Sword of Vengeance, page 30
‘Sigmar preserve us,’ said Roll grimly, drawing his sword. ‘Sigmar preserve us all.’
Natassja waited in the throne room. The doors to the shaft beyond had been closed and the roar of the fires was subdued. She could feel the power beneath her feet growing, though. The time was fast approaching. Both her body and mind were changing. Her awareness, already more acute than the limited senses of mortal women, had magnified a thousandfold. She could feel the heartbeat of every soul within the city, could feel the slow burn of their stunted emotions as they readied themselves for the coming assault. From the augmentation chambers in the pits of the Tower to the daemons circling above, they were all transparent to her.
The transformation had some drawbacks. Her grasp on the material world was becoming ever more tenuous, and she had to concentrate to ensure that she retained her proper place within it. This was a dangerous time for her. If she lost her grip too soon, before the Stone had reached the appropriate pitch of awareness, the process would never complete and she’d be left torn and rootless.
That would not happen. Not after so many decades in the preparation.
Ever since her youth, almost forgotten on the plains of Kislev, she had known she was destined for greater things. The life of a serf had never been enough for her. Even before she’d known of any existence other than the casual brutality of the ice-bound villages, some voice had reassured her that the future held improvements. That voice had never left her, her constant companion as the years had worn on.
It had all changed with the coming of the dark ones. Out of the wastes they’d ridden, tall and slender and bearing the curved scimitars of raiders. She’d loved them at once, relishing their cruelty and skill. The villagers hadn’t stood a chance. The headman had been the last to go, roaring with pointless resistance right up until the lead horseman put a spike through his temple.
Then they’d taken her. She’d been pretty and young enough to be worth corrupting. Ah, that had been a hard time. Even during the worst of her misery, manacled in the hut of the bandit chieftain, subject to the crude tastes of a savage and ignorant man, the voice hadn’t gone away. The raiders were His people, and He promised to deliver her from them. If she was just patient for a while and accepted the trials He sent her, then the path would open up to worlds of discovery.
And so it had proved. In the far north, there were wonders fit for a mind of her subtlety. Her knowledge grew, fed by the snatched tutelage of shamans and their slaves. Beauty was an asset amongst such people, and in time she learned to use it. Each night she abased herself before the Dark Prince, and He gifted her luck. When she finally escaped the chieftain and was free to explore the fringes of the realm of madness, He gave her the Vision. She could remember it as clearly as ever. It had been so beautiful. By comparison, the bleak steppes became dreary and tedious to her. So she worked harder as she traversed the hidden realms, studied forbidden books, learned secret rites, delved into the wellspring of Dark magic which gushed so fulsomely on the edge of the mortal world of matter.
The years passed. Others aged, and she did not. When after so long in the far north she finally discovered the old bandit chieftain again he was in failing health, ready to put aside the cares of mortal life and join the symphony of souls in the hereafter. Natassja kept him alive for another fifty years, every day of which was a fresh and unique agony. By the time she was ready to let his shrivelled soul slink into oblivion, her powers had become swollen and overripe. The hunt for a greater challenge was on. She needed to find a way to fulfil the Vision.
She never regretted leaving the steppes. The warmer lands were so much more interesting, bursting with opportunity and places to practise the art. Over the long, wearing years she’d lived in many places – Marienburg, Altdorf of course, Talabheim, the heart of the Drakwald, a Lahmian citadel in the Middle Mountains, a hundred other places great and small. The world aged and grew colder while her blood and flesh remained hot and vital. The Vision never left her. She was just waiting for the right moment.
She thought it had come with Marius, but he’d proved impossible to subvert. Then she’d found Lassus, and the possibilities began to coalesce. Four hundred years of searching, and the Vision had been vindicated in Averheim, that most provincial of Imperial cities. Turning the dull, prosperous, strait-laced pile of dung into a cacophonous oratory to the Lord of Pain had been the most pleasurable thing she’d ever done. The men of Averland were no better than the cattle they reared, and their fate was well and truly deserved. It was an appropriate place to begin her new life, and her gratitude to the Dark Prince was profound and sincere. To those that pleased Him, He asked for so little, and gave so much.
Now she’d passed beyond the power of any in the province to hinder her. Helborg, for so long the one she’d feared, could do nothing in the time that remained to him. Schwarzhelm even less so. Volkmar and his little band of sword-wavers might be an irritation, but her vast legions stood between her and the Theogonist. All she needed now was a breathing space, just enough for the harmonies
to reach their optimum pitch. It wouldn’t be long.
‘Natassja!’
Grosslich’s voice was thick with anger. She turned to see him framed in the doorway to her throne room. He was still dressed in his ridiculous red armour. The Dark Prince only knew what had made him design such a thing. He carried his bone wand in one hand and a black-bladed sword in the other.
He looked hugely annoyed. She didn’t blame him for that. If she’d been him, she’d have been hugely annoyed too.
‘My love,’ she murmured, walking over to the throne and taking her place on it. The little gestures were important, even now. ‘What brings you–’
‘You know damn well what brings me here,’ Grosslich said, advancing towards her. There was a powerful aura about him. He’d grown strong. In another place and another time, he’d have been a mighty warlord. The waste of it saddened her.
‘You seek Eschenbach.’
‘Seek? No. I know full well what you did to him. Sacrificed to your power, just as you intend to sacrifice me.’
‘And why would I want that?’
‘To rule this place alone,’ spat Grosslich, eyes blazing. ‘That’s why you made it a home of capering devils. None of this is what I wanted.’
Natassja raised an eyebrow. ‘Then stay here with me. I’ll show you how to enjoy it. I never lied to you, Heinz-Mark. Believe me. If you stay in the Tower, there are still many things we could accomplish together.’
Grosslich laughed harshly. A fey light had kindled across his features. The power he’d accumulated was already leaking, spilling out from his fingertips like water. He couldn’t handle what he’d been given. Ach, the waste.
‘Perhaps you’d like that,’ he said. ‘Perhaps that would give you all you wanted from this arrangement.’
He laughed again, a bitter, choking sound. ‘I won’t do it, Natassja. There’s one role left I know how to play. Your army needs a commander. I’m leaving to take them. I’ll destroy the challengers, and then I’ll make my next move. Perhaps I’ll bring them back here. Perhaps I won’t. You’ve given me the tools to carve out a realm of my own – it doesn’t need to be here.’
‘I could prevent you,’ Natassja said, and the sadness in her voice was unfeigned.
Grosslich shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. My skills are greater than you think.’
Natassja knew that wasn’t so. She could kill him with a word, but to do so would solve nothing. Out of affection, she would give him a final chance, after which he would have to make his own decisions.
‘If you leave the Tower, I cannot protect you. If you stay, you will remain safe. You have my word. You will never be the master, but you will be provided for. You may yet become truly mighty, a regent worthy of long service.’
Grosslich smiled to himself, as if a joke he’d heard a lifetime ago had suddenly made sense.
‘A regent. Tempting. I’ll bear it in mind.’
He bowed low.
‘Farewell, Natassja. When I return, master of the armies you’ve created, perhaps our negotiations will go differently.’
He turned on his heel flamboyantly and marched out of the chamber. Natassja watched him go. Despite everything, despite the centuries of malice and intrigue, she was not unmoved. There had been a path for the two of them she’d foreseen, one of discovery, knowledge and enlightenment. The fact that he’d chosen to reject it was regrettable.
‘So you let him go,’ came a sibilant voice from behind the throne.
A daemon curled up from the floor, her naked flesh snaking lewdly across the obsidian. Natassja ignored the gratuitous attempt at provocation. For beings of infinite intelligence and power, daemons could be tediously infantile.
‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘Maybe it was wrong of me to expect more of him.’
The daemon laughed. ‘Or maybe he decided his position was no longer secure. That is a mighty army out there. It will make him feel safer.’
Natassja turned to look at the daemon and frowned with disapproval.
‘Did you plant that idea in his head? If so, I’ll rend you apart.’
The daemon giggled, though the laughter was suffused with a note of fear. She darted away, hovering near the outlet to the shaft.
‘That’s not in your gift, my queen,’ she reminded her.
‘Not yet,’ said Natassja, rising from the throne. ‘But watch yourself.’
She began to walk from the chamber.
‘Are you starting it, then?’ asked the daemon excitedly, following at a safe distance.
‘Why not? I have the city to myself now.’
The daemon whooped with pleasure. ‘Then you’re not worried about their armies? Helborg draws close, and he carries the sword.’
‘What can he do now? His time has passed.’ Natassja turned to the floating daemon and gave her an affectionate, tolerant smile. ‘Return to your sisters, dark one. There’ll be more play for you before the day is out.’
Then she turned back, heading down the long gallery and towards the spiral staircase.
‘The Chamber of the Stone will be warded until all is complete,’ she warned. ‘Wait for me outside the Tower. It is, at last, time for my birth.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Out on the plain, something had changed. The legions continued to take up their positions, but a new presence had come among them. Volkmar strode forwards, peering down into the smog-clad gloom of the battlefield.
‘My spyglass,’ he snapped, and a priest hurried to bring it.
He swept across the ranks of enemy troops. Some were men, clad in Grosslich’s colours, their eyes glowing strangely. Others were obscene corruptions of men, their legs twisted backwards and crouching like dogs.
Then he found his quarry. The gates of the city had opened, and a man had emerged, mounted on a coal-black charger. The horse was as corrupt and twisted as everything else in that host. It had clawed pads in place of hooves and a scaled hide in place of skin. Its mane and tail shone like polished onyx and had been plaited and decorated with jewels. Tabards decorated with forbidden sigils hung from its flanks, and its eyes smouldered like hot embers. It was massive, at least a foot taller and broader than a mortal beast, and when it trod on the broken earth the claws sunk deep.
The figure mounted on it was no less impressive. Enclosed from head to foot in crimson armour, glistening from the fires around him, the master of Averheim had emerged. He wore a tall helm crested with a plume of gold, the only opening of which was a narrow slit for his eyes. In his right hand he carried a black-bladed broadsword with a serrated edge. It looked as if molten pitch were continually dripping from the dagger-sharp points, pooling like blood on the earth as he passed into the heart of his men. In his left hand he bore a wand of bone.
As he made his way through the ranks of soldiers they withdrew silently. Perhaps once they had fought under him as mortal men, hopeful of the new dawn he would bring to Averland. Now such memories were lost, subsumed beneath the crushing will of the Stone and its mistress.
With their commander among them, the legions began to advance.
‘So it begins,’ said Volkmar, handing the spyglass back. ‘The master has left his lair. Give the signal.’
Trumpets blared out from the command position and passed down the line. The gunnery crews sprang into action. Just as they had done at Streissen, they worked quickly and well. These were crews from Nuln, the best in the Empire, and they were masters of their deadly trade.
Orders roared out, cannonballs were rammed home and rags doused in flame. Crews and escorts scrambled to get out of the way as the iron-belchers were primed and loaded. Seconds later the thundering boom of ignition shook the earth and a wall of death screamed out from the Averpeak on to the plain below. Huge clouds of blackpowder smoke billowed from the gun-line, swept up into the air by the swirling storm and dragged across the battlefield.
The enemy vanguard continued to advance into range, heedless of the power of the artillery. They were cut down in clumps, blasted apart by the sudden wrath of the heavy guns. Heedless and undaunted, they came onwards, clambering over their fallen without pause. Like a massive pall of black fog, the enemy rolled across the plain, marching slowly, claiming more ruined ground with every step.
‘Maintain fire!’ ordered Volkmar, looking down at the enemy ranks. All along the ridge, men were poised to counter-attack. Soldiers fingered their weapons, sweat on their brows and ice in their heart. Minutes passed while the iron-belchers reloaded. The waiting was the worst part.
The cannons bellowed out again and a fresh cloud of blackpowder discharge tumbled down the slope. This time the barrage was laced with the scything fire of the Helblasters, slamming into the front ranks of the Army of the Stone and tearing open whole companies of marching troops. In their wake the fizzing trails of Helstorm rockets screamed, spinning into the sea of men and detonating with devastating effect. Limbs were torn free and armour shattered by the volleys as they thudded home, round after round of murderous power.
But Grosslich was no savage or raving maniac. In his old life he'd been a master tactician, a peerless moulder of men, and he didn’t send his vanguard idly into harm’s way. After the advance had gone so far, they halted, halberds raised, and began to dig in. Spikes the length of a man were brought up from the heart of the host and rammed into the ground. Earthworks were raised and the ground behind them cleared. Under withering fire from the Imperial guns, the forces of Grosslich toiled with neither fear nor hurry. Whenever an exposed company was torn apart by a well-aimed salvo, another would take its place. The artillery barrage was costing them dear, but it couldn’t dislodge them.
Horns blared from the walls of the city, and the reason for their death-clogged advance became apparent. Huge engines of war, each forged in the hells of fire beneath the Tower, were dragged from the open gates by straining teams of mutated horses. Their wide mouths gaped twice as wide as the largest Imperial cannon. Each device was decorated with writhing bands of bronze and encased in a spiked cage of iron. Smoke poured from beneath them where furnaces had been stoked and fuelled to a flesh-blistering heat. Stone-slaves crawled all over them, polishing the bronze and adjusting the spider webs of pistons and valves even as the towering constructs were hauled towards the forward positions. As the line of guns ground on, each monstrous engine was flanked by whole companies of heavily armoured infantry, all covered in thick iron plate, their faces hidden behind masks in the form of leering beasts.
From the angle of those mighty barrels, it looked as if their range was less than the Imperial guns. What they lacked in distance, however, it was clear they made up for in power. As Volkmar gazed at the rumbling tide of death his eyes narrowed, calculating the distances and gauging the outcome of a volley.
‘Target those embankments!’ he roared, and the order went down through the ranks.
‘We have to advance,’ hissed Maljdir, his hands eager to clasp Bloodbringer. ‘Once those things–’
A fresh boom of cannon fire echoed across the battlefield, backed up with a hail of rockets. The gunnery crews weren’t fools, and had adjusted their aim to meet the new threat. One of the rumbling war machines was hit by a whole flurry of artillery fire. It cracked open, leaking green-tinged flames. The horrific structure listed for a moment, wracked by internal explosions, then blasted apart, showering the troops around it with white-hot metal shards.
A cheer went up from the watching Imperial forces, but it was short-lived. Other war machines were hit and suffered little, protected by their thick iron plating. More than a dozen still remained, all crawling into position, all aimed up at the ridge. The nearest drew up to the allotted positions, their bronze-lined maws grinning like hungry wolves.
Still Volkmar held back the charge.
‘Magisters,’ growled Volkmar, determined to delay the engagement until the last possible moment. ‘Destroy them.’
The Celestial wizards strode forwards, staffs crackling with sapphire lightning and their robes rippling from winds seen and unseen. Alonysius von Hettram, the senior battle wizard of the entire army, gave the Theogonist a proud look.
‘It will be done,’ he said, and the winds of magic began to race.
Bloch watched the column of fire grow as he rode west. The sight was enough to render him mute. He’d seen nothing like it in his life, and he’d done a lot of campaigning. The spectacle at Turgitz had been something, but the destruction of Averheim was on a whole different register of impressive.
Kraus was beside him as ever, riding a grey steed and keeping his mouth shut. The honour guard captain hadn’t liked what he’d heard about Schwarzhelm any more than Bloch had. The big man inspired near-fanatical loyalty from the fighting men close to him, and hearing of his actions at the Vormeisterplatz had made sobering listening.
