Blighted Empire

Epilogue

Altdorf

Jahrdrung, 1116

Months after news of Boris Goldgather’s death reached the Imperial capital, a festive quality lingered in the streets. The gigantic statue of the dead Emperor, a dwarf-crafted colossus that dominated the Konigplatz and which had been funded by a special bread tax, had been pulled down and demolished by the citizenry, the rubble carted off and dumped into the Reik. For weeks, jubilant processions had marched through the streets of Altdorf burning dung effigies of Boris. Even now, ribald and scathing ballads about the last of the Hohenbachs were favourites in the city’s taverns.

Adolf Kreyssig, Protector of the Empire, had deemed it politic to leave the peasants to their celebrations. His position was a precarious one. As a man of humble birth, he had no birthright to the power now at his command. It was only through the indulgence of the late Emperor that he enjoyed his position as steward of the Imperial throne. At the moment, the good people of Altdorf were happy to overlook that fact. Kreyssig had led them in the defence of their homes, had saved the city from conquest by the abominable Underfolk. To the commoners, he was a saviour.

Better than any noble, Kreyssig knew how fickle the mood of peasants could be. Today’s hero became tomorrow’s tyrant. Without the support of the Emperor there was no legitimacy behind his rule, only the clamour of the mob kept the Reikland nobility from casting him from the palace. He knew that the nobles would do their utmost to sow discontent among their peasants. Once the populace turned on him, it would all be over.

Kreyssig stalked through the cold halls of the Imperial Palace. Many of the paintings and tapestries had been stripped away, sold off to rebuild the depleted Imperial coffers. Diamond goblets, emerald chairs, an entire armoire made of polished amber, thirty-seven matching sapphire brooches, a cloak of gold leaf over leopard skin, a tub fashioned from pearl — the list of Boris’s extravagances was as extensive as any dragon’s hoard. Kreyssig knew he hadn’t been able to sell the Emperor’s luxuries for even a quarter of their worth, but at the moment bread and beer were far more essential than gold and silver.

‘You needn’t fret over the mood of the people,’ Baroness von den Linden scolded her paramour as she joined him along one of the deserted galleries. The witch had adopted a lavish gown of imperial purple, a colour reserved only for an empress or an emperor’s consort. Apart from the scandalous impropriety, Kreyssig was worried about the subtle implication, the implied threat to the nobles. If the baroness wore purple, then maybe the nobles would think he was sizing himself for a crown. At the moment, he didn’t need the Vons thinking about such things.

‘Let them think what they like,’ the witch laughed, resting her hand in the crook of Kreyssig’s arm. ‘The peasants are behind you and they have greater numbers than all the nobles. The blinders are off now and men like Duke Vidor will find it difficult to put them back on again. The commoners have been awakened.’

Kreyssig frowned at his companion. ‘Easy for you to say. They adore you as some divine instrument of Sigmar Himself. Even the Grand Theogonist is afraid of you.’ He turned away from the mural he had been inspecting, a fifth-century piece depicting the Battle of Black Fire Pass. Once it might have been a priceless heirloom, but Emperor Boris had contracted vandals to alter the work so that Sigmar’s face bore a closer resemblance to his own. Many of the paintings in the palace had suffered such destruction.

‘Stefan isn’t fooled,’ Kreyssig continued as he walked with the baroness. ‘He knows your powers owe nothing to his god. He knows there is witchcraft behind you.’

The baroness smiled. ‘He may know much, but what can he prove? Can he make the people believe?’ She laughed, a bitter spiteful note. ‘Would he dare? If he exposes me, if he denounces me, what will that mean for his precious Temple? How will the peasants react if they know their homes were saved not by Holy Sigmar but by a heretical witch?’

Kreyssig led them down one of the arcades overlooking the extensive gardens, scowling at the great glass windows. Another vestige of Boris Goldgather’s extravagance, and another that wasn’t so easily traded to provide the essentials the city so badly needed. ‘After the battle with the ratmen, the Sigmarites are more influential than ever before. They have resources beyond anything the other temples can match. The bread they distribute to their faithful has won them even more converts than your miracle in the plaza.’

The baroness stopped and glared into Kreyssig’s face. ‘And where have they acquired such resources?’ she demanded. A faint glow crept into her eyes and a chill slithered into the air as she continued to hold her companion close. ‘What have you been doing with the money Boris’s hoard has brought you?’

‘I need allies,’ Kreyssig answered readily. He knew the witch could pluck the thoughts from his mind. There was no need to hide this from her. Not when there were other things in far greater need of secrecy. ‘The Temple of Sigmar is the strongest in Altdorf. With them behind me, the nobles don’t dare move against me. I provide them with the gold they need to buy bread, they feed all those who will bend the knee and swear upon the hammer.’

‘You don’t need them,’ the witch declared. ‘The people worship me and the Sigmarites don’t dare do anything about it! I am the only ally you need.’ Her tone softened, her expression lightened into a coy smile. ‘Together, Adolf, we can rule the Empire. We can gather up all the pieces and make it greater than before. You and I, Emperor and Empress.’

Kreyssig walked on in silence for a moment, his eyes staring down the long corridor. ‘That is a bold ambition,’ he said.

‘Tell me it is one that you haven’t harboured deep down inside,’ the baroness challenged him. ‘A lowly peasant rising to become greater than them all.’

‘You’ve been peering into my mind again,’ Kreyssig snarled. He quickened his pace, marching down the arcade. Baroness von den Linden matched his angered step, her scandalous gown rustling about her velvet slippers.

‘It can all be ours,’ she told him. ‘No one will stand in our way. Not Vidor, not Gazulgrund. None of them.’

Kreyssig stopped, resting his hand against a golden door set into the inner wall. Another example of Boris’s excessive luxury. ‘You make it sound appealing.’

Baroness von den Linden smirked and shook her head. ‘As though you weren’t already thinking such things. That is why I took you in, healed your wounds. I saw the dreams in your heart.’

‘Did you?’ Kreyssig asked.

Something in her lover’s tone brought a flicker of doubt sweeping across the witch’s face. For the first time she was aware of a dissonance within Kreyssig’s thoughts, a mental partition that resisted her.

Before she recovered from her surprise, Kreyssig tore open the golden door with his left hand and with his right swung the purple-gowned witch into the chamber beyond. Frantically, he slammed the door shut behind her, fearing every instant that she would unleash some spell against him.

The baroness shouted at him from behind the door, but the first shout quickly faded into an inarticulate shriek of horror. The witch had realised what room she was in.

One of the most expensive of Boris Goldgather’s luxuries had been the construction of an indoor apiary, that he might be provided with fresh honey even in the deep of winter. Dwarfcraft and magic had gone into the building of the chamber, with pipes behind the walls to maintain a constant temperature and beds of enchanted flowers that never lost their bloom. A dozen hives, each in a box of crystal and gold, resided in the apiary to indulge the late Emperor’s sweet tooth.

The apiary was one of Boris’s extravagances that Kreyssig hadn’t demolished. He had a use for it. A use he was now putting into effect. He remembered the enchantment Baroness von den Linden had placed upon herself, a spell that offended insects and frightened them away. He also remembered that she’d said ants, with homes to protect, wouldn’t flee but would instead turn and fight.

As for ants, so with bees. Even through the thick door, Kreyssig could hear the angry buzzing of the insects as they rose from their hives. He heard the terrified screams of the witch as the swarm descended upon her, a stinging tide of rage. In her panic, the baroness forgot all her magic, all the spells and conjurations that might have saved her. All the cold discipline, all the manipulative cunning, all the careful plotting and politicking, none of it served her in that final terror.

The muffled pleas, the desperate entreaties that became less articulate as venom swelled her flesh and terror assailed her mind — Kreyssig savoured each one. He felt a thrill course through his hand as he felt the witch’s impotent fists pounding at the door, nails scratching uselessly at the golden panel.

‘It wouldn’t have worked,’ Kreyssig said, pressing his mouth against the door. He could hear the impact of bees against the panel as they struck at the witch, knew that for each insect that missed there would be many more that would strike true. ‘You are a Von, after all.’ He heard a dull moan from inside the chamber, felt the door shake as a body slumped against it. He stepped away from the door, a regretful expression on his face. ‘And I am but a lowly peasant.’

Kreyssig turned and marched back down the arcade. He’d have Fuerst brick up the apiary. With Boris gone, there wasn’t any reason to squander expenses on year-long honey. After the room was sealed, no one would ever find the body. Baroness von den Linden had simply vanished, walked off into the mists of legend like Sigmar had done. It would be something to elicit mourning but not unrest among the peasants. The Temple of Sigmar wouldn’t be connected in any way. The conditions of his arrangement with Grand Theogonist Gazulgrund would be satisfied. Removal of the witch in exchange for the Temple’s support. He might, of course, have used the Grand Theogonist’s daughter to sway him, but as it happened, eliminating the witch had suited his own purposes. The baroness thought she could control him; in her eyes he would never be anything but a peasant. He just couldn’t afford such an attitude so close to the Imperial throne.

Not if he would make it his own.

The orison the Sigmarites had taught him had served to conceal his intentions from the witch right until the last. He must remember to thank Stefan — Gazulgrund — for that bit of assistance.

Kreyssig paused, glanced out through the windows and towards the distant spire of the Great Cathedral. Something Fuerst had told him, an unsettling bit of trivia he’d heard a few of the dwarf goldgrubbers discussing. It was tradition for the Grand Theogonists to adopt a dwarf name, but the one Stefan had chosen was unsettling.

Loosely translated, it meant ‘the Death God’s hammer.’

Skavenblight

Vorhexen, 1118

Supreme Warlord Vrrmik of Mors settled into the coveted Twelfth Throne, that chair adjacent to the empty seat reserved for the Horned Rat himself. The symbols of Rictus had been removed, relegated to the lower position Vecteek’s successor had assumed. Vrrmik bared his fangs as he glanced at the simpering Kreptitch. He was a twitchy, nervous piebald ratman typical of the underlings the Warmonger had surrounded himself with. Any warlord of too great an ability was quickly eliminated from the ranks of Clan Rictus; it was one of the ways Vecteek had preserved his own position. Now, however, his plan was suffering from the resultant lack of leadership. Too much of their power had rested in the paws of a single skaven.

There had been many changes in the Shattered Tower. The Verminguard had been expelled from the fortress, replaced by a mixture of Clan Mors stormvermin and Clan Pestilens plaguevermin. The shared responsibility for safeguarding the Council of Thirteen had been a concession the Grey Lords had accepted with qualms. Happy to be rid of Vecteek’s troops, they weren’t so keen on allowing a single clan to assume the duty. In the end, it was decided to pit Mors and Pestilens, the two most powerful clans, in the adversarial role of dual protectors.

Even as Vrrmik congratulated himself on seizing the Second Throne, he couldn’t help but have a flicker of anxiety when he thought of the plague monks. Arch-Plaguelord Nurglitch might be content with a lesser seat, but he now effectively controlled three votes on the Council. Poxmaster Puskab Foulfur, progenitor of the Black Plague, had been the first of his disciples to acquire a seat on the Council, killing Wormlord Blight Tenscratch of Clan Verms and assuming his seat. Now another of the plague monks, a plaguelord named Vrask Bilebroth, had gained a seat on the Council, acquiring the position forfeited by Warlord Manglrr Baneburrow of Fester. There had been many twitching whiskers at the unusual transfer of power, but with Clan Fester entering the Pestilent Brotherhood and becoming little more than a thrall clan to the plague monks, there was little difference whether Manglrr kept his seat or handed it over to his masters.

Grey Lord Vrask had risen to prominence after the ill-fated expedition by Seerlord Skrittar, bringing a copious amount of warpstone back to Skavenblight to enrich the coffers of Clan Pestilens and dragging the once powerful Clan Fester along with him like a bat on a leash. The same mysterious expedition had decimated Clan Mordkin, forcing Warlord Nekrot to invest in new breeders to accelerate the repopulation of his strongholds. However, the most pronounced difference, the thing that probably did more to aggrandise the position of Clan Pestilens than even a hoard of warpstone and a third seat on the Council, was the death of Seerlord Skrittar.

The most defiant and outspoken of Nurglitch’s adversaries, Skrittar had been viewed with a mixture of religious awe and superstitious terror by the rest of the Council. Even the decimation of the grey seers, the loss of twenty-four of the most skilled of the Horned Rat’s prophets, had done little to reduce the fierce reputation of Skrittar. His death in the human lands of Sylvania, however, had cast the entire Order into doubt. The new seerlord, a grizzled half-blind creature named Queekual, was a sinister figure of few words and fewer friends. Since rising to the Council, he’d been content to sit, listen and observe, like some black spider at the centre of its web. None of the Grey Lords knew what the new seerlord might be planning, but none of them desired to become his pawn.

Vrrmik glanced across at the hunched shape of Queekual. It had already been suggested to him that the grey seers be removed from their traditional occupation of the Twelfth Throne, that the dogma of Clan Pestilens had been proven the true path of the Horned One. The flattery of such a suggestion, that he was now in a position to abuse his power in the same manner as the despotic Vecteek, was somewhat diminished by the realisation that such an act could only earn him powerful enemies. There was a reason why the question hadn’t been put to an open vote in the Council. Nobody was sure how much of the grey seers’ power had perished with Skrittar.

No, the white-furred warlord reflected as he preened his whiskers, now wasn’t the time to upset the already disordered ranks of the Council. Now was the time to marshal their forces, to secure the gains they had already made on the surface. To plan their future campaigns.

And to see which of his hated rivals Vrrmik could arrange a violent demise for on the field of battle. Vecteek should have some company in the Horned Rat’s belly, after all.

Wissenland

Nachexen, 1119

A hairy, dishevelled shape clad in furs crept out into the bright light of a new morning. It straightened and stretched as it quit the narrow forest cave that had been its shelter. As the shape unfolded amidst the greenery of the clearing, it resolved itself into the figure of a man.

Erich von Kranzbeuhler rubbed a calloused hand across the thick mat of beard that covered his face. After six years, he imagined he might be able to impress a dwarf with his facial hair. His effect upon the ladies might be less profound.

The outlaw knight shook his head. There was only one lady he was interested in impressing and for all he knew, she was dead. Coerced by her father into a despicable marriage with Adolf Kreyssig, Princess Erna had failed to assassinate her husband. What vengeance the sadistic brute might have visited on her was too terrible for him to contemplate. If only he’d managed to kill Kreyssig in the sewers beneath the Imperial palace so much might have changed.

Thoughts of the sewers did nothing to ease Erich’s mind. He couldn’t forget the ratmen, those ghastly creatures that had first attacked him, then saved him. More than saved him, they had helped him escape, to keep Ghal Maraz out of the hands of Boris Goldgather.

At the time he hadn’t understood. Now he did. The skaven hadn’t helped him. They had tried to help themselves. With Ghal Maraz, any count in the Empire could declare himself Emperor and plunge the whole country into civil war. The skaven had depended on just that, to further weaken the lands of men so they could rise from their burrows and conquer the world. Already the vermin had claimed vast swathes of countryside, decimated cities in Wissenland and Solland. How much greater would their assault have been if the Empire had been decimated by war as well as plague?

Erich was thankful he’d encountered Arch-Lector Hartwich after his escape from Altdorf. The priest had given him important advice concerning Ghal Maraz and the terrible damage it could do in the wrong hands. He’d suggested Erich hide the hammer and keep it safe until the time was right, the time when men were most in need of a symbol to lead them.

For six years he had been waiting, leading a hermit’s existence in the wilds of Wissenland.

The knight stirred from his musings, sighing as he watched a young doe limping her way into the clearing. The animal stared at him as she approached, drawing to within a few paces of him before lowering her head, almost as though bowing before an altar.

Erich lifted his eyes skywards. ‘This isn’t what I would call sport,’ he complained aloud.

‘Nor is it meant to be,’ a voice intoned from the trees. Stepping into the light was a tall, powerfully built man dressed in buckskin, the hollowed head of a bear masking much of his features. The exposed skin of his muscular arms was leathery and scarred, the beard spilling down his chest twisted with burrs.

Haerther, the half-wild priest of Taal, had adopted the role of guardian of Erich when the knight was sent to him by Hartwich. It was only through the aid of the Taalite that Erich had managed to survive so many years of isolation beyond the frontiers of civilisation. He was grateful to his benefactor, but there were times when he resented some of Haerther’s peculiar attitudes.

‘I meant that I would prefer to hunt my own game,’ Erich explained to Haerther. He glanced over at the injured doe. ‘This way, I feel ashamed.’

The priest glowered at him. ‘Are you ashamed to be alive? Think of all the creatures that have surrendered their existence to sustain you this far. All the plants that have been uprooted, all the birds plucked from the skies. Your life is their gift to you. To shun that is an abomination.’

Erich flustered at Haerther’s reprimand. ‘I just mean that it would be better to give the poor creature a chance.’

The priest nodded. ‘I understand, but you must know this little one has reached her end. She has gone lame in her rear leg and would soon fall prey to another predator. I have spoken to her and explained that you are in need of sustenance. She understands.’

‘Couldn’t you… I mean with all your knowledge…’

Haerther frowned. ‘That would be to violate the great cycles that Taal placed to govern all the wild things. No, her time has come. Take her gift to you. You will have need of your strength.’

Erich blinked in surprise. In six years it was the first time Haerther had ever said something that might allude to the future. ‘Something has happened? You have heard something?’ Haerther had brought him news before, had told him of the attack on Altdorf and the death of Boris Goldgather. Always such news had been accompanied by an admonition to wait, to bide his time. This time, Erich could sense, it was different.

‘You must share your prey with the hunter who would have caught her,’ the priest said. As he spoke, Erich was shocked to see a great white wolf stalk out from the trees and march purposefully to Haerther’s side. The priest scratched the beast behind its ears.

‘After you have eaten, we must discuss what has been happening in the north,’ Haerther explained.

‘The time is coming when Ghal Maraz will be needed to rekindle the hope within men.’