Before the monster could spring, Kessler flung himself at it, his greatsword flashing against the tip of its lashing tail. The scaly flesh parted beneath the force of his stroke, reeking filth slopping from the reptilian meat as a foot of tail was severed from the hydra’s body. The bleeding was quickly staunched as slashed arteries collapsed and sealed, but the hydra’s primordial fury was not so easily abated. With another sizzling hiss, the beast spun around, all of its heads glaring at the lone swordsman who had maimed it. Kessler struck at the monster as it turned on him, the serpent-like neck slithering from the path of his blade.
Then the beast was beset from the rear once more. Eugen had been joined by Gerhard, the two knights savaging the hydra’s armoured flanks with mace and sword. Others were rushing forwards, emboldened by the example set by Kessler and the knights. Ghrum’s enormous bulk loomed above them all, his gigantic blade chopping down into the hydra’s leg like a butcher’s cleaver.
The reptile shrank from the attacks, its heads writhing and lashing in chaotic disharmony. It crawled away from the axes and swords that stabbed at its armoured hide, dragging its crippled leg after it. Kessler was beginning to dare to hope that they would kill it without suffering further loss when he saw a flash of light shine from one of the writhing heads. Again, he saw a head spurt fire from its mouth. An instant later, the hydra regained enough of its primitive mentality to force its writhing heads to the purpose. Three of the heads dipped in unison, facing the reptile’s abusers. As one, the beaked maws snapped open, searing flame exploding from their jaws.
The screams of dead and dying men echoed across the plateau. Gerhard fell away from the hydra, the young knight’s flesh cooking within the charred ruin of his armour. Mercenaries tore at burning clothes, rolling across the ground in agony. Kessler saw a soldier, his tunic blazing like a torch, race across the plateau and throw himself into the canyon below, dropping away like some fading candle.
The screaming seemed to excite the hydra, its frenzied motions becoming still more crazed and erratic. Heads flailed, spewing fire at nothing, and claws lashed, raking the walls of the cliff. Men used the monster’s delirium to slink away, none eager to join his incinerated comrades.
Skanir shouted at the retreating men, urging them to attack before the hydra recovered its senses. “Over here!” he called, standing on top of the wall the goblin trap had partially collapsed. “Lure it over here!”
If no one seemed eager to follow the dwarf’s suggestion, Kessler could hardly fault them. No man could struggle against that writhing fire spewer and come out alive, but if no man was up to the challenge, there was another to take up the dwarf’s call. Still slapping at the smoke rising from his clothes, Ghrum returned to the attack, driving his sword into the hydra’s side with the force of a siege ballista. The reptile shuddered beneath the attack, its talons slashing at Ghrum’s body. The ogre ignored the hideous wound, wrapping his powerful arms around the nest of writhing necks. Crushing them together in a strangler’s embrace, Ghrum kept the snapping heads and their deadly fire from reaching him. The ogre looked back at Skanir, again hearing the dwarf’s frantic cry.
Like a Tilean athlete hurling an iron discus, Ghrum planted his feet firmly in the rocky ground and shifted his body. With a mighty effort that seemed beyond even an ogre’s monstrous strength, Ghrum spun around, whipping the hydra’s flailing mass with him. At the height of his turn, Ghrum released the reptile, allowing its momentum to carry it forwards. It crashed into the side of the plateau, just beneath where Skanir was perched on the wall. The dwarf uttered a sharp curse and jumped down, scrambling away on hands and knees in his desperate haste.
The hydra uncoiled its body from the bruised heap it had landed in. Heads writhed, hissing angrily and spitting fire in every direction. Flames flashed into the sky, licked at the ground and seared against the wall. A portion of the wall suddenly began to sizzle on its own, and then a tremendous explosion rocked the entire mountain. The cliff seemed to rear up on invisible legs, and then came crashing down in a sea of dust and rubble. The hydra vanished within the holocaust that its own flames had precipitated.
When the dust and smoke began to clear, stunned men slowly lifted themselves back to their feet, shaking their heads in an effort to clear the ringing that filled their ears. An avalanche of rock and rubble had crashed down upon the hydra, yards of cliff face sliding down upon it.
Skanir smiled proudly at what his quick thinking had brought about. Unable to harm the beast with his pistol, he had put the rest of his blackpowder to more practical effect, using it to blast apart the wall and bring it down onto the monster. Already weakened by the goblin trap, it had only needed the touch of the hydra’s fire to set it off.
He was less pleased by what else his plan had caused. The dwarf cursed again as he saw an unplanned side-effect; the violent explosion had also brought some of the opposing cliff crashing down. A pile of jagged rock stood between the Wissenlanders and the door to the war-crypt. He walked over to Kessler, finding the swordsman likewise contemplating the second avalanche.
“Well, you’re in charge,” Skanir said. “We start looking elsewhere, or do we dig?”
Kessler stared at the pile of rock. Despite the incongruity of the carvings, he still could not shake the sense that this was where he needed to be. They had come too far to turn back now. Even if the dwarf legends were wrong, he could not doubt Carlinda’s visions.
“We dig,” Kessler answered.
* * *
Hostile eyes watched from the heights above as the Wissenlanders battled the hydra. The explosive conclusion of the combat had men diving for cover, shielding their heads against the shower of rock and debris that billowed up from the avalanche. A few began whispering prayers to Ranald and Khaine as they cowered from the blast.
Only one man remained standing. Rambrecht sneered as he saw the carnage the explosion had wrought. The mouth of the crypt was choked with rubble, and it would take the Wissenlanders hours to clear the opening. It was not quite as satisfying as seeing them all devoured by the hydra, but Rambrecht was content merely to have them delayed. If fortune continued to favour him, he would have the runefang long before the Wissenlanders finished digging.
The aristocrat turned, smiling as he saw the solid stone cairn that stood nearby. Fortune had smiled upon his decision to take the high ground. With his small crew of brigands and thugs, he hadn’t been eager to risk a confrontation with the Wissenlanders in the canyon below. Instead they had opted to follow the progress of their enemies from the cliffs above. When Skanir began to lead the expedition up onto the cliffs, Rambrecht had a good view of the dwarf’s destination long before any in the Wissenland company did. It would have taken a long climb to get down to the carved doorway in the mountainside, too long a climb to gain on the Wissenlanders.
Knowing this, and knowing a little about dwarf architecture, Rambrecht had set his scum looking for something like the cairn. Whatever their other faults, some of the bandits were quite accomplished woodsmen, and they had discovered the cairn in short order. Removing a few of the massive stones revealed what Rambrecht hoped he would find, a narrow passage sloping down into the dark of the mountain. It was a ventilation shaft, constructed by the dwarfs to circulate air down to the workers constructing the tomb below. The same shafts would be used to extract the workers when they finished their labours, sealing the doors from the inside to better protect them from thieves. One of those exits would serve Rambrecht and his crew as an entrance.
The Averlander looked back down the cliff, laughing as he watched Kessler’s men attack the blocking pile of rocks with a frenzied effort. Rambrecht laughed. Let them break their backs. By the time they forced their way inside, the runefang would already be on its way to Averheim, and he would be on the road to absolute power.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The finest wine from the royal cellars tasted bitter to Count Eberfeld as he sat in the war room of his palace. All the comforts of Wissenberg wer
e hollow to him now, less real than the horrors he had seen, the ghastly threat that continued to wreak havoc upon his land.
The sputtering torches cast weird shadows along the thick stone walls of the war room. Forgotten generals and long-dead knights seemed to stare accusingly at him from old tapestries and antique paintings. These were their people too, the descendants of his ancestors. It was a terrible weight, to be the one responsible for saving them, to preserve the legacy of the Merogens, to keep the realm of Wissenland from fading into the pages of history as had the realm of Solland before it.
Generals and captains gathered around the huge oak war table jumped as the count’s fist slammed against the oak. The nobleman’s fingers closed around one of the many maps littered on the table, holding it before his officers as though displaying something profane.
“Look at it, gentlemen!” the count demanded. “If any man here can make sense of it, I’ll give him his weight in gold!”
The men gathered around the table did not need to have the problem explained to them. They had been studying similar maps for days. Great black splotches marked those communities that Zahaak’s legion had razed to the ground. There seemed no pattern or reason behind them. The wight had brought the full force of his legion against hamlets and villages that weren’t even in the path of its march while ignoring entire cities that had watched the undead horde pass within sight of their walls. It was obvious that Zahaak was making some use of the roads and trails that dotted Wissenland, but it was strange the way the legion would sometimes follow a road for days, only to veer off and push through solid wilderness for weeks.
If there was a pattern to the legion’s movements, no one had been able to fathom it. Indeed, many suspected that, as well as being undead, the general of the spectral army was also insane.
The turning point, for Count Eberfeld, had been Bergdorf. With all the careful preparations and defences, the city had been ignored by Zahaak, his legion converging on Neuwald instead. The attempt to break the legion’s siege of Neuwald had proven disastrous, worse than disastrous, for now they knew the fate of those who fell to Zahaak’s horde. The once proud Knights of the Southern Sword had been brought into abominable service as knights of Nagash, their corpses infused with the unholy semblance of life. How many others had been slaughtered only to swell the ranks of Zahaak’s army? It was a question that chilled the nobleman’s very soul.
“We cannot afford any more half measures,” the count said, impelled to speak by the dark thoughts swirling in his head. “Unless there is a reasonable chance of victory, no more lives are to be thrown away attacking the legion. Any town in its path is to be evacuated, at the point of a sword if need be.”
“How can we know if a town is in its path or not?” protested one of the generals. “These fiends strike without pattern or reason! We can’t just abandon half of Wissenland because they might show up!” The count raised an eyebrow at the emotional response, but let the outburst stand. They were all suffering from the strain, and courtly manners were the last thing that would bring a solution to the crisis.
Heads turned as the iron-bound door to the war room creaked open. The robed figure of Vadian, high priest of Morr, slowly crept into the room, his aged form casting an almost skeletal shadow against the brooding walls. A young disciple walked beside the old priest, his head trimmed into a tonsure above his white-trimmed robes. The acolyte’s arms were filled with a collection of mouldering scrolls and wrinkled parchment. Vadian bowed before the seated officers and nobles, and then approached the far end of the table, where Count Eberfeld held court.
“Your excellency,” Vadian said, “I think I have discovered something that may reveal the reason behind the enemy’s campaign.”
The statement brought chuckles from the soldiers and barons seated around the table. Old hands at the art of war, these men had wracked their brains for any strategy that would make sense of the legion’s advance through Wissenland. They had found none, not even the wanton bloodlust of an orc warlord or the feral hate of beastmen. Nothing militarily made any sense of Zahaak’s movements.
“What have you found, father?” the count asked, directing a scowl at the chuckling officers to stifle their mirth.
Vadian nodded to his acolyte. The young priest set his burden of scrolls down on the table. Vadian leafed through them for a moment, and then unrolled one for the count to inspect. It was a map, a very old map, its edges frayed and tattered, much of it worm-eaten and crumbling into powder. Yet still it was unmistakably a map of Wissenland, the rivers standing stark against the frame of the Black and Grey Mountains. The count studied it for a long time, and then shook his head, not understanding what he should see.
“Notice the settlements, excellency,” Vadian prompted.
Count Eberfeld looked at the map again, the parchment crumbling under his fingers as realisation flashed through him. He looked at the more recent map, the one he had used to admonish his officers with. Again and again, he checked and compared the two, trying to make certain there was no mistake.
The settlements on Vadian’s old map were the same as those that had been attacked by the legion. The ones that were absent were those Zahaak had ignored! Somehow the priest had discovered the answer. Count Eberfeld squinted harder at the old map, finding Neuwald, but seeing only an empty place where Bergdorf should be. Roads existed in places where not even a goat path now pierced the wilds. Where roads should be were only forest and glen.
“What does it mean?” Count Eberfeld asked. The room was silent, the earlier humour forgotten in the intensity of the count’s question.
“This map dates from one hundred years after the reign of our Lord Sigmar,” Vadian stated, pressing a finger against the faded legend at the bottom of the scroll. “Your excellency, this creature, this abomination, thinks it is still fighting against the Merogens, still helping its unspeakable master make war against Sigmar! The cities it has bypassed, the roads it ignores, it does so because in its mind they do not even exist! For Zahaak, all the centuries that have unfolded since it was destroyed by the dwarfs have never been. For Zahaak it is still the year 15, and he makes his war against the world of that time!”
Officers and noblemen rushed forward to inspect the now all-important map, looking anxiously to see if their own homes would be found, if their own cities had been marked for doom by a fiend fighting battles from millennia past. General Hock raised a grim face to his sovereign.
“Wissenberg,” Hock gasped. “He’ll follow the river straight to Wissenberg.”
Count Eberfeld nodded, feeling the horror of the revelation sink in. He rose from his chair, eyes watching the anxious faces staring back at him.
“We must evacuate the city!” Baron von Schwalb declared, his heavy features growing as pallid as the ermine trim of his cloak. “We must petition Nuln and Altdorf for aid. Every vessel on the river, to the last scow, must be pressed into service to remove Wissenberg’s wealth to safety.”
A wave of fear spread through the room, dozens of voices rising in panic. Few of the nobles assembled did not have property in the provincial capital, fewer still did not have family or friends among the city’s inhabitants. For the others, the symbol of Wissenberg as the enduring strength of the realm was enough to unman them, the thought that the ancient stronghold would suffer the same fate as Neuwald and so many others.
“I won’t run,” Count Eberfeld said. Though spoken in a soft, almost weary tone, his words brought silence to the room. Noblemen and officers looked at their sovereign, disbelief and horror on their faces. “If we flee now, if we throw ourselves upon the charity of our neighbours, if we abandon our homes and our land to this evil, it will be the end of us. We may have our lives, but whatever heritage and dignity we can claim will be gone. We will have betrayed the blood in our veins, the line of our ancestors back to the first Merogen warriors. We will be a vagabond people, wretched and abhorred, no better than wandering Strigany thieves. Even if we come back, even if this sh
adow passes from Wissenland, there will be nothing for us here. Towns and villages can be rebuilt, but how can you rebuild the pride of a vanquished people? Would you have us become like Solland, a bitter tear and a lingering sorrow?”
“But Zahaak cannot be destroyed!” protested Petr Grebel. The priest of Myrmidia made the sign of his goddess as he spoke. “One of my order was the only man to escape from Neuwald. He was there when the gates fell. He saw Baron Volstadt and his bodyguard cut their way through the legion’s skeleton warriors, unto the armoured mass of its elite. He saw Zahaak enter the city, saw him defy the baron’s men. The wight slaughtered many, but Baron Volstadt’s guards would not break. At last they struck the wight down, hewing him with their swords, scattering his bones before the feet of their slain baron. Then he saw Zahaak rise again, rise from his own ruin, as terrible and monstrous as before. The horrified guards did not raise a hand against the resurrected wight, but stood gaping in terror even as he cut them down.”
“It is true, excellency,” one of the assembled captains shouted. “I have heard that an assassin bearing a dagger blessed by the Sisters of Sigmar crept into the undead encampment and hacked the skull from Zahaak’s body. Yet the next day the legion marched on, with the wight still at its head.”
“Some dark power protects this monster,” Baron von Schwald swore. “The black power of Nagash!” he added, making the sign of the hammer as he spoke the profane name.
Count Eberfeld glowered at the frightened men. He had heard the rumours and tales before, the claims that Zahaak could not be killed. He had tried to fire his men with courage and determination, but hope was the only salve for the fear that ruled them.
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