Blighted Empire

by C. L. Werner

  Manglrr’s fangs clattered and he directed a look over his shoulder. The panic that had set in was definitely spreading now, augmented by the ragged, bloodied skaven streaming back into the village from the outlying fields. It didn’t matter to the ratmen that they hadn’t seen for themselves what had caused their warlord’s fright. The musk of fear alone was enough to drive them into unreasoning flight.

  ‘Man-things,’ Manglrr repeated, one claw clinging desperately to the hem of Skrittar’s robe. ‘Won’t die-dead when sword-rats attack! Won’t stop-die! Slash-stab much-much, but man-things stand-live!’

  Skrittar glared at his fellow Grey Lord. It was so tempting to stretch forth his hand, conjure up a spell and burn the idiot’s head from his shoulders. What sort of insipid babble was he spewing? Man-things that his sword-rats wouldn’t fight because when they did fight, the humans just shrugged off their blows? It was too absurd to be believed. Even an orc respected a decent stab to the gut or a nasty slash to the back of the head, and there were few things tougher to convince to stay dead than an orc.

  ‘Fool-meat!’ Skrittar snarled, snatching his robe from Manglrr’s paws. ‘There are no dead-things! It is a human trick. They want to take back village-nest!’ A kick from the seerlord’s foot sent Manglrr stumbling back. Skrittar directed a warning look at the warlord, but he just sat on his haunches staring at the grey seer with frightened eyes. The seerlord gnashed his fangs in annoyance. ‘I’ll see-scent for myself,’ he growled, motioning with his claws for two of Manglrr’s stormvermin to lift him onto the roof of a nearby hut. Fortunately, they weren’t so subdued by fear that they forgot the advisability of obeying a grey seer.

  As his paws found purchase on the thatch roof, Skrittar cast his gaze down into the streets. The panic Manglrr had incited was everywhere – he could even see skaven discarding their plunder as they fled! The seerlord cast a sideways look at the warlord below, wondering who would replace Manglrr should he suffer an accident. Certainly it couldn’t be a bigger fool!

  A twinge of alarm crept into Skrittar’s mind as he turned towards the north, the direction the bedraggled war-rats had been streaming from. From his position, he had a good view of the fields beyond the village. The tall stalks of wheat were swaying violently, and it soon became apparent that what was disturbing them wasn’t foraging skaven. Through gaps in the crop, Skrittar could see human shapes, shapes that moved in a disturbing, awkward fashion.

  Squeals of terror from the opposite end of the village set Skrittar’s heart pounding even faster. Reluctantly, he cast his enhanced senses to the south, dreading what he might find. His projected gaze raced above streets teeming with frightened ratmen, swept out into the pastures and fallow fields to the south. There, ranked across the landscape, was an unbroken line of rotting humans. Silently, they marched towards the village; together with the fiends in the fields they moved to close a ring that would see the skaven trapped at its centre!

  Skrittar thumbed a nugget of warpstone into his paw, feeling the reassuring burn of its energies sizzle against his fur. His mind raced, pondering the possibilities. He didn’t like the idea of pitting his magic against so many foes, and he wasn’t keen to trust his safety to the dubious valour of Clan Fester. They didn’t seem aware of his importance and their own expendability. If it wasn’t for the warpstone, he’d use his magic to get away and leave the vermin to fare as they would. The loss of the warpstone, however, was too awful to countenance. Somehow, Skrittar had to salvage the situation.

  The clash of steel diverted Skrittar’s attention back to the north. He focused his gaze on the road beyond the fields, surprised to see a great host of humans marching down the path. At first he suspected they were simply reinforcements for the ones already ringing the village, but then he noticed that the newcomers were assaulting the creatures forming the cordon. Immediately Skrittar likened the action to that of his own factious race: two rival clans of man-things were struggling for dominance! In the resultant confusion, there would be opportunity for escape!

  Taking a moment to preen his whiskers and assure himself that his scent was relaxed, Skrittar dropped back into the street. With an imperious bark, he ordered Manglrr to his feet. ‘Fetch-gather Fester-rats,’ Skrittar snarled. ‘Through me, the Horned One has set my enemies against one another! My magic has made the dead-things fight. While they kill, we will return to the tunnels with my warpstone!’

  Manglrr looked dubiously at Skrittar, but some of his suspicion fled when he heard excited squeaks passing back down the street. The cordon was breaking apart. The man-things were fighting each other!

  ‘Back-back to tunnels!’ Manglrr chittered, drawing his sword and waving it overhead to emphasise his command. ‘Back-back to Rotten-Hole!’

  Skrittar caught Manglrr by the scruff of the neck before the warlord could make any more bold commands. ‘We’re not going back to your burrow!’ the seerlord snarled, baring his fangs. ‘You’ve barely gathered any warpstone! There’s too much still out there. I’m not leaving it behind!’

  The rasp of blades being drawn reminded Skrittar that he was threatening the warlord of a clan he happened to be surrounded by. A clan so frightened that they might even forget all the curses they’d acquire if they killed a grey seer. Carefully, he released Manglrr, giving the warlord’s neck an affectionate pat for good measure.

  ‘I’ll get more help,’ Skrittar promised. ‘More sword-rats to kill-slay man-things!’

  Manglrr brought his sword flashing down, letting the blade slice the space between himself and the seerlord. ‘Bring-fetch plague monks!’ he demanded. ‘Use Black Plague to kill-slay stink-things!’

  The seerlord felt his fangs grind as he heard the demand. Involve Clan Pestilens? Let those heretics take a share in the treasure that rightfully belonged to him? It was obscene! Profane! He wouldn’t do it!

  Of course, without Clan Fester, he’d need to get another clan to help him. The more clans who learned about the warpstone, the more likely the secret was to get out. Once the story spread, half the Under-Empire would be swarming over Sylvania stealing his treasure. No, he had to keep Clan Fester, whatever it took to appease them and allay their fears.

  ‘Yes-yes,’ Skrittar hissed through clenched fangs. It was unspeakable that this ten-flea warlord would have more faith in the heretical concoctions of Clan Pestilens than the divine protection of the Horned Rat. ‘We will use the Black Plague to make stink-things die. I will get-fetch plague monks to help us.’

  Manglrr bobbed his head happily. Snarling orders to his stormvermin, he joined the general exodus of skaven streaming from the village. Seerlord Skrittar stalked after him, already wondering how he would keep his promise while at the same time turning it to his advantage.

  From atop his palanquin, Vanhal supervised the tightening of the noose around the village of Bistra. At his command, the skeletons and zombies began their slow march towards the settlement, cutting down the strange creatures foraging in the fields. They were vile, abominable things, upright, man-sized rats that wore crude armour in outrageous mockery of humanity. Never had he imagined such unclean things could walk the land. Exterminating them was more than simply expedient; it felt almost ordained, as though some ancient wrong were being set right with each of the vermin his undead slew.

  Of all the terrors he had seen besetting the people of Sylvania, from plague to tyranny to starvation, this was the most loathsome. To be preyed upon by disease and famine or even the soldiers of the von Draks was awful enough, but to be preyed upon by humanoid rats was a perverse abomination. Vanhal’s magic would spare the Sylvanians such horror and humiliation. Human prey and verminous scavenger alike would be struck down by the cleansing blades of his army.

  While his undead troops converged upon Bistra, a new disturbance drew Vanhal’s attention. Through his witchsight, he could see the black cloud of sorcery drawing down from the north. Before the first skeleton marched into sig
ht, he knew the nature of what was coming. Even as mortal kings must struggle over their domains, so his arcane power had drawn a rival to contest his might.

  Dourly, Vanhal waited while the rival force marched ever closer. The other necromancer possessed some skill; the spells that had cloaked his army’s advance for so long proved that even more than the immense size of that army. There were tens of thousands of zombies and skeletons in that host, far beyond the capability of a mere dabbler in the black arts.

  In eerie silence, the undead troops struck Vanhal’s battle line. Rusted swords chopped down into desiccated flesh, corroded bludgeons smashed rotten skulls. The intruders stormed across the outer ring of Vanhal’s army. It was a weird, ghostly fight, devoid of blood and screams. No cries for mercy or shouts of triumph, only the march of bony feet and the cleaving of decayed flesh. Deathless, fearless, the two undead hosts collided.

  With reluctance, Vanhal drew his forces away from Bistra to confront this new foe. He watched as the intruders continued their violent advance, biding his time as he studied the tactics of his enemy and attempted to judge the extent of his magic. There was a callousness and arrogance in what he saw, an almost sneering contempt that bespoke either supreme ability or colossal over-confidence.

  At last, as the intruders were storming across the fields, Vanhal found what he had been waiting for. In the midst of the horde was a great black coach drawn by skeletal steeds. Seated within the coach, wrapped within the folds of a black cape, was his rival. Vanhal could see the streams of power coursing through the other necromancer, could sense the enormity of the aethyric energies he had harnessed. Strangely, the very magnitude of that power emboldened Vanhal. The sorcerer was an amateur after all, despite his pretensions. No truly knowledgeable practitioner would dare invest such a magnitude of power within his own body. Simply looking at the man, Vanhal could see his own power eating him, withering his flesh and thinning his hair. Every breath he took leeched his essence of an hour. Simply by withdrawing from the field, Vanhal could overcome his enemy.

  Pride refused such action. It had been pride that drove him into exile as a boy, set him on the path that would bring him to Sylvania and ultimately to embrace the black arts. Pride did not relinquish its hold now. Exerting his will, Vanhal set the multitudinous legs of his palanquin scuttling across the fields towards the decayed ranks of the enemy. At the same time, he stretched forth his hand and focused his will upon the carcasses lying strewn behind that advancing horde. Drawing upon his magic, Vanhal concentrated upon the little wisps of spirit energy escaping from the twice-slain corpses, gathering them together, knitting their disparate energies into a single whole. Bit by bit, he drew the wisps into a monstrous energy, a phantom juggernaut of howling spectres. Ghastly faces gibbered and screamed from the ectoplasmic colossus, skeletal arms clawed and groped from the swirling mass. Like the surge of some ghostly hurricane, the spectral host crashed through the ranks of skeletons, scattering them like leaves before a storm. The black coach was pulverised, its deathly chargers shattered into bony shards, its passenger flung through the air.

  Vanhal saw his rival crash amidst the splintered wreck of his conveyance, sensed the expenditure of energy that preserved him from more serious harm. Closing the fingers of his hand, Vanhal drew the raging spirit-storm back upon the necromancer, directing its full fury against him. Ghoul-fires and ghost-lights flashed from the embattled necromancer as he strove to defend himself against the phantom tempest. In his panic, he neglected the great army he had summoned.

  Vanhal did not forget them. Maintaining the spirit host, he was still able to direct his own undead legion. Steadily they cut a path through the intruders, each wisp of essence speeding away from the destroyed husks to replenish the energies of the spectral storm raging around the necromancer.

  Bit by bit, Vanhal could see his rival’s great power waning. Before the sorcerer’s energies could falter entirely, the spirit host was dispersed by an unspoken command from the former priest. By now, Vanhal’s legion had cut completely through the intruding army. As the swirling apparitions faded into nothingness, a vanquished foe found himself staring up at a palanquin fashioned from animated bone, and a masked man clad in the habit of a Morrite priest.

  ‘When you die,’ Vanhal told the defeated necromancer, ‘your flesh belongs to me.’

  Raw terror filled the man’s eyes. ‘Spare me, great master!’ he pleaded. Frantically, he dug beneath his robes to produce De Arcanis Kadon, holding the book towards his vanquisher.

  Vanhal’s eyes narrowed behind the skeletal mask, his lips moving as he silently read the hieroglyphs on the cover. ‘What is to prevent me from simply taking the book from you?’ he asked.

  ‘This book contains all the secrets of Kadon,’ the man announced. ‘I came to seek your help unlocking its secrets. Much… much of it is beyond my comprehension,’ he admitted. ‘It may even be beyond your skill,’ he added, then hurried to continue. ‘Together, perhaps, with our combined knowledge…’

  Vanhal raised his hand, and a bony arm emerged from the face of his palanquin to snatch the tome from the man’s grasp. Shifting through the mass of the palanquin, the arm finally thrust itself from the skeletal floor beside the necromancer, holding the book for him as he perused it.

  ‘I will allow you to live,’ Vanhal decided, still studying the bloody pages. ‘Not because of your gift, or because I am impressed by your mastery of the black arts.’

  The other necromancer stared in frank astonishment at Vanhal, disbelief in his face. ‘Why then do you spare me?’ he asked.

  Vanhal looked away from the tome, fixing his new apprentice with a weary gaze. ‘I need someone to talk to,’ he confessed.

  ‘Someone I didn’t conjure from the grave.’

  Chapter IX

  Middenheim

  Ertezeit, 1118

  There was deception about Kurgaz Smallhammer’s name. The weapon clenched in the dwarf’s brawny hands was taller than he was and nearly equal to his own weight. Gromril runes were etched into its massive head, flowing across it in an intricate spiral of heritage, tradition and magic. Drakdrazh, it had been named in the long ago, crafted by the ancient runesmiths for the War of Vengeance. Wyrms had died beneath that hammer, their reptilian skulls shattered by the force of runemagic and dwarfish determination.

  After the War of Vengeance, Drakdrazh had never again been inflicted upon such tremendous foes, a circumstance that provoked endless grumbling around the hearths of the Smallhammers. For generations, the family had been forced to settle for lesser enemies, adversaries unworthy of facing them in battle, unfit to stand before the might of Drakdrazh.

  As Kurgaz brought his hammer swinging around, the gromril runes burned with eldritch fire. The effect when the weapon connected with his foe was an apocalyptic spectacle. The creature didn’t crumple, didn’t collapse. Instead, its carcass was splashed across the wall in a welter of black blood and furry meat.

  The magnitude of the skaven’s destruction brought shocked silence to the subterranean gallery. Dwarf and ratman alike paused in their battle, their attention riveted by the thunderous clap as Drakdrazh slammed into its victim. The obliteration of the unfortunate ratkin sent a thrill through all who witnessed it. For the embattled dwarfs, it was a fiery rush of exhilaration. For the skaven, it was the stuff of raw terror.

  The dwarfs had descended into the lower workings after it became clear that something was preying upon their miners. No survivors had reached the halls of Karak Grazhyakh, leaving the exact nature of the predator unclear. Loremasters and greybeards had speculated on everything from night goblins to a basilisk. It was surprising that none of them had considered skaven as the culprits. Perhaps if they had, the punitive expedition they sent into the mines would have been larger.

  Leaping across the residue of his splattered foe, Kurgaz was thankful for the elders’ lack of foresight. Skaven were a cringing, cowardly enemy. Th
ey never revealed themselves unless they felt certain of easy prey and a quick kill. Much larger an expedition and the foul vermin might never have stirred from their hidey-holes.

  That was something no dwarf worth his beard would have liked.

  Drakdrazh ploughed into a second ratman, a bulky brute in scraps of plate and chain. To its squeal of horror was added the shriek of shorn metal as its body was obliterated. Steam now rose from the runes carved into the hammer, black blood boiling as it splashed across the letters.

  ‘The Hammer of Doom is upon you!’ Kurgaz roared. There would be at least a few of the scuttling vermin who understood what he was saying. They could take his war-cry back to their burrows, a horror story to tell their pups in the dead of night.

  The dwarf’s bellow and the utter havoc visited by his hammer cured the skaven of their desire for battle. When they had swarmed out of the mine shafts and tunnels in their hundreds, they had smelt easy prey. Just a few dozen dwarfs in a lonely gallery, a place they could easily surround and isolate. Honourless vermin, they had no compunctions about engineering a massacre.

  Now, however, it seemed they were the ones courting a massacre. Glands clenched, spilling the musk of fear into the air. Frightened squeaks dripped past shivering fangs. Those ratmen closest to the tunnels and shafts quickly deserted the gallery. As the first fled, the rest quickly followed. Rodent shrieks echoed through the mine as some of the vermin threw themselves down open shafts in their mindless terror, hurling themselves and those climbing below them to an ignominious doom.

  Growling their own battle-cries, the other dwarfs charged the retreating skaven. Scores of the beasts were cut down before they could desert the gallery, hacked to pieces by dwarfish axes and battered to paste by dwarfish hammers.