by Phil Kelly
MANNFRED CONFIRMED ACTIVE. CRUSADE ALREADY IN VALE. SEEKING END DARKNESS. FEW MEN. CRUSADE AND THEOGONIST LIKELY DOOMED.
REQUEST REINFORCEMENTS. ALTDORF. TEMPLEHOF. ANYWHERE.
SEND HELP. VON KORDEN
Sunscryer stared off to the peaks on the other side of the vale for a long minute before gathering his things and heading downstairs to the stables.
The wind moaned like a dying man as the wizards escorted the Collegium’s Luminark to the top of Templehof Crag. A pair of barded Stirland Punchers was yoked to the forebeams, slowly but surely pulling the wheeled war machine up the winding path.
Even without the Collegium’s warhorses lashed to its carriage the Luminark was massive. Half chariot, half enormous lens array, the thing dwarfed even the coaches of the Sylvanian aristocracy. The carriage’s central cabin was capped with a candle-strewn roof, atop which was a circular metal dais that held up a long and ornate construction of cast iron. Eight hoops of finely wrought silver were attached at regular intervals along its length, jutting up from the baroque framework in a manner reminiscent of a telescope. Each hoop held a convex disc of shimmering glass that sparkled greenish-yellow in the low light of Khalep’s lantern. Attuned correctly, the wyrdglass lenses could harness the invisible winds of magic and focus their aethyric energies into a searing lance of light that could burn a town to ash.
Once the Luminark had been hauled to the top of the winding path that girdled Templehof Crag, the acolytes pulled off the last of the dustsheets and busied themselves with adjusting screws and resetting glass lenses. Sunscryer hummed tunelessly to himself as he took measurements with his aethyric resonators and slide glasses, motioning for Khalep to revolve the contraption’s dais wheel a degree clockwise, then half a degree counterclockwise. There was precious little natural light left, but with the right incantations, even the fickle Wind of Hysh could be channelled from a wafting zephyr into a powerful beam. Neftep balanced precariously on an outcrop of rock in order to polish the last of the wyrdglass lenses with a lambskin cloth.
Deeming the alignments to be to his satisfaction, Sunscryer climbed the rungs that led to the cabin’s upper platforms and flexed the control levers with a sigh of appreciation.
A lone bat flitted through the twilight, its path seemingly random as it wound around the crag. Sunscryer’s expression soured. He called out an ancient phrase in Nehekharan, pitching the crescendo just as he gave the control levers a sudden twist. The machine thrummed for a moment before a beam of magical light shot out from the Luminark’s lenses. A moment later the remnants of a scorched wing spiraled down to rest at Khalep’s feet.
‘G-g-good shot, m-magister,’ said the young acolyte, eyebrows raised.
‘Why thank you, Master Sulenheim,’ replied Jovi, brushing a mote of dust from the cast iron of the Luminark’s frame. ‘Horrid little spies, those things. Though before this is over, I fear the bats we will be facing might be somewhat larger.’
Midnight was approaching, and the wizard’s coded message still flickered into the night. Each pulse would look much like distant lightning to a common man, but could be read as clear as day by one skilled in the arts.
Though the Luminark had been built as an engine of war, Jovi had long ago worked out the exact settings that would end in an instantaneous light-message to the Orbulus of his fellows in the Altdorf Colleges of Magic. From there, the message would be transferred to the offices of Balthasar Gelt himself. Though Gelt and Sunscryer had never seen eye to eye – it had been the Supreme Patriarch who had ‘suggested’ Sunscryer set up the collegium in Templehof in the first place – Gelt’s mastery over the alchemical arts was so great it might be able to help them in distant Sylvania. Whatever aid they could garner from their fellow wizards would be gratefully received. Better yet, Gelt had the ear of Karl Franz himself, and if anyone had influence enough to help them fight back against the darkness it was the Emperor.
Over the last few hours Jovi had adjusted every lens and screw to within a minute degree of accuracy, and his acolytes had joined him in a threefold chant designed to sharpen and increase intermittent pulses of magical energy.
Jovi pulled out a leather-bound telescope and focused it on the flickering beam that probed into the distance before making adjustments with his other hand: on, off-on, off-on-off. Over the last few hours, the stuttering pulses reached out across to the other side of the vale, but no further. It seemed to Sunscryer that the unnatural gloom itself was smothering the light-message like a witch suffocating a newborn.
Sunscryer had a nasty feeling that impression was disturbingly close to the truth.
‘M-m-magister,’ stammered Khalep, breaking the chant. ‘I think I n-n-need water, magister.’
The elderly wizard tutted and made a chopping motion, indicating that Neftep should stop. ‘No stamina, you lot,’ he croaked, testily. In truth he was glad of the reprieve; his own throat was getting raw too. He stared balefully at the thickening darkness on the horizon. ‘Very well. There’s a carafe in the cabin, bring it up when you’re done.’
Khalep slunk below, handing up a snake-handled jug and some wafers to his fellow wizards.
‘Dammit,’ said Jovi, rubbing his eyes and taking a sip of water. ‘There’s definitely something acting against us. This darkness was summoned by a ritual of some kind, I feel sure – and a powerful one at that. I’ve a book down in the library that tells of a similar event plaguing the rule of the Priest King Alcadizaar – a ‘great darkness’ that was unquestionably the work of the Great Necromancer himself.’
Neftep blanched and made the sign of the rising sun over his chest, fingers splayed.
‘For a spell of this magnitude to last this long, and continue to get worse with each passing day,’ continued Jovi seriously, ‘would require a power source of godly proportions.’
‘Is there any other way we can get the message out, master?’ said Neftep.
‘Well, the Deathknell Watches might work over time, though by the look of it our friend von Korden already has that side of things covered. And time is a commodity we do not have. Part of the Luminark’s genius is that its light-message is functionally instantaneous.’
‘So can we bolster it somehow, overcome the curse through sheer force?’
‘Theoretically speaking, yes,’ said Jovi. ‘If we could get the Luminark up higher still, and channel even more of the Wind of Hysh into it, we could potentially overcome even this unnatural darkness. I do recall seeing a lens that would do the job, in my youth. The end piece of a scrying scope. Impressive piece, though not as finely wrought as one of my own creations.’
‘We could fetch it for you, master,’ volunteered Neftep. Khalep looked over his master’s shoulder at his companion, his eyes wide and his head shaking from side to side.
‘Hmm? Ah, well, I think perhaps we should all go, Neftep,’ said Sunscryer, nervously. ‘It’s in Vargravia, you see. The hidden necropolis.’
THE GREAT WESTERN ROAD
The Vale of Darkness, 2522
Robed worshippers chanted their adulation as Volkmar rose above the stone circle, dark energies crackling around him. He was immense, and powerful beyond measure. Bound spirits whirled around him, shrieking his name. He would have his revenge upon his enemies and bind them to his will for the rest of time. His hand burned fiercely, but the pain merely invigorated him, making his hatred all the more potent. He breathed out a billowing cloud of death, and the mortal fools gathered in worship below him withered away to nothing.
The Grand Theogonist awoke with a start, jerking upward from the lectern of the war altar at the rear of the crusading host. The disturbing dream still clutched at him. His left hand throbbed with a strange mixture of numbness and pain, but his right flew to the sacred warhammer at his side, and the strange sensations quickly faded away.
Somehow, he had allowed himself to fall asleep. Volkmar chided himself, pinching the skin on his wrist so hard he left a red-black blister behind. To sleep at the lectern of the war
altar was an unforgivable lapse, heresy even, especially after the events at Fort Oberstyre. Yet none of his men had noticed, thank Sigmar. Even Kaslain was intent on the road ahead.
A lucky escape, then. With the stakes as high as they were, Volkmar could not afford to show weakness, not even to his own men. He was expecting the same from them, after all.
The grand exorcism of Oberstyre had been mentally and spiritually draining. Those of the Tattersouls whose faith in Sigmar had not proven sufficient had died in terror, the cold claws of the fortress’s ghosts closing around their hearts. Many more had met grisly ends in the lightless maze of cellars beneath Oberstyre, fighting blind against the troglodytes that infested the underground tunnels.
They had not given their lives in vain. Not a single evil soul had dwelt there by the break of dawn. The spirit-bound guardians of that haunted keep had been obliterated forever, burned out of the walls by the sheer golden light of the Sigmarite faith. Those stone-gheists that had proved powerful enough to linger had instead met their demise at the end of Volkmar’s blessed hammer. Mannfred’s dark work had been undone, even if the vampire’s trail had long gone cold.
The remains of the Tattersouls continued their procession through the mud, wailing, muttering, even dancing wildly as they accompanied the war altar along the Great Western Road. Arch Lector Kaslain strode at the front of the procession, stoically ignoring the screeching and gnashing of the zealots behind him as he ploughed on through the muck towards Deihstein.
Coming from the other direction along the wide road was another procession of sorts, looking if anything even more desolate than Volkmar’s own tattered crusaders. Malnourished oxen drew carts full of pockmarked, disfigured children along the muddy ruts, the peasantry on the riding plates hunched under threadbare blankets. Those not berthed on a cart dragged mud-sleds along the road, their meagre possessions lashed to wooded slats. Pregnant women rode sidesaddle on cows and mules whilst slow-witted adolescents picked their noses and ate the dubious treasures they had unearthed.
It took some time for the presence of the war altar to register in the oncoming throng. When it did, whispers spread through them like wind through a blighted crop. Carts were wheeled over into ditches, young children and old crones alike spilling out with cries of protest. Goats were shoved bleating into dry brown hedgerows, and mules were led into fields of rotten crops in order to let the war altar pass. Many of the peasants went down on their knees in the mud, eyes downcast.
‘An omen! Sigmar is here to save us from the darkness!’ screeched a wizened old grandmother.
‘Bring back the sun!’ shouted a tiny girl child. ‘There’s no plants for Gurden!’
A group of the peasants surged forwards towards the war altar, arms outstretched and eyes alight with hunger. Their advance was met by the Tattersouls, the flagellants flowing forward in a line of unwashed bodies that blocked the road. The peasants pulled up short, cowed by the madness in the eyes of the men barring their path.
‘The End!’ screeched Gerhardt the Worm into the face of the nearest peasant. ‘The End is here! All shall die!’
‘Nothing new,’ replied the lowlander, his badly cleft lip blurring his words. ‘We grew up here, mate.’
‘Sigmar!’ shouted the zealot. ‘Sigmar shall deliver us if we fling ourselves bodily into the next life!’
‘We’re flinging ourselves bodily into Ostermark,’ said the peasant, drily. ‘Nothing here for us now but graves.’
‘And them wot used to lie in ’em,’ muttered a tangle-haired matron by his side.
The peasant looked up at Arch Lector Kaslain, ignoring Gerhardt as best he could. ‘Is that bald bloke s’posed to be the Lord Theogonite or something? Sigmarzeit festival’s cancelled, I reckon.’
‘It is the Grand Theogonist, simpleton. And you’d do well to keep your tongue civil in his presence,’ rumbled Kaslain.
‘Well swap me blind,’ said the peasant, making the sign of the hammer. ‘Temple’s hollow, holy symbols gone, but Shallya’s smalls, here comes the old Volcano himself. Using our road, no less. And scant hours after we see a bunch of humourless bastards all dressed up in uniform.’ He turned to the woman, touching the dried hound’s foot at his throat. ‘Something’s up, right enough.’
‘Uniform?’ said Kaslain. ‘Was it Talabheim, red and white?’
‘Aye, that’s them,’ slurred the spokesman, motioning his wife and fellows back. ‘City types, they were. Reckon you’ll catch ‘em up if you hurry. Watch the roads, though, and the fields. Bad types about.’
The peasant brushed his way past the Tattersouls, casting a remark over his shoulder as he went.
‘And if you lot find what you’re lookin’ for? Sigmar help you all.’
SOUTH OF TEMPLEHOF
The Vale of Darkness, 2522
Since leaving Templehof Crag for Vargravia the Light wizards had made slow but steady progress along the country roads. The light was fading to pitch black, and their spirits had faded with it. Neftep had grown sick of humouring his master’s attempts to keep up morale, and had pulled a greased leather over his head to keep off the drizzling rain. Khalep took a turn at keeping the old man occupied instead.
‘So w-w-w…’
‘The location we’re headed to, since you asked, Khalep, is the abandoned manse of an astromancer, built on the highest point of the Vargravian mountains. Riddled with ghosts, though, the whole place. They say the celestialist buried himself alive to escape them.’
‘W-wonderful,’ said Khalep.
‘We won’t be tarrying, never fear,’ said the elderly wizard, his tone dark. ‘I strayed in there once, when I was younger even than yourselves. The scythe-gheists that guard the place scared me half to death, quite literally. My hair turned white and fell out in clumps. No wonder the Sylvanians avoid the place like the plague. Still, at least it wasn’t Whispering Nell playing host.’
Silence stretched out before Khalep gave in.
‘W-w-w…’
‘Who’s Whispering Nell, you say, Khalep? Ah, but she’s a nasty one. Countess Emmanuelle von Templehof, to give the old bitch her due. Once the cousin of Konrad the Bloody. A femme fatale in life and even deadlier in death.’
‘How so?’ asked Neftep, fearing the answer.
‘Ah, well. They say that if she whispers your true name within earshot, your body dies and your soul is hers for all eternity. Horrid fate, she’s not the looker she once was. Too many maggots.’ Sunscryer took out his telescope and peered into the distance before continuing. ‘I’d be much obliged if neither of you referred to me by name when we’re within Vargravia’s borders. I’ll do the same for you, of course. Sound good?’
The acolytes shared a look. Shaking his head in despair, Neftep made to get off the Luminark, but Khalep grabbed him by the robes and pointed to the darkness that choked the skies above. Slump-shouldered, his comrade sat back down with a sigh.
The warhorses under the Luminark’s yoke ploughed on through the mud. The trio of wizards rounded a corner, and the loose hedgerow opened to reveal a large black building with shattered windows that bled gold in the night.
‘Is that…’
‘It is indeed! The Drunken Goat, arguably the most robust of Sylvania’s roadside taverns. Excellent pork. And it looks like old Bors left the lanterns on before he took to his heels.’
The three wizards approached the dripping eaves of the inn together, the sleeves of their robes held overhead to keep off the worst of the rain. The door was stout oak, though claw marks had gouged furrows into it. A piece of broken fingernail was still embedded in the jamb. Sunscryer reached out with his serpent-tipped staff and rapped hard on the studded planks of the front door.
There was no answer. He pushed, but the door was barred fast.
The elderly wizard held up a cautionary finger towards his acolytes before pulling a lodestone from his robes and moving the magnetic lump across the door. There was a solid, metallic thunk from the other side.
�
��Ha! Gelt’s not the only master of magnetism in the colleges,’ said Sunscryer, pushing the heavy oak open with a creak.
A crossbow bolt thrummed through the air and embedded itself in the doorjamb less than an inch from the old wizard’s head. A dozen blades were thrust in his direction, including spears, farming implements and even the sharpened handle of a long skillet. Behind Jovi, Neftep began Shem’s Chant of Blinding, the Nehekharan syllables sounding raw and strange in the silence.
‘Oh, do put a sock in it, Neftep,’ said Sunscryer to his acolyte. ‘Is Bors about, gentlemen?’
A great cry of relief came from the huddled patrons of the inn. The wizards were roughly pulled inside and roundly slapped on the back, so much so that Khalep stumbled face first into the stained and wobbling chest of Big Delf the cook. Bors Ratsnatcher came out from behind the grandfather clock, cudgel in hand, and motioned for Long Cobb to pour each of the wizards a drink. Before a minute had passed the trio was seated at one of the oaken tables, foaming tankards of Troll Brew in their scrawny hands.
‘We thought you lot’d be long gone by now,’ said a brawny hard drinker with a smile only a tooth doctor could love.
‘Bernhardt!’ said Jovi, draining the last of his tankard. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Goat quite so busy.’
‘You say that,’ replied Bernhardt, ‘but this is it. This is everyone.’
‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘Pretty much everyone else in Sylvania has legged it, as far as we can make out. Headed for Ostermark, the Moot, even the mountains. It’s this bloody darkness. Everythin’s dyin’ off.’
‘And you fellows intend to make the difference, do you? Fight back?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Bernhardt darkly, pressing another tankard of ale into Sunscryer’s hands. ‘We intend to get drunk.’
DEIHSTEIN RIDGE
