Blighted Empire

by C. L. Werner

  Green fire belched from each nozzle, inundating swathes of bickering clanrats. The skaven shrieked in agony as their fur erupted into flames, as the meat melted from their very bones. The ignited clanrats fled blindly into the packed masses of their own comrades, spreading the flames beyond the murderous streams being vomited from the fire-throwers.

  As their first victims burned, slaves pushed the fire-throwers forwards, persecuting the skaven choking the crossroads in a fratricidal holocaust. Burning ratmen leaped onto the walls of buildings, dived through windows and smashed down doors in their desperate efforts to escape. Those not yet within the killing zone turned to flee back up the street, pleading and clawing at the ratkin who blocked their way.

  Through it all, the skaven of Clan Skryre continued to advance, pressing their advantage. The fire-throwers continued to take a horrendous toll upon the clanrats, blasting them until even their bones were scorched into cinders. One corner of the crossroads, that facing towards the fire-throwers, had become an inferno, the structures at its periphery blazing like torches as the eerie green flames seared through their walls.

  Sythar Doom’s entourage hesitated, the bloodthirsty eagerness of the fire-rats curbed by their fear of the very destruction they had inflicted. There was good reason for their caution – if the flames from the buildings should be blown back towards the fuel-carts then the volatile mixture inside might very well combust! In such a conflagration, there would be no survivors.

  The Warpmaster had little patience to spare, even for caution. ‘Fetch-bring the warpcaster!’ he raged, slashing the claws of his feet across a slave’s shoulder. When the palanquin sagged momentarily as the slave winced in pain, Sythar was tempted to blast the wretch with warp-lightning. Only the thought that the slaves were a matched set stayed his violent impulse. Instead, he selected an unfortunate warpguard who caught his eye, cooking the ratman in his own armour with a coruscating beam of sizzling light.

  The rhythmic hum of machinery, the groan of creaking wood and the anguished huffs of toiling slaves warned of the warpcaster’s approach. Sythar shifted about in his seat, whiskers twitching as the arcane weapon came trundling down the street behind him. It was a gigantic construction, a wheeled carriage of timber pulled by a hundred slaves. Great boilers and engines were bolted to that carriage, placed ahead of an angled crossbeam. A long arm of steel topped with an immense bowl of cast bronze stretched down the centre of the carriage. Behind the machine, staggered at intervals, teams of warp-engineers pushed large wooden carts, sealed crates to which wheels had been fitted.

  As the warpcaster trundled into position, the slaves pulling it sank wearily to the street. A gang of warp-engineers scurried about the machine, hammering great iron spikes into the road, chaining the enormous engine to the ground. When they had driven a dozen spikes into the street, they gestured frantically at their comrades pushing the carts. One of these came rushing forwards, and in short order the ratmen smashed open the top of the box-like cart and removed pawfuls of curled wood shavings from inside.

  For all the haste of their early actions, now the warp-engineers became plodding and methodical in their labour. Gingerly, four of the ratmen used iron hooks to reach into the cart. Slipping the hooks into metal eyes, they lifted a crystalline sphere from the box. With great care, the skaven bore the globe towards the warpcaster, setting it down in the cold-cast bronze bowl.

  Sythar Doom’s jewelled eyes gleamed as he stared at the sphere, watching the rampant energies crackling behind the crystal facets. The harnessed fury of raw warpstone, imprisoned in the delicate framework, its ravenous appetite for destruction held in check by the art of Clan Skryre! Biding its time until its masters chose to unleash it upon their foes!

  The warp-engineers leapt away from the bronze bowl as soon as the sphere was in place. Cast into the semblance of an outstretched claw, the fingers of the bowl closed around the massive crystal orb. Electricity rippled about the bronze talons as they closed tight. A masked skaven, his body insulated by thick layers of cloth and fur, rushed to a mechanism embedded in the side of the carriage. For an instant, the ratman’s paws flew across the maze of buttons and levers, adjusting them in a frenzy of activity. The artillerist glanced once at the burning buildings ahead, then threw a final lever.

  The warpcaster shuddered as the enormous swing-arm lunged into motion. Propelled by the engines fitted to the carriage, the arm slammed upwards into the arched crossbeam, the impact causing the entire engine to bounce, held in position only by the stakes chaining it to the road. As the arm smashed against the crossbeam, the bronze talons opened and the crystalline sphere was flung from the bucket.

  There was an eerie lack of noise when the sphere crashed into the buildings. No explosive detonation, no billowing wall of fire and wreckage. There was simply a flash of eerie green light, a horrendous luminance that washed out the glow of flames. When the light faded, when vision was restored, the conflagration was gone, evaporated by the disintegrating energies inside the crystal globe. A black, charred slime and a few bits of scarred stone were all that remained of a city block, the ground itself gouged and scooped away into a concave depression.

  Sythar preened himself as he heard the clanrats squeak in terror and redouble their efforts to flee. The musk of fear rose from the glands of even his own clan-kin. The warpcaster was the most terrifying war machine ever conceived. It would smash the pathetic human resistance and demonstrate to the other Lords of Decay the might of Clan Skryre and its overlord!

  ‘Forwards! Hurry-scurry!’ Sythar growled. Obediently, his warpguard marched out into the glowing desolation left behind by the sphere. Behind him, mobs of slaves pulled the stakes from the road and began to drag the ponderous weight of the warpcaster. Sythar watched them for a moment, then slapped his tail against the shoulders of his bearers, urging them into motion.

  Victory would belong to Clan Skryre. The warpcaster would guarantee it!

  After all, Sythar had ensured there was enough ammunition for the machine to not only demolish the human city, but to exterminate any ratmen who thought to take credit for his triumph.

  Grim-faced, Grand Theogonist Gazulgrund stood upon the broad steps of the Great Cathedral and watched as the verminous horde came flooding into the square. Three sides of the temple were embattled now. It could only be a matter of time before the skaven came swarming down from the north and completed the encirclement. Once they were surrounded, he knew there would be no escape.

  That thought brought a bitter smile to the priest’s face. For him, escape wasn’t an option anyway. Abandoning the temple would be to abandon his faith, and he would do neither. In a long life of fear and confusion, there was only one thing he was certain of, one constant that provided him with strength. That was his faith in Mighty Sigmar. Trust in the man-god had sustained him through his darkest ordeals, had carried him through moments when he felt he could endure no longer. Even in the cruel machinations of Kreyssig, he saw the hand of Sigmar. Because of Kreyssig, he had become Grand Theogonist. He had been entrusted with the leadership of the temple in this, its darkest hour. Another man, a man less secure in his belief, a man less firm in his convictions, such a man might have fled and abandoned the temple.

  He was not such a man. His faith had been tested in the horrors of the Dragon’s Hole. He had been forced to question everything he held dear, forced to evaluate what was most important in his life. He had come through the anguish of that process a different man. A man who could stand upon the steps of the Great Cathedral and gaze upon his own death without fear. A man could honour his god all his life, but it was in the way in which he embraced death that he paid his final tribute to the divine.

  In his hands, clothed in the dragonskin gauntlets worn by the prophet Ungrimvolg during the Third Battle of Black Fire Pass, the Grand Theogonist held the gem-encrusted haft of Thorgrim, the gigantic mattock crafted for Grand Theogonist Jurgen II by dwarf runesmiths
five centuries after the ascension of Sigmar. The mattock was so large that few men could wield it in battle – in life Jurgen had been nicknamed ‘Ogreblood’ for his prodigious size and strength. The current Grand Theogonist harboured no delusions that his physicality was on a par with that of his ancient predecessor. It wasn’t as a weapon he had brought the mattock down from its place of honour on the walls of the Heroes’ Hall. Thorgrim was more important as a symbol, a reminder of the awe and might of Holy Sigmar. It was an echo of that great warhammer once wielded by the man-god when he forged his Empire from scattered tribes of savages and brought the light of civilisation to mankind.

  Gazulgrund turned his gaze from the swarming horde of monsters to the massed ranks of those who had rallied to the temple to defend it against the ravening fiends. They were a disparate, motley amalgamation of people from all walks of life. He could see simple peasants armed with nothing more than shovels and sickles. There were merchants in the tattered remnants of their finery wielding knives and swords. A great throng of flagellants, whips and flails clutched in their bloodied hands, their monk-like habits tied around their waists to better display their self-inflicted scars. Genuine monks and friars, many of them unversed in the ways of warfare, clinging grimly to staves and clubs.

  Mixed among these determined but untrained defenders were small pockets of martial discipline. Bands of Scheuters and former Dienstleute, ranks of soldiers who had managed to fight their way to the square. A handful of mounted knights, their warhorses towering above the foot soldiers all around them. Proud in their habits of black and gold, the Templars of Sigmar held themselves at the fore of the battle line, determined to claim the glory of being the first to confront the foe.

  Gazulgrund felt his heart swell as he gazed out over the men who had come here, banded together in defence of their faith. Certainly, some were motivated by the refugees who had flocked to the cathedral and even now filled the sanctuary, but many others had come out of devotion to Sigmar. The priest had watched them, watched them approach the immense doors of the temple and prostrate themselves before the ancient statue of Sigmar that rested in a niche above those doors. Certainly, there was a resignation, a fatalism in the pious display, but there was also a steadfastness, a devotion that brought tears to the priest’s eyes.

  He caught a slight motion near the base of the steps. Staring down, Gazulgrund saw a small boy, no older than his ninth winter, bowing to the statue and making the sign of Sigmar with his left hand. In his right, he held an old wooden sword, stolen no doubt from some training field. Seeing the look of fear in the boy’s eyes as he bowed, observing the look of defiance that blazed across his face as he turned back towards the oncoming enemy, Gazulgrund felt warmth flood through his veins.

  ‘Men of Altdorf!’ Gazulgrund shouted in a voice that seemed as if it were forged from thunder. ‘Men of the Empire! Brothers all! Behold the steel in your hearts! Behold the fire of your faith! Behold the magnitude of your valour! When others flee, when others cower and hide, you stand tall! You stand proud! You stand as free men! You carry the Light of Sigmar within you, and it shall not be quenched by the vermin of Old Night!’

  Despite its tremendous weight, Gazulgrund lifted Thorgrim over his head, brandishing it like a standard. ‘For Sigmar!’ he roared, his voice booming across the plaza, echoing from the spires of the cathedral. He turned to his left, raising the huge mattock a second time. ‘For Sigmar!’ He turned to the right, repeating the gesture. ‘For Sigmar!’

  The shout was taken up by the defenders, growing into the clamour of an angry ocean. The verminous host paused, hesitated at the edge of the square, cringing back from the ferocity of that cry. It was only a moment that the monstrous army delayed, then the threats and whips of their leaders drove them on once more. But it was a moment that had broken the spell of terror that had threatened to overwhelm the men. They had glimpsed the craven, slinking nature of their enemy and with that glimpse grew utter contempt for this vile foe. Against such scum, none worthy of the name ‘man’ would retreat.

  ‘For Sigmar!’ Gazulgrund repeated, again raising the enormous bulk of Thorgrim. He did not ponder the impossibility of that action, the uncanny lack of strain that accompanied the feat.

  Alone among all those in the square, human and skaven alike, the Grand Theogonist did not see the golden aura that surrounded him or the shining light that gleamed from his robes.

  Sylvania

  Kaldezeit, 1113

  Chittering triumphantly, Seerlord Skrittar drew the screaming vibrations of the holy bell through his body. He could feel the dreadful energies throb through his bones, sense the residue of warpstone in his blood twine about the malignant harmonies as they gathered and swelled. Bending the rampaging power to his own murderous will, he focused the magic into the horned head of his staff.

  One exertion of his fierce abilities and it would all be over. He’d destroyed the stupid mage-man’s dragon. Now he would do the same to the puny mage-meat. He might keep the fool’s bones as a chew toy for his pups back in Skavenblight. Then again, he didn’t believe in playing with his food.

  Before Skrittar could extend his staff and unleash his spell, he became aware of a disturbance in the sorcerous harmony. Turning his eyes skywards, he spurted the musk of fear.

  The sky was black with dragons! Dozens of undead, decayed bulks, their scaly hides clinging in strips to bleached bones and scabrous flesh, bat-like wings fanning the air in torn tatters. Unlike the first dragon, great reptilian heads snarled from long, serpentine necks, profane fires burning in the pits of their decayed skulls.

  Necrotic black vapours spewed from the fanged maws of the dragons as they came hurtling down. Swathes of skaven were annihilated, their bodies crumbling into desiccated husks. Survivors tucked tails between their legs and scurried away in abject terror.

  Skrittar shifted his staff and sent the bolt of crackling warp-energy stabbing upwards. He was rewarded by watching the lightning smash through the skull of one dragon, sending the reptile crashing earthwards. For all their hideous power, the beasts weren’t invulnerable!

  He tried to keep that thought as he watched tendrils of dark magic stream down from the broken tower. Glowing fog engulfed the destroyed dragon, seeping into its rotten bones. Soon, with awkward jerks, the reptile was lurching back onto its feet! Even more horrible, the skaven the behemoth had smashed in its descent were moving, dragging their crushed bodies towards their living comrades!

  Eyes wide with horror, Skrittar realised the awful mistake he had made. The mage-meat he’d attacked wasn’t the enemy, just a minion sent out to bait the seerlord into committing himself. His true adversary was still in the tower, directing the magic emanations that had summoned a flight of dragons from their graves and which now sustained their obscene semblance of life!

  That realisation sent a new determination raging through the seerlord’s black heart. To retreat now would be to accept defeat. He’d never get those craven mice of Clan Fester to take the field again, and even Clan Mordkin might lose their appetite for rotten meat after this fiasco. The secret of the warpstone would be out, all of Skrittar’s careful planning reduced to nothing as every clan in the Under-Empire came swarming into Sylvania to plunder the wealth that rightfully belonged to him!

  No! He wouldn’t concede such ruination! He was the Voice of the Horned One, Supreme Prophet of He Who Is Thirteen! He wouldn’t allow the ignominy of defeat, not now when the Order of Grey Seers was so vulnerable. He’d spent the lives of twenty-four of his most powerful underlings to make this happen. He owed it to their martyrdom to seize the warpstone and make himself Grand Despot of Skavenblight!

  ‘Ring the bell,’ Skrittar snarled down at his slave. The hulking skaven leaned back, driving the warpstone striker against the bell. Another blast of arcane energy swept through Skrittar’s body, this time manifesting as a great crevice that snaked its way across the earth. The crushed, crawling s
kaven zombies vanished in the ruptured earth, the twice-restored dragon toppling into the great pit conjured by the tolling of the bell.

  ‘More bell!’ Skrittar shrieked, warp-lightning crackling from his fangs. ‘More bell!’

  Again, the warpstone striker smashed against the bell, sending another blast of power through Skrittar’s body. A storm of lightning sizzled from his staff, slamming into one of the dragons, tearing its wings to shreds and sending its rotten bulk slamming into the earth. The seerlord paid no notice to the hundred or so Mordkin warriors pulverised beneath the behemoth’s bulk. What he did notice was the treacherous way his army was disintegrating, quitting the battlefield in panicked mobs! Such infamy was unbelievable! These flea-fondlers were engaged in the most important work of their miserable lives. They should feel honoured to die for the glory of Skrittar!

  ‘Got-want more bell!’ Skrittar hissed. He ignored the protest of the slave with the striker, baring his fangs at the wretch until another burst of power roared up from the grim tolling of the holy bell. Biting down on a nugget of warpstone, the grey seer redoubled the energies, transforming the swirling eddies of power into arching fingers of compulsion that reached out and burned their way into thousands of frightened skaven minds. Viciously, Skrittar probed that facet of their rodent brains devoted to hunger, stirring that lobe until what had been a fleeing mob was transformed into a starving swarm of frenzied monsters.

  Froth dribbled from verminous fangs, blood dripped from glazed eyes as the rabid ratmen turned upon the dragons. With savage brutality, the skaven flung themselves at the decayed reptiles, swarming over them in a clawing, biting horde. First one, then a second dragon was dragged down by the sheer weight of its tormentors. Caring nothing for the hundreds smashed by the dragons’ claws or obliterated by necrotic breath, the crazed horde continued its rampage, slaughtering its own when there were no enemy near enough to slay.