Blackhearts: The Omnibus

by Nathan Long

  ELEVEN

  The End Of The Empire

  CAUTIOUSLY, SO AS not to draw attention to their hiding place, Reiner studied the massive cannon the slaves pulled. It was the biggest field piece he had ever seen, twice as long as the Empire’s great cannon, with a muzzle as wide as a keg of Marienburg ale. Its mouth was decorated to resemble a screaming daemonic maw, ringed with fangs. The barrel was detailed in silver dragon scales and barbaric designs. The carriage that it rested upon was made in the shape of two crouching legs, also scaled, that gripped the axle in two immense bronze claws. Its wooden wheels were each as tall as a man.

  Reiner shivered. ‘A few of those would turn the tide of a battle, eh?’

  Franz looked around at him, eyes wide. ‘Sigmar! Pray there isn’t more than one!’

  ‘But where did they get the knowledge?’ asked Ulf. ‘The secrets of gunnery are the Empire’s most closely guarded.’

  His question was answered as they saw the figures that followed the gun, berating the slaves who pulled it. They were half the height of the smallest slave, but bulging with muscles, and wore beards braided to their knees.

  ‘Dwarfs!’ said Franz, gaping.

  ‘Those are dwarfs?’ asked Pavel, uncertainly.

  Reiner looked closer. He hadn’t seen many dwarfs in his lifetime—they didn’t come much to Altdorf—but these fellows looked like no dwarf he’d ever encountered. They seemed almost deformed by their muscles: stumping around on twisted but powerful legs. Their heads were distorted by ridges of bone, and their hands crowded with extra fingers.

  ‘Bent on the forge of Chaos,’ said Gustaf under his breath.

  Reiner shivered.

  ‘The forces of Chaos with artillery,’ groaned Ulf. ‘This could mean the end of the Empire. They must be stopped. We must tell someone.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Pavel sourly. ‘Right after we get out of here.’

  Reiner shook his head as the warriors continued to file into the tunnel. ‘I don’t understand it. They can’t be going to make war underground. No one in their right mind, not even a Chaos-crazed berzerker, fires a cannon in a mine. What do they mean to do?’

  ‘They go south to fight a battle,’ said Gustaf. ‘There are old tunnels beneath the mine that run the length of the range.’

  Everyone turned to stare at him.

  ‘How do you know this?’ asked Reiner.

  ‘I overheard the patrol who passed us speaking of it.’

  Reiner raised an eyebrow. ‘You understand their jabber?’

  ‘Course he does,’ said Hals, spitting. ‘A servant always learns his master’s tongue. I knew there was something wrong about you, y’daemon worshipping filth.’

  ‘If I serve the dark ones, then why am I not betraying you now?’

  ‘And how do you come to speak their language?’ asked Reiner.

  Gustaf looked for a moment as if he wasn’t going to speak, then he sighed. ‘I don’t, but it is similar to the tongue of the Kossars. The company of lancers I served with in Kislev had a detachment of Kossar horse. I learned their speech—particularly their curses—when I treated their wounds.’

  The others eyed him coolly, weighing this. They didn’t look as if they believed him.

  ‘What else did they say?’ asked Reiner. ‘Did they give any details?’

  Gustaf shrugged. ‘As I said, I only speak a few words. They said the word south, and tunnel, and castle. I got the idea that they were going to fight at the castle, though whether they were fighting to take it or defend it, I don’t know. They said the name. Norse something? North, perhaps?’

  Reiner’s heart thudded in his chest. ‘Nordbergbruche!’

  ‘It might have been.’

  ‘Ain’t that Lord Manfred’s castle?’ asked Pavel. ‘What Captain Veirt was going on about? Didn’t he say the northers had taken it?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Reiner. He turned on Gustaf. ‘Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?’

  ‘You didn’t ask.’

  Reiner curled his lip and turned back to the cave in time to see the cannon vanish into the tunnel. He thought furiously. It would be a terrible blow to the Empire if that cannon was loosed upon it. But did he care? The Empire had jailed and branded him unjustly. He owed it no favours. At the same time, it might be in his best interests to help his homeland. If Manfred could be convinced to reward them for warning him of his brother’s treachery, how much bigger might the reward be if Reiner informed him of the coming of the cannon as well?

  He gnawed a knuckle. Which was the least dangerous path? Which was the most profitable? How did he decide?

  At last he turned. ‘Well lads, I’ve a plan. I doubt any of you will like it much. But I think it’s our best chance, so we’ll put it to a vote, eh?’

  The men waited patiently. Gustaf folded his arms.

  Reiner swallowed. ‘It’s my guess that Count Manfred is waiting for Albrecht to join him before the two of them storm Nordbergbruche together. And as soon as he gets Lady Magda’s banner Albrecht will be on his way, but not to help his brother. I think he’s marching to fight him, army against army, and with that unholy thing on his side, Albrecht may well win.’ Reiner coughed uneasily. ‘If we somehow found a way out of here and made it down to the flatlands without running into more northers, it would take us weeks, maybe a month, to circle the mountains and make it to Nordbergbruche—if we’re lucky and aren’t eaten by Sigmar-knows-what along the way. By that time the battle might already have occurred. Albrecht may have won, and we would be too late to warn Manfred and collect our reward.’ He pointed down toward the minehead. ‘These fellows have found a short cut, a direct line from here to there. I… I say we take it.’

  There were grunts of shock and dismay.

  ‘I know it’s a rotten idea,’ said Reiner. ‘But I think it’s the only way we can make it in time. What do you say?’

  There was a long silence. Finally Hals chuckled.

  ‘Laddie,’ he said. ‘That speech you made, back there at the cave-in, about leading us wrong at every turn. Well, most of it was true, I suppose. But y’still have more ideas than the rest of us, and one’s bound to come right one of these days, so… I’m with you.’

  ‘And I,’ said Pavel.

  ‘And I,’ said Franz.

  ‘The Empire must be told of these cannon as soon as possible,’ said Ulf. ‘Count me in.’

  Giano spread his hands. ‘One way is as bad as the other, hey?’

  ‘Go into the mine?’ asked Oskar numbly.

  Gustaf shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t make it on my own, would I?’

  ‘You might not make it with us, daemon worshipper,’ snarled Hals.

  Gustaf curled his lip. ‘That’s as may be, but you certainly won’t make it without me.’

  ‘And what’s the meaning of that?’ asked Reiner, looking up.

  Gustaf smirked. ‘The Kurgan spoke of an obstacle, a choke point near the end of the tunnels, that we will have difficulty circumventing. But there is a way.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Reiner. ‘How do we get around it?’

  Gustaf shook his head. ‘Do you think me a fool? I know what you think of me. I know you’d stick a knife in my guts if you thought I was no longer useful to you. Consider this extra protection against… accidents.’

  Reiner and the others glared at him.

  ‘You really are a loathsome little worm,’ said Reiner at last. He turned away before Gustaf had a chance to retort, and clapped his hands. ‘Right then,’ he said. ‘It’s decided. Now the trick is getting to the minehead undetected.’

  ‘Go into the mines?’ asked Oskar again, mournfully.

  ‘Sorry, old man,’ said Reiner. ‘But Gustaf will take care of you.’ He shot the surgeon a look. ‘Won’t you, Gustaf?’

  They returned to the main passage. After fifty paces, the rails sloped down a ramp to the level of the cave floor as the noises of hammering and the roar of fire grew louder and louder. At its base, the ramp bent right into a short corr
idor. A narrow passage intersected it, and ten paces beyond that, it opened into the giant cavern. Reiner could see ranks of smiths at their anvils, hammering out swords and pieces of armour as slaves scurried around them, holding the work steady, feeding the fires, squeezing the bellows. The cross corridor looked more promising. It was small and dark and smelled of death, decay, and cooking meat.

  ‘Smells like pork,’ said Pavel hungrily.

  Gustaf snorted. ‘Two legged pork.’

  ‘Shut your mouth, y’filthy dog,’ snarled Hals.

  ‘Quiet,’ said Reiner. ‘Now douse torches. Weapons out.’

  The men drew their swords and daggers, then slipped around the corner into the dark passage. The stench was almost overwhelming and it only got worse as they continued—as did the noise. Twenty paces along they saw ahead of them on the left wall a tiny, leather-curtained doorway, through which came a ground-shaking hammering and flashes of blinding green light, and under the deafening banging, a chorus of guttural voices chanting in unison. A moment later the curtain flipped open and two slaves pushed through it, dragging a third, who was obviously dead.

  Reiner and the others halted and held their breath, but the slaves looked neither left or right, only hauled their burden listlessly down the hall, oblivious. Reiner crept to the curtain and peeked through, then drew back reflexively at the sight that met his eyes. After waiting a moment to quiet his heart, he looked again. The others peered over his shoulders.

  Through the tiny door was a pillared, seven-sided room that had been hacked crudely out of the living rock. Towering representations of blood-red daemons were painted on each of the seven walls, though whether they were seven different entities or seven aspects of the same god, Reiner didn’t know. Seven pillars surrounded a raised dais. On his first glance Reiner had thought that the pillars were decorated with carvings of skulls, but a second look showed that the skulls were real—with chipped teeth and crushed crowns—and covered every inch of the pillars from floor to ceiling. There were thousands of them.

  But what had made Reiner draw back in fear were the occupants of the room. A ring of armoured Kurgan stood along the walls, chanting unceasingly. They were bare-headed, and Reiner could see that their eyes were rolled back in their heads. Lines and sigils had been smeared on their cheeks with blood. The focus of their attention was the dais in the centre of the room. Here, where one would have expected some heathen altar, there stood instead a huge iron anvil, with a glowing furnace beside it, and a wide, shallow basin before it, filled with a red liquid that could only be blood. Behind the altar a hulking, barely-human smith worked a set of enormous bellows. He stood seven feet tall if he was an inch, and his massive, muscled arms each looked as big around as Reiner’s ribcage. He was stripped to the waist and covered in a pattern of scars and burns that looked more decorative than accidental. Lank black hair hung over his face, hiding it, but Reiner could see the flash of white tusks jutting up from the corners of his mouth and two blunt horns pushing through the skin of his brow.

  A wild-eyed shaman with a dreadlocked beard and hairy robes that seemed to have been stitched from scalps stood at his side, leading the chanting in a hoarse voice. Two Kurgan warriors stood at the edge of the dais holding a sagging slave between them. More slaves stood behind the first.

  As Reiner and the others watched, the giant smith pulled a glowing blade from the furnace by the naked tang and set it on the anvil. He raised a mighty hammer over his head and began beating the edge of the blade with it. Though the blade glowed orange-white, the sparks that flew at each hammer-fall were an eerie green that burned Reiners eyes as if he was looking directly into the sun. The host of Kurgan grunted in unison with each hammer fall.

  With a final blow, the smith finished shaping the blade and held it flat on the anvil. As the chanting rose to a fever pitch, the shaman stepped forward, wielding a smaller hammer and an iron implement that looked something like a wine bottle. He set the base of the iron bottle on the blade, just above the tang, and smote it with the hammer as the warriors barked a two syllable word. More green sparks splashed and the smith raised the blade. It had been imprinted with a crude runic symbol that Reiner’s eyes shied uneasily away from.

  At a signal from the shaman, the Kurgan guards shoved a slave forward. In unison, the smith, the shaman and the assembled Kurgan shouted a short, guttural incantation, then the smith ran the slave through with the still glowing blade. It hissed. The slave screamed and doubled up. The smith, with inhuman strength, lifted the slave off the ground on the point and held him aloft until the blood from his wound ran, spitting and boiling, down the fuller to fill the pattern of the stamped rune.

  Reiner flinched back involuntarily again, for as the blood touched the rune, the sword suddenly seemed to have a presence. It felt as if some malevolent entity had entered the temple. The warriors fell to their knees and raised their arms in adulation.

  Reiner and the others cringed back from the curtain, grimacing, as the smith gave the blade to the shaman, who held it over his head and showed it to the ring of warriors. They roared their approval.

  ‘Are we tainted just for seeing that?’ asked Franz.

  ‘It pains a son of Sigmar,’ said Hals, ‘to see a hammer used for so evil a purpose.’

  Ulf raised a hand. ‘The slaves return.’

  The company backed into the shadows as the two slaves—a man and a woman, they could now see, both skeleton thin—padded back to the curtained door and passed through it. After a moment, they reappeared, dragging the body of the impaled slave behind them and disappeared once again down the dark hallway.

  After waiting a moment, Reiner motioned them forward.

  Franz shivered. ‘I dread to see what lies at the end of this.’

  Reiner patted the boy’s shoulder. ‘What in death could be worse than the life these poor souls have suffered in bondage?’

  As they continued down the hall, the reek of death increased. There was more light ahead as well. Faint torchglow shone from two curtained doorways, one on either side of the hall. They reached the left-hand one first and Reiner cautiously peeked in.

  It was an enormous room: not deep, but so long that the two ends were hidden in darkness. A wide doorway on the opposite wall opened directly into the cavern that housed the furnaces, and through it Reiner could see the lines of bucket-toting slaves making their endless rounds. The room itself was filled with rank after rank of poorly-made plank beds, stacked six high and none as wide as Ulf’s shoulders.

  The beds to the left side of the door were empty. Those to the right were full of bony, huddled forms, their elbows, knees and hips raw and bruised from lying on the naked wood. They moaned and coughed and twitched in their fitful slumbers, or worse, moved not at all.

  As Reiner watched, a curious procession came into view between two rows of beds. A Kurgan guard swaggered along, followed by four slaves pushing a flat cart piled with bodies. The Kurgan had a sharp stick, and with it, he prodded the sleeping slaves one by one. Most flinched and cried out. Those that didn’t, the Kurgan jabbed again, harder this time. If a slave still failed to respond, the Kurgan dragged him off his plank and threw him on the cart, then moved on.

  At the end of the row the cart was full and the Kurgan barked an order. Reiner ducked back as the slaves turned the cart toward him, and waved the others back down the hall into the shadows.

  The Kurgan led the slaves out of the barracks and into the door on the opposite side of the hall. After a pause Reiner edged to it, at once compelled by curiosity and terrified at what he might see. The others followed. Reiner looked in, hoping against hope that what he would see would be some kind of embalming chamber or garbage pit. It was not. It was what his nose told him it would be: a kitchen. He pulled back, disgusted, and pushed Franz past the door. ‘Don’t look, lad. Keep moving.’

  Franz made to protest, but Reiner shoved him roughly down the hall. He and the others slipped past in ones and twos as it was safe, and continued down
the hall, shuddering with revulsion at the sights within the kitchen. Reiner wished he could get the smell of meat out of his nose.

  A little further on, Ulf stopped at another open door. ‘Wait,’ he whispered. ‘In here.’

  He entered the room. The others looked in. Ulf was picking through piles of poorly made picks and shovels that were heaped against the walls along with stacks of pitch-smeared torches, coils of rope, wooden buckets, lengths of chain, sections of iron rail, iron wheels, leather aprons and gloves. All were of poorest quality—made by slaves, for slaves.

  ‘If we are to travel long underground,’ said Ulf as the others entered, ‘we will want torches and rope, and possibly picks and shovels as well. Everyone should take what they can.’

  ‘We’re not all built like pack horses, engineer,’ said Hals.

  Ulf slung a coil of rope over his shoulder. ‘We’ve encountered one cave-in already. We may have to dig our way out of another. Then there are the dangers of pitfalls, uncrossable chasms, unscalable cliffs. We may need to widen a passage to get through. Or block a passage to prevent pursuit. And…’

  ‘All right, Urquart,’ said Reiner quickly. ‘You’ve made your point. We don’t want to give Oskar the fibertygibbits again. Everyone take torches and rope. For the rest you may do as you please.’

  Everyone did as he asked. Hals, though he had complained the loudest, took a pick and gave a shovel to Pavel. When all had been packed away, they moved on.

  The passage ended fifty paces later in a doorway through which shone the red glow of the main cavern. Reiner and the others eased forward to peer through. The doorway came out just behind the two massive furnaces. The slaves that fed the fires and their overseers were less than three long strides from the door. Reiner could have spat on them. Instead, he looked toward the mine-head, just beyond the furnaces to the right. It was close. A short sprint and they would be within its shadow and away, but that sprint was fraught with dangers.

  At least a dozen Kurgan guards stood between them and the mine head, and there were a hundred within easy call. Reiner frowned. If only there was some way to distract them, to draw the attention of the entire room for the few seconds they needed to dart through unnoticed.