Blighted Empire

Chapter XVI

Altdorf

Kaldezeit, 1114

‘Open in the name of the Emperor!’ The command was shouted in a thick voice, punctuated by the hammer-like blows of a mailed fist against old timber. The speaker was a stocky, heavy-set being, shorter than a man but with a stoutness of build that lent him a decidedly powerful appearance. Heavy plates of steel were strapped above the mail he wore, and over his bearded head he wore a close-fitting helm adorned with swirling runes of silver and gold. Rings of gold were threaded through the plaits of his thick beard.

Beset by plague and disease, the collection of revenue had become a logistical nightmare for the Ministry of Finance. Taxmen died by the droves as they succumbed to the illness of their victims, their ranks decimated even more savagely than those of physician and priest. An attempt had been made during the spring of 1112 to employ men already struck by the Black Plague as excise collectors, but the effort had failed miserably. The plague-stricken collectors had spread the disease to every quarter of the city. Worse, with the spectre of Morr already hovering over them, they had proven less than stalwart about turning over the revenue they collected to Imperial coffers, skimming most of the money to squander on such pleasures as they might enjoy before the plague took them.

It was Emperor Boris himself who came up with a solution. Aware that the plague had ignored the halfling population, he had seized upon the theory that the Death was only affecting humankind. Soft-hearted and inoffensive, halflings didn’t have the stuff to act as tax collectors. Fortunately, there was another non-human community dwelling in Altdorf that did.

Their own business failing as the plague devastated their customers, many of Altdorf’s dwarfish community had responded to the Emperor’s summons. Soon an entire cadre of dwarf taxmen were stalking the streets of Altdorf, exacting the Imperial tribute from great and small with the stubborn, harsh tenacity of their dour breed. True, the services of the dwarfs were more expensive than those of human taxmen — for one thing the dwarfs refused to accept Imperial coin after the gold content was reduced, forcing their wage to be drawn in raw nuggets and dust — but their role was essential to maintaining the financial stability of Imperial government.

The dwarfs adopted the grandiose title of ‘The Imperial Guild of Excise, Custom, Honour and Fidelity’, but to the people of Altdorf they were simply ‘Goldgather’s Goldgrubbers’. Though they were hated and despised universally, it was still a rare thing for anyone to raise their hand against one of the dwarfs. More than merely the act of defying Imperial law, it was the vindictive nature of the dwarfs themselves that held the abused populace silent. Injure a dwarf and the whole race would persecute the offender’s family unto the tenth generation. Dwarfs recorded their grudges in great tomes so that even the slightest insult would never be forgotten.

The few peasants abroad in the streets didn’t even turn their heads at the commotion on the doorstep of a once prosperous moneylender. They had become accustomed to shunning the house ever since the warning cross had been chalked across the door. Few even knew if the man or any of his household still lived, nor were any willing to risk the plague to find out. Once a week a corpse-cart would pass down the street and knock at each door. They would find out if anyone were still in there — it was what they were paid to do. The corpse-collectors earned a copper from the Temple of Morr for each nose they brought to the cremation pits outside the city wall.

Grumbling into his beard, the dwarf glanced down at the moneylender’s name on the list he carried, noting the balance beside it. It was an appreciable sum, derived from the earnings the man’s business had enjoyed before the plague. A small thing like a pandemic would hardly justify a reduction in taxes. Besides, if the man felt the sum was unreasonable, he could protest to his noble lord. Allowing that his liege had survived the plague and hadn’t already fled the city.

Either way, the dwarf’s job was to collect. He repeated his summons, banging his fist so forcefully against the door that he bruised the wood. He drew back, waiting for any trace of activity. Frowning under his beard, the dwarf tilted his helmet up and pressed an exposed ear against the door. Years of mining in the Grey Mountains had honed the dwarf’s hearing to a superhuman degree, enabling him to detect the presence of ore simply by the sound his pick made when striking the wall, warning him of a cave-in by the softest groan from a support beam hundreds of yards up the shaft. By comparison, listening at a keyhole was simplicity itself.

Immediately, the dwarf’s ear caught the sounds of furtive shuffling inside the house. He leaned back, adjusting his helmet in place. Pejorative crept into his grumbling. So the cheats thought to hide in there and pretend they weren’t home, did they? Well, if they thought a dwarf could be dissuaded from his duty by such a facile deception, they were sorely mistaken.

Stepping away from the door, the dwarf thrust his shoulder towards it and lunged at it. The portal shook in its frame as his armoured weight slammed into the wood. Unfazed by the impact, the dwarf stepped back into the street, allowing himself a better start before charging into the door again.

This time the door collapsed under his impact, flying back on its hinges. The dwarf was propelled into the dingy parlour beyond.

Eyes adapted to the murk of mines and tunnels stared in disbelief at the scene within that parlour. If plague hadn’t claimed the moneylender and his household, they would have been better off if it had. The monsters that filled the decrepit building now certainly wouldn’t have been merciful to any occupants they found.

The parlour and what he could see of the rooms beyond were swarming with hundreds of skaven.

The dwarf drew his axe, set his feet and roared a prayer to Grungni. Then the vermin rushed at him in a chittering tide of fangs and blades. He cut down ten of them before he was crushed to the floor. After that, despite his heavy armour and his powerful build, it was only a few moments before the dwarf was reduced to an unrecognisable heap of dripping meat.

Dejected and dispirited, the peasants walking the streets had paid only the sketchiest notice to the dwarf’s invasion of the house. They paid far more attention to the horde that flooded out through the broken door. A few of them even had time to scream before the ratmen fell upon them.

It was a scene that was repeated all across Altdorf. From sewers and cellars, from abandoned homes and boarded warehouses, even from the holds of derelict ships, the ratmen came. With sword and fang the seemingly numberless horde rampaged through the streets. Wherever the skaven appeared, death and destruction reigned. The monsters were merciless in their depredations, devoid of any semblance of pity or restraint. Temples filled with the sick and dying became abattoirs in the wake of the chittering horde. Refugee camps erupted in flames as the ratmen surrounded them and put them to the torch, the agonies of those trapped within the ring of fire echoing hideously across the icy waters of the Reik.

Through the Kaiseraugen, the men assembled in the council chamber could see the pillars of smoke rising from the burning city. Screams, roars, the bedlam of a city being torn apart wasn’t quite muffled by the thick panes of glass. Several Kaiserjaeger stood watch, shouting to the leaders gathered about the table whenever they spotted the enemy in the streets below.

Adolf Kreyssig considered the grim-faced men gathered around him. They were solemn, hardly daring to speak as the magnitude of the attack was borne home to them with each fresh report that made its way to the palace. One of them, the bewigged fop Emperor Boris had installed as burgomeister of Altdorf, sat slumped in his seat, sobbing loudly into a laced handkerchief. Fortunately for the city, the rest of its leaders were made of sterner stuff. Kreyssig had made certain of that when he’d purged the council and made his plans for war.

Duke Vidor shook his head and cast aside the slip of parchment he had been reading, a report from a captain in the Schuetzenverein. ‘The area east of the river is cut off,’ he declared. ‘The ratmen have demolished the bridges. Two-thirds of the army had their billets there.’

Grand Master Leiber pulled at his long moustache, eyes closed as he pondered the dire news. ‘At least the heavy horse is stationed on this side of the river,’ he stated. ‘That leaves us roughly three hundred knights. More if we call upon the templar orders.’

‘The Black Guard have been surrounded by the cremation pits outside the walls,’ a wizened old count reported. A haunted look crept into his eyes as he considered the full message he had received. ‘Thirty knights against hundreds of those things. They won’t leave enough for Morr’s ravens to find!’

Prelate Arminus nodded in sympathy at the sacrifice of the Black Guard, closing his hand about the whalebone icon he wore around his neck. The priest’s voice was apologetic when he addressed the other leaders. ‘I fear that the Knights of the Storm are largely absent from the city. With the plague ravaging the river trade, many of them have been serving as marines on those vessels still braving the Reik. Merciful Manann watch over them all.’

Inquisitor Fulk of the Verenan temple drew back the heavy hood he wore, letting his sharp eyes rove across the faces of the men around him. ‘My temple stands ready to assist the city, but our strength is sadly diminished. The Black Plague has been most attentive.’ The grim priest tapped his fingers on the breast of his robe. ‘At best we might rally seventy swords if we left the temple unprotected.’ It was clear from his tone that he considered such a move to be sacrilegious.

Kreyssig decided to reject the inquisitor’s offer. The Verenans weren’t a martial order, their forte was hunting heretics. Torturers and executioners were quite capable of killing in cold blood, but he doubted if many of them were equally capable of hot-blooded killing, of fighting against an armed adversary. No, it was better to leave them in their gloomy temple and let them fare as their god saw best.

‘We have almost three thousand foot soldiers this side of the river,’ Kreyssig declared. ‘At the moment, they are scattered throughout, clumped in their training camps and isolated in their billets.’ He raised his eyes, staring out through the window. One of those training camps was built over the wreckage of Breadburg. From here, he could see a great column of smoke billowing up from that vicinity.

Vidor stood up from his chair, addressing the various nobles seated at the table. ‘By themselves, the knights will be of little use. The strength of heavy horse lies in the charge and there will be little opportunity for such tactics in the close confines of city streets.’ He turned, locking eyes with Kreyssig. ‘If we are to have any hope of driving the ratmen from the city, we have to mobilise our scattered foot troops, concentrate them into a single battle group. The ratkin may outnumber us, but those same close quarters will counter that advantage. Man for monster, even the lowest dienstmann is more than a match for the vermin. If we can concentrate our troops into bodies large enough to resist the numbers of the ratmen…’

Kreyssig nodded. From what he had seen of the skaven, they were a craven breed. They relied upon subterfuge and ambush to fight their battles. They had little stomach for a real fight. So far, the monsters had enjoyed success because they hadn’t encountered anyone in a position to seriously oppose them. Upset that tide of success even a little and it might hurl the entire horde into disarray.

‘What is your plan, Reiksmarshal?’ Kreyssig asked.

‘First we will use the Kaiserknecht and as many footmen as are available to penetrate down to the river,’ Vidor said. ‘Any peasants they find will be drafted as labourers. Once they reach the Reik, they will take every ship, scow and barge and lash them together. The ratmen destroyed the old bridges, so we’ll build a new one.’

‘It will take time to construct a pontoon bridge,’ one of the other generals objected. ‘I can appreciate the need to bring the rest of the army across the river, but until they are across the ratmen will have an even freer hand on this side of the Reik.’

The Reiksmarshal shook his head. ‘Not so,’ he stated. ‘Because while they are building the bridge, we will be using the rest of our knights to get messages to the brigades on this side of the river. If we can get all of them to converge upon a single position, concentrate our strength, we can resist the vermin until reinforcements can be brought across the Reik.’

‘You said the knights would be useless in city fighting,’ Grand Master Leiber pointed out.

‘I don’t need them to fight,’ Vidor returned. ‘I need their mobility, their stamina to win clear of the ratmen and reach our scattered troops. A humble task, I grant, but there will be time for valour and glory after we have the strength to mount a credible offensive.’

‘Where do you want the troops to go?’ Inquisitor Fulk wondered. ‘It will need to be somewhere central, well within reach of each brigade.’

‘It needs to be a landmark that can be seen from some distance,’ one of the barons mused. ‘Something visible from wherever the soldiers may be.’

A brief debate ensued, many of the noblemen arguing for the Imperial Palace while others argued that doing so would cause the ratmen to bring their full force to bear against the palace.

It was the heretofore silent Arch-Lector von Reisarch who ended the debate. ‘The Great Cathedral,’ he said. ‘The spire can be seen from anywhere in Altdorf, and it is built at the very heart of Old Reikdorf. Rally the troops to the temple of Holy Sigmar, that they may take courage from His divine beneficence.’

Inquisitor Fulk and Prelate Arminus looked as though they wanted to challenge von Reisarch’s suggestion, angered by what they viewed as the Sigmarite’s shameless effort to aggrandise his god in the midst of this calamity. At the same time, neither of the priests could ignore the compelling logic behind the arch-lector’s argument. The Great Cathedral was ideally located and the peasants would take heart from the idea that they were defending Sigmar Himself by rallying to the temple.

‘The Great Cathedral, then,’ Kreyssig decided, ending the discussion. He nodded to von Reisarch. ‘You may tell Grand Theogonist Gazulgrund to expect me.’ It grated on Kreyssig’s pride to indulge the Sigmarites in this fashion. Condescending to the Grand Theogonist was to make a public display of the priest’s authority — authority that would appear greater than that of the Emperor or his appointed Protector. Still, it would be even more disastrous to allow the priest to fight the coming battle by himself. The people would remember who fought to save them and who stayed safe behind fortress walls.

Kreyssig was just about to dismiss the council when he happened to notice Baroness von den Linden’s cat. The brute had been lazing about on top of the table throughout the meeting, indifferent to the momentous events unfolding around it. Now, however, the cat was upright, its back arched and its every hair standing on end. As the animal began to hiss and spit, Kreyssig followed its frightened gaze.

He was just in time to see the dark shapes drop outside the Kaiseraugen, swinging on ropes from the roof of the palace. Before even his Kaiserjaeger could shout a warning, the swinging skaven smashed through the window. Kreyssig covered his face as slivers of glass flew through the chamber.

The chittering shrieks of skaven drowned out the shouts of alarm and confusion that rose from the surprised councillors and generals. Moans of agony sounded from the direction of the windows as the fast-moving ratmen attacked the startled Kaiserjaeger. Other skaven rappelled through the shattered glass, hurling tiny orbs into the room. As each orb crashed to the floor, it expelled a billowing mass of choking fumes. The men reeled in the noxious vapour, struggling to escape the debilitating fog. The skaven, their faces wrapped in thick folds of cloth, scampered through the chamber, lashing out with crooked blades.

Kreyssig staggered back, trying to draw his own sword even as his body shuddered in a fit of violent coughing. One of the assaulting vermin uttered a feral growl as it spied him. Leaping to the top of the table, the murder-rat charged at him.

Abin-gnaw stuffed his scimitar back beneath his rat-gut belt and drew the lethal coils of his sacred strangler’s cord from beneath his crimson cloak. Squeaking an invocation to the Horned One, a murderous charm taught to him by no less than the Old Rat Under the Mountain himself, the killer cast the noose through the air, looping it about his victim’s neck.

Kreyssig gasped as the cord was drawn taut, as the little warpstone talisman sewn into the lining dug into his neck. He could feel his throat constricting, feel the air being squeezed out of him. Nimbly, Abin-gnaw jumped from the table, dropping down behind Kreyssig and forcing the human down into his chair. Pressing one foot against the back of the seat, the skaven used it for extra leverage, extra force to increase that deadly constriction.

Kreyssig struggled to reach the monstrous creature behind him, tried to twist his body so that he might at least slip free from the chair. Abin-gnaw, however, was too crafty to allow himself to fall within reach of the human’s groping hands.

Just as his vision was beginning to darken, as the thunder of his own pulse became a deafening roar in his ears, as his starved lungs began to burn, Kreyssig felt the air around him become cold. It was a cold that had nothing to do with winter. It was the spectral chill of sorcery.

The pressure around his throat suddenly slackened. Kreyssig pulled himself away from the chair, felt the strangling cord drag free from weakened claws. Frantically, he reached to his throat and ripped the noose free, hurling it to the floor in disgust. Drawing his sword, he turned to face his would-be assassin.

Abin-gnaw lay prone, his face-wrappings soaked in blood. Black blood bubbled from the skaven’s eyes, the flow increasing with each ragged breath he drew into his dying body. While Kreyssig watched, the murder-rat expired, expelling its last vitality in a grotesque liquid gargle.

Turning away from the dead assassin, Kreyssig looked to intercede in the melee unfolding around him, only to discover that it had largely abated. The top of the table and much of the floor was stained with a greasy, grey film. The room was littered with bodies, both the verminous carcasses of skaven and the corpses of men.

‘Commander, are you all right?’ The question came from the last man Kreyssig expected to see, his servant Fuerst, a heavy club clenched in his chubby fist. Beyond the peasant, he could see Baroness von den Linden, her silver robes still writhing in the magical energies she had invoked.

‘I live,’ Kreyssig told Fuerst, brushing aside the servant’s concern. The skaven had taken their toll upon the council and the assembled generals, butchering nearly a quarter of them in the brief melee. Many of the survivors continued to cough thick grey phlegm from their throats — the residue of that strange smoke the ratmen had used. The grey filth staining the chamber would account for the rest of that smoke, congealed by the witch’s spells.

Kreyssig frowned as he gazed at the baroness. His relief at her timely intervention was tempered by an appreciation that it was no natural force that could have warned her of his peril. Even when it was beneficial, there was something disturbing about witchcraft, something that offended men on an almost primal level.

Studying the faces of the other survivors, he could see the same mix of gratitude and fear. The expressions of Arch-Lector von Reisarch and Inquisitor Fulk were outright malignant.

‘On behalf of His Imperial Majesty,’ Kreyssig said, loud enough that his tones drowned out any murmurs of misgiving, ‘we thank you for your most opportune assistance, your ladyship.’

Baroness von den Linden bowed to Kreyssig. ‘It is the duty of every subject of the Empire to defend the realm,’ she stated, glancing at the councillors. Kreyssig didn’t like the little smile she wore. Most of these men knew he had been visiting her, even if they couldn’t guess the nature of those liaisons. In a single act, she had both saved him and condemned him. There would be no more rumours linking the baroness with witchcraft among the council. There would only be simple fact. Kreyssig was now inextricably bound to the witch. He would have to support her in everything, because the same men who would persecute her as a practitioner of the black arts would also damn him as a heretic.

With a predatory, cat-like grace, the baroness stalked through the shambles and joined Kreyssig at the head of the table. ‘You must move quickly,’ she advised him. Like the Protector, she ensured her voice was loud enough for all to hear. ‘The same divination that warned me of your danger also revealed to me an even greater threat.’

The witch wore a bemused smile as she retrieved the agitated cat from the table and stroked its fur. ‘Like yourselves, the skaven are concentrating their forces. They are marshalling for a direct attack against the Great Cathedral.

‘In one assault, the ratmen intend to break the spirit of every soul in Altdorf,’ the baroness warned. ‘When the temple burns, the fire will be seen in every quarter of the city. When that happens, men will know that their dominion is finished.

‘When that happens, the vermin shall inherit the earth.’

Sylvania

Kaldezeit,1113

Seerlord Skrittar drew a deep breath, filling his nose with the smell of victory. The musky scent of aggression dripping from the glands of thousands of skaven warriors; it needed only the appetising aroma of fresh blood to make it properly delicious. That was the downside of fighting these dead-things. Even when they were torn to shreds the walking corpses refused to disgorge anything like proper blood. At best there was syrupy treacle, more often just a pinch of scabby dust.

Clan Mordkin were certainly proving their worth. The grave-rats charged into the ranks of zombies with such feral savagery that even those tick-sniffing mice of Clan Fester were growing bold and mounting their own attacks. Vrask Bilebroth and his surviving plague monks were taking a hand as well, scurrying about the edges of the conflict and supporting Fester wherever it looked like they might be suffering morale problems. As exterminator of the undead, Vrask had proven an abject failure, but as a disciplinarian he was quite useful. Then again, having the decayed snout of a plague monk shoved into your face and snapping orders at you was something most skaven would respond to.

From his position at the back of his army, Skrittar could see the ebb and flow of the battle. It was exactly the kind of conflict that suited him — overwhelming massacre! His warriors outnumbered the undead by ten to one, odds to turn the most spineless mouse vicious. If the dead-things had any sense of self-preservation, they should have been routed at the first sight of the awesome host of ratmen swarming down upon them. Instead, they just maintained their positions and forced the skaven to butcher them where they stood. The outcome would be the same, it was only a delay of the inevitable.

Skrittar bruxed his fangs and uttered a contented hiss. It would only be the matter of a few hours before the skaven broke through their enemy. Then the path would be clear to the jagged tower the dead-things defended. It was a massive structure and exuded a sorcerous taint that sent a thrill through the grey seer’s fur. Somehow it reminded him of the Shattered Tower in Skavenblight. There was an auspicious smell about the place, a tantalising odour that went beyond the warpstone sandwiched between the black blocks of stone. He could almost feel the presence of the Horned One, expectant and impatient! It was a humbling, terrifying feeling, yet at the same time filled Skrittar’s gut with greedy anticipation. What could be more auspicious an omen for the success of his plans than the attention of his god?

Fixing his gaze on the tower, Skrittar could see the whorls of energy coruscating around it, flickering about the structure like steam from a lava pit. Every wisp of ghostly light was a tendril of magic, a ribbon of sorcery sucked from the void and spewed into the atmosphere. Skrittar felt his pulse quicken as he contemplated the magnitude of what he sensed. If the mage-man was so powerful as to evoke so much magic, then he must prove a fearsome foe! The grey seer’s paw tightened about the haft of his staff, feeling the warpstone runes etched into it sizzle against his skin, filling his veins with arcane might. The human knew a trick or two, that was all. If he were truly powerful, his pathetic army wouldn’t be demolished so easily! No, the mage-man was just another slab of meat waiting to be cut down by the rightful masters of the world!

Skrittar turned his eyes from the tower, looking instead at the fresh timbers of his conveyance and the massed ranks of stormvermin arrayed about it. The work-rats of Fester had scrambled to build the wooden platform, stealing the iron-banded wheels from dozens of man-thing nests. They were motley and mismatched, causing the platform above to be lopsided in places and requiring an even greater effort from the warriors to move it. Such concerns, however, mattered little to Skrittar. The stormvermin of Manglrr Baneburrow were the strongest skaven in Clan Fester and they would not fail the seerlord. Not if they wanted to live long.

The grey seer preened himself as he stalked across the platform, glaring down at the ranks of brawny stormvermin. He grinned murderously as he drew near the real might of his conveyance. Bound between an arch of stone plundered from an elf-thing temple, a great bronze bell was suspended at the far end of the platform. That bell had been consecrated in the darkest chambers of the Shattered Tower, engraved with runes of ruin and havoc. A piece of pure warpstone, crafted from the biggest chunk they had collected in Sylvania, formed the bell’s clapper. The second-largest chunk was the basis of the enormous striker held in the paws of Skrittar’s personal slave. The combination of striker, clapper and runes would create an invocation to the Horned One, an appeal that the dreaded god would be certain to answer. A bridge would be formed between mortal supplicants and divinity, a bridge that under the guidance of the seerlord would take shape as spells of unimaginable destruction!

Lashing his tail in amusement, Skrittar stared back at the battle. His army was already halfway through the ranks of the undead. It was time that he put in an appearance and forcibly reminded them that their victory was due solely to his brilliant tactics and selfless leadership.

‘Tell your scum to get moving,’ Skrittar snapped at Manglrr. Perched at the front of the wheeled altar, the warlord bobbed his head and turned about, ready to crack his whip at his warriors. Even as he did so, the warlord’s posture became anxious and his face turned upwards, sniffing at the air nervously.

Soon, the pungent stench of fear musk despoiled the altar. Skrittar rounded on the frightened warlord, smashing him low with the horned head of his staff. ‘Fool-meat! Mouse-sniffer!’ the grey seer raged.

Manglrr was old by the standards of the skaven, his vigour preserved by a cocktail of alchemy and warpstone transfusions. When he spoke, however, it was in the sort of frightened squeak a litter-pup might make. ‘Burn-thing!’ the warlord whined. ‘Burn-thing!’

Skrittar sighed and brought his staff up to bash the deranged brains from Manglrr’s skull. The warlord’s senile panic was threatening to upset the stormvermin. More importantly, it was interfering with the seerlord’s display of divine favour and tactical acumen! It was a sorry thing to see a Lord of Decay reduced to such a simpering state — he’d have to remember to have everyone who’d seen the spectacle killed.

Before he could deliver the killing blow, however, a loathsome stink swept through Skrittar’s nose. It was a rotten, sour smell, decayed meat mixed with reptilian musk. At once, he realised this was the smell that had reduced Manglrr to a cowering flea, but where such a scent could come from, he was at a loss to explain.

Then, with a feeling of dread, Skrittar lifted his head and stared up at the sky. No skaven liked the open sky, that vast emptiness that was so strange and alien beside the cramped comfort of their burrows and tunnels. He was unusual among his race in his tolerance for it, yet in this instant he shared their terror of the heavens more fully than he would have believed possible, primitive instincts racing through his veins and sending a wave of fear through his entire body.

There was something descending from the sky. Something vast and unspeakable! It stank of death and putrefaction, of dried scales and shrivelled flesh. There was no mistaking that awful shape, the powerful pinions and mighty claws, the barbed tail and armoured body of a dragon. No head graced its stumpy neck, however, only a ragged hole and the gleaming tip of exposed spine!

As he watched, the deathly dragon swooped down upon one of the Mordkin formations. From the jagged stump of neck a boiling torrent of rotten meat and writhing maggots showered down upon the massed grave-rats, searing them in their bony armour. Then the dragon’s claws were scything into them, tearing skaven apart like some gigantic hell-cat!

Perched upon the dragon’s shoulders, looking like some black tick embedded in its decayed hide, a wizened figure stood and gestured with a skeletal staff. Sorcerous energy crackled about the head of the staff, expelling itself in a stream of wailing darkness. The malefic magic gouged into a regiment of Fester’s clanrats, withering dozens into mummified husks in the blink of an eye.

Skrittar’s lips peeled back from his fangs as he watched the mage-man attack. He would not stand for this. He would not suffer this filthy meat to cheat him of his triumph. Whatever his powers, the creature was still merely human, insignificant beside the austere might of a race crafted by the godliest of gods!

The seerlord popped a small sliver of warpstone into his mouth, feeling its power rush through him as his fangs ground it into dust. Flush with the grandeur of his enhanced prowess, he sent a green bolt of destruction searing down into the stormvermin massed about his altar, cooking one hapless warrior where he stood. ‘The Horned Rat will suffer no coward-meat!’ Skrittar roared, scurrying across the altar from side to side to ensure the whole regiment was aware of his anger. Certain of their terrified attention, he leaped onto the stone arch and scrambled up to the top of the bell.

‘Scurry-hurry!’ Skrittar shouted, pointing forwards with his staff. ‘I shall kill-slay the mage-meat!’ he proclaimed, evoking cheers from the stormvermin. ‘You will gloriously slay-kill the dragon!’

In the dead silence that greeted that pronouncement, it was easy for Skrittar to hear the cowards who tried to break ranks. Burning them to a cinder restored the enthusiasm of the survivors.

Verminous flesh shrivelled into dust as Lothar von Diehl stretched forth his hand. He exulted in the power that flowed through him, felt a sense of rapture as he watched ratmen crumble before him. Never before had he imagined such power! All his conjurations, the magic he had learned and practised in secret all those years, they were nothing beside this.

Beneath him, he felt the ancient majesty of Graug the Terrible — a primal force of almost elemental fury revivified as nothing more than a puppet, an extension of some small fragment of the necromancer’s will. At his merest whim, the zombified beast would lash out with its claw and extinguish a dozen lives or bring withering death to scores with a blast of corrupt gases and wormy meat. Spears and swords crumpled against the wyrm’s armoured hide, and those few that did pierce became lodged in rotten, unfeeling flesh. Hundreds of monstrous creatures swarmed about the dragon, yet they were as helpless and puny as ants.

This, Lothar imagined, must be how Vanhal felt. The raw power of annihilation coursing through his mind and soul, waiting there just beneath the surface, lurking unseen and unguessed until it was called upon. No wonder the necromancer was so contemptuous of conquest and dominance. Truly, what was the power of an Emperor beside that of a living god?

Lothar reached out with his hand, plucking a squirming ratman from the horde arrayed around him. Coldly, he sent tendrils of necromantic energy slashing at the creature, stripping its fur away in ribbons, leaving wet bones glistening in the starlight. He could feel every inch of the creature as death spread through its mangled frame, savouring it as he once might have savoured a Mootland delicacy.

That a low-born peasant such as Vanhal should unlock this miraculous potential within him was something that no longer stung Lothar’s pride. It was enough that the potential had been unlocked. Glutted on the power flowing through him, the baron hadn’t even felt slighted when Vanhal relinquished control of Graug to him and dispatched him to confront the skaven. Anything that would maintain this power, any impudence or insult was of no consequence. Nothing mattered, nothing except this power!

The baron felt his skin wither against his bones. Flesh, he thought with contempt. Such a poor vessel to clothe the indomitable will of a soul such as his. The flame of mortality was too weak a candle to illuminate the great secret. He could see it now, as he sent phantom energies searing into the ratmen, each death fitting another piece into the cosmic puzzle. All he must do was extend his power a little further, commit those last reserves that sustained him, and he would see it all!

A blast of aethyric malignance slammed into Lothar von Diehl, causing the magical shield he had woven about himself to flicker. The impact sent blood flowing from his ears, nearly pitching him from Graug’s mighty shoulders. Dazed, the necromancer shook his head. The reckless, drunken excess of a moment before evaporated as logic subsumed emotion within his mind. Horror flowed through him as he appreciated where his power-crazed desire had nearly led him. Flesh might be a poor vehicle for such power, but it was the only one he had.

Another lash of green lightning smacked into Lothar’s defences. He spun around, focusing his attention on draining off the malevolent energies. To his witchsight, the lightning left behind it a glowing ribbon of magic, a trajectory he followed back to its source. What he saw was a blazing bubble of deranged energies, a confusion of aethyric vibrations banded and bound by a crazed medley of strange sigils and bizarre runes. At the centre of that energy was a ramshackle altar mounted on a wheeled platform. A great bell stood above the altar, its clapper shining like a knot of concentrated magic. Above the bell, a horned ratman capered and gestured, energies whipping about it as it snarled and chittered.

Lothar sneered as he saw the skaven sorcerer. He was indebted to the monster for breaking him from his trance. Now he would reward the filthy brute with a quick death. Extending a fraction of his power, he willed Graug into the air, the dragon’s tattered pinions smashing low scores of ratmen as it took wing. The dragon’s headless bulk soared above the battlefield, hurtling with meteoric fury towards the enemy warlock.

A doleful note rang out as the dragon dived towards the skaven sorcerer. Lothar recoiled as a blast of arcane energy smashed into him, crushing him against the dragon’s scaly shoulder. His ears rang, blood streamed from his nose as the sorcerous cacophony from the hellish bell struck. He could feel scaly plates and blobs of meat tear from Graug’s rotten hide. The dragon reared back, its wings fanning the air, its claws scraping against an invisible shell of sorcery.

Lothar stared incredulously at the horned ratman, watched in horror as the infernal bell drew back to strike another note. The power of the thing was atrocious, far beyond the aethyric harmonies crackling about the creature. With something approaching fright, he commanded the dragon to lash out with its decayed breath.

The mixture of corpse-gas and maggot-broth spattered across the skaven pushing the bell. Scores of the creatures collapsed, writhing in their death agonies. Yet still the altar and the hideous creature perched atop it remained unscathed. Lothar just had time to digest that fact when the bell tolled again. This time he could see the energy erupt from the clapper and snake its way upwards into the ratman’s staff. A lance of searing light crackled from the horned tip, stabbing across the sky.

Even the dragon’s mighty frame shook beneath such an assault. The beast’s breast exploded in a burst of splintered scales and shattered bone, its left wing nearly sheared from its body. The behemoth plummeted from the sky, slamming into the swarming skaven below, crushing dozens beneath its bulk. The reptilian zombie shuddered and fell still as the eldritch animation motivating it flickered away.

Lothar fared little better. A shattered arm, a broken leg, these were the marks of his own descent. He could feel the shock of the impact in his throbbing bones. Pain pulsed through his body, reverberating through his withered veins. It was an effort to force some manner of coherence into the confusion of thoughts that swirled about inside his skull. His ears still ringing from the dolorous notes of the bell, he couldn’t hear his own incantations as he tried to reanimate the dead dragon. A crackle of green lightning scorched the night, driving him to shelter behind Graug’s immense claw. The skaven warlock, it seemed, was intent on finishing the job.

Lothar forced a small measure of control back into his senses, driving the distracting buzz from his head. He could hear now the triumphant squeaks of the enemy, rejoicing in the destruction of the dragon. With Graug eliminated, their victory seemed assured.

To Lothar, it was inexplicable. Vanhal had so much power at his command, how could he allow himself to be overwhelmed by these vermin?

Then, into the baron’s ears came new sounds. The triumphant chittering was replaced by squeals of panic. An almost arctic chill gripped Lothar, the residue of some mighty sorcery. Raising his eyes skywards, he marvelled at what he saw.

Graug wasn’t the focus of Vanhal’s conjurations. The undead dragon had simply been a small fragment, a distraction to delay the enemy. The true enormity of Vanhal’s power was only now appearing in the sky over Vanhaldenschlosse.

Again, Lothar was humbled by the limitations of his own comprehension. He had thought the summoning and control of a single zombie dragon was a power that should set him amongst the gods.

What words, then, to describe a force that had called scores of the beasts back from the dead?