[Heroes 03] - Sword of Vengeance

by Chris Wraight - (ebook by Undead)

  They passed through the door, rattling as they went. Outside, the wind howled around the farmhouse, and a loose shutter banged wildly. A gale was coming, a storm wind from the Grey Mountains to the south.

  The maidens departed. They knew they were getting close. They never tired, they never gave in, they never lost hope. All they had was the single word, the reason for their existence.

  “Helborg,” whispered the last of them, before they stalked off into the night, heading south and east, away from the pastureland and up into the gorse of the high moors. Their prey was drawing closer.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Verstohlen looked across the scattered fragments of parchment again. The light was beginning to fail. His limbs throbbed from the long march across country, and that affected his mind. Nothing came easily, and the cipher remained firmly locked in place.

  Over the past two days Schwarzhelm had driven them hard, striding across the countryside with the iron resolve he’d used in the past to lead armies. He spoke even less than normal. Apart from the Rechtstahl at his side, he’d eschewed his armour, and seemed diminished both physically and mentally. Something had broken within him.

  Though Schwarzhelm never explained how, he seemed to know where he was going. Every so often, he’d stop walking for no reason at all. Once he’d drawn Helborg’s sword and held it up to the sun, turning the metal and watching the reflection in it. Then he’d set off again, silent and brooding, striding purposefully as if nothing had happened.

  They kept clear of the roads, lying low whenever they sighted Grosslich’s men on the horizon. Even so far into the wilds there were patrols. They’d seen one column of men, at least five hundred strong, heading east. The new elector’s reach was extending.

  As the hours of furtive trekking had passed, Verstohlen had watched his master carefully. There was none of the mania that had affected him in Averheim. He now had a cold, calculated fury, directed inwards. The cure to this sickness was obvious. If Helborg were alive, Schwarzhelm would return the sword. Verstohlen didn’t like to speculate too much on what Helborg would do when he got it—the Marshal wasn’t renowned for his compassion. Still, one way or another it would bring some kind of resolution.

  On the rare breaks between the marches, Verstohlen had plenty of time to contemplate the coded messages taken from Lassus’ chambers. At first glance, he’d assumed the code would be relatively easy to break. Ciphers used for routine messages were rarely complex—if they were, uncovering the meaning for the recipient would be too arduous and time consuming to be useful. In the normal run of things, in a world where so few men could read, Imperial codes were generally only used to keep messages secret from opportunistic thieves.

  Lassus’ code, on the other hand, looked like total gibberish. Verstohlen had started on the assumption that some kind of substitution code was being used, and had drawn out a table of alphabets using a stick of charcoal on parchment Schwarzhelm had brought from Altdorf. After that, he’d worked on a single phrase, the opening words of the final letter. Every variation produced a fresh line of nonsense. If he’d had more leisure to work, Verstohlen might have been able to do things more thoroughly. Even so, after hammering away at the problem, he knew he was missing something.

  Schwarzhelm didn’t appreciate the difficulties. As they travelled, he’d demanded answers. The man was a near indestructible master of swordcraft, but he had little appreciation of the literary and philosophical arts. He could read, it was true, but his penchant for language games didn’t extend far. Verstohlen found it hard even to explain the nature of the problem. Whenever he had to confess his lack of progress, Schwarzhelm didn’t fail to show his frustration.

  “This is important, Pieter,” he’d say.

  “I know it is.”

  “We don’t have time to speculate.”

  “I know we don’t.”

  “Then crack it.”

  On the second day out from Averheim, they’d come across an abandoned farmhouse on the edge of what looked like fallow fields. There were no settlements within eyesight. The light was beginning to fail, and even Schwarzhelm looked ready to halt the march.

  Verstohlen looked at the roofless building before him, watching the way the evening sun struck the stone. Around them, beyond the margins of the ploughed and empty fields, the endless seas of grass whispered. Schwarzhelm looked as if he was remembering something. Whatever it was, the memory wasn’t a happy one.

  “How close are you?” he asked again.

  “Are we stopping here?” replied Verstohlen. “If so, I might be able to concentrate.”

  “I’ll gather wood for a fire,” Schwarzhelm said, stalking off. “Do what you can.”

  So it was that Verstohlen found himself huddled in the corner of the ruined farmhouse, surrounded by scraps of yellowing paper. The characters, all written in a small, discursive hand, began to stream in front of his eyes. He ran the substitution tests again, this time isolating a different phrase in the letter, near the end. He worked on the sentences in his head, trying to spot patterns emerging for each shift. Whatever he tried, nonsense emerged. By the time Schwarzhelm came back, Verstohlen was tired and frustrated. Lassus was no fool. Verstohlen needed time, space, the use of a desk, quill and mathematical tables. It was hopeless.

  Schwarzhelm crouched down some distance from him and began to pile the wood. A few moments later he’d struck his flint and the kindling at its base began to burn. It wasn’t until Verstohlen saw the fire flare into life that he realised how cold he’d been getting. The nights were drawing in across Averland, turned chill by the gathering storms in the east.

  “Progress?” asked Schwarzhelm curtly, sitting down with his back against the wall. Verstohlen shook his head, knowing the reaction it would provoke.

  To his surprise, Schwarzhelm didn’t admonish him. The big man stared into the growing flames moodily, watching the dry wood catch. All around them, the shadows began to lengthen. Another day had passed and they were no closer to their goal.

  “We’ll have to work without the letters, then,” he said. “Maybe things will become clearer when we’re back in Averheim.”

  Verstohlen raised an eyebrow. Schwarzhelm clearly had the future all mapped out. Verstohlen almost asked him to explain what he had in mind, but then decided against it. He was too tired. As far as he could see, the quest to find Helborg was doomed to failure, and the march across the countryside was merely a way for Schwarzhelm to exorcise his inner demons. He sighed, and began to collect the scraps of paper together. He could start work on them again in the morning.

  “I need to get my bearings,” said Schwarzhelm, looking like he was speaking half to himself. “This whole place seems foreign to me.”

  “So it should,” muttered Verstohlen. “It’s changed since you were a child.”

  Schwarzhelm grunted in agreement. Verstohlen returned to the fire and held his hands against it.

  “You never told me much about your time here,” he said.

  “What do you want, my life story?”

  “Not all of it.” Verstohlen was inured to Schwarzhelm’s prickliness. “But you’re a hard man to understand, my lord. Is there a man alive who knows anything about you?”

  Schwarzhelm remained stony-faced.

  “Not alive,” he said.

  Verstohlen took the hint and fell quiet. For a while, the only sound was the crackle of the fire and the sounds of the land. In the distance, a triangle of geese flew low across the setting sun, crying as they went. Below them ran the sound of the grasses, rushing endlessly in the wind. Verstohlen resigned himself to a long, sullen evening, but then Schwarzhelm, against all expectation, spoke.

  “I was born a few days’ ride from here,” he said. He continued to look into the flames, and they lit his eyes with a dancing light. “In a village like any across the Empire. Less than a hundred souls, all of them poor. Getting into the army was my dream then, just like any other lad’s. I didn’t expect much from it, just a schillin
g in my pocket and the chance to escape the grind. Turned out I was good at killing. My one true talent. I got noticed, then got sent to Altdorf. After I started to train with Lassus, I never came back. Even now, I’ve never been back. The Empire became my home, and my roots seemed unimportant. Maybe that was a mistake.”

  By Schwarzhelm’s standards, it was an unprecedented confession. For a man who rarely strung more than a few words together, and those usually curt commands, his answers to Verstohlen’s questions were a revelation. Perhaps it was necessary. Maybe the wounds opened up by his failure in Averheim needed some kind of purgation before they were closed. Even the Emperor’s Champion could be damaged.

  “Close to here, eh?” said Verstohlen. “So this is your country.”

  Schwarzhelm nodded. “That it is. Wenenlich, the village was called. I don’t even know if it still exists.”

  At the mention of the village’s name, Verstohlen froze.

  “What was it called?”

  “Wenenlich.”

  Verstohlen felt his mind start to race. That wasn’t the first time he’d heard that word. Someone had uttered it recently, somewhere important. He sat back, leaning his head against the wall and looking into the darkening sky, trying to think.

  “Holy Verena,” he swore, feeling the memory return. “They used that word.”

  “Who?”

  “It was the password. To get into Natassja’s sanctum. The soldier at the gates required it.”

  Verstohlen got to his feet, brushing his clothes down as he rose. Something had occurred to him. Schwarzhelm followed him more slowly, clambering to his feet stiffly.

  “What is it?”

  “An idea,” said Verstohlen, taking out the letter again.

  He scrabbled for the crude table of characters he’d drawn up, talking rapidly as he did so.

  “Suppose you create a table of characters, each axis being the alphabet in sequence, and each row starting with the letter in the leftmost column—like this one. This is what Menningen uses, based on a system devised by Vignius. Now suppose you read an ‘a’. Take the first letter of the key, say ‘w’. Find the row starting with the key, and move along to the cell containing the cipher character. The character of the column header will be the one you write.”

  As he spoke, Verstohlen turned one of the parchment scraps over and scribbled on it with the blunt charcoal. Schwarzhelm looked completely blank, watching Verstohlen work with little comprehension.

  “If you say so.”

  Verstohlen kept writing, referring back to the original letter. The stream of letters looked as impenetrable as ever.

  jlyvrataakpnwgxmuzwkrpfdmpaoshxusquiwrtvhaxguerblugwipkkryctccpdwpqvrxikuossgbxuuawjsavwtdlsmgllzcuvkrpeaywvoapcjrpttlcvrxszzrhnxvrgsqudwwgmzpejljpbzropkllvwfsapdgujsihbywvadmaojttnininorlaksutespprnfzfslvbzbfpoxeipomrvomgicfdmebniycmvtgsoivrulvfzpmypplcvpkrnkntvuadiyfbcodbpcbyzlsgvsrzmaocrhbxrvzfkjdkvxkepmpzgmawepiffpscpnjxcyphrjrykgzsinorymfhjhsyaoatlyfsoflngsuly

  “The important thing is the key. Using the word unlocks the meaning.”

  “Why Wenenlich?”

  Verstohlen shot Schwarzhelm a wry look. “Perhaps their idea of a joke. Lassus knew you like no one else.”

  His fingers ran across the table, cross-referencing each character in the letter with the one the key pointed to. Letters emerged. As he wrote, Verstohlen could feel his hands begin to shake. It didn’t exactly make sense, but it wasn’t gibberish. The letters followed one another without a break as Verstohlen decoded them.

  ndfundsrecbfksafehl

  Verstohlen stopped transcribing and ran the charcoal stub back along the letters.

  “It’ll still be truncated, and may start mid-word.” He began to draw a line between the likely words, watching for abbreviation and filling out the expansion. “Some of this is guesswork, but maybe this will make more sense.”

  and funds received black fire keep safely hl

  Verstohlen stared at his handiwork, his heart thumping. He’d cracked it.

  “About time,” said Schwarzhelm gruffly. “I’ll get us some food. You can make a start in the morning.”

  Verstohlen smiled to himself. Effusive praise wasn’t the big man’s style. More importantly, though, the tone of his voice had changed. The cold note of self-judgement was diminished. In its place, and for the first time since he’d returned to Averland, there was hope for some answers.

  The muster was complete. Across the plains south of Pohlbad in the lower Reikland, Volkmar’s host was ready to march at last. Companies had been moving down the short distance from Altdorf in an incessant stream for days and gathering in the sprawling country estate of Duke Raffenburg Olsehn. With every new arrival, the numbers of men stationed in the huge marshalling yards swelled by another few hundred. Caravans of food and supplies had already set off, heading south under heavy armed guard. Messengers had been sent on fast horses, handing out warrants from the Imperial Palace for more materiel and men. Requisitions had been made of the Gunnery School in Nuln, already working at breakneck pace to supply the war in the north and now expected to arm another whole army with only days’ notice. The fabric of the Empire, its finances and its resolve, were being stretched to their very limit.

  Volkmar stood on a high stepped platform overlooking the duke’s grand parade ground, watching the fruit of his labours stand in row after row, detachment after detachment. The standards of the various companies hung limply from their poles. The morning had dawned overcast and still, turning the stone of the mansion house behind them a dark, dull grey.

  “Good enough?” mused Maljdir, watching the final units take their places in the muster. He was standing beside Volkmar, as was Roll. Volkmar was arrayed in the ceremonial robes of his office, and the eagle of Sigmar, cast in steel, adorned his breast. The collar of his cloak, a deep ceremonial red, rose high above his head, making his already massive frame even more imposing. Roll wore the robes of a warrior priest and carried a double-headed axe in his clenched fists. Maljdir wore the plate armour and chainmail of his Middenheim heritage. His cloak was white, trimmed with the dark blue of the northern province.

  “We’ll see,” said Volkmar, his eyes trained on the host below. “Give the signal.”

  The message was passed down from the platform, and a trumpet blared out from rear of the parade ground, soon repeated across the open space. Men stood to attention, and the sound of their boots snapping together echoed through the air.

  “Men of the Empire!” roared Volkmar. His huge voice boomed out, spreading to all corners of the parade ground. Few men would have been able to make themselves heard across such a wide area, but Volkmar’s oratory, honed by a lifetime’s service to the Cult of Sigmar, was fuelled by his inexhaustible faith. “You know why you’ve been summoned here. I’ll not weary your ears by talking of Averland and its troubles. You need know only one thing. The great enemy has made Averheim its home, and we march to expunge it from the face of the Empire.”

  As he spoke, Volkmar swept his eyes across the ranks. Every man present, nearly thirty thousand infantrymen, remained silent, listening intently to his words. None dared raise so much as a smile in his presence. The Grand Theogonist, master of the arcane mysteries of the Church of Sigmar, was a figure of awe and majesty.

  “There will be no deception between us. The task will be arduous. Before the victory, there will be death. Even as we assemble here, they are recruiting men of their own, arming them and readying for the battle to come. By such means do they hope to destroy our resolve, to crush our spirit when the time of testing comes.”

  He took a step forwards, gripping the brass railing and leaning out over the masses.

  “Do not be afraid!” he roared. “Do not give in! We know, as they will never do, of the secret power of mankind, the source of his greatness! Only in purity and steadfastness is there salvation. The mind of the loyal soldier is more terrible to the false gods than anything our weapons of steel and blackpowder can devise. While we profess our faith, they are
powerless against us!”

  The host remained rapt, hanging on every word. Volkmar knew how important the speech was. There would be few chances to address the entire army again. He had to inspire them while the sun shone and the world seemed hopeful, for he knew how dark the road would be.

  “Look around you, my sons,” he said, sweeping his arms in a wide gesture. “See what the hand of man has built here. Look at the powers ranged in our defence. We have gunnery from Nuln capable of tearing down the walls of any castle standing. We will have magisters of the colleges in our ranks, each of them masters of the winds of magic. I myself will command a full regiment of warrior priests, all sworn enemies of the heretic and the daemon. Alongside them will ride the Knights Panther, deadliest swords of the Empire.”

  He pointed out each elite company as he spoke, noting Gruppen’s nod of acknowledgement as his finger isolated the proud regiment of knights, standing not more than thirty yards from him.

  “And so you do not march alone. For every sword they possess, we possess a sharper. For every fallen sorcerer, we have an exalted master of magic. For every twisted warrior, cursed with the warping gifts of their dark masters, we have armoured knights wearing sanctified armour and carrying the blades of their forebears. So when the moment comes, stride forth with confidence! Let anger be your guide, not fear. Let fury drive you, the fury of the just man at the insolence of those who have taken our lands and despoiled them!”

  Volkmar’s voice rose, channelling the anger he felt himself. It was always there, just beneath the surface. As he spoke, he remembered Be’lakor’s twisted face, the savage leer of the daemon as it turned to horror in the face of his implacable wrath. He had triumphed then, and the taste of victory had never left his lips. He was strong enough for this.

  “We will give them no mercy!” he bellowed, and a ripple of agreement passed across the army. “We will drive them into the ground! We will rip their false idols down, burn their blasphemous temples and tear their souls from their gibbering carcasses! We will sweep through Averland like an avenging storm, with the fire of Holy Sigmar in our hearts and the steel of His Empire in our hands!”