02 - Empire

by Graham McNeill - (ebook by Undead)

  “They can die!” shouted Pendrag. “They are touched by sorcery, but they can die. Now kill them all!”

  As though ashamed of their brief moment of panic, the warriors of Middenheim fell upon the screaming once-men, cutting them down without mercy and forcing them back to the edge of the city. The White Wolves killed a warrior-beast with a nest of claws for hands and curling horns sprouting from its shoulders and back. It tore at them as it died, its madness driving it to acts of carnage even as its lifeblood pooled beneath it.

  Another beast, with budding heads oozing through the flesh of its chest, hurled broken men aside with lashing, blade-tipped tentacles instead of arms.

  It had to be hacked into a dozen pieces before it would die.

  Wolfgart tried to make sense of the confused melee raging through the tunnels, but it was impossible. Flames danced on the floor, and pools of oil burned where lamps had been dropped in death or panic. Shadows leapt across the walls. The caves below Middenheim were lonely battlegrounds, where men fought in the claustrophobic passageways, stabbing at shadows and dying alone in the dark.

  Scores of the hooded invaders poured from the cave-in, and his warriors fought to hold them from getting past. It was a losing battle, for tides of bloated rats swarmed the tunnel, biting and dragging men down with their furry bodies. The reek of the sewers came with them, and Wolfgart had already stabbed dozens from his legs. His tunic was in tatters where he had cut himself in his desperation.

  As loathsome as these vermin were, it was the hideous, rat-faced beasts that walked upright in imitation of man that struck the greatest terror into Wolfgart’s men. So human and yet so bestial, their flame-lit faces were malicious and cunning, a mockery of man’s intelligence.

  The giant auger-carrier battered its way into the tunnels, and the rat-beasts followed in the wake of its bludgeoning attacks. Elongated fangs bit through flesh and armour, and the power of its enormous arms broke men in two if they came too close.

  Wolfgart heard shouts of alarm from far off tunnels. Clearly this was not the only breakthrough into the warrens beneath Middenheim.

  The monstrous rat-beast charged him, its spine hunched over in the cramped tunnel, and he ducked a crushing sweep of its deadly auger. The conical blades still spun, sending chunks of rock flying as it bit into the wall. Wolfgart slammed his mace into the monster’s side, the flesh stitched and raw-looking. Bones broke and flesh caved in beneath the blow, but the monster gave no sign that it was even aware he had struck it.

  Its auger stabbed down, and Wolfgart leapt back, slashing his dagger across its twitching snout. Blood burst from its mouth, and he stumbled away from the monster. A rusted sword scraped across his chest, skidding over the mail links and slashing his cheek. Wolfgart lashed out with instinct rather than skill, and was rewarded by a squeal of pain.

  A creature that was a smaller version of the giant fell broken, but before he could even register its death, the huge monster threw itself at him once again. Its claws caught his mail shirt and slammed him against a wall. Stars exploded before him as the force of the impact drove the breath from his lungs. Through the haze of pain, Wolfgart saw its arm draw back for a thunderous punch.

  He ducked, and its fist pulverised a section of wall behind him. Wolfgart reached up and slashed his dagger at the monster’s throat as it bellowed in pain. Fur and sinew parted beneath the desperate slash, and Wolfgart was sprayed in a hosing squirt of blood. The creature’s iron grip relaxed and it dropped to its knees, as though mystified as to why its strength was failing.

  He spat blood from his mouth and wiped his eyes clean with his sleeve.

  It was impossible to read the flow of the battle, for so much of it was fought in darkness. Weapons clashed, but who, if anyone, was winning was a mystery. Wolfgart leapt over the giant rat-thing and plunged into the tunnels, stabbing and crushing any invaders he came across. His warriors fought in blind terror, a host of panicked men wildly swinging swords at their chittering attackers.

  The hot confines of the tunnels were hellish to fight in, and every blow was fuelled by his fear of this dark, terrible place. A sword lunged at him from the shadows, and he batted it aside with his mace. Flickering firelight illuminated the frightened face of the miner, Sargall.

  “Watch it, damn you!” shouted Wolfgart, his voice carrying to all the men who still fought in the tunnels. “Strike the enemy, not your friends!”

  “Sorry!” cried Sargall, and Wolfgart saw the man was in tears. “I thought you were one of them! Ulric save us, we’re all going to die down here, they’re going to kill us all.”

  “Not if I have anything to do with it,” barked Wolfgart. “Now shut up.”

  He heard a scrape of metal on stone, and turned with his weapons raised as a pack of hunched forms emerged from the darkness.

  “Come on then, you bastards!” he yelled. “Here I am! Come and get me!”

  They were clad in black armour, and vile segmented tails whipped at their backs. Spears jabbed at him, and no sooner had he turned the first aside than a host of rats swarmed from the walls, leaping from ledges and nubs of rock to attack him.

  He hurled himself against the wall, crushing half a dozen and dislodging yet more. A spear slashed for his neck, and he blocked it with the haft of his mace. Sargall screamed as a rat-thing stabbed him in the belly and the rats swarmed over him. Two of the spear-carriers ran at Wolfgart, and he roared as he ran at them.

  The first died as Wolfgart jammed his dagger through the rusted plates of armour protecting its chest, and twisted the blade up under its ribs. It squealed in agony as it died, and he hurled it back as the second came at him. He slammed his mace into its toothy jaw, and it dropped dead at his feet. Screams and the sounds of battle rang deafeningly from the walls of the tunnels, the echoes magnified and distorted by the close confines.

  He heard a crash of stone, and choking dust billowed along the length of the tunnel.

  Gods, more of the damn things!

  A spear pierced his side, and he grunted in pain. Rats climbed his trews and bit his legs. Teeth snapped on his hamstrings, and the pain sent a bolt of white fire zipping up his spine. Wolfgart cried out, and dropped to one knee as more rats swarmed him. He dropped to the floor of the tunnel and thrashed like a madman, crushing rats as he rolled in pain and desperation. Blades stabbed at him, some drawing his blood, some that of the rats. His attackers seemed not to care which.

  He lashed out with his mace, trying to clear some space, but it was hopeless, and he filled the air with curses at the thought of dying like this, far from the world of men and without his sword in his hand. Wolfgart tried to regain his feet, but the weight of rats was too heavy, and he could not rise.

  “Ulrike!” he shouted, as a vision of his daughter filled his mind. Sadness filled him as he thought of all the years he would miss of her life.

  A hooded figure in armour reared over him with a long, serrated dagger, and its furry snout twitched in anticipation of killing him. Wolfgart could taste the rankness of its hissing breath and smell the reek of foulness on its twisted body. The dagger swept up, but before it could plunge down, the creature’s head flew off, and the tunnel was filled with light.

  The rats pinning Wolfgart to the ground fled, scurrying off into the darkness, and he scrambled onto his backside, reaching for his dagger and mace.

  Wolfgart shielded his eyes from the source of the blinding light, seeing a number of short, armoured figures in gleaming plates of silver, bronze and gold advancing towards him.

  “Back, you devils!” he roared, blinking furiously as his eyes adjusted to the illumination.

  One of the armoured figures shouldered a bloody axe and knelt before him. The warrior raised the visor of its helmet, revealing a bearded face and a stern, but not unkind expression of recognition.

  Wolfgart laughed and let out a shuddering breath.

  “Once again the dwarfs come to the aid of you man-lings,” said Master Alaric with a wicked grin. “I
t’s getting to be a habit.”

  The viaduct and northern flank of the Fauschlag Rock were assaulted with the greatest ferocity, but the eastern and western flanks also came under heavy attack. Conn Carsten’s Udose fought with great courage, keeping the swarms of beasts from the makeshift ramparts with powerful sweeps of their wide-bladed broadswords. Their battles were fought to the tunes of gloriously heartbreaking laments played by pipers who marched through the thick of the fighting, heedless of the danger.

  Skirling tunes of lost loves and ancient wrongs provided a stirring backdrop for the clansmen, an emotional reminder of that for which they fought. Time and time again the beasts were hurled back, and each time the ingenious insults of the clansmen chased the bloody survivors away. Wineskins of grain liquor were passed around during each lull in the fighting, and though scores of fighters were dead and crippled, the mood was light, for the Udose were never happier than when they were in battle.

  Carsten’s warriors came from dozens of different clans, men and women who had been killing each other only weeks before in bitter internecine power struggles, but who now fought like lifelong sword-brothers. When the fighting was over they would go back to their feuding, and none would have it any other way.

  As Sigmar was casting the dread altar from the viaduct, and Pendrag brought down the last of the forsaken once-men, another ravening pack of beasts climbed the eastern cliffs. Once again, Conn Carsten called his warriors to battle in his grim and humourless manner, and every clansman readied his sword.

  But this attack was to be something different.

  Borne up the rock face by a monstrous bear-creature, a robed beast-shaman with the shaggy look of a bullish goat and the twisting antlers of a stag climbed onto the upper slopes of Middenheim. Arrows hammered the forest beasts as soon as they appeared, but the shaman uttered guttural words of power in a dark tongue, and they burst into flame.

  Instead of charging the defensive wall, the beasts gathered below the Udose, snarling and roaring as the beast-shaman chanted a filthy incantation. A creature with a body that was a meld of man and fox with sable fur threw itself to its knees before the beast-shaman, its head thrown back and its throat bared. A slash of the beast-shaman’s claws and its black blood arced up to spatter the grotesque sorcerer. Bathed in sacrificial blood, the beast-shaman let loose an ecstatic cry, its clawed hands twisting and tearing at the air.

  At first it seemed as though nothing was happening, but within moments it was clear that something was horribly wrong. It began among the clan warriors of the Gallis. Their hurled insults changed, losing the form of speech and becoming honking brays, bellowed roars and bestial growls.

  Horrified cries rippled outwards as the men and women of the Gallis began convulsing and the full terror of the beast-shaman’s sorcery took hold. Proud Udose warriors fell on all fours as their bones cracked and reshaped into new and hideous forms. Flesh slithered and swelled, bristling fur empted from pink flesh, and screams of terror became animal barks.

  Men fought to get away from these abominable transformations, and as the beast within each man took hold, the newly-birthed monsters threw themselves at their former comrades-in-arms. Within moments, the Udose were in disarray as the horribly altered warriors of the Gallis went on a bloody rampage, fangs tearing out throats and claws ripping flesh from bones. The pipes fell silent and the songs died, as what had begun as a gloriously raucous fight became a desperate battle for survival.

  As the Udose formation collapsed, the beasts below attacked.

  And there was no one to stop them.

  A very different battle was fought on the western flank of Middenheim, where the forces of Count Marius manned the defences. The Jutones had come to the City of the White Wolf with a host of mercenaries, men with olive skin who hailed from a sun-baked land far to the south. They spoke strangely, yet their skill in the art of killing needed no translation.

  Marius watched with disdain as the mutant abominations gathered on the slopes. Creatures with the powerfully muscled bodies of bears and wolves roared and stalked the cliffs of the Fauschlag Rock, wary of the deadly weapons of the men that could kill from afar.

  “Why do they bother?” he wondered aloud.

  “My lord?” asked his aide-de-camp, a handsome youth named Bastiaan.

  Marius waved a manicured hand at the slavering beasts.

  “What can such aberrations know of civilisation and commerce?” he asked. “The Norsii seek to conquer the lands of the south, but what will they do with such a prize? Become merchants? Learn to farm the land? Hardly.”

  “I do not know, my lord,” said Bastiaan, ever the sycophant. The boy was efficient and attended to his needs with alacrity. Sometimes he even said things of interest. “Perhaps vengeance drives them. You yourself have led hunts into the forest to cull such creatures.”

  “True, but war is a means of extending one’s will across the world,” said Marius. “War for the sake of vengeance is ultimately pointless. There is no profit in it.”

  “Not all wars are fought for profit, my lord.”

  “Nonsense, Bastiaan, analyse any conflict closely enough and you will find a lust for gold at its heart.”

  “The Norsii and these beasts do not fight for gold.”

  “Which is why disciplined volleys of crossbow bolts have hurled every attack from the rock,” Marius said. “Not a single beast has survived to reach the wall.” He drew his sword, the eastern-styled cavalry blade shimmering with a hazy light in the evening sun. “You see? This is the first time I have drawn my sword today. It has yet to be blooded.”

  Bastiaan nodded towards the rapt faces of the Jutone warriors.

  “Maybe so,” he said, “but I believe your warriors desire to meet their foes blade to blade.”

  “I am sure they will, but not yet,” said Marius. “It will be better for the mercenaries to bear the brunt of the beasts’ attack.”

  “You doubt the courage of your warriors?”

  “Not at all, but dead mercenaries do not require payment,” explained Marius.

  “Of course, my lord,” said Bastiaan. “I shall alter our account ledgers.”

  Marius smiled at the thought, picturing the secret treasure vaults hidden in the depths of the Namathir. Even with Sigmar’s ludicrously unfair levies and tithes after the battle of Jutonsryk, Marius still had more gold than any man could hope to spend in a dozen lifetimes. A young courtier had once remarked that his love of gold was akin to that of a dwarf, and though the remark was astute, Marius had the boy whipped to death.

  More of the beasts were gathering, and they were getting dangerously close. Marius frowned as he realised the mercenary crossbowmen were allowing them to climb unmolested towards the defensive wall. He felt tingling warmth in his hand as a strange, bitter taste of metal fizzed in the air.

  “What in the name of Manann are those fools doing?” demanded Marius. “Why are they not loosing their bolts?” The taste of metal grew stronger and the hairs on the back of his neck stood erect in a primal warning of danger.

  “I… I don’t know, my lord,” said Bastiaan, his voice sounding dreamlike. “Perhaps they don’t want to hit all the chests of gold.”

  Marius gave the boy a sidelong glance.

  “What foolishness are you talking about?” he asked. “What gold?”

  “There,” whispered Bastiaan, moving towards the wall. “So much gold!”

  Marius watched in horror as the mercenaries climbed over the defensive wall, fighting one another as they made their way towards the beasts without fear. A muttered ripple of heated conversation came from the ranks of Jutone warriors behind him. He turned to rebuke them for breaking silence, but his harsh words trailed off as he saw the glassy avarice in their eyes, each man lost in a dream of something wonderful.

  The warmth in his hand became heat, and he looked down to see the etched lettering running the length of his sword blade shimmering as though bathed in twilight. The golden-skinned king who had pr
esented it to him had claimed it could turn aside evil spells, though Marius hadn’t believed him at the time. A whispering evil urged him to sheath the blade, but Marius knew that his sword’s power was all that was protecting him from whatever fell sorcery affected his warriors.

  Bastiaan had reached the wall, but Marius ran forward and took hold of his arm.

  “Get back here, boy,” snapped Marius. No sooner had he touched his aide-de-camp than the boy shuddered and blinked in surprise. He looked from Marius to the beasts and back again.

  “What did you do with it?” he cried, tears spilling down his cheeks.

  “With what?” demanded Marius. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “The gold!” shouted Bastiaan. “It was there… All the gold in the world. It was mine!”

  “There is no gold there, you fool!” said Marius. “Snap out of it, you are ensorcelled.”

  Bastiaan shook off Marius’ grip.

  “Of course you’d say that!” he protested. “You want to keep it all for yourself! You don’t want anyone else to have any of your precious gold!”

  Marius slapped Bastiaan, tired of the boy’s theatrics. He brushed past the youth and leaned over the wall. The olive-skinned mercenaries were almost at the bottom of the slope. None of them had their weapons drawn, and their movements were like those of sleepwalkers.

  Marius saw the dreadful hunger in the eyes of the monsters. Saliva drooled from their jaws and he knew that he had only seconds to act.

  He turned to shout at his Jutone warriors, but before he could open his mouth, searing pain exploded in his side. Marius looked down and saw the golden hilt of an exquisitely fashioned knife pressed against his leather and silk doublet. Blood welled around the blade, and he watched, uncomprehending, as it spilled onto the stone flags.

  Bastiaan twisted the knife, and Marius cried out in pain, clutching his aide-de-camp’s shoulder as the strength in his legs gave out.