03 - Sword of Vengeance (27 page)

“And the ceremony?”

“No delays. It goes ahead as planned. There’s no point in
further secrecy, whatever the mistress says.”

He narrowed his eyes, thinking of the power on the cusp of
grasping. His army was nearly ready, the one that would deliver the dominion he
craved.

“Ensure the root supply remains high, and give your orders to
the priests,” he said. “The mask will be removed. It is time to show the people
what they’ve taken on by serving me.”

Dawn had broken. The moors were still shrouded in a fine
mist. Scraps of cloud hurried westwards above the drifting pall, driven by the
relentless winds from the mountains. The weather was converging on Averheim, as
if the world’s winds were being sucked into a vortex above the distant city. Out
on the high fells, though, the air was crisp and damp, as cold and clear as a
crystal goblet in the Imperial Palace.

Eissen came to a halt. He’d been riding through the night to
return to the Drakenmoor, carrying with him welcome tidings for the Marshal.
Before Eissen had left, Skarr had captured three supply trains and roused half a
dozen villages to the cause. His men under arms now numbered more than a
hundred, and more joined them daily. Part of this was due to the plentiful
supply of gold and weapons they’d obtained since the capture of the caravans,
but there was also no love for Grosslich in this part of the world and recruits
were ready converts.

Most of the Reiksguard had remained with Skarr to press home
the assault and spread dissent in the lands running towards Heideck. A couple of
others had been assigned to the caravans to guard their passage to Drakenmoor.
Eissen had gone on ahead to deliver his report to Helborg. He’d covered many
leagues in the night, riding his steed hard.

Now he gave it some respite, dismounting and letting it walk
through the gorse and heather. The animal went warily, treading in between the
glistening clumps of dew-bedecked grass, clouds of steam snorting from its
nostrils. Eissen led it through the meandering moorland paths carefully, keeping
one hand on the reins and the other on his sword. In every direction, the mist
curled up about him, grey and thin like gruel. Lone trees, blasted and curled
over by the wind, came and went before the gauze-like clouds swallowed them up
again. Only the ground beneath his feet was solid, and everything else was as
shifting and fickle as a woman’s promise.

“Easy, girl,” Eissen whispered, noticing his steed’s
shivering flanks. She needed to be rubbed down and given a bucket of hot oats.
Still, Drakenmoor wasn’t far. He’d wait for the mist to lift, get his bearings,
and be there before the end of the day.

Then the horse stiffened, tugging back on the reins and
stamping. Its eyes began to roll.

“Mist got you spooked?” asked Eissen, looking around. There
was no sound except for the faint rustle of the gorse. “Better get over it.”

The Reiksguard shook his head and smiled to himself.

“Talking to my horse? Time to get—”

He froze. There was something out there. Eissen felt the
hairs on the back of his neck stand up stiff. The chill was still acute and he
shivered under his leather jerkin.

Ahead of him, the curtain of grey sighed past, driven by the
breeze, as cloudy and opaque as milk. Still no sound.

Eissen drew his sword. The steel was dull in the diffuse
light. After a night’s riding his muscles felt sluggish and stiff.

“Declare yourself!” he cried. His voice was sucked into the
fog like water draining from a sink. There was no reply.

Eissen’s horse was beginning to panic. It tried to rear away,
only held firm by Eissen’s tight grip. A line of foam appeared at its mouth.

Eissen pulled it savagely back into line, keeping his blade
raised defensively Despite all his training and experience, his heart was
hammering like a maiden’s on her wedding night. He felt a line of sweat run down
his chest, cold against his flesh. He backed towards his horse, head craning to
see anything among the shifting sea of occlusion.

“Helborg.”

The voice was unearthly, a bizarre mix of a young woman’s and
a boy’s, scraped over metal and given the sibilant whisper of a snake. As soon
as he heard it, Eissen’s resolve was shaken. He gripped his sword, keeping hold
of his tugging steed with difficulty.

“Show yourself, ghoul,” he commanded, but his voice sounded
reedy and foolish.

Ahead of him, three figures slowly emerged from the clouds.
They were hunched like old women, draped in rags, limping uncertainly across the
uneven ground. At twenty paces away they were wreathed in a shifting cloak of
translucence, as muffled and indistinct as shades. Only their eyes were solid,
six points of lilac brilliance, emerging from the obscurity like stars.

Eissen felt the dread grow stronger. His steed reared,
snatching the reins from his fingers. He turned quickly, grabbing at the leather
straps, but he was too late. It turned and broke into a gallop, bounding back
into the gloom and disappearing from view. He was alone. Heart thudding, he
turned to face the newcomers.

“Helborg,”
they hissed again in perfect unison. The
words were taut with malice.

Eissen grabbed the hilt of his sword with both hands. He’d
faced the undead before—where was his courage?

“He’s not here,” he replied, trying to keep his voice level.
“Who sent you?”

The creatures seemed not to hear, and advanced slowly. One of
them extended a hand from under its rags. Eissen stared in horror as the long
talons extended. Another reached out, exposing ravaged flesh, white as ice,
studded with metal and knots of protruding bone.

“Sigmar preserves!” he roared, trying to summon up some kind
of resolve. As the nearest horror drew close, he charged at it, swinging his
sword round to decapitate.

Something like laughter burst out. The creature snapped up
its talon to block the strike and steel clanged against bone. The horror’s
movements were staggeringly fast, more like those of an insect than a human.
Eissen sprang back, moving his blade warily, watching for the attack.

“Helborg!”
they hissed, driven into some kind of
ecstasy. The lilac glow became piercing, and they lost their stooped hunches.
The one in the centre pounced, leaping into the air and spreading its claws
wide.

Eissen withdrew, swinging his sword up to block the swipe.
Again the metal clanged, and he felt the force of the blow shiver down his arm.

Another sprang at him, screaming with glee. Eissen spun round
to deflect, only to feel the burn of a raking claw plunge into his back. He
cried aloud, ripping the talons from the wound as he turned, seeing his own
blood fly into the faces of the horrors. Another pounced, and something stabbed
into his stomach, slicing into the flesh as smoothly as a stick into water.

Eissen lurched back, trying to shake them off him, slashing
at their brass-bound hides with his sword. They ignored his blows and dragged
him down, tearing at his flesh, pulling the muscles from the bones, cackling
with a childish delight.

Eissen lost his sword when he lost his fingers, cleaved from
his forearm with a single jab from a barbed set of claws. He heard screaming,
lost in the fog, before realising it was his own. Then he was on his knees, and
the creatures really got to work. They didn’t go for the kill, but for the
dissection, taking off chunk after chunk of flesh until what was left of Eissen
finally collapsed in a gore-bedraggled mess, bereft of eyes, hoarse from
screaming, lost in a world of pain, beyond wishing for death and sucked into a
slough of horror.

The final blow was reluctant, a grudging stab to silence his
jaw-less mewls of agony, regretfully delivered by the lead ghoul. As before,
they stood in silence for a while, admiring what they’d done. One of them raised
a taloned hand to its ruined face and licked at the blood-soaked bone with a
black tongue. Its eyes glowed brightest then, perhaps blazing in remembrance of
what it was like to be hot-blooded and encased in mortal flesh.

When they’d finished they hunched over once more and the
light in their eyes faded. In the far distance, a frenzied whinnying could still
be heard, growing fainter with every second.

Then, one by one, they turned south, trudging after their
real prey again, insatiable until the one whose name they carried was found. If
they were capable of feeling any emotion other than malice, they didn’t show it.
Perhaps, though, there was a faintest trace of excitement in their movements.
The journey had been long, but they knew they were getting close. They shuffled
into the fog, rags trailing behind them, whispering the name, the one name they
still knew how to say.

When they were gone, the moor returned to silence. The mist
curled around the long grasses, pale and ephemeral. Down in the mud, the sweet
smell of death, mingled with the faint aroma of jasmine, stained the chill air,
and the blood sank slowly into the soil.

Schwarzhelm looked up. The moors were high on the southern
horizon, still laced with scraps of mist. In the far distance he thought he
could hear some strange bird’s cry, repeated over and over until it faded away.
He listened for a repeat, but none came.

The sky remained grey and the light of the sun was weak. The cold didn’t
bother him much, but he pulled his cloak tighter across his huge shoulders in
any case. As surely as he knew his own name, he knew the Sword of Vengeance had
guided him well. Somewhere up on those bleak, wind-tousled moors lay Helborg.
The spirit of the blade longed to return to its master.

As the day of their meeting drew ever closer, Schwarzhelm
found his iron will begin to waver. His dreams were still haunted by the old
warrior’s face.

Why are you doing this, Ludwig?

He looked away from the brooding highlands. He’d made up his
mind. Justice demanded the return of the sword. Schwarzhelm’s entire existence
depended on honour, on keeping his word, on being the very embodiment of the
law. Without that, he was nothing, just a killer in the service of the Emperor.
He didn’t know whether he’d ever raise the Imperial standard again on the field
of battle, but he was certain that if he didn’t carry through this duty then
he’d never regain the right to. Redemption was never handed over; it was always
earned.

He stamped back up to the tree line he’d come down from,
slinging the brace of hares over his shoulder. The forest had sheltered them for
the night and had yielded a rich bounty. It was a good thing he knew how to hunt
and trap. If he’d been relying on Verstohlen, all they’d have eaten would have
been air and fine words.

Once back under the cover of the trees, he found the spy
trying to light a fire with trembling fingers. He looked cold, and crouched low
over the pile of damp wood, his coat flapping over his slim form as he moved.
Verstohlen was as clumsy out in the wilds as he was accomplished in the city.
Schwarzhelm almost felt like smiling.

“So you’ve decoded the letters,” he said, flinging the
carcasses on the ground and reaching for his flint.

Verstohlen sat back from his abortive fire, giving up in
disgust.

“Indeed. They made for interesting reading.”

Schwarzhelm ignored Verstohlen’s tumbled pile of branches and
began building a fresh fire from the dry scrub he’d collected at the edge of the
forest.

“Tell me.”

Verstohlen pulled a sheaf of notes from his coat pocket,
covered in messy scribblings from the charcoal. He’d been busy in the rare
moments Schwarzhelm had halted the march and allowed him to decipher.

“They were mostly replies to messages sent by Lassus,”
Verstohlen said. “I don’t know who wrote them. The final one is from Lassus
himself. It’s unfinished, no doubt because you interrupted him before he could
send it.”

Schwarzhelm watched as his kindling took. Gradually, shakily,
washed-out flames began to flicker. He fed the nascent blaze with more twigs,
trying not to let his feelings about Lassus impair his attention to Verstohlen’s
findings.

“The conspiracy didn’t start with him,” said Verstohlen. “The
power behind it was a woman. There’s no name here, but I’d stake my life it’s
Natassja.”

“So you’ve always maintained.”

“Whether or not she intended me to see her engaged in those
rites, I could not have been mistaken about the fact of her sorcery. From this,
it’s clear she approached Lassus three years ago, soon after the death of Marius
Leitdorf. At that point she wasn’t Rufus’ wife—they married eighteen months
later. The two of them, Lassus and she, evidently found much of mutual interest
to discuss.”

The fire grew. Schwarzhelm began to prepare the carcasses,
ripping at the skin with expert fingers.

“Lassus had been passed over for promotion,” said Verstohlen.
“He felt wounded by the Imperial establishment. He was also old. He hid it from
you, I suspect, but he was a bitter man, bereft of an honourable position in the
hierarchy and banished to a retirement in a part of Altdorf he hated.”