. The greenskins retreated further, knocked aside and bludgeoned into submission by the organised ferocity of the human assault.
But the charge only lasted so long. With nowhere to go, the orcs regrouped and struck back. Dragged into a melee, the detachment formation lost its edge and soldiers began to fall. Whenever a grey-clad swordsman went down, another rushed to take his place, maintaining the line and keeping the pressure on the greenskins. The orcs were strong, though, terribly strong. When they got close, their heavy fists and crushing blows began to tell.
Drassler worked like a blacksmith at a forge, his sword heaving in arcs of destruction. Ahead of him loomed the warlord, the heart of the orc forces. Drassler lowered his sword-point and bellowed a challenge. The language of battle was universal, and the lumbering brute turned to face him. It was nearly as broad as it was tall, covered in bunched muscle and draped in plates of ill-fitting armour. It carried a halberd in one hand and an axe in the other. Seeing Drassler come at it, the orc thundered its defiance, opening its tusked mouth wide and roaring like a bull.
Then they came together. The orc struck first, bringing the axe down hard. Drassler sprang aside, dodging the blow and sweeping his sword back for a counterthrust. The orc punched the halberd up, and the blades met with a jarring clang. Drassler withdrew a pace, keeping his blade raised, watching for the next blow. The axe fell, followed by the halberd again. The flurry of blow and counter-blow was fast and deadly. Drassler matched it as best he could, but he was driven back.
Then there was another man at his side, jabbing a halberd into the fray, going for the patches of exposed flesh. The orc turned to face him, swinging its own blade to meet the attack.
Drassler joined in, catching the axe with a sharp upward jab and knocking it out of position. Now the orc withdrew, unable to cope with every warrior at once. The halberdier pursued, working his stave with incredible skill and precision. Drassler followed suit, knowing his men around him guarded his flanks.
Together, halberdier and swordsman battered the mighty orc to its knees, raining blow after blow onto its desperate parries. Seeing the danger, it tried to break back out, powering up to its feet with a heavy lunge. The halberdier was knocked back by the thrust, rocking back on his heels and staggering two paces.
That gave Drassler the opening. Leaping forwards, he spun the sword-tip round in his hand, gripped the hilt with his fists and rammed it down. The point sank deep into the orc’s ribcage, snaking between plates of metal and lodging deep.
The greenskin bellowed like a wounded ox and whirled round, axe flailing. Then the halberdier was back, scything his blade mightily. The arc swept through the creature’s defences and took its head clean off. The severed hunk of flesh and bone flew high into the air, before hitting the rock and rolling to a standstill.
The decapitated body swayed for a moment, pumping hot blood into the air like a fountain, before it too slumped to the earth. Drassler pulled his sword clear as it fell. The orcs weren’t bellowing now, and a kind of sullen hush fell over the entire horde.
All around him, mountain guard pressed home the advantage, sweeping past Drassler and tearing into the demoralised orcs.
Drassler turned to thank his comrade. Markus Bloch grinned back at him, his face streaked with blood. Only then did Drassler notice the swarms of Averlanders and Reiklanders breaking through the mass of orcs and smashing them aside. The relief had arrived. The orcs were broken.
“Good timing,” Drassler said.
“Not finished yet,” said Bloch, heading back into the melee. Before long his coarse voice was raised above the general roar, uttering every obscene curse known to man.
Smiling like a wolf, Drassler plunged after him. There was hard fighting left before the day was over, but the outcome was no longer in doubt. The orcs were in disarray, the halberdiers rampant, and soon the Keep would be theirs.
CHAPTER SIX
Pain. That was all that remained. Sometimes a dull, throbbing ache, distributed evenly across his body. Other times, they made it sharp and sudden. There were long, drawn-out sessions, and mercifully short ones. It all depended on her mood. He’d stopped being able to mark the passage of time, and couldn’t truly remember what had brought him here. Maybe he’d been in the Tower for a few hours, maybe a few weeks. Only one thing was certain. The pain.
There was a noise, somewhere close. With effort, Tochfel dragged his eyelids open. He was suspended. He felt the flesh of his wrists, raw and angry, chafe against the rope. The muscles under his ribs had been pulled tight. He should have been dead long ago. He had no idea why he wasn’t. Down on the stone floor, beneath his gently swaying feet, he could see pools of his own blood. The sight no longer nauseated him. After a while, the horror became a long, numb dream. There was only so much screaming a man could do.
He moved his head carefully, trying not to inflame the exposed muscles of his neck. The chamber looked much as it always did. There were tables on either side of him. One had the instruments. They were astonishingly beautiful, forged from steel with the precision of a master craftsman. From time to time, when they came to have their fun, he’d tried to remember which ones they’d used. It was the little things, the repetitions and rituals, that kept a fragment of sanity lodged in his mind.
The other table had the items. Some of them had already been added to him. Others had once been part of his body. His extracted organs still sat, glistening and viscid, slopped in the metal bowls.
Ahead of him was the door, the only way in and out. When they shut it, it was dark like no darkness he’d ever known. There, suspended, far from help or salvation, he could reflect on the variety of pain they’d introduced him to during the last session. He didn’t have the language to describe it all, but he suspected they did. They knew all the ways of misery. They were geniuses of their craft, masters of sensation. In comparison to what they’d shown him, his former life now seemed impossibly stale and drab. He’d had no idea that existence could be so raw, so unutterably acute, so agonising.
The door opened. Tochfel had trouble focussing. Was it her? He could no longer decide whether he should scream or not. Being in her presence was unbearable. Being away from it was unbearable. He’d been transformed in so short a time. He felt his mouth hanging open, a line of drool running down to his naked chest.
“You shouldn’t have come here, Steward.”
That wasn’t her voice. It was a man’s voice. A hunched, slender man, bowed by a curving spine. Tochfel’s eyes weren’t working. Everything was blurred. He tried to screw them into focus.
“Achendorfer?” he croaked, wincing as the tendons in his throat rubbed against one another.
The man came closer. Uriens Achendorfer had changed. His skin, always grey, was now as white as snow. The bags under his eyes hung heavier than ever, purple and pulsing. His pupils were pin-pricks of red, and lines of sutures ran across his sagging cheeks. He looked heavily altered. His purple robes were loose, but when he moved they gave away the changes that had taken place. Willingly or not, the loremaster had become something more, or perhaps less, than human.
“What were you thinking?” asked Achendorfer scornfully. His voice rattled when he spoke. “You must have known what was in here.”
Tochfel ignored the questions. None of the others had asked him questions. That was the confusing thing. Why torture him, if they didn’t want
to know anything? It was senseless.
“Where’ve you been?” Tochfel croaked again.
Achendorfer let slip a thin smile, and his cheeks ran like fluid around his lips. “Here,” he replied, self-satisfied. “When Alptraum took the Averburg, that was my signal. I had to bring the book here.”
“Alptraum?”
“He’s in number seven, and still not dead. Amazing, given what she’s done to him.”
Tochfel felt a tear run down his cheek. That was unusual. He’d thought all his tears had been shed. Perhaps something still lingered within him. That was bad. If they discovered it, there would be more pain.
“Why?”
Achendorfer raised a heavily plucked eyebrow. “Why? Do you really need to know that?” He shook his head. “This is power, Dagobert. You’ve no idea what these people are capable of. What she’s capable of. I was shown a fraction of it. The scrolls, the parchments, they mean nothing to me now. Only one of them was important—the one I could bring to her. There are rewards for those who know how to serve her. There are punishments, to be sure, but rewards also.” The white-faced man grinned, exposing black teeth. “I am no longer a petty man, Dagobert. She will make me a god.”
Tochfel found he wasn’t listening. Speech bored him. Everything bored him. Only pain piqued his interest. That was all there was left. He hated it, feared it, needed it. That was what they’d driven him to.
Another figure appeared at the door. Tochfel had no trouble recognising her outline. There was something curved in her hand, shining in the dark. As she approached him, Natassja patted Achendorfer affectionately on the head.
“That’s right, my foul pet,” she said. “I have great plans for you. Just as I have for all my creatures.”
Achendorfer shivered, whether out of pleasure or fear Tochfel couldn’t tell. His vision started to cloud again. What was left of his skin broke out into sweat. His heart, shivering beneath his open ribcage, beat a little faster. Why didn’t he die? What malign force kept him sustained in this living hell?
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