01 - Star of Erengrad

by Neil McIntosh - (ebook by Undead)

  Count Rosporov. Kuragin had no doubt that he had come bearing the fruits of temptation as his offering. If that was so, then he would get the same short answer he had received on each of his previous visits. Petr Illyich would gladly have thrown Rosporov bodily from the ramparts and let the wild dogs feed on his carcass. Such was the parlous state of politics in Erengrad now, however, that he knew he had little choice but to receive him.

  “Show him in,” he said, curtly. Dimitri nodded and turned to go.

  “Oh, and Dimitri—” the old man paused in mid-step, waiting. “I was just noticing—” Petr Illyich went on. “You’re looking so thin these days. Are you still managing to get enough to eat? Surely we have enough food in store?”

  Dimitri smiled, sadly, at his master. “I wasn’t going to mention it, sir,” he said. “But you’ve grown more than a little thin yourself these past few weeks.”

  His master nodded. “It’ll do none of us any harm,” he said. “No doubt we’ve all been allowing ourselves to grow too fat in the good years, eh?”

  “No doubt, highness,” Dimitri replied. The old man looked kindly upon his master, but the same sad look still burned in his eyes. “Shall I show the gentleman in now?”

  Petr Illyich Kuragin swallowed hard upon his pride and his hope. “Yes,” he said. “Show him in.”

  Deep within the cold, dead realm of Kyros, Varik bowed his head in the familiar posture of submission.

  At length, his master chose to address him.

  “Erengrad has still not fallen. The Star is still not in our possession. What news do you bring me that offers better tidings?”

  The emissary took a deep breath. Familiarity with his position had not lessened the terror he still felt each time he submitted to the mercy of the Dark Lord. Kyros was known for many things, but pity was not one of them. On a whim he could inflict pain upon a disciple every bit as cruel and excruciating as the punishment meted out to his enemies. Pain that, though it lasted but a few seconds, would be experienced by the sufferer as an eternity of torture. The emissary prayed that his master was not in one such mood this day.

  “We do not have the Star, yet,” he conceded, weighting his words carefully. “But each day draws us closer to the place where it may be found.”

  The blackness enfolding him deepened. The temperature in the chamber crept down further. The emissary shivered involuntarily as he sensed the presence of Kyros move closer. “The Kislevite woman continues to travel east,” he said, “towards the cursed citadel of Middenheim. There a priest waits for her. He is the second guardian of the Star. But my servant will ensure that the icon is delivered to us.”

  “Is this your strategy, then?” the Chaos lord asked. “To let this woman and her followers roam freely until a time of your choosing?”

  Varik paused. He knew the importance of the answer his master sought of him. “I do not presume to make such choices,” he replied. “My strategy is to honour the divine majesty of the greater god. As for freedom, that is only illusion. The Kislevite and her people are mere puppets. Puppets that may dance only so long as your pleasure allows. They may be crushed at your will, like insects.”

  “That is as it should be,” Kyros affirmed. “Almighty Tzeentch shall decree when the icon shall be given over. Until then you must be certain that the Kislevite and her mercenaries have no knowledge of the identity of your servant amongst them.”

  “They are masked from the eyes of the Kislevite,” Varik said. “Not even our minion itself fully glimpses what lies within its soul.”

  He hesitated. “However, all things are transitory. We may not be able to rely upon them for much longer.”

  “Once the segment is secure that will not matter,” Kyros replied. “Once we have the two parts of the Star your servant may be destroyed. We will have no further use of him, nor of the Kislevite and her familiars.”

  The emissary bowed lower. “It will be done, magnificence,” he promised.

  Kyros’ voice took on a harsher tone. “This in itself is not the end,” he reminded Varik. “Until we have all three parts in our possession the Star is worthless metal. What of the third and final part?” he demanded.

  “It still rests with the Warlord of Erengrad,” the Emissary assured him. “Petr Illyich Kuragin is a proud, stubborn man. But he is only mortal. He has neither the strength nor the will to resist us indefinitely. Soon, either by persuasion or by force, he will capitulate.”

  The emissary looked up, cautiously. He hoped his words had found favour. He could still see nothing of Kyros in the darkness, but the cold prickling running the length of his spine told him that the presence of the Dark Lord was very close indeed.

  “Varik,” Kyros said. The emissary sat bolt upright in shock, so rare was it for his lord to address him directly by that name.

  “Magnificence?” he asked, unable to suppress the tremor in his voice.

  “Winning Erengrad is all to me,” Kyros told him. “If you are the instrument of that conquest you shall be richly rewarded.”

  The emissary bowed until his forehead touched the cold ground. “You are all-bountiful, magnificence,” he whispered. He tried to move his head and found it weighed down by an irresistible force, as though a shield carved from lead had been laid across it.

  “But fail me in this,” Kyros continued, “and you will beg Morr in vain to free your soul from torment.”

  The force bearing down on him intensified until, suddenly, it was gone. The emissary raised his head, and a pale light infused the surroundings of the chamber.

  The emissary clambered to his feet, and retreated, backwards, from the room. “I devote my soul to your service,” he muttered, humbly. “I shall never fail you.”

  * * *

  They had travelled on, deep into the dark interior of the Drakwald, hope and despair riding with them as equal companions. Since leaving the site of the well there had been no further sign of the mutants; they had been able to progress unhindered by anything other than the now-familiar obstacles of the forest. But, as what daylight remained began to give way to dusk, Stefan began to question whether they would ever come across the settlement hidden within the woods.

  Otto’s map referred to it only as “Jaegersfort”—a small, well-fortified encampment where hunters could take refuge from the perils of the forest. A hand-written note confirmed the position of the settlement upon the map was no more than approximate—it was a place that featured on no known trading route, one that few outside the forest would ever visit. There was no way of telling for sure what kind of reception they would find at Jaegersfort, or whether there would be food and water there. More to the point, there was no way of telling whether they were going to locate their destination before night fell. In fact, there was nothing to tell Stefan whether it truly existed at all.

  As the hours had worn on through the day, spirits amongst the travelers had begun to ebb. Surviving the ambush would count for little if they were now to perish from cold and hunger in the unforgiving, dark heart of the forest.

  Now, suddenly, where before there had only been the steadily deepening hues of the dying day, there were lights. No more than half a dozen in number, barely enough to penetrate through the gloom, but it was undoubtedly the glow of lanterns that they could see.

  “Jaegersfort?” Bruno asked.

  “I don’t see what else it could be,” Stefan replied. “Let’s get a bit closer. Take it steady.”

  The travelers dismounted and walked their horses toward the source of the light, careful to keep sound of their approach to a minimum. The settlement was indeed small—little bigger than a trading post—and bounded on all sides by a stockade built from the trunks of trees. As far as they could see, there was just a single point of entry—a door cut into the timber wall, with a narrow slit through which to observe the outside world. A wide trench had been dug around the outer edge of the wall, presumably to deter intruders. And, atop of the wall, mounted on iron spikes driven into the wood, a further
reminder for those still inclined to try their luck.

  Alexei stared up at the line of severed heads, most of them rotted beyond all recognition, and smiled.

  “Fond of their privacy, I reckon,” he murmured.

  “So would you be, if you had to survive out here,” Stefan replied.

  “Either way,” Bruno said, “It doesn’t look as if they’ll be extending much of a welcome to the likes of us.”

  Alexei turned to Stefan. “What do you think?” he asked. He drew out his sword. “Shall we talk our way in with this?”

  “I doubt that’s going to work,” Stefan said, appraising the size of the task facing them. “The place is built to keep worse than us out. We’ll need to try and convince them we mean no ill.” He looked around at the faces grouped behind him. All of them looked tired, hungry—and desperate.

  “There’s no guarantee that they won’t try and cut us down as soon as we get within range,” he said. “Any volunteers?”

  The reply, when it came, was softly voiced, and from the least likely quarter.

  “Yes,” Lisette said, quietly, “I’ll go.”

  Petr Kuragin heard the door to the room open. A face appeared, reflected in the mirror in front of him. Kuragin slowly turned to confront his visitor.

  Count Vladimir Rosporov held out a hand in greeting, exposing his right arm, withered and leeched pale by past disease. Rosporov smiled. It was a smile equally without warmth or malice, but it spoke of the confidence of one who knows his victory is close at hand.

  “My dear Kuragin,” Rosporov began. “I do declare you’ve been starving yourself. A man in your position really should set a better example to his people.”

  “The city’s starving,” Kuragin replied. “The crops have all failed. What’s left in the storerooms is blighted or rotting. Or perhaps you hadn’t noticed.”

  Rosporov bowed deferentially. “You should have said before,” he murmured. “If I’d known you were in difficulties I would have arranged for provisions to be sent over.” He flexed the smile again. “You know, even in these times of hardship, little luxuries can be found.”

  “Don’t bother,” Kuragin replied, curtly. “I’d rather we just got to the nub of your business, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “Please,” the count insisted. “Let us call it our business.” He indicated a chair. “May I?”

  Count Vladimir Rosporov took a seat and settled himself upon it. He was dressed carefully, as befitted a champion of the people. His clothes were clean and tolerably well cut, but drab in colour and shorn of frills. He wore his hair cropped short and his beard neatly trimmed. His appearance suggested a modest man possessed of a sober soul. A man who had shrugged off his noble birth to take up the common cause. It was, Petr Illyich had to admit, a good disguise. Good enough for the people to have started following the self-styled “Preacher of Reconciliation” in ever-growing numbers. Good enough for the head of the House of Kuragin to be obliged to grant him audience, however distasteful that felt. Good enough for Petr Illyich Kuragin to have grown increasingly fearful for the future of his city.

  “Tell me, Petr Illyich, what is it you hope for the people of Erengrad?”

  “I hope that they may yet prosper and prevail,” Kuragin replied, his voice unwavering. “And that they find common cause against the pestilence that afflicts us all.”

  Rosporov smiled, as though amused by Kuragin’s response. “Quite so,” he said. “But what if the common cause turns out not to be that which you champion?” he asked. “What if the plague you speak of is, in fact, none other than the crippling alliance with an Empire which has leeched Kislev dry for generations?”

  Petr Illyich laughed, sardonically. “Don’t waste your seditious speeches on me, Rosporov. Your words may play well with the confused, with the weak. With those brought so low that they begin to lose their reason. But not here, not now, not ever!”

  Rosporov rose from his chair and went to the window. The streets were quiet for the moment, the loudest noise from below the howling of the wild dogs, a sound that had become almost incessant over the past days. “Do you know,” he said, “I heard it said the other day that people in Erengrad will soon be dying faster than they can be buried. Do you think that can possibly be right?”

  “And whose fault would that be?” Kuragin demanded. Politics or not, he would have this wretch thrown out.

  “You live in the past,” Rosporov snapped, his mask of civility slipping momentarily. “You and your family, wedded to your wealth and your cosy alliance with your parasitic ‘protector’.” He glared at Kuragin. “You talk of those weak of mind. You talk of the goodness of the alliance, and the ‘evil’ of Chaos.” The count paused, and took a breath. His voice regained its measured, reasoning tone.

  “Do you know how some speak of Chaos, my friend? They say that, far from being evil, Chaos is the eternal, the life-force of the universe. It is the force of change and renewal, the hub upon which the wheel of all existence turns. Resisting it is like the twig in the river resisting the force of the tides.”

  “You could be burned alive for that heresy!” Kuragin thundered.

  Count Rosporov resumed his seat and smiled deferentially towards his host. “These are not my words,” he countered, mildly. “I only report what I hear. I presume to represent no one but the good people of Erengrad,” he said, humbly. “And I ask only that you consider the whole picture, without prejudice, before you condemn them to a continuation of this slow death.”

  Kuragin swore under his breath. How far had the serpent spread its honeyed venom through the city? How many good men, brought low by hunger and fatigue, had had their minds turned against the truth? And how would the tide be turned?

  “You didn’t come here to talk politics,” he snapped. “And you’re wasting your time if you have. What do you want?”

  “I come to make you an offer,” the count said simply. “Or rather, to repeat an offer already made. You have something I am interested in acquiring.”

  “The Star of Erengrad is not for sale,” Kuragin told him. “Even if it were, do you think I’d be insane enough to sell it to you?”

  “Why not?” the count replied, sanguinely. “After all, the single piece you own is worthless in its own right.”

  “And equally worthless to you,” Kuragin retorted, angrily. “So why the continued interest?”

  “I have friends,” Rosporov continued. “Connoisseurs, if you like: collectors. They are confident of acquiring the first and second segments. They will need only your single piece for the Star to be complete.”

  “Get out,” Kuragin spat, his patience finally exhausted.

  The count stood, and gathered his cloak around him. “I am able to offer you enough gold to make you a very rich man,” he said matter-of-factly. “With it you could escape the city and make for yourself whatever life you wanted in the world beyond Erengrad.” He paused and stared coldly at Kuragin. “Or you can choose to sit here and wait until the walls of the Kuragin mansion are reduced to rubble, and your miserable icon is plundered from your rotting corpse. I thought you were a man capable of making an intelligent choice. Perhaps I was wrong.”

  Petr Kuragin drew his sword. “I granted you free entry to this house,” he declared. “That invitation has just expired. Get out, and don’t return on pain of your life. You will never have the Star of Erengrad, neither whole nor in part.”

  Count Rosporov bowed in mock servility and walked towards the door. “A shame,” he said. “You’ll probably not live to see yourself proved wrong.”

  He paused in the doorway and turned to face Kuragin a last time. “My friends are already sure of the first two pieces of the Star,” he said.

  “And, I promise you, they will not be kept waiting for the third.”

  It was only with the greatest difficulty that Elena Yevschenko could be persuaded to let Lisette venture on her own towards the fortified stronghold that was Jaegersfort. As for Stefan, it was a duty that he ha
d been prepared to take on alone, but in the end he, too, was persuaded. If anyone could appear to offer no threat to the people within the stockade, then it was surely Lisette.

  The tiny Bretonnian maid looked very small indeed as she walked towards Jaegersfort. As Lisette reached the edge of the ditch that encircled the fort, Stefan felt Elena’s hand in his own, her nails biting into his flesh. She turned, her face flushed and met Stefan’s gaze. “She’s precious to me,” Elena said, by way of explanation.

  “It’ll be all right,” Stefan told her, realising at once that he had no idea if it would. After what seemed like an age, the door in the wall opened. Still no one emerged, but a battered length of wood was pushed out across the ditch, forming a bridge. After only a moment’s hesitation, Lisette stepped across it and disappeared behind the door.

  What must have been another eternity for Elena passed before Lisette re-emerged, smiling and beckoning towards her companions.

  “Praise the goddess,” Elena said, expelling a sigh of relief. “We’re safe.”

  They led their horses inside the walls of the stockade, towards a bare, sparsely lit space with a cluster of low buildings at its centre and what looked like sheds or stables nestling around the sides.

  A single figure dressed in a tattered green shift beckoned them forward, towards the nearest of the three structures in front of them.

  “We come in seek of food and shelter,” Stefan began to explain. “Once we have those—”

  The man gestured towards the building with one hand and pulled open the single door with the other. “In there,” he muttered. “You can tether the horses outside.”

  Stefan stepped across the threshold of the wooden building, and into another world. His senses were immediately assailed by the babble of what sounded like dozens of voices raised in conversation, and through the thick, smoky haze that permeated the room, an equal number of faces. The place was full to bursting with men eating, drinking, smoking, and talking.