03 - Sword of Vengeance (32 page)

He broke away, fresh blood dripping from the wound, twisting
and blocking to evade the merciless attack. They were going to break through.
They’d blooded him, and the taste of it in the air drove them into a fresh
mania.

“Helborg!”
they cried together, gathering themselves
for the strike like coiling snakes. Helborg held the sword steady, waiting for
them in the dark. His teeth clenched, breath coming in ragged gasps. He tensed,
ready for the impact.

“Sigmar!”

He heard the cry, but the voice wasn’t his. A dark shape
plunged past him, wielding a blade and swinging it with clumsy abandon.

The new sword swung down, connecting with the lead creature
as it made to leap. A flash of blinding light broke out across the landing,
briefly showing up the scene in stark, dazzling relief.

Leitdorf was there.
Leitdorf.
The fat, slovenly man
laid into the horrors with his broadsword, as naked as the day he’d been born,
roaring with a kind of blind, panicked fury. Helborg lurched after him,
desperate to stop the man being cut to pieces. The elector was no swordsman—he
was a fool, a buffoon, a spoiled brat.

The horrors fell back. Incredibly, they shrank away from the
heavy swipes of the Wolfsklinge, eyes dull with horror, talons curled up into
impotent fists. Leitdorf ploughed into them, jabbing left and right with slow,
inexpert strokes. Every step he took, they scrabbled back, screaming at him with
an unmistakable expression of terror.

They were
afraid
of him.

There was no time to be astounded. In a heartbeat, Helborg
was at his side, matching the elector’s clumsy blows with precision strikes.
Under the twin assault, the creatures seemed to shrivel into a tortured
impotence, holding their tortured hands up in front of their ravaged faces,
scuttling to escape, desperate not to face the heavy bite of the Wolfsklinge.

“Follow my lead!” roared Helborg, dazzling one of the
creatures with a glittering backhand swipe before bringing the edge back
sharply. The horror, so eerily efficient before, clattered backwards. Its guard
destroyed, Leitdorf landed the killer blow, his sword cleaving the creature from
neck to stomach in a single movement. Old flesh, iron bindings, clockwork
bearings and rune-stamped plates scattered across the landing floor, skittering
and bouncing as the creature was ripped apart. A cloud of jasmine perfume
billowed out, sighing across the darkness of the landing before rippling into
nothingness.

The two remaining handmaidens turned to flee, wailing like
lost children in the night. With every blow from Leitdorf’s blade a fresh blaze
of light seemed to cow them further. Leitdorf and Helborg pushed them back into
the bedchamber, steel ringing against bone and exploding in flashes of light and
sparks.

One of them coiled for a counter-attack, jaws wide in a
scream of fear and hatred, talons extended for a desperate, gouging assault.
Helborg was on it in an instant, his blade hurtling round to sever the horror’s
wrists. As ever, his weapon bounced from the creature without biting, but the
impact was enough to knock it off balance.

“Now!” he roared, and Leitdorf was quick enough to obey. The
elector jabbed down, his grip two-handed, and the creature was smashed apart by
the power of the Wolfsklinge.

One remained. It scrabbled backwards, face contorted in
terror. It stared at Leitdorf with anguish, all thoughts of its mission
forgotten.

Helborg shot Leitdorf a quick look. The man’s face was white with terror and
his temples were drenched in sweat. He was panting heavily, mouth open and jaw
loose. He looked like he’d stumbled into a nightmare.

“Finish it,” Helborg growled, edging forwards. He had to
provide the opening. He let the tip of his sword sway back and forth,
distracting the creature as it crouched miserably.

Then he struck, darting forwards, slipping the blade under
the horror’s outstretched talons, going for the midriff.

It slapped the sword away contemptuously, ignoring his
attack, eyes still on Leitdorf. But the distraction had been enough. The elector
was on it, hammering down with the Wolfsklinge, shattering iron bonds and
ripping dry skin.

The handmaiden, Natassja’s killing machine, the perfect
assassin, shattered under the flurry of blows, its tortured hide carved open,
its spell-locked innards dented and smashed. Helborg staggered out of the way,
ducking under a wild swipe from Leitdorf. The man hacked and hammered in a
frenzy of rage and fear, obliterating the cowering horror with blow after
crushing blow. Even when it was nothing more than a heap of dented iron and
twitching sinews he kept going, pounding away until the floorboards beneath were
hacked up and in danger of collapsing.

“Leitdorf!” cried Helborg.

The man kept going, eyes wild, hair swinging around his head
like flails.

“Leitdorf!”
roared Helborg, grabbing him by the
shoulder and swinging him round. For a moment, he thought Leitdorf was going to
attack him. The elector stared at him wide-eyed, his face lost in a mask of
terror.

“It’s
me,
Rufus,” said Helborg, eyes locked with his,
hand clamped on his shoulder.

Leitdorf froze, sword ready to strike. His limbs were
shivering. His fat belly was streaked with sweat. Slowly, haltingly, he let the
Wolfsklinge fall from his fingers. It clanged amongst the shattered carcasses of
the handmaidens, now lost in the darkness of the chamber.

“What… I…” he mumbled, frenzy giving way to shock. The
blood had drained from his face. He looked ready to pass out.

“Get some clothes on,” said Helborg, keeping the grip on his
shoulder tight. Already there were sounds of commotion from below. “I’ll get
some guards up here. Then we need to talk.”

Leitdorf sat in his father’s study. His hands still shook
each time he raised the glass of wine to his lips. From the landing outside he
could hear the guards clearing away the last of the wreckage of the assassin
creatures.

Dawn had broken, and a meagre light had slowly crept over the
moorland outside. The clouds that had been building up for days continued to
mount, blocking the light of the sun and turning the sky as dark and sullen as a
musket-barrel.

Leitdorf placed his goblet back on the desk. In front of him,
as always, was his father’s diary. He’d read it all, some parts several times
over. Even the most obscure passages had begun to make some sense. Over the
final few weeks’ entries, though, Marius’ handwriting was near-illegible, and
there were still long sections where Rufus could make nothing out. In the centre
of the page he was looking it, the old elector seemed to have drifted off into
random scrawlings.

…bedarruzibarr’zagarratumnan’akz’akz’berau…

There was more of the same. One page was entirely covered in
such nonsense. As he reflected on a proud mind laid low, his spirits sank
further. He’d not been close to his father in life, but no son wanted to witness
such degeneration. If he’d known at the time, maybe he’d have done something. Or
maybe he’d have stayed mired in the excess and privilege he’d always known.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come.”

Helborg pushed the door open. It had been courteous of him to
knock. Over the past few days, the Marshal had got into the habit of bursting in
uninvited. Helborg walked over to the desk and leaned against the wall beside
Leitdorf. He looked untroubled by the events of a few hours ago. No doubt he’d
seen worse.

“Feeling better?” asked the Marshal.

“Yes, thank you.” The wine had helped calm his nerves.
Leitdorf noticed Helborg had had his wound freshly bound again. He looked a lot
more formidable out of his nightshirt and back in his standard military uniform.
Not many men would have seen the Master of the Reiksguard fighting in his
nightwear. Then again, at least the man had been wearing
some
clothes.

“Interesting reading?”

Leitdorf glanced back down at the page. “Like looking inside
the mind of a dead man.”

He pushed his chair back from the desk and turned to face the
Marshal.

“You know what’s been bothering me?” Leitdorf said. “For over
a year we lived as a couple in Altdorf. She had access to all of my resources,
all of my men. Why didn’t she ever try to corrupt me? Why did she use
Grosslich?”

Helborg shrugged. “You’re sure she never tried? The ways of
the enemy are—”

“Subtle, yes, I know,” muttered Leitdorf. “And yes, I’m sure.
She tried to subvert my father—and failed. How could that be
possible
?
She had the power to walk in men’s dreams. Just look what she did to
Schwarzhelm. Somehow, Marius resisted her for all those years where the
Emperor’s Champion couldn’t. He was untouchable.”

As he spoke, Leitdorf felt a fugitive pride in that.

“Not all men give in to temptation,” said Helborg.

“Of course. But something else is at work here. You saw what
happened with those… creatures. It’s only confirmed a suspicion I’ve had for
some time, ever since I first read this book.”

Helborg looked doubtful, but said nothing.

“You know as well as I that the bloodlines of the electors
are ancient. There have been many ruling families in Averland over the
centuries, but the Leitdorf’s have always been among them. Ever since the time
of Siggurd my people have taken up swords in the defence of this realm. We’re
bound to Averheim like none of the others. This has always been the root of our
hold over the runefang, even during the dark times when it was wielded by
others. We were the first ones.”

As he spoke, Leitdorf thought of all the fine words he’d
rehearsed for this speech. It sounded ludicrous, contemptible even, in his head.
Still, he had to say it.

“My father believed there was a hidden presence in the city.
Under
the city. His dreams were full of it—a source of power, or evil, or
knowledge. That’s why he hated Averheim, even as he fought to retain it. Men
have long joked that the place was cursed, destined forever to be ruled by the
insane. My father thought he knew why. There were always clandestine forces at
work there, nagging away in the shadows, whispering in the silences.”

Helborg narrowed his eyes, still listening intently.

“And then there was this woman, this Natassja, making all
those fears explicit, coming to him in his sleep. Despite everything, she failed
to turn him to the enemy. Why? He was too strong, too indomitable. In the end,
tiring of her seduction, she let him ride out to face Ironjaw and turned her
ambitions away from the Leitdorf’s. She had to.”

As he spoke, Rufus held Helborg’s gaze, his brown eyes
steadier than they’d ever been.

“It’s in our blood, Marshal,” he said. “We can’t be turned.
I’d always been told it by nursemaids and tutors, but I never really knew what
they meant until now. We have our failings, to be sure, but one kind of
corruption we are free of. The whispers of the great enemy are useless against
us. It’s not just a matter of will. It’s in the
blood
.”

Helborg looked sceptical. “You think that explains what
happened here?”

Leitdorf smiled. “You know my reputation as a fighter, my
lord. And yet, against her creations, I had the mastery. I will always have the
mastery. She must have known that. So she needed to find another champion.”

Helborg remained incredulous. Leitdorf couldn’t blame him.
The idea sounded preposterous to him too in the cold light of day. And yet only
he—fat, stupid Rufus—had been able to defeat the creatures. The hero of the
Empire, the Hammer of Chaos, would have been carved apart by them. There was
some link between the Leitdorf’s and Natassja, something that made him powerful.

“I’ve heard of such things,” said the Marshal at last,
evidently unconvinced. “There are weapons, the Wolfsklinge maybe, which have
power over individuals and their works. Maybe some long-forgotten father of your
line performed a distant feat of faith which explains your victory. Beyond that,
I would not safely go.”

Leitdorf smiled again, this time with resignation. He
couldn’t expect anyone else to understand. This was between him, his father and
Natassja.

“No doubt you’re right, my lord,” he said. “Only consider
this. There is a force for corruption in the city that my family has resisted
for generations, even to the extent of being driven into madness. Is it not
possible that we have developed some counterpart power of our own? And if this
were so, would it not be a matter of great hope for the Empire? For mankind,
even?”

Helborg thought for a moment, then gave a noncommittal
gesture. “There are many strange things in the world. Be careful where your
pride takes you, elector. Many have thought themselves immune to the call of
corruption. They have always been the first to fall.”