by C. L. Werner
The weight on top of him became even greater as the skaven leapt down from wherever he’d landed when the scaffold came down. Erich suspected the nimble creature had simply ridden the wreckage as it fell, letting the platform absorb most of the impact. Certainly the skaven gave no evidence that he was injured. He hopped down onto the wreckage directly above Erich, leaning forwards so that the rubble pushed down on him with the ratman’s full weight added to it.
‘Fool-meat!’ the skaven snarled, foam sizzling as it evaporated against the monster’s electrified fangs. ‘Think-dream you can oppose-fight the mighty Sythar Doom, Great Warplord of all Skavendom!’ Sythar raked the claws of his foot across Erich’s face, slashing open his cheek and nearly piercing his eye. ‘All man-things learn-listen! All man-things shiver-tremble!’ Uttering a chittering laugh, Sythar shook one of his paws at the huge machine. ‘Sythar Doom fetch-take revenge on man-things! God-house will die-burn! The Man-dread will die-burn! All-all die-burn!’
Erich felt his heart freeze as Sythar boasted of his intentions. The machine was some kind of bomb, and the monster intended to use it to blow up the Great Cathedral. Not only that, but it was cunning enough to wait to wreak its revenge. Somehow it had learned that Graf Mandred was coming to Altdorf, that he would return Ghal Maraz to the cathedral. The skaven was waiting for that auspicious moment to detonate the bomb, inflicting in a single instant a blow that would annihilate the entire leadership of the Empire and the man many were already cheering as the new Emperor.
The knight struggled to free himself, putting every scrap of his strength into a supreme effort to break loose and hurl himself upon the gloating Sythar. The ratman chittered as he saw the futile struggle. Viciously, he raked his foot across Erich’s forehead, one of the claws digging a hole in the side of his nose.
‘All-all die-burn!’ Sythar Doom laughed.
‘Then let’s start with you, ratkin!’ From out of the dust, Kurgaz’s brawny frame lunged at Sythar. The dwarf’s massive arms coiled about the ratman, bowling him over in a savage tackle. Skaven and dwarf rolled through the debris, their bodies smashing through planks and rotten beams, their momentum carrying them to the edge of the rubble.
Sythar broke away from Kurgaz, fiendishly pounding his paw against a huge sliver of wood lodged in the dwarf’s bicep. The blow drove the sliver still deeper, wrenching a snarl of pain from the slayer. Before Sythar could scamper away, however, Kurgaz lunged at him again, catching the warplord’s tail. Savagely he tugged at the tail, jerking Sythar off his feet and slamming him to the ground. Even as he started to rise, Kurgaz was on top of him, smashing him down into the dirt.
‘We’ll start with the dying part,’ Kurgaz growled at the monster. ‘I’ll see what I can do about burning what’s left later.’
Sythar growled back at the dwarf, worming his body out from under the slayer, twisting his head about so that he could sink his electrified fangs into Kurgaz’s forearm. The dwarf’s body snapped back, twitching and flailing as the electricity crackled through his body. The sickly smell of burning flesh permeated the air, the grease in the slayer’s spiked crest of hair caught fire, blood streamed from nose and eyes, ears and mouth. Never, even in Kreyssig’s dungeons, had Erich seen such utter and total agony inflicted upon a living creature.
Somehow, through the anguish sizzling through him, Kurgaz managed to hold onto his hatred. With Sythar’s jaws still clamped in his forearm, delivering their lethal charge, the slayer reached with his other hand to the sliver of wood in his bicep. ‘Grimnir!’ the dwarf roared as he ripped the piece of wood from his flesh. Reversing his grip on it, he slammed his fist into the skaven’s chest, impaling the monster.
Sythar’s jaws tightened, the fangs digging down to the bones in Kurgaz’s arm. The ratman’s claws raked at his attacker, but it was a spastic, unfocused effort. Already the vitality of Sythar Doom was draining out of him. The sliver of wood had impaled the warlord’s black heart. The warpstone-powered heart of Sythar Doom.
The dwarf only had a moment to understand that his enemy was dead before the vindictive trap built into Sythar Doom’s mechanical heart activated. It exploded with the force of a blasting charge, reducing both the ratman and his killer to ribbons of bloodied meat. The force of the explosion sent dirt and rock raining down from the ceiling, making the walls tremble. Erich thought the entire cavern must collapse in upon itself.
The knight wasn’t the only one. Squealing in terror, more at the thought of being buried alive than any sadness at their leader’s death, the surviving skaven fled the cavern. Erich could hear the squeaks fading down the tunnel as they vanished in the dark.
The prospect of being abandoned even by such monstrous enemies, left to rot alone in the subterranean blackness, spurred Erich to greater effort. Again, all of his strength wasn’t enough to dislodge the rubble.
‘You seem to be in a spot of trouble, manling.’ When he heard the words and turned his head to see Dharin and his surviving gold grubbers climbing down the wreckage, Erich felt such a wave of relief that tears streamed from his eyes.
Dharin misunderstood those tears. ‘Don’t cry for Smallhammer, manling,’ the dwarf said as he shook his head. ‘It was a fine death he found. The sort of death that every slayer longs to find.’
Erich felt a profound sense of shame when he heard those words, guilty that the tears hadn’t been for Kurgaz, a hero who had not only saved Erich’s life, but those of Graf Mandred and all who would be with him in the Great Cathedral.
‘Come,’ Dharin said, lifting one of the beams imprisoning Erich. ‘Let’s get you out of there.’
The crowd within the sanctuary, those closest to where the mutant had suddenly emerged to challenge Graf Mandred, tried to scatter, to flee the hideous monstrosity and the violence that was certain to unfold soon. Those further back in the pews strained forwards, trying to see the reason for the commotion, blocking the retreat of those who only wanted to get away. In that bedlam of shouts and screams, the two enemies glared at one another in silence.
Mandred thought of Lady Mirella, cut down by this monster. He thought of Burggraefin Sofia, murdered in her sick bed by this creature. He thought too of Princess Erna and how close she had come to sharing their fate. Beck, the man he had trusted, the warrior he had considered friend and confidant, was nothing more than a cowardly assassin.
The mutant had its thoughts too. Memories of how it had swallowed its pride, debased its honour to serve Mandred. It had forsaken its own dreams, its own hopes in order to serve the von Zelts. It had believed there could be no greater purpose than to make Middenheim strong. Strong leader, strong land. All it had done was in service to the Middenpalaz. In the end, its reward had been betrayal, the ruination of its name and its very humanity.
The mutant spun around as Hulda came rushing out from the crowd where Beck had thrown her. Her face was almost feral in its ferocity, her eyes burning like those of a beast. The people standing near her had the impression of strange ticks and twitches going on just under her skin. Those nearest almost swore they saw long fangs glistening in her mouth.
Hartwich rushed forwards, a look of horror on the priest’s face. ‘Hulda! No!’ he cried. Better than anyone, Hartwich knew what would happen if she lost control here of all places. He knew how the Sigmarites would react if they saw her other self. They might have accepted the Lady of Sigmar, but they would feel only terror at the Daughter of Ulric.
In his rush towards the witch, the arch-lector came too near Beck. The mutant’s claw lashed out, severing the fingers of Hartwich’s outstretched hand. The maimed priest was sent sprawling by the blow, crashing in a tangle against the pews. Hulda rushed over to him, her concern for him forcing the lupine rage into abeyance.
Mandred blocked Vitholf and his other retainers from rushing Beck. ‘The monster is mine,’ he declared in a voice like steel cutting ice. ‘If it kills me, then it’s yours.’
Beck’s mouth stretched into a jagged smile. ‘If I kill you, nothing else matters,’ he snarled, springing at Mandred. The mutant’s claw flashed down, slicing across the graf’s shoulder, ringing as it nearly crumpled the steel pauldron. As it landed on its feet, Beck’s sword licked out, slicing at Mandred’s face.
The graf blocked the sword with the jewelled haft of Ghal Maraz and then brought the peen of the warhammer cracking against Beck’s bifurcated arm. The blow snapped one of the mutant’s wrists, sending the sword flying from its broken hand. Before he could bring the massive head of the hammer swinging around, Beck sprang to one side in a display of alarming agility.
The mutant drove in on Mandred, thinking to charge him while the momentum of his strike held him off balance. Beck didn’t consider that his foe had honed his fighting instincts for four years battling skaven, creatures far quicker and more agile than any man… or a thing that had once been a man. Mandred turned his missed strike into a spin, turning his body with the hammer in a motion that was almost reflexive to him. When the mutant rushed at him, the head of Ghal Maraz struck it. Golden light blazed from the ancient relic, the divine ire of Sigmar made manifest.
The sound of Beck’s arm shattering boomed through the cathedral. The mutant was flung down the aisle, tumbling and rolling as though it had been launched from a ballista. It landed in a broken huddle, mewing painfully as it tried to regain its feet. It turned its misshapen face towards the enraged man storming down the aisle towards it. ‘Everything was for you, all of it for you,’ Beck snarled.
Mandred brought Ghal Maraz cracking down, smashing one of the mutant’s legs and hurling the creature further down the aisle. Those watching from the pews couldn’t decide which was more terrible, the monstrousness of the mutant’s face or the fury that held Mandred’s visage.
Again, Beck struggled to rise. ‘Sofia threatened you,’ it growled. ‘She was sick. Plague-ridden. You would have caught it if you…’
Ghal Maraz struck the mutant’s bifurcated arm, crushing it into a pulpy mess. Once more Beck was hurled down the aisle.
Coughing blood, the mutant rose once more. ‘You let your affection for Mirella blind you to what marriage to Carin would bring to…’
This time Mandred didn’t swing the warhammer, he merely drove it into Beck’s chest. The crack of splintered ribs accompanied Beck as the mutant was tossed back.
Defiance, the pride of hate, made Beck rise again, its spidery eye-cluster glaring balefully at the advancing Mandred. ‘Erna threatened your alliance with Kreyssig,’ the mutant spat. ‘She would have set you against the man who promised to make you Emperor.’
Mandred drove the head of Ghal Maraz into Beck once more, breaking more of the mutant’s ribs and flinging it through the great doors of the cathedral. Beck landed in a bloody heap on the steps, those same steps where Gazulgrund had rallied the people of Altdorf against the skaven hordes. As there had been on that day years ago, a vast crowd filled the plaza, the teeming multitudes of the city who couldn’t fit inside the sanctuary. They gasped in shock as the mutant came tumbling down the steps, then an awed hush fell over them as Mandred came striding out of the cathedral, Ghal Maraz glowing with golden light.
Beck didn’t try to stand, even hatred could only command so much from its broken body. From the steps he sneered at his old master. ‘Graf Gunther charged me to protect his son, even from himself! All I have done, I have done for Middenheim!’
Mandred stood over the mutant and raised Ghal Maraz up high. ‘One more thing then, you may do for Middenheim,’ he told the creature. Ghal Maraz came smashing down, obliterating Beck’s head in one brutal strike.
Epilogue
Altdorf, 1124
The observium high atop the Great Cathedral of Sigmar was a marvel of architecture, a miracle spun from steel and glass. Transparent walls looked out over the sprawl of Altdorf, offering a vista of the Imperial palace and the Courts of Justice, the River Reik and the Königplatz across the river. The glass ceiling above the grand hall opened out upon the stars. The room had been constructed by the dwarfs, taxing even their near-magical engineering abilities, a gift to the Temple of Sigmar in honour of the First Emperor, the man their High King had honoured with the revered title ‘dwarf-friend’.
Like many before him, when Arch-Lector Hartwich stepped out into the observium he felt as if he was walking among the clouds. A strange vertigo threatened him, making his steps uncertain and unsteady. He leaned against one of the tables where the temple astrologers normally worked, studying the heavens and interpreting the positions of stars and comets within the dogma of their faith. The tables were vacant now, the astrologers all dismissed, granted a holiday to celebrate the coronation of Emperor Mandred. The benches where the blind augurs commonly sat in meditation were likewise empty, they too dismissed from their divinations to pay respect to the new Emperor.
One man alone waited for Hartwich in the observium. Grand Theogonist Gazulgrund sat in silent contemplation of the stars when the arch-lector entered. At the sound of his visitor’s arrival, he slowly lowered his head and turned towards the other priest.
‘You came,’ the Grand Theogonist declared.
‘You summoned me, holiness,’ Hartwich corrected him. Though he tried, he couldn’t quite keep the disgust from his voice or the contempt from his face. One of the things he’d desperately tried to believe was that the Night of Holy Knives had been some atrocity concocted by Kreyssig. His return to Altdorf had shown him otherwise. The massacre had been carried out by Sigmarite witch hunters on the orders of the Grand Theogonist.
Gazulgrund saw the loathing in Hartwich’s eyes, heard the scorn in his tone. ‘My ascension to this post was a mistake,’ he said, his voice low and humble. ‘It was the will of a tyrant that put me here, not the will of Lord Sigmar. I have tried to make the best of that accident, tried to conduct myself in a manner that would not disgrace our god and our Temple.’
Hartwich pushed away from the table, took a few faltering steps towards Gazulgrund. ‘Many have died for Sigmar,’ he said. ‘Our faith has been watered with the blood of martyrs, but never did I think those martyrs would die by the hand of their own holy father.’
Gazulgrund nodded. He reached to his neck and removed the jade talisman on its golden chain. Reverently, he ran his fingers over the sculpted griffon. ‘I am a weak man. Through my weakness, a tyrant gained power over me. Through me he thought to gain power over Sigmar’s Temple. I did what I had to do to cut away that weakness.’
‘Thousands of innocents are dead,’ Hartwich said, his words cutting into Gazulgrund like a knife. ‘You have murdered the families of your own priesthood. For what? Some mad vision of purity?’
The Grand Theogonist set the talisman down on one of the benches. ‘I did the only thing I could to stop Kreyssig,’ he said. ‘I was too weak to see any other way.’ Slowly he tugged the golden ring from his left hand, the jade ring from his right and set them too upon the floor.
An uneasy feeling grew in Hartwich’s breast as he watched Gazulgrund strip away the badges of his holy office. ‘You are still Grand Theogonist. Whether by the hand of a tyrant or no, Sigmar works and speaks through you.’ He thought of his words to Lady Mirella in the Temple of Ulric when Mandred wept over the body of his father. ‘The gods may build great things from tragedy.’
Gazulgrund’s eyes were damp with tears as he listened to Hartwich explain how pain was the medium through which heroes were born. ‘Your words gladden my heart,’ he said. ‘But I can have no part of them. For every villainy there must be a reckoning. There is a price to be paid for every cruelty. Sigmar will build great things, but He will need strong servants to act as his hands, wise leaders to speak his words. I am neither. I was a frightened, weak creature who did the only thing he could do to keep a monster out of the temple. I became a bigger monster.’
Hartwich rushed forwards when he saw Gazulgrund take up the
immense hammer Thorgrim, the weapon he had used to rally the peasants of Altdorf during the skaven attack. The Grand Theogonist waved him back. ‘The tyrant will be no more. Emperor Mandred is a good man, a great man. He will not allow the disease of Kreyssig to linger. You must show the same kind of strength. The Temple needs a good and great man to lead it. A man who is strong enough to remove the monster from his house.’
‘There is always penance,’ Hartwich said. ‘Redemption. Salvation.’
Gazulgrund sighed. ‘There is too much blood on my hands. When I am alone, I can hear the voice of my daughter and the voices of all the others I had killed. They are waiting for me at the Gates of Morr. Redemption isn’t something for me to seek, but for them to allow.’
Turning towards the closest window, Gazulgrund brought Thorgrim smashing against it, shattering the centuries-old glass and crumpling one of the steel frames. Wind whipped through the hole, plucking at the priest’s raiment. He threw the warhammer to the floor and again raised his hand to ward off Hartwich. ‘Let me atone for my sins,’ he said. He smiled, a cold and forsaken expression. ‘If Sigmar forgives me, His mercy will bear me aloft.’
The next moment, Gazulgrund was through the window. Hartwich rushed to the edge of the gap and stared down. The Grand Theogonist had plummeted hundreds of feet before impaling himself on one of the spires below. He could see Gazulgrund moving, writhing like a bug on the end of a pin. Faintly, the priest’s voice drifted up to the observium, groaning out a prayer of apology to Sigmar and those he had killed.
It took three days before a ladder tall enough to reach Gazulgrund could be built and raised. In all that time, it seemed to the people below that the impaled man’s voice never faltered; his prayers never fell silent. When they pulled him down, he was dead, but even then many claimed the sound of his prayers lingered on, a ghostly warning that would rise when a northern wind blew across the spires of the Great Cathedral.
