Dead Winter

Chapter XVI

Altdorf

Vorhexen, 1111

The abandoned tunnel wasn’t as abandoned as Erich von Kranzbeuhler had expected. After battering their way through the stone blocks concealing the entrance, the rebels had been surprised by a squeaking horde of black-furred vermin. After their experiences in the sewer, it was a shock that had them shrieking in disgust and horror. For a moment, the rats rushed at the startled men, but it was flight not fight that motivated the animals. Soon their scaly tails were seen darting into bushes and behind outbuildings.

The conspirators breathed a collective sigh of relief, but as they stared down into the blackness of the tunnel, they wondered if perhaps they shouldn’t have stayed behind with the men holding the gates or the force staging a diversionary attack on the Palace doors.

‘If it has been sealed up all these years, how did the rats get in?’ Palatine Kretzulescu wondered. No one could give the Sylvanian an answer.

Erich took it upon himself to lead the way. Lighting a whale-oil lamp provided by Count van Sauckelhof, the knight reluctantly entered the forbidding darkness. At once the dank reek of the tunnel engulfed him, a choking foulness that brought a cough rumbling from his chest. He felt his pulse quicken as theories about miasma as source of the plague rose unbidden in his mind.

The walls of the tunnel were ancient, displaying the rough masonry and brickwork of Sigismund the Conquerer’s time. Bones and rat pellets littered the floor while cobwebs dangled from the vaulted ceiling. Here and there the bulk of a fallen slab of stone loomed in the darkness, a vivid warning that something more substantial than a cobweb might drop down into the passage.

As Erich crept through the tunnel, he found his thoughts straying to the daughter of Baron Thornig. The Middenlander had pressed upon Princess Erna first the role of spy and then that of murderess and assassin. It offended the knight’s sensibilities to exploit a beautiful woman in such a fashion, however noble the cause. For her sake, he hoped that Erna would ignore her father’s command.

A familiar stench brought an end to Erich’s ruminations. Ahead, the knight saw a yawning pit, bricks scattered about it. The smell was that of the sewers, evoking once more visions of horror. Rats scampered about the hole, dropping down into it as they recoiled from the light of Erich’s lamp.

Here at least was the answer to how the rats had gotten into a sealed tunnel. Part of the floor had collapsed into the sewers, which must run beneath the Imperial Palace. So much for the durability of dwarf architecture — though as he looked at the pit and the stones piled about it, he couldn’t escape the idea that something was very wrong. The hole looked like it had been caused by something burrowing up from below rather than stones collapsing into a passageway beneath.

‘We have to hurry,’ Prince Sigdan cautioned. He cast a dubious glance at the pit, then laid his hand on Erich’s shoulder and urged him onwards. ‘Every minute we delay is another minute of Boris’s tyranny.’

‘And more time for the Kaiserjaeger to show up,’ warned Baron von Klauswitz.

Baron Thornig’s harsh laughter echoed through the tunnel. ‘I’ve arranged to pull their teeth,’ he boasted. ‘Right now Commander Kreyssig is dining with Khaine in hell!’

Erich felt his blood boil at the baron’s bravado. So lost was he in what he considered a clever bit of scheming that Baron Thornig seemed oblivious to the danger he had placed his daughter in. The knight half-turned to berate the Middenlander, but Prince Sigdan’s silent urging kept him moving.

There would be time to settle all accounts once Boris Goldgather was deposed.

Middenheim

Vorhexen, 1111

The warbling clamour of crude horns rose from the darkened forest, a feral din that seemed to scratch at the stars and to drag down the moon. The discordant notes had scarcely started to fade before a confusion of animalistic howls, bleats and screams pierced the night. From the battlements of Middenheim, archers loosed flaming arrows into the treeline. By the flickering light of the arrows, a bestial horde could be seen rushing from the woods.

An alarm bell sounded, echoed a moment later by the clarion call of trumpets all along the wall. It seemed a useless gesture. The inhabitants of Warrenburg had to be aware of the attack already. They didn’t need the soldiers on the walls to warn them.

For hours the beastmen had been working themselves into a frenzy, the dull rhythm of their manskin drums pulsing from the forest, the growling chants of their savage shamans rising from the trees. There had been ample time for Grand Master Arno to gather his chosen men. Fifty knights in full armour, each of their steeds a gigantic warhorse clad in steel barding, mustered behind the portcullis of the East Gate.

At the clarion call of the trumpet, Arno raised his hand. Slowly the soldiers within the gatehouse began to raise the barrier. Arno watched the massive gate retreat into the roof of the archway with a fatalistic resignation. Once he went through that portal, he understood there was no coming back.

‘I didn’t expect you to lead the charge.’

The Grand Master turned in surprise at hearing the voice of Prince Mandred, though in hindsight he shouldn’t have been. It was, after all, the boy’s idea.

‘I couldn’t ask any of my men to risk themselves if I was too timid to go myself,’ Arno explained. A troubled frown came across his face. ‘You should stay behind, your grace. This is too perilous for the Prince of Middenheim.’

Mandred smiled at the knight’s protest. ‘If it is so dangerous, then we can’t risk the Grand Master of the White Wolves.’

Arno laughed. ‘Commander Vitholf can more than make up for my loss. The White Wolves might even be better off with him leading the pack.’ The troubled look returned to the knight’s face. ‘There is only one Prince of Middenheim,’ he said.

Mandred saw the Grand Master directing what he thought was a subtle signal to his knights. The prince watched as two of the warriors edged their horses closer to his own. Glancing at the rising portcullis, Mandred dug his spurs into the flanks of his warhorse.

‘Let it never be said the Prince of Middenheim asked his subjects to do something he was afraid to do himself!’ he shouted as his horse bolted forwards. Crouching his body low against the animal’s neck, he was just able to clear the spikes jutting from the underside of the rising gate.

Grand Master Arno gawped after him in astonishment, then roared at his knights. ‘You heard his grace!’ Arno bellowed. ‘Follow him to hell or victory!’ Spurring his own horse onwards, the Grand Master copied Mandred’s example, clearing the gate as it was still being raised. Behind him he could hear the thunder of hooves as the rest of the knights started after him.

The broadness of the eastern causeway gave the knights room to form ranks as they charged out from the gate. Above them, from the walls, the clarions sounded once more, singing out into the night, announcing the wrath of man to his inhuman enemies.

The beastmen had reached the hovels of Warrenburg, rampaging through the confused huddle of shacks with feral bloodlust. If they heard the trumpets sound, the brutes were too lost in their animalistic rage to care. The primordial hatred of beastkin for man burned in their savage hearts, feeding the fires of their fury. Not content to simply kill their victims, the raging beastmen mauled their victims, ripping them to shreds with tooth and claw. In their fury, they glutted themselves in an orgy of destruction.

Into this vision of atrocity, the warriors of Middenheim charged. The tents and hovels of Warrenburg crumpled beneath the pounding hooves of their steeds, parting before them like wheat before a scythe. Refugees scattered before the knights, but the blood-mad beastkin stood transfixed, their savage brains flung into confusion by the sudden appearance of the warriors.

Warhammers came smashing down into horned heads, great axes clove through furred flesh, iron-shod hooves crushed bestial bodies. The name of Ulric rose in a fierce war cry as the White Wolves brought the vengeance of man to the marauding forest beasts.

Mandred was in the thick of the battle, spurring his huge destrier into the heart of the shantytown. His sword slashed across the face of a fawn-faced beastling as it gorged upon the body of a slaughtered woman. The creature clapped furry claws to its mangled eyes, bleating in agony. Another sweep of the prince’s sword opened the monster’s throat and sent it crashing into the snow.

A second beastman rushed at Mandred, a wiry thing with ox-horns and an almost human visage. It brandished a dismembered human leg, wielding the macabre trophy like a club. Mandred waited for the thing to come close, then put spurs to his warhorse, urging the destrier to rear up, to lash out with its front hooves. The flailing legs struck the charging beastman, hurling it back and snapping its ribs.

A braying war cry was Mandred’s first warning that a third beastman was running towards him. It was a huge goat-headed monster, a rusted broadaxe clenched in its paws. The brute was charging towards him from the flank, at an angle where the prince wouldn’t be able to reach it with his blade. He tried to wheel his horse around to meet the monster’s rush, but even as he did so, he knew it would be too late.

Suddenly another rider appeared, crashing through the wall of a shack. The beastman was caught beneath the warhorse’s pounding hooves, smashed to the ground and crushed underfoot. Mandred could hear its bones snap as the horse charged over it. He opened his mouth to thank his rescuer, then laughed in disbelief as he recognised the rider.

‘Franz!’ the prince exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here? You should be in bed tending your wounds!’

‘I don’t need to stand to ride a horse, your grace,’ the bodyguard answered. He rubbed his hand over his bald scalp. ‘It was wrong to leave me behind,’ the knight said.

‘I was afraid you might tell my father,’ Mandred said.

Franz smiled and shook his head. ‘The Graf will learn about this foolishness soon enough.’ He looked away, peering through the nest of shacks and tents. ‘It seems they’re running, your grace. We’ll have to hurry if we want to claim a respectable contribution to the battle.’

Mandred grinned and brought his horse around. ‘Let’s make them wish they’d stayed in the Drakwald.’

The battle was a short but bloody affair. Fully a quarter of the shantytown was trampled by the time the beastkin broke and fled. At least a hundred of the brutes had fallen before the charge, but behind them they left scores of dead and dying refugees.

The herd had been broken, however. Grand Master Arno didn’t think they’d be back. It would take them a long time to lick their wounds and build up their courage. By then, perhaps, the threat of the Black Plague would be diminished enough for the Graf to allow the refugees inside Middenheim.

Jubilation at their victory was tempered by the knowledge that it was a pyrrhic victory. Everywhere in the shantytown the marks of plague were in evidence. Dead bodies swollen with buboes, living wretches with black treacle oozing from their pores. Contagion was everywhere, the stink of disease omnipresent.

The knights knew that through their bold charge they had exposed themselves to the plague. Somewhere in the squalor of Warrenburg, the source of the disease lurked. None of the warriors could say for certain that its deathly touch had not reached out for him. None of them knew if he carried the seed of the Black Plague in his body.

Mandred looked up the causeway, staring at the grim edifice of the bastion. That would be their home now, locked away behind those grim grey walls. There they would await the judgement of the gods, wait to see if the justice of their cause was enough to guard them against the clutch of the plague.

A sombre silence gripped the knights as they slowly rode towards the bastion. Each of them wondered if he would ever leave the place alive.

Mandred struggled to find some words of reassurance to bolster their flagging spirits, but nothing seemed profound enough to honour their sacrifice. It was a sacrifice he was proud to share with such men.

The sound of a horn cause Mandred to turn his gaze away from the bastion. For a moment the fear that the beastmen had regrouped flashed through his mind. Then he recognised the notes of his father’s hunting horn. Raising his gaze to the East Gate, he was shocked to see a company of cavalry slowly trotting their way onto the causeway.

At their head, resplendent in his blue cloak and gilded armour, rode Graf Gunthar.

Talabecland

Vorhexen, 1111

Reiksmarshal Everhardt Johannes Boeckenfoerde rose from his chair as his three visitors were bowed into the general’s tent. His adjutant, Nehring, offered to take the heavy cloaks from the visitors, but they declined his overtures with a brusque shrug.

‘We have come from Altdorf,’ the foremost of the men announced.

The Reiksmarshal gave Nehring a warning look. ‘It must have been a long and unpleasant ride,’ he said. ‘Perhaps not as unpleasant as moving an army under these conditions…’

‘You have been implicated in a plot against His Imperial Majesty Emperor Boris,’ the cloaked man continued. The three men began to fan out across the tent. ‘His Imperial Majesty offers you a choice. You can return to Altdorf, stand trial and be executed. Or you can remain here and fall on your own sword.’ A cruel smile flickered on the man’s face. ‘If you choose execution, Commander Kreyssig asks you to remember the traitor von Schomberg.’

The cruelty in Boeckenfoerde’s smile matched that of the Kaiserjaeger officer. ‘I have heard about the Grand Master. A shameful business. Only an animal would take pride in such work.’

The three Kaiserjaeger reached for their swords. Instantly, Nehring had his own blade unsheathed. The Reiksmarshal remained seated, motioning for his guests and his adjutant to be calm.

‘You came here to arrest me?’ Boeckenfoerde asked.

The officer’s voice was filled with scorn when he answered. ‘This tent is surrounded,’ he hissed. ‘I have twenty Kaiserjaeger outside and they only wait my word to butcher you like a pig!’

Boekenfoerde nodded, as though considering the threat posed by the Kaiserjaeger. ‘Has it occurred to you where you are?’ he asked. ‘Have you given any thought to where this tent is? I have four thousand soldiers out there and at the slightest sound of violence coming from this tent, they will take up arms and… as you put it… butcher you like a pig.’ He smiled as he watched the colour drain out of the officer’s face. ‘Nehring, take their swords. These gentlemen don’t need them any more.’

‘You won’t get away with this,’ the officer growled as Nehring plucked the sword from his unresisting grip. ‘That is the army of his Imperial Majesty! When I tell them you are a traitor…’

The Reiksmarshal rose from his chair and stepped out from behind his table. He tapped his finger on the map pinned to the wall of his tent. ‘His Imperial Majesty has just sent this army marching through the worst of winter with barely enough provisions to provide for half of them and winter gear for even less. And what enemy draws us to such reckless and heroic pursuits? Some new orc invasion or marauding Norscans? No, we march to force the Grand Duke of Talabecland to open the markets in Talabheim so Boris can get a few more crowns in tax revenue.’ Boeckenfoerde’s eyes were like daggers as he glared at the men from Altdorf. ‘I don’t think you’ll find too many here with any great love for Goldgather. Loyalty to me is the only thing that has brought them this far.

‘If you tell those men who you are and why you came here, they won’t leave enough of you left for the crows to pick at.’ The Reiksmarshal turned away from the map, retrieving his sword from where it leaned against his cot. ‘I suggest you ride back to Altdorf before I tell them myself.’

The Kaiserjaeger were quick to heed the warning, nearly falling over themselves as they scrambled out of the tent. Boeckenfoerde was an excellent judge of a man’s mettle, and he’d had these pegged as ambitious thugs the moment they stepped into his tent. Their kind would kill for their leaders, but they wouldn’t die for them. Faced with the choice of dying to accomplish their mission, they could only turn tail and run.

Nehring watched the Kaiserjaeger mount their horses and ride off, then slipped back inside the general’s tent. He was surprised to find the Reiksmarshal packing his gear. He gazed quizzically at the general.

‘Call the officers,’ Boeckenfoerde told him. ‘They’ll have to be told about this.’

‘But you said the men would stand with you,’ Nehring reminded.

The Reiksmarshal sighed. ‘Some of them might. I hope many of them will, but a lot of those men have families back in Altdorf and in the Reikland. If the conspirators have failed to depose Boris, then those families would be imperilled if these men took up arms against the Emperor.’

‘What about you?’ Nehring asked. ‘What will you do?’

‘I’m certainly not going back to Altdorf,’ the Reiksmarshal said. ‘I’ll take whatever men stand with me and head for someplace out of Boris’s reach. Talabheim would be a good prospect.

‘They might need an extra army soon.’

Nuln

Ulriczeit, 1111

The blaze of a rushlight drove back the darkness. Walther blinked against the harsh glare. For days now he had existed in perpetual blackness, the only sensations he could experience limited to the chill of his cell and the skittering of rats behind the walls. His eyes, deprived of vision for so long, burned with agony. The rat-catcher pressed his bloodied palms to his face in an effort to shield himself from the rushlight.

Fellgiebel stood in the doorway, his icy eyes studying the man sprawled on the stone floor. The cell, a little room buried beneath the Freiberg Hundertschaft’s watch station, was scarcely six feet across and only a little taller. It was without furnishing or accoutrement; the straw pallet had already been stolen by an opportunistic watchman to sell as fodder and the wooden slop bucket had met a similar fate.

When he told the guard to wait outside and closed the door, Fellgiebel and his prisoner were utterly alone and without distraction. The captain nodded when he saw the look of horror that crossed Walther’s features. Clearly the man appreciated the situation he was in. Officially, peasants were the property of their lords and the watch wasn’t allowed to mutilate them or render them any harm which would cause permanent injury. To do so would require compensation to the lord, something a simple Dienstmann couldn’t afford. Thus, by the letter of the law, there were limits to what tortures a militia like the Hundertschaft had recourse to.

Of course there were loopholes. An accident, for instance, would place the onus of compensation upon the peasant himself. It was frightening how many accidents there were in Nuln.

‘I grow weary of these discussions,’ Fellgiebel said, his gloved hands clasped together before him. The captain’s cold gaze fixed upon Walther’s bloodied face. ‘You are going to talk, you know. It is just a question of time and pain.’

Walther struggled up from the floor, using the icy stone wall to prop up his battered body. With every motion, broken bones ground against each other, bringing moans of anguish from the rat-catcher. By an effort of will that seemed to tax his very soul, Walther forced himself to meet Fellgiebel’s gaze and address his tormentor.

‘What… what has… happened…’ He closed his eyes, dredging up some last speck of courage to steel his faltering voice. ‘The Black Rose, how…’

‘The Black Rose is under quarantine,’ Fellgiebel said, his voice like a knife. ‘No one goes in, no one comes out.’ A cruel sneer curled his lip. ‘Plague, you know. The place is alive with it. At least for now.’

Walther sagged back against the wall, his broken body heaving as dry sobs racked his frame. ‘Zena,’ he groaned. In his mind he could picture her, alone and shunned in some corner of the tavern, her body covered in the black buboes of the plague.

Fellgiebel stepped out from the doorway and began pacing across the small cell. ‘Ah, yes, your girl. You’ve mentioned her a few times now. She must be very close to you.’ There was a menacing gleam in the reptilian eyes as the captain stared down at Walther. ‘Perhaps I should collect her for a little discussion. Just a short one. I doubt a woman would share your stamina, Schill. Or your stubborn endurance.’

Walther shook his head. The threat had been made so many times now that it held no further horrors for him. Fellgiebel had used that particular method of persuasion too often. If he had any intention of carrying through with it, he would have done so by now. The fact that he hadn’t convinced Walther that plague really had beset the Black Rose. Even Fellgiebel wasn’t so arrogant in his authority as to brave the Black Plague.

‘Do you want me to tell you what you want to hear?’ Walther said. ‘Or do you want the truth?’

Fellgiebel stopped pacing. His cheerless smile spread. ‘The truth, Schill. That is all I have ever wanted. The truth about your friend Aldinger and the others. Where they are. What they know. What they are planning to do.’ The captain’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Aldinger was a knight, you know. A refugee from the Reiksknecht. The others are probably Reiks-knecht too. Our great and glorious Emperor has placed a bounty on all Reiksknecht. They are traitors and it is every man’s duty to turn them over to the Emperor.’ Fellgiebel tried to make his smile a bit friendlier. ‘If you tell me where they are, I’ll share the reward with you.’

The only answer from the prisoner was a miserable cough, the closest he could manage to a laugh. Fellgiebel ignored the gesture and resumed his pacing. ‘We shall forget the Reiksknecht, then. Tell me about the rat you captured. Why were the professors so interested in it? What did they tell you about it?’

Again, Walther tried to laugh. This line of questioning had been going on for a fortnight, always made with the same note of urgency. Even more than his denial of knowing Aldinger or the Reiksknecht, his insistence that he knew nothing special about the giant rat seemed to infuriate Fellgiebel. The captain wouldn’t believe Walther’s story that the professors hadn’t been particularly interested in the rat but more in the humiliation the existence of such a creature could deal to their reputations as scholars and their theories about the structure of life. As for any special information they had imparted to him, every one of the scholars had insisted the thing was an impossibility, later trying to justify their stance by claiming the giant Walther had caught was simply a one-time freak.

‘I grow tired of asking this,’ Fellgiebel said, coming to a halt and fixing Walther with his reptilian stare. ‘What do you know? What plans did you make with Aldinger? Who else is involved?’ The captain watched Walther closely, looking for any sign that his prisoner would speak. Walther just stared up at him with that mixture of fright and abhorrence with which the sane regard the mad.

‘Very well,’ Fellgiebel said. ‘I did warn you this would be the last time.’ The captain strode across the cell, not towards the door but to the bare wall at the end of the room. ‘I had hoped to spare you this. You do not believe it now, but I have been trying to help you.’ The coldness ebbed from the captain’s eyes, replaced by a quivering terror. His gloved hand reached out to the corner of the wall, his fingers brushing against the stone. His entire body trembling, Fellgiebel hesitated. Swiftly he wrenched his hand away from the wall and turned upon Walther.

‘Tell me, before it is too late!’ the captain demanded. ‘Hanging, the rack, whatever the Hundertschaft can do to you is nothing compared to what awaits if you don’t speak!’ Fellgiebel tugged away one of his gloves. Walther recoiled in loathing as he saw the captain’s hand. It was lean and hairy, covered in bony nodules, more like the paw of some hideous beast than the hand of a man. Despite the evidence of his own eyes, it took a moment for Walther to appreciate the hideous truth. The captain of the Freiberg Hundertschaft was a mutant!

‘They are not pretty, are they?’ Fellgiebel asked. ‘I was… contaminated helping the inquisitors of Verena cull mutants from the sewers. I couldn’t tell anyone about my… condition or I would have been burned.’ He cast a fearful look at the blank wall at the back of the cell. ‘But someone learned just the same. The price for silence was service.’ The captain’s lean face became flush with desperation. ‘Speak, Walther! Believe me when I tell you there are worse things than death in this world!’

The rat-catcher leaned forwards, forcing his eyes to meet those of his captor. ‘Do you want the truth, or just what you want to hear?’

Fellgiebel snarled in frustration, turning away and dragging the glove back over his hand. ‘On your head be it!’ he cried, stalking back towards the wall. ‘The gods have mercy on you,’ he said as he pressed his finger against a hidden catch. The wall shuddered as it pivoted inwards, retreating into yawning blackness. A foul, noxious reek wafted into the cell, an evil animalistic smell that caused every hair on Walther’s body to stand on end. Painfully, the rat-catcher started to drag himself away from the secret passage.

Fellgiebel walked away, turning his back to the tunnel. A mad giggle bubbled from his lips, only a supreme effort of will forcing it back down. When the captain was composed, he cast a final, pitying look at Walther. ‘Forgive me,’ he whispered.

Walther didn’t hear Fellgiebel. His attention was riveted to the tunnel and what was transpiring in those black depths. Beady red eyes gleamed from the darkness, and with them came a furtive rustling and chittering that was monstrously familiar to the rat-catcher. His body trembled as eyes and sounds drew closer, as shadowy figures emerged from the tunnel. He screamed as the flickering light revealed rodent-shapes with clutching paws and glistening fangs. He was still screaming when hand-like paws seized him and dragged him into the tunnel.

Fellgiebel kept his back turned, not watching as his secret masters dragged Walther away. He felt his heart sicken, his stomach roil with disgust. If there had been another way — but his masters were impatient and he had been left without a choice. No man deserved what he had done to Walther. No man deserved to become the captive of the skaven.

The sound of the hidden door sliding shut told Fellgiebel when it was all over. Only then did he turn around, making a careful inspection of the cell to ensure that no trace of the skaven had been left behind. The disappearance of Walther Schill would barely raise an eyebrow. Many peasants who succumbed to torture vanished. Without a body, the nobles had a hard time claiming their compensations.

An insane giggle returned to Fellgiebel’s lips as he started to leave the cell. It was some time before he was able to compose himself, to slip back into the emotionless personality of the cruel watch captain and subdue the terrified agent of the underfolk.

‘The rats caught the rat-catcher,’ Fellgiebel laughed. There was no amusement in the laughter, only the emptiness of a man who was a traitor to his own race.

Altdorf

Vorhexen, 1111

The Palace Guard slid from Erich’s blade, clutching at the crimson stain spreading across his golden livery. The knight pushed his dying victim aside, bounding forwards to confront a second soldier who had Mihail Kretzulescu pinned against the wall. The guard swung about in alarm as he caught the sound of Erich’s approach, but before he could bring his halberd around, the knight’s sword was slashing across the man’s eyes. The blinded wreck collapsed to the floor, shrieking in agony.

Erich helped Kretzulescu out from the little niche the Sylvanian had hidden himself in. The palatine’s shoulder was deeply gashed, his black tunic damp with blood. ‘I’m afraid I’m not much use in a fight,’ he apologised. ‘It’s a different thing fighting a man than it is hunting ghouls in the marshes.’

‘At least you stood your ground,’ Erich reassured him. ‘That is all one man can demand of another.’

The sounds of conflict gradually faded away, replaced by the moans of the wounded and the dying. Erich looked down the marble-walled gallery, feeling a twinge of sadness when he saw the lush tapestries hanging on the walls befouled with blood. The sudden appearance of the rebels in the very heart of the Palace had caught the defenders unawares, putting the element of surprise firmly on their side. He knew they couldn’t count on that advantage much longer. Already servants must be carrying word of their presence. Numbers were still on the side of the Palace Guard. If the rebels were to have any chance in achieving their purpose, they had to find Emperor Boris before an overwhelming force could be marshalled against them.

To that end, Prince Sigdan had split their force the moment they gained the Palace. One group, led by the prince, had headed upwards to search the apartments of the Emperor’s private residence. Another party headed by Duke Konrad had turned to the lower floors, where the audience chambers, reception halls and more functionary chambers of the Palace were situated.

Erich had been put in charge of a group of twenty men and sent to investigate the middle levels of the Palace, the trophy rooms and show rooms, the libraries and conservatories. The indecent extravagances of Boris Goldgather had sickened the knight at every turn. He’d discovered chambers that had been emptied so that stacks of expensive stained glass might be heaped inside, layers of dust caked about their silver frames indicating the neglect to which they had fallen. Rooms stocked with camel-skin divans and alabaster vases imported from Araby, artworks from Tilea, wondrous mechanical automata from the dwarf kingdoms, all of these had suffered similar abandonment. Erich even discovered a room filled with teakwood boxes containing little painted tiles and recalled the scandal surrounding the Emperor’s extravagant purchase of a famous Estalian fresco and the king’s ransom he had paid out to have the fresco painstakingly dismantled and transported across half the Old World. That had been nearly a decade ago and the Emperor had made no effort to reassemble the fresco. It seemed once the thrill of acquisition was gone, he took no further interest in the treasures he squandered the Empire’s wealth upon.

After scouring an entire floor without a trace of another living soul, it was impressed upon Erich the exact magnitude of their labour. He could have a hundred men and several hours and still not make a proper job of it. As it stood, he hoped that Count van Sauckelhof’s prayers to Ranald weren’t being ignored.

While Erich was taking a quick count of his small force, determining that two Sylvanians had fallen in the skirmish and besides Kretzulescu there were three wounded, a loud voice began shouting triumphantly from one of the chambers leading off the gallery. Erich recognised the bellow as belonging to Baron Thornig, but what had caused his excitement the knight was at a loss to explain. Fearing the worst, he motioned the two Reiksknecht in their little group to follow him and set off at a run to find the Middenlander.

The room the shouts came from looked like an armoury, so filled was it with weapons and armour. A half-dozen corpses wearing the gold of the Palace Guard were sprawled around the doorway, showing every sign of having made a vicious effort at defence. Beyond the doorway virtually every sort of armament was on display, lying placidly upon velvet-lined tables and stands. Erich saw the thin rapiers of Estalia and the brutish axes of Kislev, the heavy lances of Bretonnia and a thorny sword-like bludgeon of inhuman origin. There seemed no pattern to the assortment of weaponry, a dwarf axe resting beside a blade of elven make, a crude orc axe beside a curved scimitar from Araby.

Then Erich noticed a gruesome horned helm of blackened iron hanging upon a silver hook, the splinters of a shadow box dangling all around it. Erich could understand why the trophy had been hidden, and why whoever had smashed the shadow box had quickly retreated. There was no mistaking that helm, not for anyone who had examined an illuminated copy of the Deus Sigmar. The knight felt a sense of awe as he stared at this relic from the founding of the Empire — the helm of Morkar the Despoiler.

At once the smallness and unimportance of his own life pressed down upon the knight’s spirit. Who was he, captain of an outlawed order of knights, to challenge the authority and legacy of the emperors? Who was he to question a power that dated back to Sigmar himself?

Despair closed its claws about his heart as he stared up at the hoary battle trophy. Erich found his grip on his sword weakening, his sense of purpose faltering. Giving up now was the only thing that made sense any more. There was no hope of victory, no triumph waiting at the end of the ordeal. Only death and humiliation and shame.

Baron Thornig’s bellow snapped Erich from the pernicious influence of the helm. The knight glared at the lifeless iron mask, sensing its malignant mockery. Now that he was aware of its influence, it seemed weaker, unable to manipulate his fear, but Erich wanted to take no chances. Cautiously, he stepped away from the relic of the ancient Chaos warlord and made his way across the room to where Thornig continued to howl and shout.

‘You’ll bring the whole Palace down on us!’ Erich snarled at the Middenlander.

Baron Thornig just smiled and pointed his fist at the table beside him. The stand was richly carved from the lip of its recessed surface to each of the clawed dragon-feet at the ends of its legs. A casing of transparent crystal covered the display, and the surface beneath the trophy ensconced below looked to be nothing less than dragonskin.

But Erich paid scant attention to these trappings of opulence. His eyes were instantly locked upon the relic itself. Like the helm of Morkar, there was no mistaking what it was. Unlike that grim trophy, however, the relic’s draw was unmistakable. Looking upon it, Erich could feel vigour surge through his veins.

‘Ghal Maraz,’ Erich whispered.

Baron Thornig laughed. ‘I thought that would be worth seeing. But it’s too damn fine to leave with a leech like Goldgather.’ So saying, the Middenlander raised his own warhammer, a weapon that seemed small and crude beside the magnificent hammer which had once filled the hands of Sigmar himself.

Erich gasped in horror, lunging to restrain Baron Thornig. ‘You don’t mean to destroy it!’ he shouted.

Baron Thornig shook him off and raised his hammer once more. ‘Of course not!’ he shouted, bringing the warhammer smashing down and shattering the crystal casing.

‘I mean to steal it!’