by Warhammer
As the sloop oared away from the quayside, Felix looked at the faces of the men who watched it go. Bosendorfer was pale, and von Volgen grim, but the most stricken of all was von Geldrecht, mopping his ashen brow with a trembling kerchief. For the briefest second he raised the cloth and Felix thought he was going to call back the sloop, but then he lowered it again and only wiped his mouth.
Gotrek shot a one-eyed glare him, then started towards the men who were assembling the hoardings. ‘Come, manling,’ he said over his shoulder as Rodi and Snorri followed him. ‘There’s work to be done.’
Felix looked from the Slayers to the sloop. ‘What work?’
‘If the wards are broken,’ said Gotrek, ‘then hoardings are the best defence. Smartest thing the manlings have done yet.’
Felix glanced again at the sloop, which was pulling in its oars and unfurling its sails as it neared the water gate, then looked questioningly at Kat.
‘I have to see,’ she said. ‘I have to.’
Felix turned back to the Slayers. ‘We’ll find you.’
The dwarfs only grunted and kept on.
Felix and Kat hurried for the closest stair. Von Geldrecht and von Volgen were ahead of them, climbing in uneasy silence. The steward was met at the top by Captain Hultz of the handgunners.
‘All quiet, my lord,’ he said, saluting.
‘I hope so,’ said von Geldrecht and stepped past him with von Volgen to look over the battlements.
Felix and Kat found a spot a few paces to their left just as the sloop was passing through the water gate. Unnerved by Gotrek’s warnings, Felix half-expected huge jaws or monstrous tentacles would rise out of the waves and drag it under, but nothing of the sort happened. The waters were undisturbed but for the sloop’s bow wave, and though its passage was provoking movement amongst the zombies on the shore, they didn’t appear to be any threat. The corpses shuffled clumsily in its direction like iron shavings being pulled upon by the influence of a lodestone, crowding the riverbank and pawing limply at the air as it passed, but that was all.
Von Geldrecht laughed and slapped the wall. ‘You see? They can do nothing!’
Forbidding laughter wafted to them on the wind, an eerie echo of von Geldrecht’s laugh.
Felix’s heart clenched, for he knew that laugh. It was Hans the Hermit – or Heinrich Kemmler, if Father Ulfram was correct. Felix looked around, sweeping the horde of zombies with his eyes, but it was Kat who spotted him first.
‘There!’ she said, thrusting out a finger as she lifted her bow off her back.
Felix followed her gaze. A hundred yards downstream, a spindly figure in dirty robes, so like the army of corpses he had raised that he was nearly impossible to pick out, was moving from the bank onto a half-submerged outcropping of rocks and waving after the retreating sloop as it angled towards the opposite shore.
Quicker than Felix could follow, Kat had an arrow on the string and loosed it in Kemmler’s direction. It went wide, but only just. She nocked another and fired again. The arrow seemed to curve away from the necromancer as it reached him.
‘Fire at will, lads!’ called Hultz, as his gunners raised their weapons.
‘Yes!’ shouted von Geldrecht. ‘Kill him! A hundred crowns to the man who brings him down!’
But as the gunners sighted down at Kemmler, it became clear that the necromancer’s arm-waving was not mere madness. Shadows blossomed around him, billowing from his dirty cloak to surround him in unnatural darkness until he vanished in a floating smudge of smoke.
The guns thundered, splintering the rocks around where Kemmler stood and sending up splashes in the shallows. Had they missed? Kat certainly did not. Her third arrow lanced straight through the heart of the smoke, precisely where Kemmler had been standing, but to Felix’s dismay, it met no resistance, and stuck quivering in the ground beyond.
The darkness dissipated again, revealing nothing but empty rocks. Felix heard men running up the stairs behind him, drawn to the walls by the firing. He didn’t turn. He was too busy searching the horde for Kemmler.
‘Where’s he gone?’ cried von Geldrecht. ‘Find him!’
‘The boat,’ croaked von Volgen, pointing.
Felix and Kat looked towards Yaekel’s sloop as spearmen and greatswords crowded the battlements on either side of them. A swirl of shadow, almost impossible to see in the darker shadow of the sails, was coalescing behind the sloop’s pilot. No one had seen it yet. Zeismann’s spearmen were still following his orders and watching the waves. The crew were at their duties.
‘The necromancer!’ shouted one of Hultz’s handgunners. ‘’Ware behind you, boys!’
The crowd that now thronged the walls joined him, all waving and shouting at once, but the distance was too great. The men on the sloop stared back at them, uncomprehending, as the darkness clotted behind them and became opaque.
Finally, one of the spearmen – was it Zeismann? It was hard to tell so far away – turned to call to someone, and froze as he saw the patch of misty blackness that was spreading across the aft deck.
Though Felix heard nothing, Zeismann must have shouted, for all at once the other spearmen whipped around, and the crew turned and lifted their heads.
What followed seemed somehow more horrible to Felix because it played out in the silence of distance – a sad, sickening pantomime that he and Kat and the others on the wall were powerless to stop.
As the pilot fled before the spreading cloud, Zeismann and his spearmen crept towards it cautiously from all sides, spears extended. The river wardens closed from all corners of the ship, brandishing cutlasses and boarding pikes. A flash of red hair showed Felix that Yaekel was at their head, a pair of pistols at the ready.
Then, as Zeismann prodded nervously into the churning dark with his spear-tip, black tendrils of writhing smoke shot out from its centre in all directions at once, impaling the spearmen through their breastplates and bringing them up on their toes in a paralysing rictus.
The crowd on the wall gasped.
Kat cried out. ‘Zeismann! No!’
Yaekel and his crew drew back in terror as the shadowy strands reeled the spearmen closer and closer to the spreading cloud while they squirmed like worms on hooks. Zeismann, with seemingly superhuman willpower, stabbed convulsively into the dark as it drew him into its embrace, but his attacks did nothing, and he vanished with the rest.
Felix tore his gaze from the horror and stepped to von Geldrecht and von Volgen.
‘Lord steward!’ he said. ‘Send the other boat. Let us on it! We must save them!’
‘Aye, my lord,’ said Hultz. ‘Something must be done!’
The others on the wall echoed him, begging to be sent to the rescue, but von Geldrecht shook his head, his eyes never leaving the sloop.
‘It’s too late. Too late.’
‘Not for vengeance!’ said Kat. ‘Let us go. We will kill the necromancer for the deaths of your men.’
‘Aye!’ said a spearman who had stayed behind. ‘Zeismann must be avenged.’
The steward didn’t answer, but von Volgen coughed.
‘I’m afraid the lord steward is right,’ he said. ‘We must not be drawn. The rescuers will only die and the castle will lose its second boat.’
Felix groaned, and the others cursed as they turned back to watch again. The lord was undoubtedly right, but it was hard to swallow.
With no one at the wheel, the sloop’s rudder flopped free, and it turned with the current, its sails loose and snapping. Beneath them, Yaekel, with more bravery than Felix expected of him, was waving his crew back and advancing on the black cloud alone. The darkness now covered all of the aft deck and was curling down into the waist like a heavy ground fog. He aimed his pistols at it and shouted something, but clearly didn’t get the response he’d hoped for, for he shouted again.
A figure emerged from the pall and Yaekel jumped back, frightened, but then, as it came into the light, it was revealed as a spearman, staggering like a drunk, his spear clutc
hed in his hands. Yaekel spoke again, but this time seemingly in relief, and stepped forwards, lowering his pistols. The spearman stabbed him in the chest, burying his spearpoint between his ribs.
The river wardens cried out as Yaekel fell, and the distant pops of pistols carried across the water as they fired at his killer. The spearman twitched in the volley of lead, but did not fall, only jerked his spear free of Yaekel and stumbled down to the waist. More spearmen followed him out of the black mist, all with the same lurching gait, and fell upon the river wardens with ungainly savagery.
‘Not our lads,’ murmured the spearman who had spoken before. ‘Not the captain.’
The crew fought valiantly, but the outcome was inevitable. Only seconds after his death, Yaekel rose again and turned to join the spearmen as they tore at his erstwhile men. And more and more of the river wardens followed him – falling as their guts were pierced by spears, only to rise again almost instantly, lifeless slaves to Kemmler’s will, and leaving the living swiftly out-numbered.
Then, as the slaughter came to its grisly conclusion, the black cloud vanished from the deck and reappeared on the shore at the edge of the zombie horde, dissipating to reveal Kemmler, who once again laughed and waved to the sloop. In response, the newly risen zombies turned and staggered to the gunwales, then toppled into the water one after the other until there were none left on board, and the sloop drifted away down the river, unmanned.
‘And that’s that, then,’ said a handgunner, staring hollow-eyed. ‘Good men dead and drowned by the hand of that filthy grave-robber. May Morr watch over them.’
But that wasn’t it, for as Felix, Kat and the others watched, there was a churning in the shallows near where Kemmler stood on the shore, and a cluster of helmed heads and armoured shoulders broke the waves, streaming water and blood. In ones and twos, the spearmen and river wardens from the sloop rose up and walked out of the river, then shambled past Kemmler to merge with the endless anonymity of the ten-thousand-strong horde as the necromancer’s laughter again drifted to the castle on the wind.
Kat turned her head. ‘Poor bastards. Poor Zeismann.’
‘Aye,’ said Felix, glaring at von Geldrecht. ‘Damned short-sighted fool.’
The steward stood beside von Volgen, staring blankly after the receding sloop. The men around them wore the same expression, as if all hope had been pulled out of them in a single instant.
Suddenly, Draeger, the free-company captain, turned on von Geldrecht, his eyes blazing with fury. ‘Y’fat bastard, y’trapped us! We could’ve got out yesterday but you wouldn’t! If we all die here, I’m hanging it ’round your neck! It’s you who’ve killed us, and nobody–’
Von Geldrecht slapped him across the face. ‘Pull yourself together, captain!’ he snapped. ‘Or I’ll have you in the gaol! There is no room for such an outburst here.’
Draeger balled his fists as the men on the wall held their breath, but at last Draeger just turned on his heel and stalked off.
Von Geldrecht glared after him, then seemed to remember he was supposed to be the commander, and drew himself up. ‘Back to your duties!’ he said. ‘Back to your posts! If you want vengeance for this terrible loss, then shore up our defences. Sharpen your weapons, build the hoardings, carry shot and powder to the walls so that they are there when our gunners need them. There is no need to go to the enemy. The enemy will come to us, and when they do, we will make them pay tenfold for what they have done today!’
The men cheered this speech and broke up in better spirits, but as they filed past Felix and Kat towards the stairs, Felix heard some grumbling as well.
‘If I wanted vengeance,’ muttered a spearman, ‘I’d baste ye in butter and send you out to forage, y’fat ham hock.’
‘Two captains dead,’ said another, ‘and nothing to show for it. Nothing. Go back to the counting house, Goldie.’
‘My lord steward,’ said von Volgen, as the last of them left the walls. ‘If I might make a suggestion?’
Von Geldrecht stiffened. ‘What is it?’
Von Volgen nodded towards the river gate. ‘We have seen now that zombies don’t drown. I am therefore concerned that there might be a gap between the bottom of the lattice doors and the river bed. If the corpses were to find it…’
Von Geldrecht paled. He looked overwhelmed. ‘Good thinking,’ he murmured. ‘Thank you. I will ask if a solution can be– Ack!’
Von Geldrecht ducked and flinched as something swooped out of the sky and squeaked and flapped around his head. Von Volgen drew his sword and Kat had an arrow on the string in an instant, but what fluttered around the steward’s head was not a bat, but the strangest bird Felix had ever seen. It looked something like a pigeon, with a round body and smooth head, but its feathers glinted like metal and it whirred and clicked like an angry insect.
‘Hold!’ cried von Geldrecht, waving Kat down. ‘It is a messenger pigeon.’
Kat held fire, but kept her bow at half-draw, staring as von Geldrecht raised his arm and the thing settled on his wrist.
‘It… it is a machine,’ she said, wonderingly.
Felix stared too. Now that it was standing still, he could see that it was indeed mechanical. The wings were made of steel and brass, the legs and claws hinged with screws, and the eyes made from glass lenses. He shook his head. He didn’t remember the Empire having anything like this before he had left it for parts east. Engineering had come a long way in twenty years.
Von Geldrecht twisted the cap off the end of a brass tube affixed to the bird’s chest and withdrew from it a twist of paper. He uncurled it with nervous fingers and peered at it.
‘From Altdorf, my lord?’ asked von Volgen.
Von Geldrecht nodded and let out a sigh, though Felix couldn’t tell if it was one of relief or worry. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The Reiksguard are coming, and as many state troops as they can recruit along the way. Graf Reiklander’s son, Master Dominic, is returning with them. They left late yesterday.’
‘Praise Sigmar,’ said von Volgen.
‘Aye,’ said von Geldrecht, his eyes distant. He crumpled the paper. ‘And pray his deliverance isn’t too late.’
NINE
The rest of the day was hard labour, with no one exempt. Even the knights worked, falling in beside the handgunners, spearmen and artillerymen to proof the castle as best they could against the undead. Directed by Reikguard’s master carpenter, Anders Bierlitz, half the garrison cut, nailed together and fit wooden hoardings to the tops of the walls, while nearly as many worked just as furiously dismantling the stables, the privies and whatever other wooden structures could be spared, in order to provide usable wood for the builders to build with.
Gotrek, Rodi and Snorri, meanwhile, set to dismantling the officers’ residence for its stone. There had been much argument earlier about the best way to prevent the zombies from crawling under the water gate, with some wanting to sink the remaining riverboat in front of it, and others wanting to drive the gates down into the mud of the river bottom, but at last it was decided that the surest plan was to pile up heavy stones below the gates to plug the gap. Unfortunately, the castle wasn’t a quarry, and taking them from the exterior walls was obviously not an option.
And so all day the Slayers used hammers, chisels and their bare hands to dismantle the corner tower of the officers’ residence from top to bottom and tumble the stones down to river wardens, who then winched them onto oarboats and rowed them the short distance to the gate to dump them over the side as close to the iron doors as they could manage.
Felix and Kat, being neither capable carpenters nor stonemasons, went to work with the demolition gangs, and pried apart the weathered planks of the hayloft then pulled out every nail that could be salvaged. Even on a freezing late winter day, it was hot, dusty work, and they were soon working in their shirts, steam rising from their shoulders into the chilly air.
Ordinarily, this kind of labour would not have worn Felix out. Years of wandering and fighting had left him in g
ood shape, and he was used to hardship, but even the toughest man could not go long without water, and there wasn’t nearly enough to go around. Every vat and pan and pot in the kitchen was busy boiling water for drinking, but the process wasn’t quick, and the rationing was severe. Every man got a ladleful to go with their single biscuit in the morning, and another in the afternoon, and some got less than that. Both times the crews were called to the mess, the water ran out before everyone got their share.
Gotrek, Rodi and Snorri never drank, though whether that was because they didn’t need to, or out of sheer stubbornness, or just because it wasn’t beer, Felix wasn’t certain. Regardless, they each did the work of ten men, and never complained or showed any sign of weakness.
The same could not be said for the men. There were fights at the water barrel when some tried to drink more than their share. Others passed out or vomited from dryness. Felix was nearly one of them. By the late afternoon, he was staggering, and almost fell through a hole in the floor he was prying up. Only a swift grab by Kat stopped him from breaking his neck. Hunger and thirst weren’t entirely to blame, however. Part of his clumsiness stemmed from his inability to keep his mind on the work. He couldn’t stop wondering who the saboteur was.
All day long he watched his fellow defenders, wondering which one hid the power to shatter a dwarf rune – which was in league with Kemmler. Was it Tauber, like Bosendorfer believed? That would be tidy, for Tauber was already locked up, but somehow Felix doubted the castle was that lucky. But then who? It couldn’t be anybody who had travelled with von Volgen, since the runes had been broken before his force arrived. Was it von Geldrecht? Had he ordered the garrison to hold the castle just so Kemmler could kill them all and swell his ranks with their corpses? Was it Bosendorfer, sowing discord by accusing others of crimes he himself was committing? Was it Father Ulfram? Was his blindness and seeming senility a cover for corrupt power? Was it Sister Willentrude, hiding an evil nature behind a kindly smile? Was it perhaps Graf Reiklander himself, or the Grafin Avelein, hiding in the keep and manipulating the rest of the castle for Kemmler’s gain?
