Blighted Empire

Chapter XIII

Sylvania

Nachgeheim, 1113

They sat within a hall of black stone, the walls climbing higher around them as the indefatigable undead pursued their ceaseless labours. With each layer of stone, Vanhal could feel the energies of the site swelling, magnified, like the current of some invisible river being funnelled into a smaller channel. Idly, he wondered if this place had known such power in the distant age of Kadon, when primitive tribes had congregated here to commune with the spectres of their tribal totems. Were his efforts increasing the energy or simply restoring them to levels they had once enjoyed?

It was a debate for philosophers. The answer to such a question could only be inconsequential to Vanhal’s pursuits. What mattered to him wasn’t the power this site had once possessed, it was the power with which it might again be endowed. Power to remake the world, to strip away all the misery and confusion and bestow true peace upon all mankind.

Vanhal glanced over at his companion, the noble von Diehl. The baron was busily studying the plans for the construction, blueprints drawn by a phantom hand during the seance the two necromancers had conducted under the dark of the moon. From Lothar’s changing expression, the wonder in his eyes, it was apparent that the intricacies of those designs were not lost upon him. This building would be unlike any other, engineered not as a home or fortress, tomb or temple. It would be devoted to an arcane purpose, its every stone set in such a way as to evoke an aethyric resonance and bolster the magical harmonies.

The seance chamber had been one of the first rooms Vanhal’s legion completed, built with seventeen angles to do homage to the gods of Nehekhara, twelve doors to allow passage of netherworld winds, and a single great mirror of obsidian to form a permanent window into that netherworld. Sixteen circles were etched into the floor, each ring demarked by a series of intertwining glyphs, runes, sigils and pictograms — all invocations or proscriptions towards unseen forces. Each ring was broken by a narrow door, a gap that would be sealed with lines of saltpetre and myrrh when powers were to be evoked. The least entities would require only the small, inner circles to be sealed. The outer rings, pressing almost to the walls of the chamber, would guard the conjurer against even the mightiest of principalities.

The spirit Vanhal had evoked last night had required the sealing of six of the circles. From the dust of ages, the necromancer had summoned the shade of Hotepk, grand priest and chief architect to Settra the Imperishable, mighty pharaoh of lost Khemri. When he had first manifested, the ancient spectre had affected the appearance of a lion-headed godling, hurling curses and threats down on the heads of the mortals who had dared intrude upon his slumber. Lothar had been cowed by the ghost’s malignity and might, but Vanhal was unmoved. Using formulae he had deciphered from De Arcanis Kadon, invoking names unspoken for two thousand years, he subjugated the apparition, binding it to his will. The lion-headed godling dissipated, leaving behind it a glowering, dusky man in the robes and kirtle of ages past. After another threat, drawing on the fearsome rage of Usekhp, the Dreaming God, the ghost acquiesced into grudging servility and drew up the plans for Vanhal’s tower.

Hotepk’s brilliance in life hadn’t been diminished in death. Under the command of Vanhal, the spirit designed a structure that would at once increase, focus and contain the powerful aethyric energies coursing through the site. This place would become a magical fulcrum like no other, surpassing even the dread potentialities of the Black Pyramid and Castle Drachenfels.

As he studied the designs, Lothar von Diehl was awakening to that scale of power. ‘This upper gallery,’ he exclaimed in an awed gasp. ‘It is like a permanent manifestation of Zahak’s Ritual of Sendings! And this… This concentric ring of cells aligned to a central arcade overlooking the core of the tower. With the proper specimens restrained in those niches you would be able to create a soul cage of unprecedented scope. The blackest daemon would be a plaything inside such a trap!’

Vanhal simply nodded and turned his gaze to the zombies shambling about the scaffolding, levering the heavy blocks of stone into place. ‘Pride is a wasteful thing,’ he said, his voice a cold whisper. ‘The braggart is the lowest form of erudite. For those who truly understand, there is no need to boast. Accomplishment is the end in itself.’

Lothar stared at the former priest, an expression of incredulity on his thin face. He ran a hand through his decaying scalp, a clump of greying hair coming away with his fingers. ‘Humility is the refuge of those without courage,’ he protested. ‘I have moved among the nobility, I have watched those who command and those who obey. It has taught me one thing: the only thing that matters in this world is power. Raw, merciless power. The ambition to acquire it. The ruthlessness to use it.’ He slapped his hand against the blueprints. ‘This is power such as the world has never seen. Vanhaldenschlosse will become the throne of the Empire, all men will bow down before the threat of this place!’

The baron’s words faded in a pained choke. Clutching at his throat, he dropped to the floor, gasping for breath as spectral fingers tightened around his neck. Vanhal stared at his apprentice, observing his struggles with cold indifference. ‘Already I can make any man I wish bow down before me. What does such a thing accomplish? It feeds the ego, dulls the mind with delusion and attachment. Fear and hate… love and loyalty, what are these things measured against the long march of history?’ He paused, studying the changing shades of Lothar’s face, watching the pleading hands groping towards him. ‘Your mind is deluded. You still think of this power as something to exploit and use, to conquer others and dominate them. Such blindness,’ he said, shaking his head. With a flick of his hand, he dispelled the ghostly coils about his apprentice’s neck. The constriction removed, Lothar collapsed to the floor, sucking great breaths into his starved lungs.

For an instant, murder gleamed in the baron’s eyes. He should have suffered no peasant to lay hand on him! Quickly, Lothar turned his face, forcing himself to be composed. Fighting down his pride, smothering his very identity, he crawled across the floor on his knees and grovelled at the foot of Vanhal’s skeletal chair. ‘Please, master,’ he pleaded. ‘Help me to see. Help me to understand as you understand!’

A cold, knowing smile crawled across Vanhal’s lips. ‘First,’ he warned his apprentice, ‘you must learn to control the spirit inside you if you would aspire to control the spirits outside. If you cannot be true to yourself, then you are doomed to ignorance.’

Lothar backed away from the seated necromancer, a feeling of horror pounding through him. Again, he wondered at the limits of the man’s power, wondered if Vanhal were able to peer into the mind and soul of his apprentice. Wondered if what was residing within the flesh of his mentor was merely the spirit of a fallen priest or if something else, something from beyond, had seeped into that body.

‘I will… I will supervise the construction,’ Lothar promised. ‘Under my direct guidance, the pace will increase. Vanhaldenschlosse will be completed as you command.’

Vanhal nodded, accepting his apprentice’s display of rekindled servitude. ‘Raise another multitude. Beyond the Grim Wood you will find Hel Fenn. The bogs are heavy with the Fennone dead buried there. Call them up, bring with them their grave goods, the weapons and armour entombed with them.’

‘You talk as though you expect an attack,’ Lothar said. ‘Have your powers given you a premonition? Is Count Malbork moving against us?’

‘I have been given warning,’ Vanhal said. ‘From the first, I have seen that it would be necessary to give battle to the enemy. Not the Sylvanians, but an enemy who is also so blind as to think dominance is the only purpose of power.’ Waving his hand, Vanhal dismissed his apprentice.

Staring again at the rising walls of his tower, Vanhal considered the name Lothar had given this place. Vanhaldenschlosse, ‘Vanhal’s Castle’. Somehow, the name managed to send a shiver through the necromancer. He was thinking of another place, another site of power that had become the namesake of its builder.

The doubts lurking in Lothar’s mind, the suspicion that there was something else within the body of his master — these were questions that brooded within the deepest recesses of Vanhal’s soul. Sometimes his own thoughts seemed alien to him, rising from some influence he didn’t understand. The pain of his family’s destruction was still there, but what of the love that had brought that pain? It was but a distant echo, devoid of intimacy. Try as he might, he couldn’t revisit those memories without an inexplicable aloofness.

When he had conjured the ghost of his brother’s wife, the woman he himself had loved what seemed a lifetime ago, Vanhal had been warned. Raising Aysha’s shade had been his first act of necromancy. In that moment, she had tried to warn him. Sympathies of spirit and mentality have flung open the gate that can never be closed again.

Sympathies, but with what was he supposed to be in sympathy?

Dressed in armour made from the bones of their own clan-kin, the skaven host scurried through the sacred grove of ash and yew overlooking the sprawl of Tempelhof’s graveyard. The ratmen reeked of death, their scent carrying a carrion stench not unlike that lingering about vultures and jackals. It was a scavenger stink imbued from a diet of rotten meat and bone marrow, a smell generations of grave-rats had cultivated until it oozed from their glands.

Seerlord Skrittar had always found that stench both nauseating and threatening. Clan Mordkin was something of an enigma within the Under-Empire. They had been the last to stand against the Curse-thing in the burrows beneath Cripple Peak. For generations they had warred against the dead-things when the rest of skavendom decided to abandon the mountain to the undead. Mordkin had become isolated and alone, scratching an existence at the very fringes of civilisation. When at last they had conceded defeat and retreated from the pits of Nagashizzar, their return had been a frenzy of carnage. Instead of crawling back with tails between their legs and throats exposed, Mordkin had prowled about the edges of the Under-Empire, attacking weak clans and seizing their burrows. Only when they grew formidable enough to stand on their own had the grave-rats allowed themselves to be properly restored to society.

As a pup, Skrittar had heard the stories of Mordkin. They were the bogey-beasts of skavendom, the dark menace every warlord invoked to intimidate his minions. ‘Don’t rat on your chief or Mordkin will invade your warren and eat you all!’ It was a threat that was well founded. Where other clans would subdue and subjugate those they defeated, absorbing them into their own ranks as slaves, Mordkin took no prisoners. Every ratman they conquered was butchered — left to rot until the meat was putrid enough to satisfy creatures accustomed to the flesh of zombies and ghouls.

Insular and mysterious as they were, Mordkin had one saving grace, at least in the eyes of the grey seers. Generations fighting against the Curse-thing had rendered them devout worshippers of the Horned Rat, hearkening to the words of the grey seers a bit more attentively than clans like Rictus and Mors. If it weren’t for their peculiar belief in achieving a greater connection to the Horned Rat by nibbling the bones of His prophets, they might have been a formidable weapon in the seerlord’s arsenal. Instead, they simply presented a convenient way of disposing of troublesome grey seers. Even the most wily didn’t last more than a few months in a Mord-kin burrow.

Even now, surrounded by Warlord Manglrr and the copious bodyguard of stormvermin which accompanied him, Skrittar felt his fur crawl every time the eyes of Bonelord Nekrot glanced his way. Such worshipful piety was horrifying when accompanied by that hungry twitch of Nekrot’s whiskers. Skrittar kept one paw tight about the mummified cat’s paw in his pocket, a talisman that never failed to bring him good luck. In case the paw decided now was a good time to betray him, the seerlord kept reciting the formula for a particularly potent spell under his breath and hoped Nekrot didn’t have a mummy paw in his pocket!

Bonelord Nekrot was a grisly sight. It was the tradition of Clan Mordkin that their leaders wore the bones of their predecessors; indeed, it was the first act expected of any warlord after usurping the position. Any too weak after such a fight to strip the bones from their fallen leader would be quickly killed by some ambitious underling of their own. That was how Nekrot had gained his own supremacy, waiting until his chief, Hussk, killed Bonelord Karkus in single combat, then falling upon his injured master.

It was the bones of Hussk that Nekrot wore, tribute to the half-minute the chief had been warlord of Clan Mordkin. The bleached fangs of Hussk’s skull framed Nekrot’s furless snout and narrow head. The ribs and spine of his betrayed master enclosed Nekrot’s torso, and sectioned halves of other bones guarded his limbs. Hussk’s tail had been stretched and dried, forming a ghoulish belt. A broad-bladed sword of bronze, a khopesh that had been plundered from one of the Curse-thing’s Dark Lords, hung from Nekrot’s belt, sheathed in a scabbard wrapped in the pelt of Karkus.

Everything about Nekrot’s scent and appearance screamed death. Not the cold, efficient death promised by the cloaked adepts of Eshin or the slinking stranglers of Skully. It was the hungry, unreasoning threat of a rabid wolf-rat, the predatory gleam of a prowling cat, the scavenging stare of a hovering vulture.

‘Watch-see, Holy One,’ Nekrot’s sepulchral moan wheezed across the fangs of his helm. His black, hungry eyes again turned to Skrittar. ‘My grave-rats will kill-kill all dead-things.’ He rubbed his pale, almost colourless, paws together and shifted his gaze to Manglrr. ‘We show-tell Fester-rats how to fight.’ Lips peeled away, exposing yellowed fangs in a threat-display as Nekrot gazed past Manglrr and studied the cloaked figure of Vrask Bilebroth. ‘Show-tell why Fester-rats should stay true to Horned One,’ he added with a touch of contempt. Vrask glared back at the bonelord, but the plague priest was wise enough to keep his tongue.

‘You promise much-much,’ Skrittar sneered, gnashing his fangs. ‘One third of my warpstone goes to your bone-lickers,’ he added, nearly choking on the words. ‘But only if they can really protect from the dead-things!’

‘Watch-see!’ Nekrot repeated, fur bristling. Huddled under the nest of interwoven branches that roofed the little shrine built by the man-things inside the grove, the skaven warlords observed as the ghoulish army emerged from the cover of the trees and descended upon the graveyard beyond. The cemetery was far older and larger than the one in which Vrask’s plague monks had failed to subdue the foe. Consequently, the undead defiling the graves were much more numerous. Even so, Clan Mordkin rushed at them with almost un-skavenlike boldness and ferocity. The way they ripped into the zombies was like watching a pack of starving wolf-rats.

Skrittar bruxed his fangs. That, of course, was the trick! Reared on a diet of decaying flesh, the grave-rats of Mordkin associated that smell with food. The odour of the zombies was throwing them into a frenzy born of hunger, driving out even their basest fears! It was an impressive exploitation of his underlings’ psychology on Nekrot’s part, and staging this display was having the desired effect upon Manglrr and the leaders of Clan Fester. After this slaughter, their confidence would be restored.

They would need it! After weeks drawing upon his store of divination spells and augury rituals, Skrittar had discovered the source of the undead infestation. Destroying that source would be a formidable task, one that would require the full might of both Clan Fester and Clan Mordkin to overcome. Certainly, there would be awful casualties, but afterwards they would have a free hand in Sylvania.

Besides, Skrittar reflected, if anything did go wrong he could blame it all on Vrask.

With that happy thought in mind, the seerlord settled back and enjoyed the spectacle of Nekrot’s ravening horde.

Middenheim

Kaldezeit, 1118

‘Does anyone want to argue with that?’ Kurgaz Smallhammer bellowed, hefting the filthy skaven carcass onto the Fauschlagstein. Fleas hopped from the loathsome carcass as it slammed down. The assembled councillors recoiled in disgust, von Vogelthal jumping from his chair and scrambling to the far side of the room.

Graf Gunthar sighed at the dramatic display. He’d seen the carcass some hours before, when Mandred had returned to the Middenpalaz with both the dwarf and the thing that had tried to kill him. It had certainly done much to impress upon him that a strange and sinister threat was menacing Middenheim.

Even so, he’d hoped to present the evidence in a more diplomatic fashion, to prepare his court for the horror of what they faced. Instead, the council’s bickering had grated on Kurgaz’s patience. Thane Hardin had warned him about the warrior’s volatile temper.

Grand Master Vitholf was the first to recover his poise. Leaning across the table, he poked at the body with his sword. ‘It’s a ratman,’ he conceded, nodding first to Kurgaz, then to Thane Hardin. ‘You say your people have been fighting these things for months?’

‘The grudge with the ratkin is ancient beyond human reckoning,’ Thane Hardin corrected him. ‘The present infestation afflicting Grungni’s Tower began four moons ago.’

Vitholf digested that information. The dwarfs had discussed much about these skaven, putting flesh to the old human fables about Underfolk. It was a disgusting thing for a man to contemplate. A society of humanoid rodents dwelling under their feet, plotting the downfall of civilization itself. The dwarfs insisted that such was the truth.

The story was borne out by Prince Mandred, who related his earlier encounters with representatives of the breed. Once in company with the Kineater and once lurking about with a cult of plague-worshippers on the walls of Middenheim. The implications of that first incident were almost too horrific to contemplate.

‘The outbreak of plague in Middenheim would coincide with the infestation in Karak Grazhyakh,’ Mandred said. His wounds had been dressed and bathed in healing unguents, but he was still weak from loss of blood, lending his voice an uncharacteristic air of fatigue. ‘The two must be related.’

‘I agree, your grace,’ Brother Richter pronounced. ‘The southern provinces have been beset by entire armies of these things. The brutes that enslaved Averland and Solland, burned Wissenburg and Pfeildorf were kin of this vermin. History tells us that Sigmar once drove this abomination from the Empire, but even His priesthood has ignored the veracity of His deed, finding it more politic to treat the account as mere legend.’

Ar-Ulric scowled at the carcass, knocking its tail away from where he was sitting. ‘Men would find it hard to sleep at night knowing things like that were scurrying around in the dark,’ the old priest declaimed. ‘It is one thing to accept the beastmen, the northmen and greenskins. Those are enemies out in the wild or beyond the borders.’ He brought his hand slapping against the table. ‘These… These strike at where we live. Even a wolf must feel secure in its den.’

‘His holiness is right,’ von Vogelthal stated. Slowly the chamberlain returned to the table, a visible shiver coursing through him at every step. ‘The peasants would revolt if they found out such things were prowling about under their toes! Why toil for their noble lords if those same lords cannot protect them from walking vermin?’

Thane Hardin nodded sadly. ‘That is why my people did not warn you about the fight in the tunnels. We feared you would flee Middenheim, abandon the city out of terror.’

‘Your opinion of men must be very low,’ Graf Gunthar said, pain in his voice.

‘You squabble and bicker among yourselves so much already,’ Kurgaz grumbled, ‘that any crisis is apt to set you at each other’s throats. Is it any wonder we prefer to do our own fighting?’

Brother Richter turned towards Kurgaz. ‘That is an injustice,’ he stated. ‘To be certain, humanity is more fractious and turbulent than dwarfkind, but our differences make us stronger, not weaker. Sigmar united twelve tribes, bound twelve different peoples into a single purpose. Through Him, the divergent traditions and ideas of the tribes were disseminated, spread throughout the Empire. The adversity of war brought men together in a way that peace and tranquillity never would. You fear that a crisis will bring out the worst in men. I reject that idea! I tell you that it is through crisis that you find the best in men.’

Kurgaz looked away from the Sigmarite, staring instead at Mandred, recalling how the prince had exposed himself to attack in order to cut the dwarf’s bonds. ‘I think I’ve already seen that,’ he admitted.

‘Karak Grazhyakh will need the resources Middenheim can provide,’ Graf Gunthar said. ‘Food, timber, cloth and fur. Soldiers too.’

Thane Hardin shook his head at the last offer. ‘My people are accustomed to fighting in the tunnels and understand something of the foe. We will drive the skaven back. It is only a matter of time.’

‘With all due respect, thane,’ Mandred said, ‘time is the one thing we don’t have. If these fiends are behind the plague, then every hour they infest the Ulricsberg allows them to spread disease among the people of Middenheim. This battle may be fought in your domain, but this fight doesn’t belong to dwarfs alone. Our people are at risk as well. You must allow us to help purge the mountain of these vermin.’

Ar-Ulric took up the call for battle. ‘A decisive thrust against the skaven, delivered by men and dwarfs. The reinforcements could be just the edge needed to tip the balance. Moreover, if we wait to fight we risk losing the battle to the plague.’

Thane Hardin and Kurgaz held a brief consultation in Khazalid, their words unintelligible to nearly all of the men around them, only Richter being versed enough in that language to follow some of what they were saying.

‘All right,’ Thane Hardin declared. ‘We will allow human troops in the tunnels. But we want their commander to be someone we can trust.’ He pointed a stubby finger at Mandred.

Graf Gunthar rose from his chair, glowering at the dwarf leader. ‘Impossible,’ he said. ‘My son is still healing from his wounds.’

‘He’ll get better,’ Kurgaz observed. ‘We’ll bring up some medicinal ale that’ll have him spry in no time.’ He flexed his stiff arm, wincing as a flash of pain from his wound shot through him. ‘Better than anything you have up here,’ he added. Without the worry of incurring a grudge, dwarf doktoring could work wonders in a very short time.

‘Father, I want to go,’ Mandred said. ‘The dwarfs helped build Middenheim. Even if we were sure of our own safety, we’d be obligated to help. Honour demands nothing less of us.’ He glared at the carcass. ‘Besides, I have a personal reckoning with these monsters.’

Reluctantly, Graf Gunthar settled back in his seat, lines of worry wrinkling his brow. Without a word, he nodded at his son.

‘Only the soldiers accompanying his grace should be made aware of the kind of enemy we face,’ von Vogelthal suggested. ‘If the knowledge were to become public it would spread panic just when we can afford it least.’ He bowed in apology to Brother Richter. ‘Not to contradict your speech about strength in adversity, but it is a wise man who prepares for the worst possibility.’

‘Then prepare we shall,’ Graf Gunthar declared. ‘No public speech, I agree with you there. That would breed panic. What we must do is to be subtle.’ He cast his gaze from one councillor to another. ‘Each liege lord will take his vassals into confidence. His vassals in turn will disseminate the truth to his subjects. From master to servant, piece by piece, we spread the word. We feed each man’s pride with a sacred trust instead of fostering a general panic. Frightened men panic, proud men fight.’

Proud, stubborn, the dwarfs fought to the last warrior to defend the lower workings. It took the hordes of Clan Mors three days and a thousand slaves to overwhelm the thirty dwarfs who made their stand in the gallery. By the time it was over, the floor was caked in black blood and fur.

Warlord Vrrmik gnawed on the severed finger of a dwarf as he surveyed the carnage. It wasn’t the loss of life that upset him — there were always more slaves to be had. Clan Mors was renowned for ferreting out weaker clans and enslaving them. The toughness of the enemy didn’t bother him either — he’d fought dwarfs often enough to know they were always more trouble than they were worth.

No, the burr in Vrrmik’s fur was the indignity of it all! Any victory he achieved was bitter and hollow, as empty as a dried-out flea. Warmonger Vecteek had summoned Clan Mors to Wolfrock under false pretences. Vrrmik had imagined he would share in the victory, that some of the triumph enjoyed by Clan Rictus would rub off on Clan Mors. Now, as Vecteek mobilised Mors, Vrrmik was discovering the depth of the tyrant’s duplicity.

Clan Mors was nothing but a diversionary force, meant to distract and draw off the dwarfs while Vecteek was leading the main body of skaven by a circuitous route into the heart of the dwarfhold!

Vrrmik was a horrifying sight as he prowled among the dead, his white fur standing stark against his black armour. Forged by the artisans of Clan Skryre, the steel plates had been steeped in powdered warpstone, lending it a horrendous capacity for damage. Some among the chiefs of Clan Mors had seen a hydra break its fangs on that armour, more than a few had cursed it for deflecting the blades of their hired assassins. Out of his armour, Vrrmik was formidable, huge and powerful even by the standards of a clan known for breeding hulking warriors. In his warp-plate, Vrrmik felt almost invincible.

‘Splendid victory, Great Warlord Vrrmik,’ Puskab Foulfur’s phlegmy voice coughed in the white skaven’s ear. The warlord almost choked on the finger he was gnawing. Springing away, he bared his fangs at the plague priest. One of the handicaps of his armour was that so much warpstone close to him had rendered his sense of smell quite feeble.

‘Plague-spitter,’ Vrrmik hissed at the antlered priest. ‘Go back to Vecteek. His paws might need licking. Hurry-scurry!’

Puskab coughed in a diseased semblance of amusement. ‘The Horned One favours Vecteek,’ he said.

Vrrmik gnashed his fangs. It was another point that disgusted him, the way the grey seers fawned over Vecteek and declared him the Horned Rat’s favourite pup! Just thinking about it made him want to kill something. He hoped his scouts would find some more dwarf tunnel fighters soon.

‘Clan Rictus steal-take all glory for itself,’ Puskab continued. ‘Leave nothing for Clan Pestilens. Less for Clan Mors.’

‘What do you speak-squeak?’ Vrrmik wondered aloud. It occurred to him that the plague monks were dire enemies of the grey seers and had their own brand of heretical religion. To date, they had been supportive of Vecteek and prospered by that alliance. Perhaps, however, Arch-Plaguelord Nurglitch wanted something more than simple wealth for his clan.

‘Vecteek has his plan,’ Puskab said, creeping closer, his eyes glittering in the torchlight. ‘We will have our own plan,’ he chittered.

The plague priest’s voice dropped to a low whisper as he described what those plans would be.