A sense of impending doom gripped every man, causing the blood to curdle in his veins. Kessler felt his eyes drawn to Gordreg Throatripper’s ramshackle throne, his gaze locked on the orc’s mouldering bones.
Evil was coming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Otto Kraus, late of the Dortrecht city watch, now a sergeant in the Fifth Dortrecht Militia, whispered a prayer to Taal and Manaan, the gods of forest and river. He hoped that the forbidding nature gods would deign to listen to the prayers of a mere man, one unversed in the holy sacraments and rites of priest and druid. He hoped that they might turn a sympathetic eye towards the men lined across the Westgate Bridge.
He prayed that they might prevail, that they could save the rest of the city from the ghastly power that beset it. More selfishly, he prayed for his own life, begging to be spared from the merciless swords of the enemy. He had rejected the blessings of the priests of Morr, who had stalked among the regiments earlier in the day, commending their souls to Morr’s care so that they might fight without fear for their immortal beings. Kraus did not want to think about death, about the likelihood that he would not survive the day. He did not want to think of Morr, that sombre, cheerless lord of death and the grave. To him, Morr had more in common with the enemy than the frightened men who offered the god their prayers.
Kraus looked across the length of the bridge, to where the cobblestone span reached the shore that marked the market quarter of Dortrecht, sometimes called the “new town”. Nothing lived in new town now. It had been evacuated on orders from General Hock, the officer who commanded everyone and everything in Dortrecht. Some had stubbornly stayed behind, avoiding the soldiers who had marched through the streets to enforce the general’s orders. Sometimes a scream would rise from the haunted streets of new town, piercing the silence like a titan’s spear. It had been many hours since the last scream. Nothing lived in new town now.
General Hock had arrived days ago, conferring with Baron von Schlaffen regarding the defence of the city. The baron had grown obstinate, refusing to sacrifice the market quarter and the docks as the general demanded, unwilling to give up even an inch of his city without a fight. The bold determination of their baron had been very popular with the people of Dortrecht, even as his soldiers made the rounds to recruit every able-bodied man in the city into a dozen fresh militia regiments.
Men possessed of moderate familiarity with arms found themselves appointed officers and sergeants, and men who had never before held anything more dangerous than a boat hook or meat cleaver found themselves being issued spears from the city armoury. The general sent by Count Eberfeld to lead the defence of the city was silent, while Baron von Schlaffen rallied his people, almost seeming to cede command to the baron. He allowed the men of Dortrecht to construct palisades and walls in the market district, to dig ditches and set up barricades around the docks. Meanwhile, the troops General Hock brought with him, soldiers from across the length and breadth of Wissenland, laboured upon an inner ring of defences, centred around Dortrecht’s old wall and the small tributary of the river that lapped against its foundations. The high city, the old city, had been built upon a peninsula ages ago. Since that time, the peninsula had become an island, connected with the mainland only by a series of bridges. It was around these bridges that General Hock had based his strategy.
When the inner defences met General Hock’s demands, he turned upon Baron von Schlaffen, ordering the stubborn nobleman’s arrest. He immediately ordered all inhabitants of new town to be brought behind the thick walls of the old city, and all Dortrecht regiments to abandon the barricades they had built for their baron. Companies of soldiers were sent to clear all structures from the opposite shore of the river, demolishing them with sledgehammers and torches. A broad expanse of new town, several dozen yards in depth, was destroyed when the soldiers were through. Officers explained that the destruction had been necessary to create a killing field for the archers who would man the walls of the old city, but the explanation did not ease the hostile resentment of the Dortrechters.
This, too, the general had taken into account. From the moment he had set foot in Dortrecht he had been playing against time. He allowed the baron to implement his fruitless efforts to save the entire city in order to keep both him and his people occupied. He knew that when the time came, he would need to seize sole control of the city. The baron was too close to implement the full ruthlessness that the position demanded. Hock would try to save the city, at least as much of it as he felt could be saved, but that was not his mission. He was trying to save the whole of Wissenland. If he had to sacrifice Dortrecht to do it, then he would do so.
Before the Dortrechters’ hostility could foment into rebellion, the enemy reached the outskirts of new town, as General Hock had expected them to. The people of Dortrecht had bigger problems to worry about beside the arrest of their baron. Watching the hideous fog sweep out across new town, seeing the shadowy shapes marching silently within it, terror gripped the city. Hock used that fear, exploited it the way a seductress exploits love. The iron voice of command that led the people was his and his alone, sending them running to the walls to oppose the unholy force that intended to slaughter them all.
Kraus wiped the perspiration from his face, trying to keep a tight grip on his sword. Hock was a strong-handed, uncompromising leader, but they had no other. There was no time to question him, only to obey and to pray that some of them would see the next dawn.
The militiaman looked at the pale, shivering men around him. Stevedores and carpenters, chandlers and wainwrights, street vendors and fishermen, all were alike in the awkward, terrified way they gripped their spears. Kraus felt his own pulse turn to ice. They were to support a real regiment, a band of halberdiers from Bergdorf who stood ahead of them on the bridge. He didn’t want to think about the chances of his militia against anything strong enough to break through the real soldiers.
Instead, he closed his eyes and prayed, trying desperately to banish from his mind the image of thin shadows silently lurching their way through the fog, converging on the Westgate Bridge.
General Hock stood upon the battlements atop the immense blocks that formed the wall of the high city. The thick stones had stood for millennia, watching over the river-front settlement as it grew from modest town to swarming city Perhaps, in another hundred years, it might rival Wissenberg or Averheim, if it was in the cards that Dortrecht should see another hundred years.
Dortrecht was an old settlement. It was the city’s ancient lineage that now imperilled it and all who lived there. Hock had memorised the crumbling, mouldy map that had been drawn from Wissenberg’s musty archives. Every town, village and hamlet marked upon it had been razed by Zahaak’s infernal legion. To the undead, it was as though all the centuries since Sigmar’s battle with Nagash had never been. They followed the old roads, and made war upon the old places. Wissenberg would be one of those places, Dortrecht was another. There were still a few towns along the river that might draw Zahaak’s legion before it reached the walls of the capital, but only at Dortrecht was there any real chance of stopping them, of holding them until Count Eberfeld was ready.
The general stared down from the height of the wall, watching the creeping mass of grey mist sweep through the deserted streets outside the wall. He felt a tinge of guilt with every scream that rose from that desolation, but he told himself that the wretches had brought their doom upon themselves by disobeying his orders and staying behind. He hoped there were not too many of them, not only to ease his guilt, but also because the enemy was numerous enough already. The legion did not need any more fresh corpses to swell its ranks.
Four bridges had originally connected the old city with the shore. Hock had ordered three of them to be readied for demolition. It had been the province of Thorir Hammerhand, an engineer from the Grey Mountains and a master of the strange fire-powder that the dwarfs used in their cannons. Thorir had rigged charges of the stuff to the bridges. If Hock squinted he could
see the barrels lashed to the sides of the spans. The containers had been soaked in oil and pitch. They would take flame quickly when archers sent fire arrows slamming into them. The bridges, the dwarf assured him, would vanish as though they had never been there. Hock intended to wait before setting them off, until they were swarming with the lifeless legions of the enemy. Then would be the time to destroy the bridges, when they could blast hundreds of the foe into oblivion with them.
He had left the fourth bridge intact. It would act as a lure to Zahaak’s troops once the others were gone. The entire legion would converge on the Westgate Bridge. To do so, they would need to cross the killing ground his men had cleared in new town, exposed to the hundreds of archers lining the walls of the old city every step of the way. The bridge was narrow, and easily held by a few score men. Hock had charged nearly two thousand men with holding it, reserve regiment upon reserve regiment ready to surge forward as soon as they were needed. He intended for the bridge to become a bottleneck, where the entire legion would be caught. The catapults in the old city’s towers were already trained on the far end of the bridge. The havoc Hock intended them to visit upon the foe would be hideous.
If it was possible to prevail against this supernatural force, they would do so. If not, Hock intended to delay them for as long as possible. Every day, every hour, would bring more men to Wissenberg, and give Count Eberfeld more time to secure his defences. Zahaak would be stopped. Hock had to believe that was possible.
The sorcerous fog that travelled with Zahaak’s legion, covering it like a shroud of grey shadow, was rolling through the market district, consuming street upon street, building after building. Hock could see the black shapes of the things that marched within the fog, dead things that had been called from their graves by a new and terrible master. Even from the wall, Hock could feel the unearthly chill of that fog pulling at his flesh with an oily caress of decay. He shuddered against the influence, putting a hand to his talisman of Myrmidia, goddess of strategy and war. The little bronze icon did little to soothe his unease.
Hock turned his head, staring at the man beside him. Unlike the others who stood upon the walls, he wore neither livery nor uniform, was neither soldier nor commander. The man was hairy and wild-looking, his unkempt beard seeming to cringe away from the filth-encrusted, brown, homespun robe that clung to his scrawny bones. His fierce, savage gaze studied the battlefield below with a fanatic intensity that even Hock could not match. Soft, whispered words tumbled from the wild man’s grimy lips, forcing the general to strain to hear them. He shuddered at the snatches of nonsense he heard, like children’s rhymes badly remembered. He had pinned much on the abilities of this madman. It was ghastly to think what would happen if he lost his feeble grip on reality.
“Magister,” Hock said, addressing the wild man. The lunatic’s eyes rolled around in his head, trying to focus on the general without turning away from the scene beneath the walls.
“I am the saviour of the mud-fish,” the warlock said. “The wind is my brother and it speeds them past the sound of the red, where all is peace and love and purple midnight.” A crazed grin crawled through the madman’s beard. “We must swim to the sun before the ice comes and drowns the mountains with smoke.”
Instinctively, Hock and his aides recoiled from the madman and his mutterings. The warlock had been practising his obscene craft for decades, using little spells to call the rain for farmers or ward away an early frost. Every year, his mind had degenerated, becoming more unhinged, and less capable of separating the world of reality from the insane visions of his wizard-sight. Finally, the farmers had decided he was more dangerous than useful and reported him to the authorities. Crimes of witchcraft and magic were punishable by death, but those charged with such villainy could only be executed on Hexenacht. Such was the law in Wissenland. Another two months and Albrecht the Doomsayer would have been lost to Hock. As the general stared into those blood-shot eyes, he wondered if that would have been a bad thing.
“Please, Albrecht,” begged the general, “try to be sane!”
Hock’s words seemed to reach through the madness. The wildly dilated eyes of the warlock focused cleanly upon him as Albrecht turned his head. An almost embarrassed look came across the shaggy face. He reached a hand to his temple, pressing against his head. “I am sorry, general,” the warlock apologised. “It is so difficult, like maggots burrowing through my skull. Can’t you feel it? Can’t you feel the evil? So much evil the very air is corrupt with it. So much my brother the wind cowers from it.”
Hock shuddered again, wondering if perhaps the warlock was speaking of the strange, oily feel in the air. How much worse must the sensation be to one attuned to such abominable forces? No wonder the man was mad.
“It is time, Albrecht,” Hock hastily said, trying to speak before the warlock could slip again into insanity. “I need you to use your power to disperse the fog.”
The warlock nodded grimly. “Such evil will not be burned away by the clean light of brother sun. It is too old and too strong. I shall call to brother wind, as you would have me, but the sun will not destroy the evil.”
“No,” agreed Hock, “honest steel will do that. Now be about your sorcery, before the wind decides to disown his ‘brother’.”
Half-said in jest, the threat seemed to galvanise Albrecht into action. The warlock pulled back the sleeves of his robe, exposing scrawny arms caked in dirt and rat bites. He waved his hands through the air, as though kneading clay. Hock could feel the atmosphere grow cold, his nose filling with the stink of ozone.
Throwing up his arms, the warlock began to screech and cry in tones that seemed to tear the sky. Albrecht’s voice rose, higher and higher, until Hock thought the man’s heart would burst from the effort of maintaining such volume and intensity. The coldness grew greater, sweat hardening into frost on the general’s forehead. The wooden hoarding that cast its shadow across the battlements creaked and groaned as ice burrowed into the heavy timbers. A weird, supernatural glow gathered around the warlock. With a shudder, Hock realised that the strange illumination was not being drawn into Albrecht’s body, but was somehow being exuded from it. The warlock was, in some strange way, the engine of the fell powers he commanded, at once both candle and flame.
Albrecht’s voice rose higher and higher, and soldiers covered their ears. There were no words in the warlock’s voice, at least none known to sane men, but those who heard the ghastly sounds knew terror just the same. General Hock looked across the pale faces of the men around him, feeling their fear infect him. He felt for the dagger on his belt, wondering what horrible mistake he had made trying to use the warlock, knowing the only sure way to stop him.
Before Hock could take more than a single, faltering step towards Albrecht, shouts of amazement echoed all along the walls. Men pointed excitedly at the desolate, fog-bound morass of the market district. Hock’s hand lingered on the dagger as he looked down. A sharp gasp forced its way from his throat. He had asked Albrecht to perform a miracle, but now that he gazed upon it, he was dumbfounded by the sight.
All across the market district, the fog was in retreat, rolling back as though blown by a mighty gale. Hock strained his ears to catch the howl of such a mighty storm, but not even the faintest whisper of wind rewarded his efforts. Below, not even a dead leaf stirred in the ruined market district, the unnatural gale seeming to have power over the fog alone. Hock looked back at the warlock, finding the man’s eyes glowing with sorcerous power, his face pinched in what was at once an expression of agony and ecstasy.
The general turned away as new shouts of alarm sounded from the walls. The retreating fog laid bare the shadowy shapes marching through the ruins, exposing them before the gaze of the men on the walls.
Hock felt his heart sink as he saw Zahaak’s legion marching in deathless silence through the haunted husk of the market district. He saw skeletal things, the rusting tatters of ancient armour hanging from their bones, the corroded stumps of blades clenched i
n their talons, tramping through the streets with the unliving precision of a clockwork orchestra. He saw other things, things so freshly dead that hair dangled into their rotted faces, and flies buzzed about their gory wounds. With horror, he noted the grey and white liveries of Neuwald, Geschberg and Beroun, and with horror he recalled what his scouts had reported, that the legion left nothing dead behind as it marched.
The freshly dead did not display the precision of their predecessors, moving with awkward, stumbling movements that caused their ranks to be disordered and confused. Hock took small comfort from the fact that such mindless dead would not rout, however poorly they fought, and however many of them were put to the sword. Only by destroying them all, by slaughtering every abomination in Zahaak’s unholy legion could they carry the day. Looking out upon the numberless host converging upon the bridges, Hock appreciated the enormity of such a task.
Hock shook his head, biting back his doubts. They had to try. There was no other way. If they failed, Wissenland was doomed. There would be no quarter from their undead foe, Zahaak would butcher them all and then infuse their corpses with an unholy simulacrum of life. They would rise to march with their killers, to march on Wissenberg and destroy everyone in the city. Count Eberfeld would be hard-pressed to survive against the legion at its present size, how much more impossible would be his defence against the legion as it would be if Dortrecht fell and all of its defenders were added to its nightmare ranks? General Hock’s eyes blazed and he ground his teeth. No! He would not let that happen!
The general’s body shivered, his iron resolve melting into watery slag. His eyes had found a black shadow moving among the lurching, shambling columns of the legion, gliding silently between the decayed ranks of the dead like some spectre of the netherworld. There was something obscene about the apparition, something foul beyond words or thought. The darkness about it was unreal, detached from the world around it, as though the sun refused to shine upon the ground the thing profaned with its touch. Hock had the impression of a tall, gaunt figure, a hood rising above its shoulders. Beneath that hood, Hock could feel eyes burning up at him, eyes that were colourless embers of hatred and malignancy. He could feel the weight of antiquity crushing down upon him, the hideous pressure of ages lost and despised. Who was he, a thing of blood and bone, with his two score and ten years, to stand before that which was ancient when the Merogens were still naked savages hunting reptiles in the primordial mire?
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