by C. L. Werner
Screams filled the temple as both invaders and defenders watched the dead lurch into ghastly life. Dressed in foul rags, their bodies shrivelled from malnutrition, their skin blotched with the black sores of the plague, the zombies shambled out into the aisles. Upon the pillars, the bound corpses of the priestesses flopped and flailed, trying to slip their ropes to assault the living flesh so near at hand.
The obscene intonation of Lothar’s spell intensified, the rays of pallid light emanating from the altar burst into a fresh frenzy, speeding through the temple, burning paths through walls and ceiling. The mob at the doors was in full flight now, Marko’s thugs fleeing alongside them. The wounded were abandoned, left to shriek as the zombies converged upon them with clawed hands and clacking jaws. Deep within the sanctuary, Marko attacked one of the stained-glass windows in a frantic effort to escape. He had just brought a heavy chair smashing through a glazed panel when the first zombie reached him, bearing him down with its dead weight. The rogue flailed and struggled as the thing tore at him with its teeth. Before he could free himself, a dozen other zombies were crouched over him, pawing at him with dead fingers, relenting only when the man was reduced to a shapeless pile of meat.
Lothar was oblivious to his erstwhile accomplice’s fate, focused entirely upon the mighty magic he had unleashed. All across Mordheim, tendrils of sorcery were snaking through the streets, seeking out the morbid harmonies of grave and tomb. Into the mausoleums of the Steinhardts and the crypts of the nobility and the unmarked plots of the destitute, the rays seeped. Coffins burst, sepulchres groaned open, marble doors gaped wide. From cemetery and plague pit, the dead of Mordheim were called forth, shuffling out into the streets on rotten feet and skeletal claws.
Not a living soul was abroad when Lothar von Diehl marched out from the defiled temple. The only things moving on the streets of the great city were undead — the cadaverous legion his sorcery had brought from their graves. He felt triumph swell inside him as he watched fleshless skeletons and decayed zombies troop past the steps of the temple. Centuries of Mordheim’s dead, all enslaved to the will of one man!
He could feel the living inhabitants of the city cowering behind locked doors and peering out from closed shutters. Their terror was an almost palpable thing. It would be so easy to crush them, to kill them all. A single thought and he could turn his undead loose against them and make himself master of Mordheim!
Lothar shook his head, letting the childish impulse fade. What need had he to rule a city, to carve a kingdom from the rubble of plague-ridden Ostermark? Such desires were simply a temporal delusion, a simulacrum of true power. Clenching his hand tighter about the scaly binding of De Arcanis Kadon, he knew that real power was at his very fingertips, if he could but unlock its secrets.
Though it stung his noble pride, Lothar was forced to concede his own limitations. Even the powerful magic the sacrifice of his mother had unleashed was puny beside the knowledge yet locked within the unholy tome.
There was one, however, whose ability in the black arts might be great enough to decipher De Arcanis Kadon. Raising the dead of Mordheim had been no arrogant display of power, there had been purpose behind Lothar’s feat. With an army of the undead at his command, he would march into Sylvania and confront Vanhal. The peasant necromancer would unlock the secrets for him. If he proved capable, Lothar might even deign to allow him to act as his apprentice afterwards.
Dreaming of the knowledge that would soon belong to him, Lothar von Diehl stepped out into the street, joining the walking dead as they began their long march south.
Chapter VII
Middenheim
Nachgeheim, 1118
Prince Mandred directed a desperate look in Beck’s direction, but for once his bodyguard was proving inattentive. The phrase ‘dereliction of duty’ ran through his mind as he watched the knight ponderously scrutinising an old bit of Unberogen pottery that had been standing in the hallway. He promised there would be an accounting for Beck’s desertion.
Though he doubted it would be nearly so onerous as the one he was enduring. Finding no help from Beck, Mandred turned back to listen as Sofia lashed at him with words that he was surprised a lady of her breeding even knew.
‘Spending more time with that Reikland slattern!’ Sofia raged. Mandred cringed at the tone, silently whispering a prayer to Ranald that she wasn’t-
The prince ducked as a bronze candlestick went sailing past his ear. Though Ulric was his patron god, he reflected that he really should pay a little more consideration to Ranald, the fickle god of luck and good fortune.
‘Flitting all over the city with that vagabond doxy hanging off your arm!’ The mate to the first candlestick came flying across the room. Mandred yelped as it careened off his thigh and went rolling under a wardrobe. Hopping on one leg, he tried to muster an ingratiating smile. So long as Sofia didn’t employ formal address, he knew he could calm her down…
‘What charms has that whore favoured you with? The same perversions she used to seduce Prince Sigdan? And you, marching along to join her collection of princes!’ Venom crept into her tone as she added with a spiteful hiss, ‘Your grace.’
Mandred hobbled forwards as quickly as he could manage, hurrying to keep the enraged woman from reaching a heavy looking crystal decanter. ‘It isn’t like that…’ he protested.
Burggraefin Sofia von Degenfeld spun around with the speed of a viper, her dark tresses hanging across her face, her slender hands splayed into claws, each painted talon poised to wreak havoc. The breast of her gown trembled with the sharp, short breaths sneaking past her fury. With an angry shake of her head, she threw her long hair away from her face, exposing a pretty vision of forest-green eyes and delicately upturned nose. Even in her anger, Sofia’s skin possessed a soft, milky colour, like polished alabaster on a crisp winter morning.
‘Don’t you dare lie to me, Mandred,’ Sofia snarled at him. She flung her arms out in an exasperated flourish. ‘The entire court is talking about it!’ Her eyes narrowed to malicious pinpricks. ‘Though I can understand, stumbling on her in such a condition. She must have kept herself very trim, a hag of her age!’
‘Lady Mirella isn’t that old…’ Mandred started to say. He heard a snort of laughter from the hallway behind him. Even Beck knew it was absolutely the worst thing that could have rolled off his tongue. Yes, Mandred was certainly going to have a few words with his errant bodyguard. If he survived that long.
Sofia glanced over at the decanter, then turned a withering glare on the prince. ‘So the dashing young knight is going to sample the favours of his damsel in distress?’ she snapped. ‘Oh, I understand quite well her point of view! Coming to Middenheim without a stitch to her name, the son of Graf Gunthar must present quite a catch. After she seduces you she must remember to light a candle for the Kineater!’
Mandred could feel his temper rising. ‘Yes, I’m sure getting herself scalped and eaten by beastmen was all part of a grand plan to put herself in the Middenpalaz!’
‘Well, it worked, didn’t it!’ Sofia accused.
The prince glared back at her. It was three years ago that he’d first become infatuated with the beautiful burggraefin. If not for the difference in their social class, they would have been married by now. Of course, as the son of the graf, such a decision was beyond his control. When he wed it would be a matter of politics, not mutual affection, one of the sacrifices a ruler made for his subjects. It was an understanding between them, the knowledge that whatever love and happiness they shared could never last. Perhaps it was that knowledge that had inflamed their passion and their devotion.
Except when she got like this, Mandred thought, listening to another harangue from his lover. When Sofia fell into one of these jealous fits, she was deaf to all reason. She couldn’t be talked to, only endured until her temper cooled. Today, he decided, he didn’t have the patience for such theatrics.
‘I’m going,’ the prince told her, turning on his heel and marching towards the ha
ll.
‘Where?’ Sofia demanded. ‘Back to your slut?’
‘That’s none of your concern,’ Mandred answered without turning around. He reached the doorway just as the decanter came hurtling towards him. Nimbly, he swung the door to block the heavy missile, suppressing a slight shudder when he felt the crystal shatter against the panel. He stood behind the door for a moment, letting his own anger drain out of him. It wouldn’t do for the Prince of Middenheim to go stalking through the streets of his city looking like he wanted to murder every person he saw.
Faintly, from behind the door, Mandred could hear Sofia crying. A twinge of remorse had his hand reaching for the handle, but the magnitude of her unreasoning rage stayed him. Let her sob, he decided. Maybe it would teach her to curb her temper in the future.
‘Everything all right?’ Beck asked, finally stepping away from that pot he’d found so interesting. Mandred shot his bodyguard a black look.
‘For me,’ the prince said, snatching his hat from Beck’s fingers. ‘I can think of an inattentive guard who won’t be able to say the same.’
Sheepishly, Beck followed his master as Mandred stormed from the von Degenfeld manse. ‘Where are we going, your grace?’
‘To the Middenpalaz,’ Mandred told him. He glanced back down the hall at the room he had so recently quit. ‘I think I’ll pay a call on Lady Mirella and inquire if she would like me to show her the rest of the city.’
‘You should have seen it before the plague,’ Mandred declared, waving his hand as he gestured towards the wide expanse of farmland that stretched away to the west. The tall stalks of wheat swayed in the mountain breeze. They were of a hardy strain that thrived in colder altitudes and possessed a magnificent coppery colour. Under the right conditions and with the right amount of sunlight shining down on them, the effect was like gazing upon a sea of gold. Indeed, the dwarfs who had first cultivated the strain had bestowed upon it a name that evoked gold somehow. Mandred’s familiarity with Khazalid and dwarf customs was sketchy at best, so he couldn’t remember the particulars of the name.
Beside him, one of her slender arms closed around his own, Lady Mirella gasped in admiration as a stronger gust of wind set the entire crop dancing. ‘It is beautiful,’ she declared.
Mandred shook his head. ‘In a few weeks the crop will be harvested, then there’ll only be empty black earth clear to the wall.’ He sighed, regret catching in his voice. ‘This used to be the Sudgarten and it was filled with trees and shrubs. Songbirds used to flock here and there would be rabbits and squirrels capering about in the brush. We even kept herds of deer and only hunted them on Ulric’s holy days.’
The grip on Mandred’s arm tightened in an expression of sympathy. ‘Nothing lasts forever,’ she said.
‘Some things should,’ Mandred answered, still seeing in his mind’s eye the forest that had stood where only crops now grew. ‘Those trees had been there since before the first Teutogen crawled up out of the tunnels and reached the top of the Ulricsberg. Losing them felt… felt like betraying a trust.’
‘You kept your people alive through the winter,’ Mirella reminded him. ‘How strong would Middenheim be today if you didn’t have the resources to provide for yourself?’
Mandred turned away from the Sudgarten, and led Mirella back into the narrow confines of the Westgate, the densely populated district at the extreme edge of the city. Many of the refugees who had been permitted to settle atop the Ulricsberg had built their homes here, simple buildings of timber and thatch. The Middenheimers had struggled to impose some degree of order on the confusion of shacks and huts, but had eventually abandoned the effort as causing more trouble than it was worth. The resentment engendered by the programme had left a lingering mark in the hearts of the settlers. Indeed, it was considered inadvisable for any of the Middenheim nobility to wander about the Westgate without an adequate guard.
The prince, however, was the one exception to that rule. The people here might resent the high-handed authority imposed by Chamberlain von Vogelthal, but they also remembered Prince Mandred’s bold ride to save Warrenburg from the beastmen. It was ironic that an event that had brought him such severity from his father, an act that had cost the lives of many brave men, a thing which he himself regarded with guilt and regret, should have earned him a hero’s welcome among the settlers.
‘Yes,’ Mandred said as he and Mirella walked back along the edge of the Westgate, ‘we are strong. But what has been the price for that strength?’
Mirella frowned at the dour note in her escort’s voice. Tugging at his arm, she tried to divert his thoughts in another direction. ‘You said you would show me the dwarfs today,’ she reminded him. ‘I am eager to see their temple. Do you think they would allow us inside?’
The question gave Mandred pause. ‘Don’t they have dwarfs in Altdorf?’ he asked.
‘Oh, certainly,’ Mirella said, ‘but not like here. Altdorf doesn’t have an entire city of them under its streets.’
Mandred smiled at the statement. ‘Karak Grazhyakh isn’t exactly a city,’ he corrected her. ‘It’s more of an outpost, one of their strongholds.’ He became pensive for a moment. ‘To be honest, I’m not really sure how many of them are down there. Thane Hardin isn’t one of my father’s subjects, more like a friendly neighbour.’ He paused, picturing the dwarf’s perpetually grim visage. ‘Well, a neighbour anyway. The dwarfs pretty much keep to themselves and so long as they abide by my father’s laws when their business brings them into Middenheim proper, we are content to leave them alone.’
‘They do have some presence in the city, though?’ Mirella asked.
‘Oh, certainly,’ Mandred replied. ‘A few craftsmen who have set up shop here, though apparently they are either apprentices at their trade or dwarfs who couldn’t match the standards of their guilds. Either way, no dwarf would have anything to do with the goods they turn out, though they’re very impressive if you ask anyone else. Then there is the Dwarf Engineer’s Guild. They have a big stone building down in the Wynd with a big walled-off yard attached to it. They do a lot of testing with some foul-smelling black dirt that explodes when exposed to fire. Probably too scary to play with down below, so they moved operations upstairs.’
‘And the temple?’ Mirella persisted.
‘That’s down in the Wynd too, if anything even bigger and more imposing than the Guildhall.’ Mandred turned and stared in the direction of the building, though it was hidden behind the sprawl of the Southgate district which lay between the Westgate and the Wynd. ‘The dwarfs call the Ulricsberg “Grungni’s Tower”, and even before the first stones were set down to build the Middenpalaz, they were at work building a temple to their god. I’ve never been inside it. I don’t think any man ever has. The dwarfs are more tight-lipped about their religion than they are about anything else. But I can say that the exterior is absolutely magnificent. The entire face is marble, the stones set so close together that you’d think it was carved from a single block. Two immense statues stand guard before the entrance, one holding a chisel and the other an axe. I’ve seen dwarfs bow to them, so I think they must be connected to Grungni somehow. A giant door of ironwood banded in gold opens into the temple, and there’s always a smell of oil and coal wafting out every time it is opened.’
‘But you’ve never been inside?’ Mirella’s voice was soft, her mind caught up in the picture Mandred’s words conjured.
The prince shook his head. ‘No human has,’ he repeated. ‘I don’t know if anyone has ever had the temerity to ask. I do know now isn’t the time to start. The dwarfs have been even more touchy of late. They’ve become almost reclusive. Withdrawn. Something’s bothering them, though I’m sure a human will be the last to know what it is,’ he reflected.
For a moment, Mandred’s troubled mood infected Mirella, her eyes taking on a pained expression. The prince found himself caught in those eyes, sensed the empathy between himself and this aristocrat from the south. He shifted uneasily as he thought of Sofia
and the row they had had.
‘Come along,’ Mandred said, deliberately misinterpreting Mirella’s attitude for one of disappointment. ‘Perhaps I can’t show you the temple of Grungni, but I can show you the temple of Ulric.’ Before she could say anything, he was marching her towards the north.
‘We’re going to Ulricsmund,’ Mandred called back to their tiny entourage. Beck and Brother Richter had kept their distance during the stroll past the Sudgarten, trying to remain discreetly unobtrusive yet near enough to be at hand if they were needed. At the prince’s call, Beck went dashing up to join the two nobles. Richter hesitated, a tinge of worry pulling at the corners of his mouth. It was almost with reluctance that he followed after them.
A reluctance born of much more than simple religious differences.
Carroburg
Hexentag, 1115
The guests of Emperor Boris gathered around the immense ring of black drakwood. Legend held that the round table dated from the time of King Otwin and had been gifted to the Thuringian chief by the druids of Rhya. The chiefs of the tribe had held council around the great table, planning their wars against enemies human and inhuman. After the coming of Sigmar and the absorption of the Thuringians into his Empire, Otwin’s table had been removed to the ancient fortalice overlooking the River Reik. Many towers and forts had been built and razed since that time, but the relic had endured, a valuable prize for whichever noble was given dominion over the Drakwald.
Sometimes the round table had been drawn out from storage for some state feast or in observance of some celebration, but by and large it had been left to the seclusion of its own vault deep within the castle. Wondrously carved, magnificently fashioned, there was nevertheless a blemish about the round table, a nameless sensation that provoked uneasiness in those who remained in its presence for too long. It was the residue of eldritch magic, the taint of druidic sacrifice and ceremony that had soaked into the drakwood.
