Blighted Empire

by C. L. Werner

  ‘Where do you want the troops to go?’ Inquisitor Fulk wondered. ‘It will need to be somewhere central, well within reach of each brigade.’

  ‘It needs to be a landmark that can be seen from some distance,’ one of the barons mused. ‘Something visible from wherever the soldiers may be.’

  A brief debate ensued, many of the noblemen arguing for the Imperial Palace while others argued that doing so would cause the ratmen to bring their full force to bear against the palace.

  It was the heretofore silent Arch-Lector von Reisarch who ended the debate. ‘The Great Cathedral,’ he said. ‘The spire can be seen from anywhere in Altdorf, and it is built at the very heart of Old Reikdorf. Rally the troops to the temple of Holy Sigmar, that they may take courage from His divine beneficence.’

  Inquisitor Fulk and Prelate Arminus looked as though they wanted to challenge von Reisarch’s suggestion, angered by what they viewed as the Sigmarite’s shameless effort to aggrandise his god in the midst of this calamity. At the same time, neither of the priests could ignore the compelling logic behind the arch-lector’s argument. The Great Cathedral was ideally located and the peasants would take heart from the idea that they were defending Sigmar Himself by rallying to the temple.

  ‘The Great Cathedral, then,’ Kreyssig decided, ending the discussion. He nodded to von Reisarch. ‘You may tell Grand Theogonist Gazulgrund to expect me.’ It grated on Kreyssig’s pride to indulge the Sigmarites in this fashion. Condescending to the Grand Theogonist was to make a public display of the priest’s authority – authority that would appear greater than that of the Emperor or his appointed Protector. Still, it would be even more disastrous to allow the priest to fight the coming battle by himself. The people would remember who fought to save them and who stayed safe behind fortress walls.

  Kreyssig was just about to dismiss the council when he happened to notice Baroness von den Linden’s cat. The brute had been lazing about on top of the table throughout the meeting, indifferent to the momentous events unfolding around it. Now, however, the cat was upright, its back arched and its every hair standing on end. As the animal began to hiss and spit, Kreyssig followed its frightened gaze.

  He was just in time to see the dark shapes drop outside the Kaiseraugen, swinging on ropes from the roof of the palace. Before even his Kaiserjaeger could shout a warning, the swinging skaven smashed through the window. Kreyssig covered his face as slivers of glass flew through the chamber.

  The chittering shrieks of skaven drowned out the shouts of alarm and confusion that rose from the surprised councillors and generals. Moans of agony sounded from the direction of the windows as the fast-moving ratmen attacked the startled Kaiserjaeger. Other skaven rappelled through the shattered glass, hurling tiny orbs into the room. As each orb crashed to the floor, it expelled a billowing mass of choking fumes. The men reeled in the noxious vapour, struggling to escape the debilitating fog. The skaven, their faces wrapped in thick folds of cloth, scampered through the chamber, lashing out with crooked blades.

  Kreyssig staggered back, trying to draw his own sword even as his body shuddered in a fit of violent coughing. One of the assaulting vermin uttered a feral growl as it spied him. Leaping to the top of the table, the murder-rat charged at him.

  Abin-gnaw stuffed his scimitar back beneath his rat-gut belt and drew the lethal coils of his sacred strangler’s cord from beneath his crimson cloak. Squeaking an invocation to the Horned One, a murderous charm taught to him by no less than the Old Rat Under the Mountain himself, the killer cast the noose through the air, looping it about his victim’s neck.

  Kreyssig gasped as the cord was drawn taut, as the little warpstone talisman sewn into the lining dug into his neck. He could feel his throat constricting, feel the air being squeezed out of him. Nimbly, Abin-gnaw jumped from the table, dropping down behind Kreyssig and forcing the human down into his chair. Pressing one foot against the back of the seat, the skaven used it for extra leverage, extra force to increase that deadly constriction.

  Kreyssig struggled to reach the monstrous creature behind him, tried to twist his body so that he might at least slip free from the chair. Abin-gnaw, however, was too crafty to allow himself to fall within reach of the human’s groping hands.

  Just as his vision was beginning to darken, as the thunder of his own pulse became a deafening roar in his ears, as his starved lungs began to burn, Kreyssig felt the air around him become cold. It was a cold that had nothing to do with winter. It was the spectral chill of sorcery.

  The pressure around his throat suddenly slackened. Kreyssig pulled himself away from the chair, felt the strangling cord drag free from weakened claws. Frantically, he reached to his throat and ripped the noose free, hurling it to the floor in disgust. Drawing his sword, he turned to face his would-be assassin.

  Abin-gnaw lay prone, his face-wrappings soaked in blood. Black blood bubbled from the skaven’s eyes, the flow increasing with each ragged breath he drew into his dying body. While Kreyssig watched, the murder-rat expired, expelling its last vitality in a grotesque liquid gargle.

  Turning away from the dead assassin, Kreyssig looked to intercede in the melee unfolding around him, only to discover that it had largely abated. The top of the table and much of the floor was stained with a greasy, grey film. The room was littered with bodies, both the verminous carcasses of skaven and the corpses of men.

  ‘Commander, are you all right?’ The question came from the last man Kreyssig expected to see, his servant Fuerst, a heavy club clenched in his chubby fist. Beyond the peasant, he could see Baroness von den Linden, her silver robes still writhing in the magical energies she had invoked.

  ‘I live,’ Kreyssig told Fuerst, brushing aside the servant’s concern. The skaven had taken their toll upon the council and the assembled generals, butchering nearly a quarter of them in the brief melee. Many of the survivors continued to cough thick grey phlegm from their throats – the residue of that strange smoke the ratmen had used. The grey filth staining the chamber would account for the rest of that smoke, congealed by the witch’s spells.

  Kreyssig frowned as he gazed at the baroness. His relief at her timely intervention was tempered by an appreciation that it was no natural force that could have warned her of his peril. Even when it was beneficial, there was something disturbing about witchcraft, something that offended men on an almost primal level.

  Studying the faces of the other survivors, he could see the same mix of gratitude and fear. The expressions of Arch-Lector von Reisarch and Inquisitor Fulk were outright malignant.

  ‘On behalf of His Imperial Majesty,’ Kreyssig said, loud enough that his tones drowned out any murmurs of misgiving, ‘we thank you for your most opportune assistance, your ladyship.’

  Baroness von den Linden bowed to Kreyssig. ‘It is the duty of every subject of the Empire to defend the realm,’ she stated, glancing at the councillors. Kreyssig didn’t like the little smile she wore. Most of these men knew he had been visiting her, even if they couldn’t guess the nature of those liaisons. In a single act, she had both saved him and condemned him. There would be no more rumours linking the baroness with witchcraft among the council. There would only be simple fact. Kreyssig was now inextricably bound to the witch. He would have to support her in everything, because the same men who would persecute her as a practitioner of the black arts would also damn him as a heretic.

  With a predatory, cat-like grace, the baroness stalked through the shambles and joined Kreyssig at the head of the table. ‘You must move quickly,’ she advised him. Like the Protector, she ensured her voice was loud enough for all to hear. ‘The same divination that warned me of your danger also revealed to me an even greater threat.’

  The witch wore a bemused smile as she retrieved the agitated cat from the table and stroked its fur. ‘Like yourselves, the skaven are concentrating their forces. They are marshalling for a direct attack against the Great Cat
hedral.

  ‘In one assault, the ratmen intend to break the spirit of every soul in Altdorf,’ the baroness warned. ‘When the temple burns, the fire will be seen in every quarter of the city. When that happens, men will know that their dominion is finished.

  ‘When that happens, the vermin shall inherit the earth.’

  Sylvania

  Kaldezeit,1113

  Seerlord Skrittar drew a deep breath, filling his nose with the smell of victory. The musky scent of aggression dripping from the glands of thousands of skaven warriors; it needed only the appetising aroma of fresh blood to make it properly delicious. That was the downside of fighting these dead-things. Even when they were torn to shreds the walking corpses refused to disgorge anything like proper blood. At best there was syrupy treacle, more often just a pinch of scabby dust.

  Clan Mordkin were certainly proving their worth. The grave-rats charged into the ranks of zombies with such feral savagery that even those tick-sniffing mice of Clan Fester were growing bold and mounting their own attacks. Vrask Bilebroth and his surviving plague monks were taking a hand as well, scurrying about the edges of the conflict and supporting Fester wherever it looked like they might be suffering morale problems. As exterminator of the undead, Vrask had proven an abject failure, but as a disciplinarian he was quite useful. Then again, having the decayed snout of a plague monk shoved into your face and snapping orders at you was something most skaven would respond to.

  From his position at the back of his army, Skrittar could see the ebb and flow of the battle. It was exactly the kind of conflict that suited him – overwhelming massacre! His warriors outnumbered the undead by ten to one, odds to turn the most spineless mouse vicious. If the dead-things had any sense of self-preservation, they should have been routed at the first sight of the awesome host of ratmen swarming down upon them. Instead, they just maintained their positions and forced the skaven to butcher them where they stood. The outcome would be the same, it was only a delay of the inevitable.

  Skrittar bruxed his fangs and uttered a contented hiss. It would only be the matter of a few hours before the skaven broke through their enemy. Then the path would be clear to the jagged tower the dead-things defended. It was a massive structure and exuded a sorcerous taint that sent a thrill through the grey seer’s fur. Somehow it reminded him of the Shattered Tower in Skavenblight. There was an auspicious smell about the place, a tantalising odour that went beyond the warpstone sandwiched between the black blocks of stone. He could almost feel the presence of the Horned One, expectant and impatient! It was a humbling, terrifying feeling, yet at the same time filled Skrittar’s gut with greedy anticipation. What could be more auspicious an omen for the success of his plans than the attention of his god?

  Fixing his gaze on the tower, Skrittar could see the whorls of energy coruscating around it, flickering about the structure like steam from a lava pit. Every wisp of ghostly light was a tendril of magic, a ribbon of sorcery sucked from the void and spewed into the atmosphere. Skrittar felt his pulse quicken as he contemplated the magnitude of what he sensed. If the mage-man was so powerful as to evoke so much magic, then he must prove a fearsome foe! The grey seer’s paw tightened about the haft of his staff, feeling the warpstone runes etched into it sizzle against his skin, filling his veins with arcane might. The human knew a trick or two, that was all. If he were truly powerful, his pathetic army wouldn’t be demolished so easily! No, the mage-man was just another slab of meat waiting to be cut down by the rightful masters of the world!

  Skrittar turned his eyes from the tower, looking instead at the fresh timbers of his conveyance and the massed ranks of stormvermin arrayed about it. The work-rats of Fester had scrambled to build the wooden platform, stealing the iron-banded wheels from dozens of man-thing nests. They were motley and mismatched, causing the platform above to be lopsided in places and requiring an even greater effort from the warriors to move it. Such concerns, however, mattered little to Skrittar. The stormvermin of Manglrr Baneburrow were the strongest skaven in Clan Fester and they would not fail the seerlord. Not if they wanted to live long.

  The grey seer preened himself as he stalked across the platform, glaring down at the ranks of brawny stormvermin. He grinned murderously as he drew near the real might of his conveyance. Bound between an arch of stone plundered from an elf-thing temple, a great bronze bell was suspended at the far end of the platform. That bell had been consecrated in the darkest chambers of the Shattered Tower, engraved with runes of ruin and havoc. A piece of pure warpstone, crafted from the biggest chunk they had collected in Sylvania, formed the bell’s clapper. The second-largest chunk was the basis of the enormous striker held in the paws of Skrittar’s personal slave. The combination of striker, clapper and runes would create an invocation to the Horned One, an appeal that the dreaded god would be certain to answer. A bridge would be formed between mortal supplicants and divinity, a bridge that under the guidance of the seerlord would take shape as spells of unimaginable destruction!

  Lashing his tail in amusement, Skrittar stared back at the battle. His army was already halfway through the ranks of the undead. It was time that he put in an appearance and forcibly reminded them that their victory was due solely to his brilliant tactics and selfless leadership.

  ‘Tell your scum to get moving,’ Skrittar snapped at Manglrr. Perched at the front of the wheeled altar, the warlord bobbed his head and turned about, ready to crack his whip at his warriors. Even as he did so, the warlord’s posture became anxious and his face turned upwards, sniffing at the air nervously.

  Soon, the pungent stench of fear musk despoiled the altar. Skrittar rounded on the frightened warlord, smashing him low with the horned head of his staff. ‘Fool-meat! Mouse-sniffer!’ the grey seer raged.

  Manglrr was old by the standards of the skaven, his vigour preserved by a cocktail of alchemy and warpstone transfusions. When he spoke, however, it was in the sort of frightened squeak a litter-pup might make. ‘Burn-thing!’ the warlord whined. ‘Burn-thing!’

  Skrittar sighed and brought his staff up to bash the deranged brains from Manglrr’s skull. The warlord’s senile panic was threatening to upset the stormvermin. More importantly, it was interfering with the seerlord’s display of divine favour and tactical acumen! It was a sorry thing to see a Lord of Decay reduced to such a simpering state – he’d have to remember to have everyone who’d seen the spectacle killed.

  Before he could deliver the killing blow, however, a loathsome stink swept through Skrittar’s nose. It was a rotten, sour smell, decayed meat mixed with reptilian musk. At once, he realised this was the smell that had reduced Manglrr to a cowering flea, but where such a scent could come from, he was at a loss to explain.

  Then, with a feeling of dread, Skrittar lifted his head and stared up at the sky. No skaven liked the open sky, that vast emptiness that was so strange and alien beside the cramped comfort of their burrows and tunnels. He was unusual among his race in his tolerance for it, yet in this instant he shared their terror of the heavens more fully than he would have believed possible, primitive instincts racing through his veins and sending a wave of fear through his entire body.

  There was something descending from the sky. Something vast and unspeakable! It stank of death and putrefaction, of dried scales and shrivelled flesh. There was no mistaking that awful shape, the powerful pinions and mighty claws, the barbed tail and armoured body of a dragon. No head graced its stumpy neck, however, only a ragged hole and the gleaming tip of exposed spine!

  As he watched, the deathly dragon swooped down upon one of the Mordkin formations. From the jagged stump of neck a boiling torrent of rotten meat and writhing maggots showered down upon the massed grave-rats, searing them in their bony armour. Then the dragon’s claws were scything into them, tearing skaven apart like some gigantic hell-cat!

  Perched upon the dragon’s shoulders, looking like some black tick embedded in its decayed hide, a wizened
figure stood and gestured with a skeletal staff. Sorcerous energy crackled about the head of the staff, expelling itself in a stream of wailing darkness. The malefic magic gouged into a regiment of Fester’s clanrats, withering dozens into mummified husks in the blink of an eye.

  Skrittar’s lips peeled back from his fangs as he watched the mage-man attack. He would not stand for this. He would not suffer this filthy meat to cheat him of his triumph. Whatever his powers, the creature was still merely human, insignificant beside the austere might of a race crafted by the godliest of gods!

  The seerlord popped a small sliver of warpstone into his mouth, feeling its power rush through him as his fangs ground it into dust. Flush with the grandeur of his enhanced prowess, he sent a green bolt of destruction searing down into the stormvermin massed about his altar, cooking one hapless warrior where he stood. ‘The Horned Rat will suffer no coward-meat!’ Skrittar roared, scurrying across the altar from side to side to ensure the whole regiment was aware of his anger. Certain of their terrified attention, he leaped onto the stone arch and scrambled up to the top of the bell.

  ‘Scurry-hurry!’ Skrittar shouted, pointing forwards with his staff. ‘I shall kill-slay the mage-meat!’ he proclaimed, evoking cheers from the stormvermin. ‘You will gloriously slay-kill the dragon!’

  In the dead silence that greeted that pronouncement, it was easy for Skrittar to hear the cowards who tried to break ranks. Burning them to a cinder restored the enthusiasm of the survivors.

  Verminous flesh shrivelled into dust as Lothar von Diehl stretched forth his hand. He exulted in the power that flowed through him, felt a sense of rapture as he watched ratmen crumble before him. Never before had he imagined such power! All his conjurations, the magic he had learned and practised in secret all those years, they were nothing beside this.