The journey to the castle was slow and arduous. As Karsten had said, the land north of the Grey Mountains was harsh and unforgiving. On either side of the winding road heading back towards the passes, they were overshadowed by high, dark crags of wind-gnawed rock. Where the rock gave way, it was replaced by gloomy, tangled forests. The trees looked as old as the bones of the earth, and there were no obvious tracks into the hidden, oppressive depths. Lothar imagined an army trying to traverse such a landscape, and knew that the castellan was right. The orcs would have to head north, following in their footsteps, until the wilderness relented a little.
Lothar slept fitfully during the nights, his dreams still troubled by memories of Helmgart. Daylight brought little relief, more endless trudging, blisters and aching limbs. The remnants of the garrison had almost no food with them, and as time went on the pace of the march slowed. Water was easier to come by, and there were many streams running down from the peaks, but even the few abandoned dwellings they came across had little in the way of provisions. It was a relief when they descended into slightly easier country, and Lothar began to regain some hope of finding supplies.
Eventually, they reached the valley of the River Bögen, and Karsten picked up the pace, knowing that the castle was near. After a morning labouring through gloomy, boggy forest, they finally broke free of the trees and on to a man-made clearing. Ahead of them, maybe two miles away, Castle Grauenberg’s squat turrets stood on a low rise to the north. Lothar felt his spirits lift, even through his fatigue. At least they would be able to eat. Only then would they have to turn their minds once more to Karsten’s plan.
The castle stood at the centre of a rare opening in the otherwise endless forests, and the land looked like it was well tilled and fertile. If things had been different, the scene before them would have been one of pastoral plenty, the height of spring a time for dancing, carousing and courting. A few modest hamlets clustered some distance away from the shadow of the trees, and looked prosperous enough for all their isolation. But news of the disaster had come to the area from the fleeing inhabitants of settlements nearer the mountains, and their tales had been filled with portents of terror, and so the ragged company of men plodded through deserted fields.
Only once did they meet a bunch of travellers sheltering in the empty barn of an abandoned farm. Some of them joined the company as they made their way to the castle gates, Karsten willing to accept almost any recruits in the circumstances.
Lothar examined the new arrivals carefully as they walked and joked at the rear of the disciplined lines of the castellan’s remaining soldiers. Some looked like the kind of hired thugs and mercenaries that could be found all over the Empire. Their ravaged grins spoke of cunning, unreliability and avarice. Others were young farmhands, their open faces full of excitement and anticipation at the glorious adventure they were confident awaited them. No doubt most had never seen a greenskin before. Lothar felt a pang of sadness as he gazed on their cheerful expressions, remembering the blood of those at Helmgart, and looked away.
Eager to rest and eat, they journeyed quickly across the plain to the castle. Karsten was in a good mood, and Lothar could see that he was eager to reinforce his battered company with fresh men and weapons. The others seemed to feel the same, and the exhaustion of the journey was forgotten for a moment as they went quickly up to the walls. Like most fortresses, Grauenburg was squat, grey and ugly. Lothar was no stonemason, but even he could see the walls were neither as thick nor as sturdy as those at Helmgart. He looked up at the ramparts. No figures were to be seen, and the standard of the Reikland had been drawn down. There wasn’t even a token group of guards to escort them within, and the gates remained closed. Beside him, Karsten strode up to the heavy oak doors and rapped hard on the iron-bound surface with his sword pommel.
“Open the gates!” he cried, anger evident in his voice.
After a few moments of muffled banging from the inside, the doors were finally laboriously pulled open. On the inside, a group of slovenly swordsmen blinked in the light as if they were venturing out of an underground realm for the first time.
“Where is the commander of the garrison?” hissed Karsten.
The leader of the castle guards, unshaven and smelling strongly of drink, propped himself unsteadily against the stone walls of the gatehouse. He looked blearily at Karsten and quickly decided that the man in front of him was an Imperial officer of some sort. With effort, he stood more upright.
“The pox, sir,” he said, blearily. “The baron left weeks ago with his family and most of the servants. There aren’t many of us left. They were due back when the worst of the plague was over, but they’ve probably heard about the orcs. Bad timing, I’d say.”
Karsten looked crushed.
“What did you think, that barricading yourselves inside and drinking the cellars dry would save you from the greenskins?” he said wearily. “Still, at least you stayed. Pull the gates open properly, and then go and sober up. I’m in command now, and I’ll need you ready for duty in an hour.”
His expression a mixture of shame and fear, the guard bowed, and the gates were slowly winched open. The ramshackle band of refugees quickly filed in. Karsten, despite the disappointment, looked a tower of strength. His voice bellowed out across the castle courtyard as he ordered his meagre forces this way and that, making the best of his limited resources. Within moments, food stores had been located and distributed, the process of sharpening blade edges and trimming arrows had begun, and the fires in the keep refectory had been kindled.
Lothar couldn’t help but admire the tenacity of the man. It was probably futile, and the castle only had a few days to survive whatever the outcome of his plan, but if Sigmar in his wisdom was disposed to offer any rewards for faith, then the severe-faced castellan was surely at the head of the list. Lothar walked over to his side, his iron-tipped staff clicking against the wide flags of the stone floor.
“Shall we have a look at the stores?” he asked, motioning to the keep’s main entrance.
Karsten looked around at the surrounding hive of activity, his expression careworn.
“I suppose so,” he said, somewhat distractedly, “although this isn’t quite what I expected. Better to start early, the men seem to have things under control here. Let’s be quick.”
They entered the cool interior of the castle keep. The corridors were deserted and echoing. Only the clatter of their men’s activity broke the uncomfortable quiet, most of the permanent inhabitants of the castle having long gone. Perhaps only two dozen armed men remained to augment the dregs from Helmgart, and it would be some time before the effects of strong ale would ebb enough to make them useful. Lothar could tell that Karsten was incensed by this, but the wizard was not as surprised. Few were as unwavering in their devotion to the Empire as the castellan, and most fell far short of his standards.
The two men passed quickly from the upper chambers down a long, narrow walkway towards the cavernous storerooms at the base of the castle. The light from the narrow windows above them was not strong, but it was enough to see by. The designers of the castle had clearly seen the problem with using torches to inspect the stocks of blackpowder. They paused at a heavy, iron barred door at the end of the corridor. The padlock looked rusty and feeble. With a firm blow from his sword, Karsten smashed it apart, and the door swung open with a creak.
“Sloppy,” said Karsten, shaking his head at the ease with which the locked door was breached, “but I suppose it has saved us some time.”
Inside, the large chamber loomed both high and long. Narrow windows thirty feet above them allowed shafts of pale light to filter down, illuminating rows and rows of tightly packed barrels. Lothar stood for a moment, trying to estimate how many there were. It must have been several hundred.
“By the Heldenhammer,” breathed Karsten, looking around with approval. “I had no idea how much stock would be here, but the store’s nearly full. There’s enough powder here to blast us a passage to Cathay.
”
Lothar found himself smiling grimly.
“You’re right,” he said appreciatively. “Perhaps we should try it.”
“Oh, I intend to,” Karsten said, his grin looking wolfish in the dim light of the chamber, “but if we’re going to do this properly, these little beasts need rearranging somewhat. I’ll go and round up some of my men. I’d like everything in place before this evening. I won’t be long. In the meantime, don’t do anything unusual with that staff.”
Balthasar Gelt, his red cloak swirling as he went, strode furiously along the mirrored corridors of the Imperial palace, his gold-encrusted staff clanging loudly against the polished floor. Like a vengeful force of nature, he stormed through delicately carved doorways and exquisite reception chambers. Various courtiers and servants he passed watched him open-mouthed. Eventually, he came to a writing desk sitting alone at the end of a glorious, light-filled hall, manned by a single diminutive official in absurdly grandiose burgundy robes. When the little man caught sight of Gelt coming towards him, he half began to rise, looking around as if for a way out. There was none, so he sank back again into his seat, swallowing nervously.
“Morr curse your miserable hide, you limp-wristed, dead-eyed, pox-ridden bastard of a beggar’s halfpenny harlot!” he spat, his blank golden expression entirely at odds with the vitriol being directed at the unfortunate occupier of the desk. “I sent two messengers here this morning demanding an audience with the Emperor, and they both came back empty handed. Do you think I’m some minor flunky you can brush off with your excuses, you fish-breathed, knock-kneed, humpbacked sewer-dwelling wretch?”
The Secretary of the Emperor’s Inner Chambers, who despite his unpromising appearance was a very high ranking Imperial servant, cleared his throat delicately, trying his best to meet the impassive gaze of the golden face looming over him.
“My apologies, Supreme Patriarch,” he stuttered uncertainly. “The Emperor is at present out of the palace, and I have strict orders not to disturb him. I did explain this to your messengers, but…”
Gelt smashed his gauntlet onto the desk, scattering the various ornaments cluttering its surface and sending them skidding across the marble floor.
“Don’t bandy your weasel words with me!” he cried, his eyes staring angrily through the shadowy openings in the mask. “I am the Supreme Patriarch of all the Colleges of Magic, and when I demand an appointment, I damn well want to get one. Karl-Franz needs to hear what I have to say, and he won’t thank you for stalling my progress.”
The secretary blanched at the casual terms in which Gelt referred to the Emperor. He looked as if he wanted the wall behind him to open up and envelop him. Being crushed to death was no doubt far preferable to facing the elemental force opposite him.
He was about to reply when a third figure entered the hall at the far end. Slowly, confidently, armoured boots clinked their way along the long chamber. Gelt turned, momentarily distracted from his interrogation by the interruption.
A tall, heavy-set man drew up to face him. Despite being inside the palace, he was clad from neck to toe in extremely expensive armour. The thick steel plates were lined with elaborate gold edging. The stains on his cloak and boots indicated he had just arrived from the field, and the way he rested his gloved hand on the pommel of his enormous sword, sheathed in a scabbard thickly wound with leather and iron, spoke of both assurance and a quiet, implacable strength. His head was bald and a number of thin scars ran across its leathery surface. Even Gelt, who was a large man, seemed somehow diminished in his shadow.
“What’s the commotion?” the intruder said in a low, rolling voice, thick with the regional accent of the Averland.
Caught between such imposing figures, the secretary kept his mouth shut.
“My Lord Schwarzhelm,” said Gelt, inclining his head, his voice restored to its habitual low, rasping character. “This is unexpected. I thought you were away north crushing the rising in Arenshausen?”
“I was,” said Ludwig Schwarzhelm, the Emperor’s Champion, unsmilingly. “It was crushed.”
Gelt nodded approvingly.
“Excellent, excellent.”
He paused for a moment, a new idea suddenly coming into his head.
“Well, I’m given to understand that the Emperor is not disposed to grant appointments just at the moment,” he said, resignedly. “I fear your journey has been in vain. However, it may be that our meeting is a fortuitous one. Do you have some few minutes to spare? I have news that I’m sure you’ll find interesting.”
Schwarzhelm looked directly at the wizard, his gaze unwavering, clearly deciding whether he could be bothered to give Gelt the benefit of his scarce time and attention.
“Very well,” he said gruffly. “Come with me, my chambers are close at hand.”
He turned to the secretary, whose pale face was showing some signs of life at the prospect of being left alone.
“When the Emperor returns, tell him I’m back and will wait on his pleasure. In the meantime, I will be with the Supreme Patriarch.”
The secretary nodded weakly, and Schwarzhelm turned on his heels, striding back the way he had come. Gelt followed him. Such a turn might prove to be the best of all worlds, he mused, his mind working fast.
Schwarzhelm sat facing Gelt in his broad chair, slowly unbuckling pieces of armour. With any other senior military commander, there would have been half a dozen servants to do this work, but the Emperor’s Champion seemed to relish performing the task. Even without his casing of metal, peeling away piece by piece, he was still a formidable figure.
“So,” he said, “you said you had information.”
Gelt nodded, the sunlight from the narrow windows in the old warrior’s spartan private room glinting from his burnished mask. He would have to suppress his still bubbling anger at the way things had turned out, but there was still time to make amends.
“You’ve just got back to the city, so you won’t have heard the news,” he said. “There’s a large orc incursion moving up from the Axe Bite Pass and heading north, probably for Altdorf. For days, tidings of it failed to get through, but now a few refugees have started arriving from the south. Mark my words, within the week there’ll be panic in the city. Altdorfers love nothing more than getting worked up over the end of the world, and unless the guard are on their toes we’ll have the usual doom mongering, riots and looting.”
Schwarzhelm stroked his impressive beard coolly between unbuckling his spurs.
“Greenskins, eh? Do we know how many?”
Gelt shook his head, the expression under his mask bitter.
“A lot, and there are rumours of a shaman leading them, one of impressive power. Certainly, to have got past the defences in the passes, which I’m told are substantial, indicates a major threat.”
Schwarzhelm nodded slowly. He seemed imperturbable, carefully deliberating over each nugget of information like a gourmand picking over fine food.
“Well, you can thank Sigmar that I’ve arrived in time,” he said eventually. “My army is prepared and ready to travel. They’re tired at the end of a campaign, but they’ll be grateful for the gold and a new challenge. There’s no question of letting the orcs get near the city. We’ll have to set off after them.”
Gelt nodded enthusiastically. This was going better than he had expected.
“I agree,” he said, trying to hide the eagerness in his voice, “but there is one other thing. Somehow, news of this disaster seems to have got into the wrong hands. Before the official report could move through the proper channels, someone seems to have got hold of information that was not theirs to have. An Imperial army has already left to intercept the orcs. This was done without my knowledge or advice, which as you can imagine has caused me the greatest anxiety. If a shaman is involved, then the colleges should have been consulted. That is, of course, why I wished to speak to the Emperor.”
Schwarzhelm made no obvious movement, but his eyes blazed under his grey eyebrows.
This was good, the Emperor’s Champion was angry. Between them, they might yet thwart Klaus’ meddling.
“General Erhardt left the city last night under cover of darkness. To the best of my knowledge, he was acting under his own authority.”
The old warrior frowned, his immense brow furrowing like sackcloth. He looked like a volcano about to explode, the implacable exterior housing a furious, fiery heart.
“Erhardt,” Schwarzhelm said, crisply. “A fool, and an irresponsible one. Such matters are not for him to decide. I’m glad you told me of this so promptly, wizard. I won’t forget it. Rest assured, I have the trust of the Emperor in such matters. You can leave it with me.”
Gelt felt an inner warmth spread through him. His anger was replaced by a kind of childish glee. Klaus would suffer for this, as would the strumpet he had sent on campaign with that idiot general.
“Your words reassure me immeasurably,” said the Gold wizard. “With you in charge, the entire city will be calmed. I’ll ensure my agents make the information known. However, if I may, there is just one more thing.”
“Name it,” said Schwarzhelm impatiently, clearly eager to get on with business.
“If what I hear of the shaman is true, you will need some magical support for this enterprise. Erhardt may have a minor wizard with him, but I would be honoured to send my most senior spellcaster with you. His experience and advice will be invaluable. You will no doubt need no assistance in the regular ways of war, but the service of a Gold wizard at your disposal can only strengthen your hand.”
Schwarzhelm pursed his lips slightly as he pondered the offer. He was not known for being a wizard lover, but then few people were. Gelt waited anxiously. The large man nodded his grizzled head abruptly.
Masters of Magic Page 9
