Blighted Empire

Chapter III

Altdorf

Sigmarzeit, 1114

‘A peasant appointed Protector of the Empire!’ The outburst was punctuated by the slamming of a mailed fist against the polished mahogany desk. The pink-faced man seated behind the desk winced as he saw the wood scarred by the blow. Almost immediately there was a cloth in his hand and he was rubbing at the injured surface.

‘You must curb your temper, Vidor,’ the man cautioned his guest. ‘There is no arguing with an Imperial decree.’ He leaned back and swallowed uneasily, darting a glance at the shelf-lined walls of his office. ‘It is also unwise to speak in anger. Your “peasant” has ears everywhere.’

Vidor von Tolkesdorf, Duke of Weissbruck and Margrave of the Helmwald, shifted the steel helm he held under his arm, brandishing it like a cudgel at the man seated behind the desk, provoking an uneasy squirm from the pink-faced noble. Duke Vidor sneered. Lord Ratimir was typical of the men who made up the Imperial court, decadent blue-bloods who had grown soft from the ease of luxury. The least display of force, the smallest threat of danger, and they capitulated to any outrage. Even that of taking orders from a low-born peasant.

‘I don’t care how many serfs that dung-scraping low-born has in his vaunted Kaiserjaeger,’ Duke Vidor growled. ‘The Emperor knows my loyalty. He knows there is no more staunch a supporter of his crown than myself!’

Lord Ratimir shook his head, making soft tutting sounds. ‘Things are quite different than when you left Altdorf to hunt the errant Reiksmarshal,’ he warned. ‘His Imperial Majesty has had two years to reflect upon the conspiracy that nearly took that crown away from him. Need I say that it has been Adolf Kreyssig and his Kaiserjaeger who have been investigating that conspiracy and dragging more traitors into the light? It would be unwise… and unhealthy… to make an enemy of the man. Whatever the quality of his blood.’

Duke Vidor turned away from the desk, pacing across the office of the Imperial Minister of Finance. ‘He knows my loyalty,’ he stated, conviction in his tone. ‘I chased that scoundrel Boeckenfoerde across the eastern provinces for eighteen months. Drove that rabble of Dienstleute clear into the Ungol wastes!’

Ratimir’s sickly countenance was made more grotesque by the smug expression he wore. ‘All true, Vidor, but what have you done lately for His Imperial Majesty?’ He leaned back in his chair, savouring the look of dawning awareness in his visitor’s eyes. ‘Yes, you’ve eliminated the threat of Boeckenfoerde marching his scum on Altdorf. That very accomplishment makes you dangerous. It means you are a strong strategist and a capable leader of men — both qualities that have proven treacherous towards the Emperor in the recent past.’

Frowning, the duke leaned across the desk. ‘What will the Emperor do?’ he scoffed. ‘Surround himself with incompetents simply because they are too stupid to be dangerous to him?’

‘No,’ Ratimir conceded. ‘He will surround himself with men who he himself has created. Creatures like Kreyssig who owe their status and position solely to the beneficence of His Imperial Majesty. Blood and breeding are becoming questionable assets, Vidor. The Emperor doesn’t trust men who feel they are entitled to wealth and station.’

Duke Vidor stood back, aghast at the implication. It was already well known that Emperor Boris had ordered the confiscation of all property owned by Prince Sigdan and his fellow conspirators, their titles abolished and their possessions forfeit to the crown. What Ratimir was suggesting went even further: outright suppression of the nobility!

‘He knows my loyalty,’ Vidor protested, rejecting the fears Ratimir had stirred up.

Ratimir laughed softly, the effort almost choking him. With a trembling hand, he removed a pomander from his frilled sleeve and drew deeply upon its fragrant vapours. ‘It is not the Emperor you must convince of your loyalty,’ he said when the fit had passed. ‘It is the Protector he leaves behind in his stead.’

‘I bow to no peasant,’ Vidor snarled. ‘No noble-born man will!’

Again, Ratimir shook his head. ‘After the example of Prince Sigdan, I think you will find that the nobles will put up with a great deal if it keeps them from the wrong side of an axe.’

The light streaming through the Kaiseraugen was like the glimmer of a thousand jewels, a dazzling display that caught the breath and captivated the soul. The stained glass was the handiwork of the finest glaziers in Karak Norn, produced and transported at enormous expense. A lesser monarch might have shuddered at the cost, but Emperor Boris wasn’t some petty border baron or country count. He was supreme leader of the mightiest realm of man in the known world and such insignificance was beneath his concern. If there were anything troublesome, it was the added expenditure to hurry the project along. It was never cheap to hurry a dwarf.

As he watched the diminutive craftsmen bustling about the half-restored window overlooking the Reik and the sprawl of Altdorf, Boris felt strength course through him. Only he could afford to exert such authority, to take an act of vandalous destruction and turn it into a thing more magnificent than before. The traitors who had smashed the original picture window were to be thanked for their mindless atrocity. The new Kaiseraugen would be even greater, a wonder of human achievement and artistry! The stained glass and silver panes would lend it an unparalleled glamour, like a rainbow bound and imprisoned against the face of the Imperial Palace. When it was complete, this hall would sparkle like a treasure vault.

Watching the dwarfs work, Boris’s gaze strayed to the open, incomplete section of the window. For a moment, he felt his attention drawn to the ugly blemish of the city below, the dilapidated structures and deserted streets, the sprawl of refugee camps beyond the walls and the hideous spectre of funeral pyres. Quickly he turned away. He would be happy when all the stained glass was in place and blotted out the noxious vision.

Composing himself, Boris marched across the hall and into the gallery beyond. It was unseemly to let something disturb his Imperial poise. When he returned from Carroburg, such things would be in the past. The plague would run its course soon and then things could get back to normal. And if not… Well, the dwarfs would certainly be finished with their work by then.

In the gallery, Boris was joined by a bodyguard of picked men from the Kaiserknecht and the menacing figure of Baron Pieter von Kirchof, the Emperor’s Champion. It was von Kirchof who had stood by Boris during the insurrection of Prince Sigdan. More than his unmatched prowess with the sword, it was this unwavering loyalty that had earned him the indulgence of his Emperor. Boris had heaped riches on his champion, allocating several of the confiscated lands to the von Kirchof family. Now, he was prepared to grant his favoured vassal another boon.

But first he wanted to hear von Kirchof beg.

‘The construction goes well, Your Imperial Majesty?’ the baron asked as the monarch and his retinue marched down the hall.

Boris took his time before acknowledging that he’d heard his minion speak. Von Kirchof was too well bred to dare decorum by addressing the Emperor again without some response. It was a useful thing, courtly breeding. It conditioned proud men to submit without question.

The Emperor halted before a long mural depicting one of the expansionist campaigns waged by his long-dead predecessor Frederick in the Ungol-infested oblast of the north. His guards immediately formed a circle around him, hands falling to the hilts of swords. Silently they waited for whatever fancy had made their sovereign pause to pass. Boris smiled at their impatience. They would never give it voice, never admit it even to themselves, but it was there and it was held hostage by nothing save his own authority.

‘Tell Us again of this girl, von Kirchof,’ Boris said at last, his eyes still studying the tapestry. He didn’t need to turn to know the desperate hope that shone in the eyes of his champion.

‘She is my niece, Your Imperial Majesty,’ the baron explained, an explanation he had made many times before. ‘There is plague in my sister’s fief. It has been most rapacious in her lands and I… She fears for the girl’s safety. I would bring her to Altdorf, but the plague is worse here and…’

‘And we are leaving for Carroburg,’ the Emperor finished for him.

Baron von Kirchof stiffened and made an embarrassed bow. ‘I was hoping that you would condescend to allow my niece to join the procession to Carroburg.’

Boris turned away from the tapestry, directing a hard look into his champion’s eyes, holding him in the grip of that stare until the baron was compelled to look away. ‘The plague is getting worse,’ he stated. ‘That is why We are leaving Altdorf and seeking the safety of seclusion in the Schloss Hohenbach in the Drakwald. With us We are taking the most powerful personages in the Empire. Grand dukes, arch-counts and great princes.’

Baron von Kirchof kept his eyes downcast. ‘I know it is…’

‘How old is the child?’ Boris asked suddenly, interrupting the apology.

Von Kirchof brightened at the inquiry. ‘She has just passed her nineteenth winter,’ he said.

‘Hardly a “girl” then,’ Boris scoffed, toying with the ermine fringe of his imperial robes. ‘If she is pretty, you may bring her along,’ he said, making the declaration sound as weighty as any affair of state. ‘The castle is quite gloomy, as We recall. We shall need a few pretty things to brighten it up while We are there.’ He raised a warning finger before the baron could thank him. ‘We warn you, the maiden had best be as fair as you attest her to be.’

Boris left the consequences of his disappointment unsaid. As Emperor, there were a great many things he could do to someone who displeased him. He had always found that it was more effective to leave his subjects wondering which of those things was to be their punishment.

No fear was greater than the terror born in a man’s own imagination.

Blinded by the flickering glow of a rushlight, it was some time before Princess Erna von Thornig realised she was no longer alone in her dingy cell. As the red blur that had flooded across her light-starved eyes gradually faded, she found two men standing beside the iron-banded door. The chill of her dungeon apartment was nothing beside the chill that gripped her heart as she recognised her visitors.

The stocky, overweight one with the frilled shirt and sombre livery was Fuerst. The other man, his sickly pallor and scarred face rendered still more grotesque by the shadows cast by the rushlight, was Fuerst’s master, Adolf Kreyssig, Commander of the Kaiserjaeger and now Protector of the Empire. The villain who had murdered her father and cast her into this prison.

The fiend who was her husband.

An ophidian smile stretched across Kreyssig’s face as he watched Erna cringe away from him, her trembling hands clutching the heavy length of chain that connected her to an iron ring set into the wall. He slapped a leather riding crop against his leg, savouring the fear he saw in his wife’s eyes. It had taken much time and effort to put that fear there, to beat the boldness out of her. Breaking Erna’s spirit had become something of a hobby for him. One that he had enjoyed immensely.

‘Don’t get up,’ Kreyssig hissed at her. ‘I am afraid that I don’t have much time to squander with you today. His Imperial Majesty is going to officially proclaim me Protector of the Empire in the Great Cathedral of Sigmar.’ For just an instant, he saw hate burn its way through the fear in her eyes. He slashed the riding crop at her, being sure to strike low enough that the brand wouldn’t be visible in public. The strip of sackcloth draped about Erna’s body did nothing to retard the blow. Still, his words had awakened some residue of noble pride and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. Kreyssig drew his arm back to whip her again.

‘Your lordship!’ Fuerst protested, grabbing Kreyssig’s arm. ‘His Imperial Majesty has ordered the baroness to attend him when he travels. He will be displeased if…’

Kreyssig rounded on his servant, turning the crop against him and slashing it down his back. He turned and glared at Erna, then returned his attention to Fuerst. ‘Get the bitch presentable,’ he snarled before storming from the cell.

Fuerst bowed until the door closed behind Kreyssig, then he turned back to the captive baroness. ‘I am sorry, your ladyship, but you know better than to bait him.’

‘The worst he can do is kill me,’ Erna stated, her awakened pride sinking back beneath a torrent of despair. She looked up at Fuerst, managing a weak smile for his benefit. ‘He would have killed me already if not for you.’

Fuerst glanced away, colour rising in his cheeks. ‘No, your ladyship, you pay me too much favour. The commander does nothing without reason. Even after you tried to… Even then he made no move to execute you, even petitioned the Emperor for clemency.’ Fuerst’s voice dropped to an embarrassed whisper. ‘With your father dead, you are now baroness. It is only through his connection to you that the commander may make any pretension of moving among the aristocracy. Without you, he is just a peasant.’

Erna leaned against the stone wall, her chains rattling against the floor. ‘He is a monster,’ she said, her voice hollow and bitter. ‘I thought I knew what he was when I agreed to kill him, but I didn’t. The barbarians who sacked Marienburg are more human than that beast!’ She held her hands across her face, shuddering as a new horror impressed itself on her mind. ‘Now this animal is going to be Protector of the Empire.’

Fuerst drew closer, excitement in his tone. ‘That is where you have a chance!’ he exclaimed. ‘Emperor Boris might trust the commander more than the nobles, but he doesn’t trust anyone fully. That is why he has decreed that you are to accompany him to Carroburg.’ Wearing a broad smile, Fuerst unfolded the clothes he carried across his arm, displaying for Erna one of her finest gowns. ‘The Emperor knows that it is through you that the commander is able to claim the status of a noble. He feels that by keeping you with him, it will give him a hold over the commander.’

Reaching forwards, Erna let her fingers slide down the soft smoothness of her gown. ‘So I trade one captor for another,’ she mused.

Fuerst shrugged and pointed at the dank walls of the cramped cell, at the straw pallet and sackcloth shift. ‘It can’t be worse than this,’ he said.

Erna took the gown from Fuerst, hugging it to her breast. ‘No, it can’t,’ she answered before her voice collapsed into an inarticulate sob. Years of torture and isolation — could they finally be at an end? Even as Fuerst unlocked the shackle from her wrist, Erna expected her husband and a gang of Kaiserjaeger to come bursting through the door. It was just the sort of cruelty that would appeal to Kreyssig’s humour, to build up hope and then smash it in the most brutal manner possible.

Only when she was dressed and unchained, being led by Fuerst out into the corridor beyond her cell, did Erna accept that her release was real. She had been traded, given into the keeping of Emperor Boris as hostage for her husband’s loyalty. Her life against that of every man, woman and child in the Empire.

Ulric have mercy, but to escape the clutches of Kreyssig, Erna was willing to make such a monstrous bargain.

Mordheim

Ulriczeit, 1112

Across the curtain of night, the ponderous notes of temple bells reminded the denizens of the city that even in the darkest hour, when the powers of Old Night waxed strong, the gods were still watching. It was a sound that had once brought comfort and solace to the simple, superstitious folk. The thought that the gods remained vigilant when the creatures of darkness were abroad, when ghouls stalked graveyards, when witches flew through the blackened sky and skin-wolves prowled under shadowed trees.

Of late, however, the voice of the temple bells had taken on a bitter, mocking quality. The Black Plague was abroad, slaughtering old and young, pious and impious, peasant and noble with equal rapacity. If the gods were still watching over mankind, not the wisest of priests could explain their indifference to its suffering.

Ensconced within the cold stone-walled fastness of his chambers, one of those suffering masses looked up from the documents spread across the table before him. He closed his eyes and listened to the bells tolling away the hour. There was another sound, softer yet nearer, a low wailing that filtered through the ancient halls. It was a haunting, melancholy sound, the animate voice of anguish and loss and regret.

Regret? That word brought a cynical curl to the man’s pale, pinched face. He swept a jewelled hand through a mane of luxuriant black hair and leaned back in his gilded chair. There was a suggestion of sardonic amusement in his eyes as he stared down at the scrolls and parchment sheaves piled before him. Like a dragon perched atop its hoard, he hovered above the heap. It would take the treasure of a dragon to rival the wealth laid out on the table, for it was a tangible representation of the lands and holdings that went with the title Baron von Diehl.

A title that had finally passed from Hjalmar von Diehl to his son Lothar.

That transition of wealth and authority had been a long time taking shape. The old baron had been a long time about dying. Towards the last, it had become something of a race to see whether the father would exhaust the legacy of the von Diehls on alchemists and physicians and generous tithes to the temples in a desperate bid to bribe the gods to intercede.

Many times, Lothar had despaired, wondered if he shouldn’t employ cudgel or dagger to effect his father’s speedy demise. Such impatient temptations were fought back only by the fiercest exertion of will. The spells were doing their work. Slowly but surely his father’s vitality had been ebbing, leeched away by phantom parasites neither priest nor physician could discover. When the old baron died, there were none who thought of murder. To even the most suspicious, there was never a notion that the baron was anything but another victim of the Black Plague.

Lothar set a covetous hand against the stack of deeds that represented ownership of three-quarters of Mordheim’s riverfront. He smiled as he saw a promissory note from Count Steinhardt himself peeking out from beneath the pile. Great and small, many were those who must credit the Baron von Diehl for their prosperity.

Rising from behind the table, Lothar paced across the cheerless confines of his study. Prosperity had become a bitter word to the people of Mordheim, a mocking echo of better times. With over half the city carried off by the plague, the fields beyond the walls invaded by starving refugees, the violence in Talabecland choking off what river trade still flowed into Ostermark, Mordheim was in the throes of her own slow death.

It was the natural order of things, Lothar mused. People and places were fated to grow, thrive and prosper for a season, but then must come that time when they would wither, decay and die. Not the gods themselves could defy the laws of fate.

A cold smile formed across Lothar’s face. The only way a man could ensure his accomplishments was to set himself outside the tyrannical dictates of fate. His grandfather had awakened to that revelation, but had lacked the fortitude to pursue his studies fully. His father, with pious horror, had rejected the researches of the elder von Diehl, burning his books and papers when the barony came into his possession. Hjalmar had been thorough in his fiery purge, but not perfect. A few tomes slipped his notice, and eventually those volumes of forbidden lore had found their way into Lothar’s hands. The seeds of the grandfather’s work found fertile soil in the grandson’s mind.

Staring up at a portrait of his father, Lothar sighed as he recalled all the years he had been compelled to secrecy, labouring away in the disused cellars and crypts beneath the castle, embezzling money from the von Diehl estates to fund his experiments, to procure the obscure books necessary to his research. With the support and understanding of his father, Lothar should have progressed in his studies with cosmic momentum. Lacking such assistance, he’d been forced to trudge away, content himself with the most restrained and insignificant advances. In those long hours, shivering in the clammy gloom of the castle vaults, he realised that if he were to succeed, he must become baron. When rumours drifted into Mordheim of a mighty sorcerer who had arisen in Sylvania and brought the von Draks to heel, a terrible envy took hold of Lothar’s heart. No longer would he wait for the power that must one day belong to him!

Turning away from the portrait, Lothar shook his head and tried to blot out the faint wail of professional mourners that wafted through the castle halls. What had been done was done. The bridge had been crossed, the decision made. It would, he vowed to himself, be worth it.

All at once, Lothar’s attention was drawn to a tall shelf sunk into the wall at the far corner of the room. The bronze figure of a wolf stood upon one of the shelves, a hammer and bell clenched in its rampant paws. While he watched, the statue revolved from side to side, causing hammer to strike bell and send a tinkling note through the chamber. Lothar watched the gyrations of the figure as he stalked over to a bell-pull beside the hearth. One sharp tug would set an alarm that would see a dozen men-at-arms swarm into the room.

Lothar bided his time, hand poised about the bell-pull, eyes fixed on the bronze wolf and the shelf it rested upon. While he watched, the shelf began to move, rotating away from the wall and exposing a dark passageway with stairs descending into the black depths beneath the Schloss von Diehl.

Lothar relaxed and walked back to his table when he recognised the figure who emerged from the darkness. He was a stocky, fat-faced man with ruddy complexion and bulbous nose. His raiment was simple, lacking the costly dyes and embroidery of the noble classes, yet of immaculate condition and quality. The overall impression was that of a man of means if not social position.

‘Marko,’ Lothar greeted the man in a cold, somewhat irritated fashion. When he’d heard the bell sound, he’d half expected his father’s ghost to come tromping up those steps, such was the morbid turn of his mind.

‘Baron von Diehl now, I believe,’ Marko addressed Lothar. He glanced about for a moment and, without awaiting an invitation, sank into a heavy chair opposite the table. His host scowled at the man’s temerity but kept his tongue. In their long association, he had been forced to a grudging acceptance of Marko’s discourteous habits.

‘Your sense of propriety leaves much to be desired,’ Lothar upbraided the man. ‘My father lies cold in his chambers and you choose tonight to visit.’ He made a pretence of examining the documents on the table, directing a dismissive wave at Marko. ‘Get out. Leave me to my mourning. Come again in a fortnight.’

Marko leaned forwards in his chair, an oily smile across his face. ‘Is that any way to speak to an old friend who has come to offer his sympathy?’

A caustic laugh was Lothar’s answer. Marko’s smile collapsed into a sullen frown.

‘Perhaps the word “friend” offends you?’ Marko asked. ‘There is another word I might use, but “accomplice” is such an ugly word that noble ears should be spared its utterance.’

Lothar set down the deed he had been feigning interest in and glared at his visitor. ‘You dare threaten me? Are you forgetting that I am now Baron von Diehl?’

The smile was back on Marko’s face. ‘Indeed I am not,’ he said. ‘It is because you are the baron that I have brought you something.’ Reaching into his coat, digging into the deep poacher pockets sewn into its lining, he withdrew a thick bundle wrapped in sheepskin.

Whatever annoyance Lothar felt was instantly supplanted by curiosity. Marko had been wrong to refer to himself as an accomplice. He was a facilitator, a provider of the magical treatises and implements needed for Lothar’s researches. The peasant had proven himself most capable in his illicit trade, braving the vengeance of both secular and religious law to secure the forbidden tomes Lothar required.

Tonight, however, Lothar could sense that the trader had brought him something special. Cynically, he wondered how long it had been in Marko’s possession, if the peasant hadn’t been biding his time, waiting until the title and wealth of Baron von Diehl passed into Lothar’s hands.

The new baron set dignity aside as he hurriedly unwrapped the package. Within he discovered a large book bound in some strange scaly hide. A golden skull was embossed upon the cover, and it was with a thrill of excitement that he recognised the hieroglyphics beneath it as belonging to the vanished civilisation of Mourkain.

‘You will appreciate it,’ Marko declared, ‘when I tell you that what you hold in your hands is the only known copy of De Arcanis Kadon.’

Lothar’s knees went weak, dropping him ungracefully back into his chair. There was a tremor on his lips, a shiver in his hands. Shocked by the artefact in his fingers, the baron’s heart pounded to the beat of both horror and exuberance.

‘You know the story, of course,’ Marko said, savouring the emotions warring for control of his patron’s mind. ‘Kadon was a shaman of the primitive tribes along the Blind River. Sometime before the birth of Sigmar, he built a great city in the Badlands, a place he named Mourkain.’ The peasant chuckled grimly. ‘In the Strigany tongue, it means “the Dead City”. Employing the black arts, he raised an army of the dead to make war in his name. With Mourkain at its centre, Kadon built the kingdom of Strygos. Those who submitted to his power became his slaves. Those who defied him were slaughtered… and became his slaves just the same.’

Marko paused, examining an old sword hanging on the wall, running one of his hands along the blade. ‘It is said that Kadon was the greatest sorcerer of his day, and that he used his magic to empower many strange and terrible relics. None, however, could equal the malignity of De Arcanis Kadon. Written upon skin flayed from the bodies of his children, scribed in the heart’s blood of his own wives, Kadon consigned onto these pages all of his arcane knowledge.’

Marko stared up at the portrait of Hjalmar von Diehl, watching as the flickering glow from the hearth cast strange shadows across the dead baron’s face. ‘There were nine copies of De Arcanis Kadon, patterned after the ancient Books of Nagash. Each copy was couched in its own cipher and entrusted to one of Kadon’s disciples. The disciples scattered when Strygos was overrun by a mighty orc invasion. Kadon himself perished when the city of Mourkain fell to the greenskins, but through his disciples and De Arcanis Kadon, his knowledge endured.’

Lothar ran his thumb along the book’s spine, feeling an icy sensation flow down his arm. ‘I understood that De Arcanis Kadon was lost when the Great Cathedral of Sigmar burned in Nuln,’ he said, his voice nothing more than an awed whisper.

‘One copy was reputed to be held by the Sigmarites in their vaults,’ Marko agreed, returning to the table and lowering himself into his chair. ‘Another was burned in Remas by the fanatics of Solkan. A warlock in the town of Mirkhof was reputed to be in possession of a copy when that community vanished from the face of the earth.’ Marko laughed. ‘The work of elves, some claim.

‘There was another copy somewhere in Bretonnia, but much like Mirkhof, the community harbouring it vanished in a night. Undoubtedly the work of the Great Enchanter. If so, then it will never leave the Grey Mountains.’

‘Where did this copy come from?’ Lothar asked.

‘It wasn’t easy to get,’ Marko assured him. ‘It is supposed to have been in the possession of a man titling himself “King of the Strigany” and was, perhaps, handed down from father to son since the destruction of Strygos. It is doubtful the man understood what he possessed, otherwise his caravan wouldn’t have been massacred when they tried to camp near an Ostland village. It seems there was talk that the Strigany were spreading the plague, so the men of the village rose up and massacred the entire caravan. Their fear of the plague didn’t keep them from looting the dead, however. Among the plunder, the villagers found De Arcanis Kadon. The miraculous thing is that they didn’t destroy it to steal its gold adornments.’ Marko laughed again, but it was an uneasy sort of laugh. ‘Maybe it was the book exerting its magic on their simple minds, protecting itself from their ignorance and fear.

‘Eventually the book found its way to Wolfenburg and into the hands of one of my… associates.’ Marko stood up, setting his hands on the table and leaning towards Lothar. His voice dropped into a warning hiss. ‘You will never be closer to such power, herr baron! The few who have truly understood that book have learned secrets that have been forbidden to men for a thousand years. They accomplished great things, feats of magic that have been immortalised in myth and legend.’

Lothar looked up from the ancient tome. His voice quaked as he questioned Marko. ‘What of those who couldn’t understand, who couldn’t unlock Kadon’s secrets?’

‘They were driven mad,’ Marko admitted with a shrug. He smiled and stood away from the table. ‘That is why, when I ask you for two thousand gold crowns, you will oblige me by paying before you begin your researches.’

Lothar’s expression became indignant. At the same time, he wrapped his arms protectively about De Arcanis Kadon. ‘Two thousand gold crowns! That is robbery. I will not pay it!’

‘You will pay it,’ Marko assured him. ‘I have never sold you false merchandise, never lied to you. Two thousand crowns is cheap for the knowledge that book can bestow on you.’ He looked down at the table, littered with deeds and promissory notes. He waved his hand over the heap of documents. ‘What is wealth except a means to power?’ he asked. ‘And what power is greater than knowledge?’

Lothar raised his head, listening to the faint wail of the mourners. It was true, what the peasant said. In trying to secure temporal wealth, he had stumbled upon true power — the power of magic and the arcane. What did lands and titles matter beside the ability to invoke death with a touch, the power to raise the dead from their tombs?

‘You will have your money,’ Baron von Diehl promised. ‘But let us wait a little.

‘I have a father I must bury first.’

Sylvania

Vorhexen, 1112

The smell of burning thatch and timber boiled across the air, the tang of man-thing blood laced with man-thing fear was borne upon the breeze, the stink of rat-fur and skaven musk rolled down the muddy lanes. They were exciting, invigorating smells that filled Seerlord Skrittar’s nose and teased his olfactory organs, but none of them were so enthralling as the burning scent of warpstone.

The seerlord’s grey paw closed tighter about the black nugget it held, a little wisp of smoke rising from his clenched fist as the warpstone singed his fur. He was oblivious to the caustic emanations of his prize, too absorbed in the enormity of what it represented. That nugget was the first, the first of a treasure so vast it would reshape the whole of skavendom!

A blood-chilling scream scratched across Skrittar’s hearing, causing him to turn and watch as a lone man-thing tried to fend off a pack of clanrats. The sword-rats of Clan Fester weren’t the mighty killers of Clan Rictus or Clan Mors, but they were more than equal to the hapless peasant they menaced. Warily, the skaven circled around the man, making little mock attacks that drove him steadily backwards. Each step he took allowed the ratmen to spread out, the skaven at either extremity fanning out to nip at the peasant’s flanks.

There was nowhere the man-thing could retreat to. The wattle-and-daub wall behind him was smoking away, cinders dribbling from its burning face. The building beyond it was fully engulfed, its roof a fiery pyre that blazed into the night sky. There were a few man-things inside the building — their screams made that clear — but bullets from Fester’s slingers were keeping the Sylvanians penned up inside the burning structure. No hope for the doomed peasant there.

Moved by some caprice, Skrittar stretched forth his horned staff, channelling magical energies into the warpstone talisman set between the curled horns. He chittered an invocation, drawing down the malignity of the Horned Rat. Despite the fires blazing away in the village, a chill crept into the air as he worked his sorcery. A green glow leapt from the talisman, flashing down the lane. One of the sword-rats squeaked in agony as the light slashed through him, boring a smouldering crater in his shoulder. Undiminished by its incidental victim, Skrittar’s spell struck onwards, slamming into the embattled peasant’s head and popping it like an engorged tick.

Skrittar chittered maliciously as the surviving clanrats scattered, terrified by the grey seer’s display of magic, leaving their stricken comrade to writhe and bleed in the mud. The seerlord savoured their fear. It was good to remind the vermin of Clan Fester who was in charge, who held the real reins of power in their little alliance.

The seerlord whipped his tail through the mud in annoyance. Left to his own devices, he would have preferred to avoid the inconvenience of an alliance altogether. But that ten-flea tyrant Vecteek had made decrees limiting the number of grey seers the Order could maintain and had further placed prohibitions on the Order possessing any warriors of its own. He had seen to it that the Order would never be self-sufficient, claiming that the grey seers must serve the needs of all skaven rather than their own selfish interests. Of course, the despot hadn’t made similar conditions to control the upstart heretics of Clan Pestilens! The plague monks were more powerful now than ever, with two seats on the Council and the entire Under-Empire squeaking their praises because of the Black Plague!

They would soon squeak a different tune. With the rat-power of Clan Fester’s teeming masses to provide him with the brute force he needed, Skrittar would fill the halls of the Shattered Tower with warpstone. He would curb the dictatorship of Vecteek and Clan Rictus, usher in a new age of balance and cooperation among the clans where no one voice was supreme among the skaven. All would hearken to the Voice of the Horned One through His chosen instrument, Seerlord Skrittar. The clans would be led by the wisdom of their god, and any that wouldn’t hearken to Skrittar’s words would be exterminated.

Casting his gaze across the burning village, Skrittar watched as Clan Fester’s slaves scurried about the fields and meadows, pawing at the dirt as they retrieved nuggets of raw warpstone from the ground. His spell had performed even more magnificently than he had dared dream. The land was littered with warpstone ripped from the moon, so much that he could see a green glow on the horizon when he squinted his eyes. It might take years to gather it all!

Not that Skrittar intended to be so patient. He’d contact Warlord Manglrr Baneburrow and demand he send more labourers. He didn’t care exactly where Manglrr got them. There were plenty of weaker clans Fester could conquer and enslave to deliver the workers he needed.

Manglrr would obey, too. There was no question of that. Sylvania was ripe for the picking, helpless at Skrittar’s feet. Half the province was dead because of the plague, and the other half had been poisoned by the warpstone.

Who was there left with the strength to oppose the skaven?