by Warhammer
Felix had had a brief glance at the dining hall once before, when he’d entered the keep with von Volgen and Classen and the others to confront Grafin Avelein, and he remembered it as a regal room with heraldic shields and tapestries on the walls, chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, long, richly set tables below a raised dais and tall windows looking out onto a formal garden.
It was regal no more.
The shields and tapestries had been torn down, and in their place, strange symbols were scrawled in blood on the bare stone walls. The chandeliers had been replaced by inverted corpses, headless and dripping black fluids from the stumps of their necks. The tables had been smashed and thrown to the corners to make room for an eldritch circle, burned and gouged into the polished wood floor. Ringing the circle at nine points were bronze braziers in which burned mounds of severed heads, hands and arms, the fat and the flesh of them popping and hissing in the flames.
And in the centre of it all was a scene so strange it made Felix stumble in shock. It seemed to have been arranged as a sick parody of some old harvest ritual, where the lord and lady of the land would give their blessing to their peasants’ crops and toast the bounty of nature. There were two thrones in the circle, each carved with the eagle and crown of the Reikland, and squirming in those thrones were the undead corpses of Graf Reiklander and Grafin Avelein – dressed in the full regalia of the ancient princes of the Reikland. Sable robes with ermine cuffs were draped around their bony shoulders, jewelled crowns slipped sideways on their shrunken skulls, chains of office hung across their sunken chests, swords and sceptres were clutched awkwardly in withered claws, and around them, mounded up on all sides of the thrones, was a bounteous feast of famine that was decaying as Felix watched.
Sheaves of wheat gone rotten were crossed at the corpses’ feet. Cadaverous hogs lay trussed on platters, so gaunt their ribs had broken through their crumbling skin. Baskets of apples and cabbages and leeks, black and shrivelled, collapsed between spilled sacks of wormy flour and mouldy grain. The skulls of cattle and the bones of sheep, goats and geese lay in heaps. And standing before it all, his robes whipping in an unnatural wind and his arms flung wide like a priest giving a benediction, was Kemmler, his skull-topped staff gripped in one hand as he keened a cacophonous incantation.
A black nimbus flickered around him, curdling the air, and he seemed to be drawing it from the dead graf and grafin, and from the foul offerings that he had gathered around them. With each syllable of his chant the corpses and the bounty seemed to wither more, while the crowns and swords and chains the graf and grafin wore rusted and blackened and crumbled to dust as the rippling energy around the necromancer grew darker and more tangible.
It was the spell of blight again, Felix was sure of it – the same evil pall that Kemmler had cast upon the castle, poisoning the water and ruining the food, the spell that had starved and weakened the defenders and made them easy prey for his minions. Now he was casting it again inside Castle Reikguard, upon the rulers of Castle Reikguard, and if what Father Marwalt and Magister Marhalt had said was true, it would affect all the lands that made up its domain – the blight would spread across all the Reikland. Every well would be poisoned. All the food would wither, rot and die. The people would starve. The army would die on its feet. With one spell, Kemmler would defeat the forces of the Empire before his undead horde marched a single step.
‘Mother,’ choked Dominic. ‘Father!’
Felix clamped a hand over the boy’s mouth and looked around, afraid he had been heard, but a second later Gotrek pushed past them both, stalking towards the great hall as he ran his thumb along the blade of his axe and drew blood.
Felix gaped, and made to call after him. Max beat him to it.
‘Gotrek!’ hissed the magister, grabbing for him. ‘What are you doing? I said you weren’t to fight!’
Gotrek shrugged him off without breaking step. ‘No one does that to a Slayer,’ he growled. ‘No one!’
Felix had no idea what he was talking about. Slayer? Which Slayer? Was Snorri here? Had he somehow woken from his drugged stupor and beaten them here?
Then he saw what Gotrek had seen, and he paled. Rodi Balkisson stood at one of the flaming braziers, feeding a severed head into the fire from a bucket full of body parts that he held in his left hand. There was a terrible axe wound in his chest, and his lower jaw and beard were missing, leaving a crusted red hole in his face where they should have been. There was no mistaking the braided Slayer’s crest or massive physique, however. It was Rodi, and he was dead, and yet he walked. Nor was he the only one. Kemmler had also raised others to be his servants – Tauber, Sergeant Leffler and von Volgen also held buckets and fed the grisly fires as well.
Max and Father Marwalt and Magister Marhalt tiptoed frantically after Gotrek, whispering after him to come back. The Slayer didn’t heed them. He strode into the great hall and chopped off Rodi’s head with a single slash of his glowing rune axe.
‘Go to Grimnir, Rodi Balkisson,’ said Gotrek.
TWENTY-FIVE
Kemmler turned, his incantation faltering, as Rodi’s body and jawless head thudded to the floor behind him.
‘You have dishonoured the dead of the dwarfs, necromancer,’ said Gotrek, launching himself at him. ‘You will die for it.’
Kemmler leapt back, crying out in fear, and vanished into a cloud of darkness that erupted from his cloak.
The Slayer skidded to a stop, glaring around, then roared and charged out of sight to the right, bellowing, ‘Stand aside, wight! The defiler dies first!’
‘The dwarf is insane,’ whispered Father Marwalt and Magister Marhalt, as Felix and Max hurried for the door.
‘He is a Slayer,’ said Max over his shoulder. ‘Sanity doesn’t enter the equation.’
‘Then I am a Slayer too,’ cried Dominic, and charged after them, drawing his sword. ‘My mother and father must be avenged!’
‘But, my lord, the gates!’ called Captain Hoetker. ‘We must open the gates!’
The young lord didn’t listen. He shoved past Felix and Max as they reached the door, and plunged on in the direction Gotrek had gone.
Felix blanched as he saw what the boy was running towards. ‘Lord Dominic! Come back!’
The right end of the great hall was a raised dais – the place where the graf and grafin’s thrones should have been. A curtained musicians’ gallery rose above it, and a mural of Young Sigmar killing Blacktusk the Boar was painted behind it. Now it was bare of furniture, and full of wights. Kemmler stood in the centre of a square of motionless skeletal warriors, crooning out another incantation while below him on the dais’s broad stairs, Gotrek fought Krell, the Lord of the Undead.
Felix raced forwards, reaching after Dominic, but he was too far back. The young lord shouldered in beside the Slayer and started hewing at the wight king like a woodsman. Unfortunately, his sword strokes were wild and glancing and did nothing. He looked like a terrier trying to help a bulldog fight a bear, and quickly met a terrier’s fate. As Krell slashed at Gotrek, Dominic got in the way, and was smashed backwards into the rotting bounty at the foot of his father’s throne, his sword sheared in half and his armour crumpled at the shoulder.
Felix ran to him as the Reiksguarders thundered in. He was stunned, and groaning in pain, but thankfully seemed uncut by Krell’s axe.
‘He lives?’ asked Captain Hoetker, hurrying past.
‘Aye,’ said Felix.
‘Well, keep him back.’
The knights charged forwards to attack Krell, and were followed into the room by a tide of zombies and ghouls.
‘Father!’ shouted Max. ‘Magister!’
The twins turned, and Magister Marhalt backed from the door, mumbling cantrips and pulling something from his sleeves, while Father Marwalt pulled a stick of charcoal from his robes and began to recite a prayer to Morr.
Below the dais, Krell whirled his axe in a wide arc as the Reiksguarders fell in with Gotrek to attack him. Two of the knights tried
to turn the blow on their shields and crashed down, shields sundered and arms maimed and flecked with black slivers.
‘Get back, fools!’ growled Gotrek, and Max echoed him.
‘Knights!’ he shouted. ‘Leave Krell to the Slayer! Kill the wights! Attack Kemmler!’
At the door, Magister Marhalt held out a gold-chased human skull towards the undead who were shuffling into the room and cried an arcane phrase. The skull’s jewelled eyes emitted a violet light that went through them like a shockwave. They flew backwards into the entry hall, knocking back those behind and disintegrating as they fell – arms, legs and torsos breaking into rotting chunks.
With the doorway momentarily clear, Father Marwalt rushed to it and drew a thick black line across the threshold with his charcoal, then dodged back. The zombies and ghouls came forwards again, but when they tried to step over the line, their flesh blackened and cracked as if they were being consumed by invisible flames. They could not cross it.
Felix looked back to the dais. The Reiksguarders had done Max’s bidding and were attacking Kemmler’s protective square of wights, leaving Gotrek to fight Krell all on his own.
The Slayer was revelling in it, raining blows on the wight king with a maniacal smile twisting his face. This, at last, thought Felix, was the fight Gotrek had been looking for since he had first crossed axes with Krell on the walls of the castle seven days ago. There were no distractions now – no undead wyvern to get in the way or allow Krell to escape, no interfering rivals, no worries about keeping Snorri alive. There was only a fight to the finish with a worthy enemy.
The dwarf and undead warrior were so evenly matched that it seemed neither would ever gain an advantage. No matter how fast Gotrek’s axe blurred, Krell’s was there to meet it. No matter how powerful Krell’s strikes, Gotrek returned them with equal force, and the air shivered with the ringing of obsidian on steel.
Felix hauled the semi-conscious Dominic out of the way as Gotrek sent Krell crashing into Kemmler’s ritual circle, then leapt after him.
‘My lord,’ said Felix, as Krell surged up again and the battle roiled their way. ‘Can you stand?’
The boy only groaned and Felix dragged him further back.
Behind his protective wall of wights, Kemmler’s arcane incantation was rising to a crescendo, but Max and Magister Marhalt and Father Marwalt were casting spells of their own to counter it. Magister Marhalt trained the jewelled sockets of his golden skull on the necromancer and bathed him in its burning violet stare. Max scribed glowing words in the air with one hand while brandishing a round metal mirror with the other. A white-gold light poured from the disc as if it were reflecting the light of the sun, and the beam seared Kemmler’s eyes. Father Marwalt held a flickering black candle and recited traditional Morrian burial prayers, meant to lay the dead to rest and keep them there – and it appeared to be working, for the verdigised axes of Kemmler’s wights seemed to be slowing, and the swords of the Reiksguarders were bashing through their defences and striking bronze and bone.
But, though Max’s light blinded him and Magister Marhalt’s fire burned him, Kemmler managed to shriek the last words of his incantation and thrust his skull-topped staff out before him.
A ripple of shadow burst from the staff and Max and the twins gasped and staggered. Felix did too, a wave of dizzying weakness buckling his knees. The Reiksguarders were affected as well, and suddenly it was their swords that were faltering, and the wights that were smashing them back. Felix groaned. His arms were shaking and his heart beating fast but faint. It felt as if all the days of thirst and starvation he had experienced during the siege were happening to him now in the span of a minute.
Then, just as he felt he would collapse next to Lord Dominic, a shimmer of gold passed through him and the sick weakness lessened, though not entirely. He looked around. Max stood before the dais, braced as if against a high wind, his arms outstretched and shaking, pushing the walls of a sphere of golden light out to encompass them all.
Protected by Max’s ward, the twins renewed their prayers and incantations, though their hands pushed though their ritual motions like they were neck deep in quicksand. Kemmler had also thrown up a shield – a whirlwind of spectral forms and half-seen faces that swirled around him, screaming and dying as they blocked the purple light.
The only ones apparently unaffected by all the prayers and spells and counterspells were Gotrek and Krell, who fought on, oblivious, to everything but their close-fought combat. Krell slammed Gotrek backwards into a jumble of tables, smashing them to splinters, then charged in as the Slayer rolled from the wreckage and slashed behind him with his axe. The strike tore away Krell’s greave and boot, leaving him limping on a bare bone foot, but he came on regardless, and his next strike sent Gotrek crashing into the braziers that ringed the circle and sending burning hands, feet and heads flying everywhere.
Felix pulled Dominic out of the way again, and the boy finally stumbled to his feet.
‘This way, my lord,’ said Felix. ‘Keep back.’
But as he drew Dominic away, he bumped into something behind him, and turned to find Sergeant Leffler swinging his two-handed sword at him.
Felix gasped and ducked, and the blade whooshed an inch over his head – and gashed Dominic’s shoulder. From their left, the corpse of Surgeon Tauber lurched in, hands outstretched, and from their right, Lord von Volgen was stabbing at them with his long sword.
Dominic twisted aside and gashed von Volgen with his broken sword, but the wound didn’t slow the corpse in the slightest, and it slashed at him again.
Felix parried the blow and kicked von Volgen back, then bulled into Dominic to get him out of the path of Leffler’s Zweihander.
‘Stay behind me,’ he shouted.
Felix chopped Tauber’s head off as the zombies crowded in, then smashed the heavy two-handed sword from the sergeant’s hands and ran him through the neck. That left only von Volgen. The corpse of the lord lurched towards him, but as Felix raised Karaghul to hack at it, its sword arm dropped, a sad expression on its face.
Felix faltered, but instinct carried the blow and he cut von Volgen’s head from his body. His heart hammered as the corpse fell. It had seemed as if the zombie had allowed itself to be killed, almost as if it had been begging for it. But that wasn’t possible, was it? Had some portion of von Volgen’s soul remained trapped in its undead cage?
A movement brought his head around and banished the thought. Dominic was staggering once again towards the battle between Gotrek and Krell, and trying to raise his broken sword with his battered arm. Felix stepped after him.
‘My lord,’ he said, ‘leave it to the Slayer.’
The young lord waved him back. ‘I must do something! I must have some part in–’
He stopped as he found himself face to face with his mother and father. The corpses were writhing in their thrones and Felix saw that they had been tied there. They strained against the ropes, snapping at Felix and their son with mindless hunger.
Dominic stared at them, then choked back a sob. ‘This is what I must do. I must do as the Slayer did, and free them as he freed his friend.’
The boy threw aside his broken blade and instead drew from its scabbard the sword strapped to his father’s side. The corpse tried to claw at him, but the rope held it and it couldn’t reach.
Aged by Kemmler’s death magic, the blade was spotted with rust, but still whole enough to do the job. Dominic raised it over his head, then faced the grafin with tears in his eyes.
‘Go to Sigmar, mother,’ he said, then swept her shrivelled head from her neck. She made no noise as she died, but behind his wall of wights, Kemmler screamed as if the sword had struck him.
‘Foolish boy! You’re ruining it!’
His cry of rage turned into a shriek of pain as Max and Magister Marhalt’s spells lanced through his lost concentration, but almost instantly, his shadows billowed forth again, growing stronger than before.
‘Spoiler!’ he shrieked
. ‘Vandal!’
‘Finish it, my lord!’ shouted Felix, stepping between the boy and the expanding darkness. ‘Strike while you can!’
Dominic raised his sword over his father. ‘Go to Sigmar, father.’
Again he struck true, and the graf’s head tumbled off his shoulders.
Kemmler howled, and with a silent thunderclap the boiling ball of darkness around him exploded outwards in all directions, and his enervating power blasted Felix and Dominic and the other living men to their knees.
All the weakness that Max’s sphere of protection had momentarily mitigated returned again tenfold. Felix’s limbs would not support his weight. His heart beat so fast he felt it might explode, but it seemed to be pumping bile, not blood. His head swam and his vision blackened at the corners. Dominic dropped his father’s sword. Max and Father Marwalt and Magister Marhalt were the same, arms shaking and struggling to rise. The knights who had been fighting the wights had collapsed too, and the ancient warriors were chopping them to pieces. And at the door, the black line of charcoal was greying and the zombies were beginning to push through it.
Even Gotrek seemed to have been stricken by the spell. He staggered back from Krell as if on his last legs, his torso a mass of bruises and his rune axe hanging heavy in his hands. The undead champion howled in triumph and strode after him, raising his black axe for a savage blow. But as it swung down, trailing its choking cloud, Gotrek jolted forwards and chopped hard at the haft of it, then twisted savagely and up.
Krell bellowed in surprise as the black axe flew from his gauntleted grip and spun up to the ceiling to bite into one of the great hall’s gilded beams. It stuck there, quivering, twenty feet over his head.
Gotrek laughed and sprang, slashing for his legs, as the towering wight stumbled back.
‘Two thousand years of grudges,’ growled the Slayer, ‘crossed out in a single stroke!’
Gotrek hacked at the undead champion’s exposed leg bone and chopped through it like dry wood. Krell toppled to the floor in a deafening crash, and the Slayer straddled him, swinging down with his rune axe blazing red.
