by Phil Kelly
‘You can tell me in a moment,’ said von Korden. ‘I’ve a feeling I’m not going to like it.’ The hunter hung his battered hat on the bat-like skull of the Templehof vargheist, its wide brim covering the bullet hole under the gruesome trophy’s eye socket. He sank into an old leather armchair that puffed out all the dust it had accumulated since his last visit, and swung his longboots up onto the lip of the crumbling well at the watchtower’s centre. Settled in, he lit a bone-handled pipe and raised his eyebrows at Steig. A fug of blue smoke curled around his greasy grey-blond hair.
‘Well?’
‘Well, you got a message from the old Volcano himself, boss,’ said Steig, scratching his armpit like a flea-bitten dog. ‘You’re needed back in Altdorf, quick and double-sharp. Freidricksen reckons them clueless ponces at the conclave decided the sun going out was important after all.’
‘Ha! So they want me back at court, do they? Short memories.’
‘Looks that way,’ said Steig. ‘All’s forgiven when the lights go out, as my pa used to say.’
‘Hmph. Reikland idiots. They’re all as corrupt as each other. Right,’ said von Korden, tapping out his pipe and rising to take his hat from the vargheist skull on the wall, ‘I’m off to the Stir, then to try and buy passage back west. Unholdt, try to keep this lot alive until I get back, or at least give them a proper burial when you balls it up.’
By the fire, Unholdt looked at his captain preparing to leave and shook his head in wonder. Less than a minute of rest and von Korden was already heading off on another near-suicidal journey.
‘And if you do see our charming friends, the brothers Ghorst,’ continued von Korden, ‘for Sigmar’s sake stay the hell out of their way. No one wants a berth on that godforsaken cart. Steig – is there anything else I should know before I leave?’
‘Nah,’ replied Steig. ‘The high-and-mighties just want information, by the sound of it.’
‘Oh, they’ll get it,’ said von Korden darkly, snatching his parchment case and a pot of ink from the mantle on his way out the door. ‘Finally. They’ll get it.’
THE OLD WEST ROAD
The Vale of Darkness, 2522
The slow toll of an ancient bell rang out through the mist shrouding the Sylvanian country roads. Its peals were like the plaintive cries of a trapped child who knew no one could hear it.
The foul carriage the bell was mounted upon shivered and slid through the muddy ruts. Though the cart would perhaps pass as a peasant’s wagon from a distance, the creatures that pulled it were not mules, and its cargo was unusual even for Sylvania.
Lurching at the carriage’s front were two pairs of rotting corpses, the cross-spars of the cart’s yoke protruding from their ravaged chests. Gruesome fluids seeped from their punctured lungs and opened hearts as they strained to pull the contraption along. Maggots spilled from their sides with every bump in the uneven road. Their bare feet squished through the mud at a plodding but relentless pace, their broken ankles and missing toes no hindrance.
Behind them, the cart’s chassis was fashioned much like a giant upturned ribcage. Heaped amongst the bony spars were dozens of corpses in various states of decay. Those at the bottom were black with putrefaction, their organs dribbling yellowish fluids into the puddles of the road behind. Blind, hungry rats nipped at baggy stomachs and distended guts, scurrying back and forth in their quest for edible meat.
Atop the heaped corpses sat a hunched figure, cross-legged and robed in the manner of a mendicant. He crooned a lilting song over and over, a farrier’s loop he had written long ago to enliven the making of horseshoes. He had sung it for his brothers in life. The least he could do was to sing it for them in death, too.
The cart hit a rut in the ground and lurched sideways, causing one of the cadavers piled atop it to slide into the mud in a jumble of floppy limbs. The hooded figure tutted and the cart ground to a halt. The corpses at its fore slumped in their harnesses as if exhausted.
‘Come on, lads,’ said the robed figure. ‘We’ve been over this.’ His reed-thin voice had a forced jollity to it, like an exasperated teacher with a difficult pupil. ‘If you hit the ruts at an angle, we usually lose someone, and then we have to stop the cart again.’
His brothers moaned and drooled mindlessly, gnashing their broken jaws and lolling their skinless heads. The figure sighed. They used to be so strong, so reliable. Before the Plague of Blue Roses came, of course. Then everything changed.
If only he had been able to court the plague’s kiss too, he would at least have some measure of peace. But for some reason the spores had left his flesh without their signature rosettes, and he had been unable to catch it.
‘Not for lack of trying, mind,’ the figure whispered to himself.
That was when he had first used the spell. The spell of… life. It was a spell of life, no matter what the voices said.
Blinking to clear away the unwelcome thoughts, the figure called to mind the words his new friend’s book had taught him. He was so lucky he had fled into forbidden Vargravia after the incident in the village. Such wonders he had seen since that day.
As the robed figure began to chant, the cadaver that had slid into the mud slowly untangled its limbs as if rearranged by an invisible hand. All of a sudden it jerked upright like a puppet. The bell on the back of the carriage tolled of its own accord as dark powers welled around the cart.
As the fallen cadaver approached the ribs at the cart’s side, hands writhed and twitched in the heap, reaching out and helping the corpse back up into their midst.
‘I just knew you were going to be trouble, Master Carnavein,’ muttered the necromancer, looking disappointedly at the half-eaten corpse as it climbed aboard and collapsed backwards onto the pile. The cadaver’s mouth was open in a wordless scream. As the figure looked down, a rat wriggled inside its open jaws. ‘That’s better,’ said the figure. ‘Wedge yourself in tight. We’re all friends here.’
Helman Ghorst raised his eyes up to the dark skies rumbling above. Night was almost upon them. His friend Count Mannfred would be very upset if they were late.
‘Honestly,’ he whispered to himself. ‘At this rate we’ll never get to Konigstein Watch.’
SYLVANIAN BORDER, THE RIVER STIR
Five days later
The Luitpold III chugged through the night at a deceptive pace, smoke billowing into the trees that lined the river. The forests on either side of the Stir were so ancient their canopies entwined above the watercourse, their twisted branches linked together like the fingers of suicidal lovers. Strange howls echoed in the depths, and the occasional flurry of movement caught the eye of the guards ranged along the giant barge’s length.
Ten handgunners from the Stir River Patrol had been stationed port and starboard, but nobody seriously expected any trouble. The bestial tribes and forest goblins that haunted the riverbanks were savage, but they were not stupid. The armoured steam barge was a leviathan almost a hundred metres in length, a river-going fortress that boasted nautical-grade cannons and handgun nests along both sides. Unlike its predecessors, the Luitpold III was built to last.
Volkmar stood on the barge’s upper deck in the morning air, breath frosting in the cold as he straightened out his aching back. Mighty as it was, the armoured barge was no Heldenhammer. He felt a pang of loss at the grand old warship’s theft earlier that year, taken by stealth mere hours after he had refused to aid the pirate lord Jaego Roth in his quest to slay the vampire Count Noctilus. Now another priceless relic in the care of the Sigmarite cult had been stolen from under him.
Instead of his four-poster bed in the galleon’s Grand Templus, the Grand Theogonist had to make do with a cramped cot stained by the sweat of a dozen former occupants. He had left his dubious berth to get some fresh air, sick of the fug below decks and unable to sleep with his imminent disgrace hanging over his thoughts. Killing something that was already dead would make him feel better, no doubt. He was almost looking forward to plunging into lightless depths of Sylv
ania, far from the accusing eyes of the Altdorf court.
Standing upon the prow of the barge was von Korden, booted foot on the rail and eyes fixed on the river ahead. As far as the Grand Theogonist knew, he had been standing up there all night. He was quite a piece of work, that one, and as driven as any man he had ever met.
Years back, Volkmar had tasked the witch hunter with rooting out Chaos worship from the nation’s capital. The covert operation had backfired spectacularly. The witch hunter had been mercilessly effective, stirring up a hornet’s nest of corruption that stretched all the way from Marienburg to Kislev. The latter stages of the debacle had seen von Korden burn an entire cult of Chaos-worshipping nobles at the stake. That was all well and good as far as Volkmar was concerned; the realm could use a few less traitors to the crown. The problem was that the witch hunter had also burned dozens of ‘accomplices’, family members and servants who had committed no crime other than being linked to the guilty parties by blood or even solely by profession.
That had been just the beginning. Before the year was out von Korden had a reputation for executing as many of the innocent as he did the guilty. Pressure was applied from the guilds to have the hunter disposed of, and events had spun even further out of control. Karl Franz himself intervened by having von Korden reassigned to Sylvania, where his pitiless attentions could be directed towards the restless dead instead of the living.
The Emperor’s course of action had proved wise. Despite the persecution of his order by the forces that haunted the Vale of Darkness, von Korden had thrived there. He had three vampire kills to his name already, and the fanged skulls to prove it. Earlier that day he had boasted to Volkmar that he fully expected Mannfred to be the fourth.
The forces of undeath were fighting back, though. According to the extensive journals the witch hunter had handed Volkmar in the Grand Temple, von Korden had been the only one of his order left alive in the entire province. The rest had been hunted down and killed in their beds.
Volkmar suppressed a surge of rising temper at the thought. Merciless killers or not, the witch hunters were operatives of the Sigmarite cult, and he could ill afford to lose them. To fight the monsters of the world, one must sometimes become a monster, or a madman at the very least.
His thoughts strayed to the brotherhood that called themselves the Tattersouls, busily whipping themselves bloody below decks as part of their morning prayers. Not madmen as such, just… fanatically zealous. Especially in the presence of a blessed relic like the war altar of Sigmar, or – say – the head of the Sigmarite cult. The Grand Theogonist blew a long, frosting plume of breath out of his cheeks. Perhaps that was another reason why he loved prayer time so much. It was about the only time the bloody maniacs left him alone.
‘Your holiness?’ came a respectful voice. ‘We’re approaching it now.’ Captain Vance of the Luitpold III, a heavily tattooed veteran of the River Patrol, moved up beside Volkmar and motioned him forward. Volkmar picked up the hem of his robes and stepped over the rope-stops until he got to the front of the barge, deliberately keeping a few paces between himself and von Korden. Whatever the witch hunter had in that pipe stank to high heaven.
The river wound on with majestic slowness, the forest eaves silent to either side. Volkmar was on the verge of asking Captain Vance what he was talking about when they turned a bend in the river and the scale of the curse affecting Sylvania became horribly clear.
A curtain of almost tangible darkness had been drawn across the horizon, or what they could see of it. The wall of grey-black gloom obscured everything on the other side – Volkmar could just about make out the waters of the Stir, but little else. He shook his head slowly. Von Korden had not been exaggerating after all.
‘It’s worse than it was,’ said the witch hunter, dolefully. ‘Even since I left, it’s got noticeably worse.’
‘Shadow magic, you think?’ asked Volkmar.
‘A corrupted version, perhaps,’ replied von Korden. ‘This has to be something far stronger, though. It’s killing the whole province from the bottom up. First the plants die, then the creatures that eat the plants die, and then, when the food runs out altogether…’
‘The people start to eat each other,’ finished Volkmar.
‘It happens,’ said von Korden darkly, his sidelong glance meeting the Grand Theogonist’s eye for a moment. ‘It happens more often than you’d think.’ The witch hunter’s face twisted into a mask of rage for a second, startling Volkmar with its intensity.
The hunter took a long draw from his pipe, masking his features with his hand before continuing. ‘The von Carsteins,’ he said. ‘They’ve always brought the night with them, especially when going to war. Swarms of bats, thunderclouds even. It’s something to do with their curse. They can’t stand direct sunlight. But this… this is something else.’
The two men stared out into the Sylvanian darkness, each lost in their own thoughts. Behind them, the barge’s crewmen were surfacing from below decks, a handful of the Talabheimers that Volkmar had requested as reinforcements from Leitzigerford in their wake. There were muttered comments and a few gasps as more and more men emerged onto the deck.
‘My apologies, your honour,’ said Captain Vance. ‘I’ve spoken to the lads. We respect what you’re doing and all, but we’re not much for this cursed murk. We’ll take you as far as Helsee, but that’s us done. The river widens enough even for the Luitpold to come about, down there. The idea is to be heading back before night falls. Well, proper night, if you take my meaning.’
Volkmar looked at von Korden for a second, his eyebrow raised.
‘Helsee’ll do fine,’ said the witch hunter quietly, his eyes still straining into the darkness.
‘Understood,’ replied Volkmar. ‘Captain, you’ve more than done your duty getting us this far this quickly. See us safe to Helsee and you can return to Altdorf with my blessing. The temple will reimburse you for your time, and for the coal.’
‘My thanks, your holiness,’ said the captain, sketching a bow and heading back to the steamhouse at the barge’s stern.
The curtain of darkness came closer with every passing minute. As the barge neared within a stone’s throw, the Grand Theogonist felt a powerful urge to head below decks so the unnatural darkness could not touch his skin. For a moment he even considered cancelling the whole crusade and heading back to the safety of the light. He fought the feelings off with ease, but they disturbed him nonetheless.
‘Felt that, did you?’ said von Korden, his humourless smile widening as they passed into the shroud of darkness.
‘I did indeed. Someone wants to be left alone.’
‘That someone,’ said von Korden, ‘is in for a surprise.’
HELSEE
The Vale of Darkness, 2522
Helsee, the vast body of water that fed into the Stir from the heart of Sylvania, was poorly named. It might well have seemed like a sea to the peasants that first discovered it, for it was larger than any other lake in the Empire, but according to Captain Vance it could theoretically be crossed with less than a day’s sail. Volkmar gazed out across the thin mist that covered the waters. The peasants had got the first part of the name right, at least. Woe betide the fool who plied it in anything less than a waterborne fortress.
The lake’s waters were black with some nameless curse. Grasping little waves clawed at beaches whose sands were little more than powdered bone. Scattered amongst the osseous dunes were the bleached remains of strange and indefinable monsters that prowled Helsee’s depths. Their skulls reminded Volkmar of the dragon bones he had gawped at as a boy in the Altdorfer Mausoleum; he had spent the rest of the day slaying invisible dragons with the wooden Ghal Maraz his father had carved him. Precious times, far too long in the past.
On the shores of the lake the crusaders were debarking from the Luitpold III with commendable efficiency. With the help of the barge’s crew and the strongest of the crusade’s warriors, even the war altar’s mighty carriage had made it to the s
hore without getting wet. Atop the barge’s foremost turret stood Captain Vance, shouting orders in a voice used to command. He had clearly performed similar operations a hundred times before. The upper parts of the fortified barge’s flanks had been splayed and pivoted to become great ramps that looked like they could support a steam tank. Nearby, Volkmar’s troops were filing out and forming up without complaint.
Volkmar surveyed the men on the bone-white beach, his pride at the efficiency of their disembarkation marred by the fact there was so damn few of them. Less than a hundred, all told, even with the reinforcements that Karl Franz had arranged to meet them at Leitzigerford. Still, what they lacked in numbers they more than made up for in faith. Volkmar and Karl Franz had made sure of it. Even the Talabheimers had been individually selected for the strength of their religious beliefs. In the war against the evils of the world, true faith was worth a dozen swords. In battle against the horrors of undeath, it was priceless.
By the shore were Sigmar’s Sons, a regiment of devout and reliable swordsmen that Volkmar had fought alongside against the Chaos worshippers of the north. They were helping to debark an Imperial great cannon that had begun its military career at the Gorstanford witch trial many years ago. At the foot of the ramp von Korden was briefing the champion of the swordsmen, Eben Swaft, along with Bennec Sootson’s artillerymen and the dark-skinned leader of the Knights of the Blazing Sun, Lupio Blaze. The Estalian officer’s knights wore polished black plate adorned with suns of solid gold, and the warhorses they led down the barge-ramps wore scalloped barding lacquered with stylised solar flares.
The Estalians worshipped the warrior goddess Myrmidia over Sigmar, but their faith was strong nonetheless. Preceptor Blaze had practically begged Volkmar to let his men join the crusade, and though the Grand Theogonist had initially refused them on grounds of divergent religions, he had eventually come round to the idea. A unit of heavy cavalry could be very useful indeed.
