Blighted Empire

by C. L. Werner

  What started as a desperate fight became a bloody slaughter, slaughter gave way to massacre. The warm thrill of victory roared in Graf Gunthar’s breast. Despite the numberless hordes of the enemy, they had no stomach for battle. Middenheim might yet be saved.

  Then, as quickly as the prospect of victory danced before his eyes, Graf Gunthar saw it snatched away. His men had pursued the fleeing skaven deep into the Eastgate district, towards the great theatre of marble and alabaster that marked the cultural heart of the city. The once glistening walls were foul with soot and blood, the statues toppled, the glass dome shattered and smashed.

  The wanton, savage destruction was cruel enough, but crueller by far was the deception that had brought the avengers here. As the cavalry charged into the wide plaza before the theatre, hordes of skaven erupted from every quarter. No alleyway or side street failed to disgorge a chittering swarm. From cellars and sewers, the beasts emerged, from wrecked homes and ruined towers they scurried. Out of the defiled halls of the theatre, a great horde of hulking armoured ratmen marched, cruel halberds and great axes clutched in their filthy paws.

  At the centre of these armoured vermin, the ratkin carried a great palanquin fashioned from the smashed wreckage of a royal carriage. Gunthar recognised the heraldry as that of his chamberlain, von Vogelthal, and wondered what manner of death had claimed his old friend.

  Lounging amid the cushions of the shattered carriage was a horrific skaven clad in armour that might have been fashioned from a thorn bush. He was a huge brute of a creature, his fur midnight-black. Heaped about the monster on his carriage were the spoils he had claimed as his own, a mad confusion of rubbish and treasure. Panes of glass rested beside bolts of cloth, sacks of grain were sprawled across a pile of swords. The carcass of a fresh-slain sheep lay at the warlord’s side, its hide peeled back that the ratman might nibble at its innards like a gourmand with a plate of sweetmeats.

  Even from a distance, Gunthar could see the evil glitter in the warlord’s eyes as the creature stared at him.

  For an instant, as the trap swung closed behind them, silence gripped the plaza. Gunthar saw the skaven turning uneasily towards their hideous overlord, their bestial bloodlust cowering before their terrible king. Even the snipers fell silent as they waited for the attack to begin.

  The rat-king lifted his nose, sniffing the air, drinking in the scent of fear wafting up from Gunthar and his soldiers. Then, his lips peeling back to expose clenched fangs, the warlord brought his claws crashing together.

  In response to the signal, the skaven hordes set up a deafening chorus of squeaks and shrieks.

  An avalanche of fur and fangs closed upon the surrounded men of Middenheim.

  Carroburg

  Pflugzeit, 1115

  For those within the Schloss Hohenbach, the spectre of the plague remained an omnipresent threat. Despite the horrible curative their Emperor had procured for them, despite the isolation of their palatial hermitage, despite everything, they were ruled by fear. Daily, rising from the city below, they would hear the dirge being rung by the temple bells. From the parapets they could see the processions of corpse-carts in the streets, the proliferation of white crosses upon the doors.

  It was an affront to the might of Emperor Boris, a slight against his supreme authority. He had delivered these people from the plague, yet the plague refused to abandon its prey. Like a wolf just beyond the firelight, it circled and snarled and snapped.

  Emperor Boris, with cruel deliberation, decided to remove the wolf from the castle gates. One afternoon, when the bells below had been particularly active, he gave orders. As a fortress designed to command the River Reik, the walls and towers of Schloss Hohenbach were littered with catapults. The war machines had been poised to lob death and destruction upon any ship so brazen as to flout the sovereignty of Drakwald. Now, at the Emperor’s command, the siege engines were removed, redeployed so that they might visit destruction upon a much different victim.

  Encouraging a festive air among his guests, Emperor Boris led the great men of his Empire onto the battlements. Von Metzgernstein’s Dienstleute, supplemented by those Kaiserknecht and palace guards who formed Boris’s own retinue, manned each of the catapults. A great brazier of smouldering coals stood ready beside each machine and nearby were bales of straw drawn from the castle stores.

  Swaggering along the parapets, the Emperor addressed his subjects. ‘We brought you here as a retreat from the tawdry concerns of commonality. Here you have feasted and revelled, savoured all the delights of the world. As your Emperor, We have treated you in manner as befits the friends of the Imperial throne. In the harmony of this refuge of royalty, We have allowed no discordant note, no blemish upon the rich tapestry of Our accomplishments.’

  The Emperor turned abruptly, pointing at the clustered streets of Carroburg. ‘This is an offence to the cultured tastes of you, Our most noble friends. It is a blight, a scourge upon Our delicate sensibilities.’ The impish smile worked its way onto Boris’s features as he turned back towards his audience. ‘We will remove this outrage, and in the doing offer to Our loyal subjects a spectacle such as none of you have ever seen.’

  At a gesture from the Emperor, the soldiers manning the catapults loaded bales of straw and hay into the bowl of each engine. Other soldiers brought kegs of pitch and, employing long-handled brushes, painted each bale with the incendiary. After the men with the pitch withdrew, a lone knight advanced with a blazing torch. Gingerly, the warrior leaned towards the catapult and ignited the material loaded into the bowl.

  Boris raised his hand up high. For a moment, his eyes glanced over at Erna. He could see the unspoken appeal written on her face. He grinned at the woman’s temerity. Since her capitulation during the masque, he’d found her far less interesting. Whatever charm she’d exerted over him had been rendered impotent. He knew she had broken at last to his will. There was nothing else to interest him now.

  Savagely, the Emperor brought his hand slicing down. In time with the gesture, the arms of the catapults snapped upwards and hurled their flaming missiles into the air. Boris’s guests rushed to the edge of the walls, watching in rapt fascination as dozens of burning missiles descended upon Carroburg. Like fiery rain, the incendiaries came crashing down, exploding into little fingers of flame as they struck streets and rooftops. Wooded shingles and thatch ignited under the provocation, the fire quickly spreading among the semi-deserted neighbourhoods.

  Again and again the incendiaries came raining down. The bells in the temples rang not with the slow notes of a dirge but with the rapid clamour of an alarm. From boarded homes and dilapidated hovels, the people of Carroburg rushed into the streets. Frantic mobs swarmed towards the river, gathering buckets, jars, pots, anything that might fetch water to oppose the flames.

  Emperor Boris laughed at the peasants and their futile efforts, his jaded courtiers quickly warming to the cruel mockery. Wagers were soon placed on where each salvo would fall, the nobles watching with bated breath to see if their guesses would prove accurate. Jests were made over the pathetic fire brigades, the soldiers manning the catapults encouraged to lob their missiles wherever it seemed the peasants might turn back the flames. When a ring of flames began to close upon a stables that had been given over as a hospice for the sick, the nobles were treated to a parade of crippled humanity scrambling from the building, trying to hobble and crawl to safety before the fire could reach them.

  Rare amusement this! Boris congratulated himself on this novel entertainment. Who but an Emperor could command such a performance? Who but an Emperor could afford to lay waste to an entire city? If nothing else had impressed his guests with the extent of his power, this would emblazon it upon their very souls! Once the spectacle was past, once the wonder and emotion had cooled into the reflections of cold reason, they would understand and appreciate what they had been witness to. He was thankful that the Black Plague had finally reached Carroburg
. Without it, he might never have considered such a display of unrestrained power.

  The conflagration quickly spread, entire districts blazing, the afternoon sky blotted by thick pillars of smoke. Before the gawking, jeering spectators assembled on the castle walls, Carroburg died.

  Emperor Boris, tiring of the fiery display, turned from the battlements, seeking to find Erna. The woman’s helpless disapproval would, he decided, still add a much needed spice to the banquet of Carroburg’s destruction. He scowled when his roving eyes failed to find her. She’d retreated back into the castle, hiding herself away as she had when the nobles would feed the beggars. Boris chuckled at the absurdity. As though by not seeing a thing she could make it any less real.

  He was debating whether to send someone to fetch Erna from wherever she had hidden herself when a note of alarm rose from the nobles on the parapet. Thinking perhaps he had missed some rare incident of unique tragedy, Boris rushed back to the battlements. He was surprised, even disappointed to find that his guests weren’t watching the fire but had instead turned their attention to something close to the base of the castle wall.

  It was then that the Emperor became aware of the sounds, sounds that perhaps had been present for some time but had been deadened by the applause of his guests and the din rising from burning Carroburg. The sounds were strange, a confusion of dozens of small bells that seemed to have been selected for their disharmony. Beneath and around the chaotic notes were the tones of many chanting voices.

  But such voices! Boris felt his pulse quicken at the loathsome noise. They were shrill, scratchy voices – the squeaks of vermin trying to contort themselves into the patterns of speech. He thought of the reports from the southern provinces, the appeals for monetary and military aid against hordes of horrific ratmen.

  The Emperor’s guests pointed with trembling hands at a ragged line of sinister figures in tattered green robes. They were somehow monk-like despite the uncanny wrongness of their every step, the surging scurry in their gait that belonged to nothing human. It was from these figures that the eerie chant arose, and clenched in the furry talons of many of them were bells of every stripe and size.

  Around and around the Otwinsstein the inhuman monks marched, filling the winding road with their pestiferous numbers. Every fifth monk bore aloft a metal censer fitted to a long pole, swinging it with crazed fervour overhead. The ball-like censers expelled clouds of grimy smoke, filth that was borne towards the castle by the winds sweeping across blazing Carroburg.

  Emperor Boris heard the frightened mutters of his guests, the superstitious fears of men who now repented their mockery of the gods.

  ‘We stand protected,’ Boris called out to his guests. ‘The enchantment will shield us.’ Even as he spoke, he waved soldiers away from the catapults, sent servants hurrying to ready bows and arrows.

  ‘The magic will protect us,’ Boris scolded the terrified men around him as he watched a noxious green fog slither its way up the castle walls. ‘The gods are powerless to harm those who reject their power.’

  Inwardly, however, the Emperor doubted his own words.

  Chapter XX

  Middenheim

  Ulriczeit, 1118

  The skaven horde closed in around Graf Gunthar’s troops. The plaza rang with the clash of swords, the screams of terrified horses and the cries of dying men. Upon the roofs, skaven jezzails pelted the embattled soldiers, cackling viciously as warpstone bullets slammed through steel plate to explode inside human flesh. Mobs of scrawny slaves wrenched knights from their saddles, packs of clanrats thrust spears into horses and chopped down infantry with crooked swords and rusty bludgeons.

  Before the pillars of the theatre, the Verminguard butchered their way through nobles and peasants, hacking them down with their wicked blades. At their back, Vecteek the Tyrant roared with sadistic mirth, relishing every scream, savouring the stink of blood in the air.

  This night belonged to Clan Rictus and their despotic Warmonger! Before dawn shone down upon Middenheim, the humans would be exterminated. A few, perhaps, might be taken back to Skavenblight, trophies of his supreme victory. Most, however, would die. The armies of Rictus were vast and hungry.

  Vecteek hissed with satisfaction as he watched his Verminguard cut down a knight and his destrier, reducing man and animal to a mangled heap before they were finished. Yes, his triumph would send terror coursing through not only the foolish hearts of the man-things, but through the perfidious minds of skaven as well. Where other Grey Lords had failed, he would return in victory! All would bow to his tactical genius, his incomparable might as general and warlord!

  Baring his fangs, Vecteek swung around as a black shadow dropped towards him from the charred roof of the theatre. The Warmonger’s bronze mace in his paws, his foot kicked out, sending one of his palanquin’s bearers stumbling towards the shadowy apparition. It was only when the cloaked figure sprang forwards and sent the bearer reeling against the side of the palanquin with a graceful drop kick that Vecteek recognised the fearful presence as his faithful retainer, Deathmaster Silke of Clan Eshin. Just to be careful, he kept the stunned bearer between himself and the infamous assassin.

  ‘More man-things come,’ the Deathmaster reported, his voice like the whisper of a knife. ‘Dwarf-things too.’ Silke lashed his tail in anger. ‘Vrrmik betrays us!’

  Vecteek snarled in outrage. Raising his mace he started to lunge at the Deathmaster. Silke, however, was one of the few messengers even Vecteek knew he couldn’t destroy. Instead, he contented himself by smashing the skull of his hapless bearer. ‘That tick-licking spider-pizzle!’ Vecteek roared. ‘Vrrmik-meat shall suffer much-much! Slow-die long-long!’

  Other shadows dropped down from the roof, the menacing shapes of the Deathmaster’s apprentices. Briefly they whispered into the ears of their master, careful to keep their gaze averted from Vecteek’s enraged notice. The restraint he showed to Silke might not extend to themselves.

  ‘Men and dwarfs come,’ Silke told the Grey Lord, waving a paw towards the south.

  Vecteek followed the gesture, whipping his tail in anger as he saw the assassin’s warning play out. The ratmen holding that part of the Eastgate were scurrying into the plaza, streaming from the streets and alleys in a confused panic. Behind them, rushing after them like hungry cats, came the armies of both Middenheim and Karak Grazhyakh, the armies Vrrmik and his treacherous scum were supposed to be holding down inside the Wolfrock!

  The Grey Lord swung around to demand Silke and his assassins do something, anything that might stave off the disaster. The cloaked killers were already gone, evaporated back into their shadows. Vecteek gnashed his fangs and looked around for Puskab, thinking perhaps the plaguelord might have some pox or contagion that would strike down the avenging armies. Like the assassins, however, Puskab had vanished.

  Fortune was abandoning Vecteek, and with it went his allies. The Grey Lord quivered in fury, brought his mace slamming down into the skull of another bearer. His improvised palanquin crashed to the street as the remaining bearers fled.

  Crawling from the wreckage, Vecteek sniffed the air, drinking in the scent of his fleeing slaves. He would find them and they would pay. So would Puskab and Silke and that mould-furred dung-slime Vrrmik! All of them would suffer the wrath of Vecteek’s vengeance!

  The Warmonger turned his keen nose towards the south, picking out from the riot of scents and smells the familiar scent of Middenheim’s pup-king. The prince was certain to be leading these enemies. Therefore, if Vecteek was to prevent the collapse of his own army, the prince must die!

  As he led his men into the plaza, Mandred’s heart froze. Even their grisly march through the ravaged streets of the Wynd as they emerged from the temple of Grungni hadn’t prepared him for the carnage unfolding before them. That embattled ring of men at the centre of the plaza and the verminous horde that surrounded them. He had imagined the host down in the Fourth Dee
p to be formidable, but they were nothing beside the legion of ratkin he now gazed upon.

  The men in the plaza were in a hopeless position unless they could be relieved, unless Mandred’s troops could fight their way to them.

  ‘Wolf and graf!’ The war-cry thundered from the throats of a thousand men. Even some of the dwarfs took up the cry, a show of solidarity that even in the bedlam of battle impressed the Middenheimers with the severity of its depth. It was no empty gesture, that adoption of the human cause. The humans had been ready to die in defence of the Crack; by joining the fight for Middenheim the dwarfs were promising to pass a grudge debt to ten generations of descendants should the city fall.

  The dwarfs were sparing with words of gratitude. For them, deeds spoke louder than any words, and Mandred’s decision to honour his oath and drive the skaven from Karak Grazhyakh even when his own home was threatened had struck to the core of what a dwarf valued: honour.

  With the help of the dwarfs, Mandred’s troops drove the skaven before them. The monsters died by the score as they wreaked a terrible vengeance. Revenge, however, wasn’t the passion burning in the prince’s heart. Rising above the heads of the men trapped in the plaza, he had seen his father’s banner, the heraldry of the castle and the wolf which only Graf Gunthar could bear.

  He didn’t know if his father yet lived, but he did know that when those brave men had marched against the skaven, it was the graf who had led them.

  Beside the prince, Beck cursed as the flailing body of a ratman fouled his sword and nearly dragged the blade from his hand. The knight looked around anxiously, observing that they were perhaps being a little too eager in their advance. They were striking deep into the skaven formation, but at the same time they were becoming separated from the bulk of their own forces.

  ‘Use the edge, not the point,’ Kurgaz Smallhammer scolded Beck. The dwarf hero had insisted on accompanying Mandred when they struck out for the surface. Many ratkin deaths would be needed to balance the murder of his brother Mirko. The theft of Drakdrazh, he claimed, was a grudge that no amount of blood could wipe away. Each skaven skull he smashed was a dirge to his brother and a vow that he would find the white vermin that had stolen his hammer.