03 - Sword of Vengeance (29 page)

The mayor of Grenzstadt was no fool. Unlike in Heideck, the
proximity of the eastern town to the Worlds Edge Mountains had bred a certain
toughness in the place. Klaus Meuningen was a lean, angular man, grey-haired and
clean-shaven with a warrior’s bearing. In his youth he’d commanded a regiment of
mountain guard, and knew the ways of a soldier. When Schwarzhelm’s commander had
passed through the town on the route to Black Fire Pass, he’d spared every man
from his garrison that he could. The news that none of them would be coming back
was an unwelcome reward for his generosity.

“And what I am supposed to do about the defence of
Grenzstadt?” he asked, placing his pitcher of beer heavily on the table in front
of him.

He sat behind the desk in his chambers facing Bloch once
again. The commander looked like he’d taken a few more knocks in the mountains.
He’d lost weight, and his stocky frame was beginning to look ravaged. The man’s
aide, Kraus, was at his side, still in his plate armour and looking as
grim-faced as he had before.

Bloch shrugged.

“Why do you need a garrison here, mayor?” He seemed
impatient, as if some pressing need was nagging away at him. “The passes are
secure. We’ve done what we came to do.”

Meuningen sighed. Many things had been preying on his mind
recently, and this was unwelcome in the extreme.

“Matters have moved on since you left for the passes,” he
said. “News has come of the new elector in Averheim, Count Heinz-Mark Grosslich.
The issue has been decided.”

“You must welcome that,” Bloch said. “Schwarzhelm has given
his verdict. That’s what he came for.”

Meuningen shrugged.

“Schwarzhelm? I’m told he’s left the province. We’re alone
again here, ignored by the rest of the Empire, just as before.”

Bloch frowned. Despite his blunt manners and street-brawler
appearance, the man was as astute as his master.

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Of course.”

Meuningen reached for the roll of parchment lying on the desk
and took it up. His eyes scanned the message for the fourth time.

“This arrived yesterday by courier from the Averburg. It’s
signed by Grosslich himself. By revealing the contents to you I’m breaking the
first order my new liege-lord has given me. Perhaps now you understand why I’m
feeling rather exposed without my garrison here.”

“Just tell me what’s in it.”

“The elector knows of your presence at Black Fire Pass, and
knew you’d come back here. He’s ordered me to detain you in Grenzstadt until his
men arrive in force. He says he wishes to convey you back to Averheim with a
guard of honour. As it happens, I’m forbidden to reveal these instructions to
you. Make of that what you will.”

Bloch was unmoved. He looked as if some suspicion he’d been
cradling had been confirmed.

“Detained, eh?” he said, and a wry smile creased his
weather-worn features. “Some reward for what we’ve done. I don’t take orders
from him, mayor. Until I receive notice from Schwarzhelm, I’ll go where I please
and when I please. We’ve earned that right in blood.”

Bloch spat the last few words out forcefully. Meuningen could
appreciate the sentiment. He’d lost men under command too.

“I agree entirely, commander,” he said. “If I didn’t, do you
think I’d be telling you this?”

He took another swig of beer. As he did so, he noticed the
trembling in his hands. He was getting too old for these kind of risks.

“I’ve seen many years of service in Averland,” he continued,
wiping his mouth. “A man learns a few things about the arts of state as he ages.
Grosslich will want to install his own man here sooner or later. He’s sending a
battalion of troops already, and I’m not stupid enough to think they’ll take
orders from me.”

He leaned forwards, hoping Bloch would be wise enough to see
the danger.

“We owe you a debt of thanks in Grenzstadt. Take this advice
as repayment. Grosslich has no love for you, and nor does he wish to have an
army in his province that he doesn’t control. You should leave. Now. Find your
Schwarzhelm if you can, or get out. There’s only room for one victor in
Averland.”

Bloch sat back in his chair, pondering the tidings. He didn’t
look massively surprised by them, though the news that Schwarzhelm was missing
clearly bothered him.

“What’ll you do when we’re gone?” he asked, rubbing his
stubbled chin. “Grosslich won’t be slow to send more men.”

Meuningen smiled coldly. “Make the best of it. What else can
we do?”

Bloch turned to Kraus. “How soon can we leave?”

“We could be on the road at dawn. You’ll have trouble pulling
the men from the taverns until then. They haven’t seen a tankard or a woman for
a long time.”

Bloch didn’t smile. “Me neither,” he said ruefully.

“Where will you go?” asked Meuningen.

Bloch sighed, and ran his hands through his cropped hair.

“I said to the men we’d go back to Averheim. We’ll have to
head west for a while, maybe as far as Heideck. We’re small enough to keep out
of trouble until then, and I’ll have a look at things when we get closer. I’ll
not run across the fields again like a fugitive. There are two hundred of us,
all battle-scarred. If Grosslich wants to bring us in, he’ll have to work for
it.”

Meuningen nodded.

“Very well. The grace of Sigmar be with you. You deserve it.”

“As do you, mayor,” replied Bloch, looking sincere enough.
“So I hope he has grace enough for the both of us.”

The villagers crowded round, suspicion heavy in their dull,
stupid faces. The settlement of Urblinken was as unremittingly grim as most of
the hamlets on the slopes, untouched by the prosperity of the lower Aver valley
and left to scratch a living on the unproductive highlands. In that respect, it
resembled many of the grimy places of the northern Empire, beds of poverty,
incest, disease and superstition.

Perfect recruiting grounds, mused Skarr, sweeping his gaze
across the murmuring throng, gathered in what passed for a marketplace. All
around him, low, mean buildings crowded. Their wattle and daub walls were
streaked with filth and stained from cooking fires. Chickens pecked through the
refuse and children splashed through grimy puddles. An ill-repaired wall ran
around the perimeter of the houses, crumbling at the summit and with a flimsy
iron gate at the opening.

The Reiksguard, all twenty-seven of them, looked like
messengers from some mighty deity compared with the mean folk who’d clustered to
hear him speak. Their armour flashed in the afternoon sun and the iron cross of
their regiment fluttered proudly from their banner. The villagers had no real
idea what
Reiksguard
were, but they knew the power and reputation of
knights. If Skarr had told them the Emperor himself had sent them, they would
have believed him readily enough.

“How many men can you muster?” he asked the headman, a
slack-jawed, unshaven brute with a lazy eye and unspeakably foul breath.

“How much’re you paying?” asked the man again, fixated on the
idea of gold.

“You needn’t worry about that,” said Skarr coldly. “Have you
no idea of honour? Your lands have been usurped. You can be part of the campaign
to take them back.”

The man looked blank.

“All recruits will be paid,” Skarr added grudgingly. “They’ll
be fed too. If they fight well, the Lord Helborg will find ways to reward them.”

At the mention of the Marshal, a ripple of excitement passed
through the crowd.

“Helborg!” gasped several of the men.

Skarr never ceased to be amazed by that. Even in the darkest
corner of the Empire, the name was spoken with reverence.

“Is it true he can summon fire from the heavens?” blurted a
hulking blacksmith. He wore a fearsome beard and his head was shaven. Piercings
glinted from his muscled arms. He looked as belligerent as an orc, but at the
mention of Helborg’s name his expression had taken on a childlike curiosity.

“Is he really twelve foot tall?”

“Can he level the hills?”

Skarr looked at the throng contemptuously. Just by talking to
them he felt sullied, dragged down to their bone-headed level.

“Yes, and more,” he said. “If you march with him, you’ll be
able to tell your children’s children of it.”

Some of the younger men gained an eager light in their eyes.
Getting out of the village always appealed to the young bucks who hadn’t yet
been crushed by the tedium of rural life. They had aspirations, girls to
impress, dreams of riches and adventure to nurture.

Even the headman looked fleetingly interested.

“We’ve fifty men who can bear arms here. There are more in
the valleys to the north.”

Skarr nodded. The forces were coming together. Grosslich
hadn’t penetrated this far east yet. Until he did, these men were Helborg’s.

“Then muster all you can,” he said. “Every man will need his
own boots and must be ready to march at an hour’s notice. We’ll provide the
weapons.”

He let a sliver of threat enter his voice.

“You’re under orders now, headman,” he said, holding the fat
man’s gaze. “Don’t let me down. I’ll come through here again in two days. If
your men aren’t waiting, the vengeance of Helborg will be on your heads.”

The man’s eyes widened and a murmur of fear passed through
the crowd.

“Don’t worry,” said the headman, looking over his shoulder
for encouragement. “We’ll be ready.”

Skarr turned away from them, indicating to his men to pass
through the crowd and get a closer estimate of numbers. If even half of the
villages provided what they said they would then he’d have added over a thousand
men to the Marshal’s tally. This whole region was ready to march, for gold if
for nothing else.

Adro Vorster, his deputy in Eissen’s absence, strode up to
him.

“Word from Drakenmoor,” he said, clutching a roll of orders
in his hand. “The Marshal’s back on his feet. We’re to press on south of Heideck
and continue the muster, but the march won’t be long now.”

“That order can’t come soon enough,” grumbled Skarr, brushing some
accumulated grime from the edge of his cloak. “These people sicken me.”

Vorster smiled in sympathy.

“They’re scum, sir,” he agreed. “But they’re our scum.”

“And Sigmar be praised for that,” muttered Skarr, shaking his head.

Night in Averheim. Fires burned in the braziers placed across
the city. The dull sound of massed chanting resounded along the narrow streets.
Broken clouds circled the pinnacle of the Iron Tower, ripping away from it as
the arcane energies thrumming along its massive flanks flared and whipped around
the six-pronged crown.

The citadel was complete, glinting darkly, a vast spike of
curling metal erupting from the very heart of the corrupted city. It dominated
the entire valley, thrusting into the tormented air from the great circular
courtyard below.

No sane man could possibly have doubted its baleful intent
now. Lilac tongues of flame licked at it from pits sunk deep into the heart of
the earth. Vast engines had been chanted into life by gangs of shackled
supplicants, constructed in secret by scores of mutated workers and branded with
smouldering icons of ruin. The machines churned with a deep, pounding murmur,
gouts of coal-black smoke rising around them like pillars, billowing up through
deep-sunk vents and fouling the air above the ground. Deep vibrations cracked
the older buildings of Averheim, shattering walls that had stood since the very
foundation of the Empire and jarring the rich merchant townhouses into piles of
rubble.

From deep within the dungeons of the Tower, ranks of
dog-soldiers emerged. They marched in close formation, wheezing and growling,
their humanity now long forgotten behind masks of beaten metal, riveted to their
tortured bones and daubed with the blood of their live human prey. They swung
crystal-bladed halberds fresh from the underground forges where packs of
Stone-slaves toiled without hope of release. The dog-soldiers fanned out from
the Tower and into the streets, thousands of them, all once men, now turned into
voiceless, inexorable bringers of death.

The populace of Averheim had been addled by joyroot, now
billowing in vast columns of lilac smoke from furnaces all across the city. The
six lesser towers burned night and day with the narcotic fumes, dousing the
houses, garrisons and taverns with the mind-altering cocktail prepared in
hulking underground vats. As the twisted warriors marched to their allotted
stations, mortal men cheered them wildly, lost in a haze of visions. None slept.
None had slept for days. The houses were empty, and the squares were full.
Madness had come to Averheim, and the debased populace revelled in it.

At the summit of the Tower, out on the open platform at the
very pinnacle of the huge citadel, Grosslich and Natassja stood alone.