03 - Sword of Vengeance (35 page)

Grosslich sneered. “And I might not kill you.”

“Kill me? Impossible.”

“Maybe. I’m learning new things every day.”

The daemon laughed, revealing her pointed incisors and a
long, flickering tongue like a lizard’s.

“What a good boy,” she said. “That’ll keep her happy.”

Grosslich scowled. The inane chatter was supremely annoying.
Eschenbach would be here soon, and there were important matters to discuss. The
Steward was one of the few humans left in the city with a mind of his own.
Whatever she’d said about it, Natassja had destroyed his ambitions in that
damned rite of hers. He had no wish to rule over a city of psychotic imbeciles.

“I could help you, you know,” said the daemon, sliding up to
the throne and draping herself across one of the arms. Her fragrance was
powerful, as intoxicating as the root.

“I doubt that,” said Grosslich, ignoring her and hoping she’d
go away.

“Don’t be so sure. You have no idea what she’s going to do.”

“And you do.”

“Of course. I know everything.”

The daemon came close. Her eyes were as yellow as a cat’s,
blank and pupil-less. Grosslich looked away too late. The orbs were mirrored. He
caught himself in them, faint and rippling as if seen from underwater. There
were other things in there too, fragments of other men’s dreams and nightmares.
Terrible things. The stuff of which daemons were made.

“Just what do you think her ambition is in all this?” the
daemon murmured. Her choir of voices became ever more seductive, curling around
the syllables like the caress of a lover. “Do you think she’ll rest content
turning this city into a playground for the likes of us?”

“She has what she wanted,” said Grosslich, trying to avoid
the eyes. The daemon’s sweet musk was beginning to affect his judgement. “This
is what we planned.”

The daemon laughed again.

“I know you don’t really think that. She’s given you a
fortress of puppets. Of course,
we
love it here. At the end of time the
whole world will be like this. In the meantime, I feel sorry for you. We don’t
like to see a handsome man disappointed.”

“There’s no pity in your body,” Grosslich growled. “You’re an
absence
of pity, so don’t try to tell me you feel sorry for anything.” He
turned to face her. “Your words don’t impress me, for all they impress you.
You’re
nothing
next to a man, daemon. You’re just echoes of our dreams.
You talk of the realm of the senses. You cannot know it, not like we can. You
exist only in a world of reflections.”

He lashed out and clasped his gauntlet around her neck,
squeezing the aethyr-born muscle tight. The daemon’s eyes widened in surprise.

“
Feel
it,” he hissed. “
This
is the flesh
you can never know. You may mock us, but you envy this.”

The daemon blinked and was suddenly several feet away, eyes
shining with delight. Grosslich’s armoured fingers snapped closed on thin air.

“Masterful!” she laughed, rubbing her neck lasciviously. “I
knew a man like you once. He said much the same thing. I kept his eyes as
baubles.”

“Just say what you came to say or go,” muttered Grosslich.
The daemon sickened him. Much of what he’d done had begun to sicken him.

She sidled back close.

“Natassja cares nothing for the realms of men,” she
whispered. “The Stone is just the beginning. This is all about her. You’d better
act fast, or you’ll be the one with no eyes.”

“And what do you advise?”

The daemon looked suddenly serious. Her pouting lips calmed
down.

“You have an army,” she breathed. “Only a mortal can command
it. That’s the one thing you still own. Remember that.”

Then she shot up into the air, spinning with the supernatural
grace of her sisters, diving and swooping with astonishing suppleness.

“I’ve enjoyed this chat,” she laughed, winking at him as she
circled around the chamber. “Come outside and see me some time. I’m sure we
could have fun.”

Then she was gone, slipping through the window as if the
glass wasn’t there. Grosslich slumped back on the throne, his mood darkening. He
knew better than to trust the words of daemons.

Still, they rankled.

A chime sounded from outside the chamber. Grosslich flicked a
finger and the doors slid open. Eschenbach shuffled in. He looked emaciated, his
skin drawn tight over his bones and his eyes staring from their sockets. The
Dark Prince only knew why—there was plenty of food in the Tower storerooms.
Perhaps he’d lost his appetite.

“You asked to see me, your Excellency.”

“I did, but I’ve changed my mind,” said Grosslich. “I have
another task for you. A simple one.”

Eschenbach swallowed.

“Go down to the dungeons,” said Grosslich. “Enter the chamber
of the Stone. Discover what the mistress intends for it. Then report back.”

Eschenbach’s eyes widened, exposing red threads of veins.
“You cannot mean…” he began. His fingers started to tremble. “Why do you not—”

He seemed to see the futility of the question, and stopped
talking. Resignation shuddered through his tortured body. He, like so many
others, had found service in the Tower less fulfilling than he might have hoped.

“I will do it,” he said, and bowed as low as his rearranged
spine would let him. Then he was gone, limping back down into the central shaft
of the Tower, broken in spirit as well as in body.

Grosslich remained silent. He gestured with another finger,
and the braziers in the chamber guttered and went out. Alone in the dark,
surrounded by the whoops of the daemons in the sky outside, the Elector of
Averland pondered his next move.

As things stood, they didn’t look good. He was alone, lord of a realm of
nightmares, master of nothing. Something would have to be done.

Something
would
be done.

Skarr kicked his steed forwards, hacking on either side with
his broadsword. Grosslich’s men scattered before him, running for cover. The
rest of the Reiksguard swept along in his wake, cutting down any of the guards
too slow or too stupid to get out of the way. Behind the horsemen came the
footsoldiers he’d equipped over the past few days. They were a ragged tide of
soldiery, wielding their weapons clumsily and clad in a whole range of drab
peasant garb, but at least they were enthusiastic. They ransacked the rows of
tents, stabbing at any men they found inside or dragging them out to be
butchered.

The raid seemed to have taken Grosslich’s camp entirely by
surprise. Storming the embankment at the west end of the enclosure had taken
mere moments, and the defence was cleared out by the first cavalry charge. Once
the perimeter had been seized, the interior was theirs and the knights ran amok,
slaughtering any who got in their way.

A knot of the elector’s men, two dozen strong, some still
with helmets or breastplates missing, mustered near the centre of the
encampment, swords clutched with both hands, desperate to form some kind of
resistance.

Skarr laughed harshly.

“Reiksguard, to me!” he cried, spurring his horse on. The
stand was brave but foolish. Few detachments in the Empire could withstand a
massed charge from nearly thirty of the Emperor’s finest knights, and these
startled mercenaries would barely make him miss a stride.

The spearhead of Reiksguard thundered onwards, hooves
drumming on the beaten earth. Even before the crash of the impact half the
defenders had broken, turning and running wildly towards the east end of the
encampment.

Skarr kicked his horse on and the knights crunched into the
wavering band of men. Hooves lashed out, cracking ribs, breaking necks and
knocking men cold. Behind them came the flickering blades, swooping down to kill
like raptors. The few survivors turned tail, fleeing in almost comical terror,
their spirits broken by the speed and power of the charge.

Skarr pursued them with cold efficiency, cutting down any he
caught up with, maintaining the gallop. The momentum took him to the other end
of the camp.

As the far embankment neared he slowed his pace, struck by
the sight before him. There was fresh fighting ahead. The captain of Grosslich’s
troops was surrounded, pushed back into the compound in a concerted assault by a
column of halberdiers in Reikland colours. Caught between twin attacks, the
elector’s troops were being hammered into submission.

The rest of the Reiksguard squadron drew alongside Skarr.
Behind them, the camp had been overrun. The preceptor’s newly recruited troops
were going after the few defenders that remained, killing with a zeal that
promised good things for the future.

“Relieve those halberdiers,” Skarr ordered his men, kicking
his horse back into a canter. “Let’s finish this.”

The Reiksguard plunged into action again, tearing through the
dispirited resistance with disdainful ease. The halberdiers were equally savage.
They fought expertly in close formation, supporting one another at the shoulder
and wheeling to avoid the flank attack. Their captain, a thick-set man with the
look of a brawler about him, was devastating at close range, wielding his heavy
halberd as a lesser man might swing a longsword. Even as Skarr watched, he
felled Grosslich’s commander.

“Here’s my name
and
business!” the man cried as he
plunged his blade straight through the stricken captain’s neck. His comrades
laughed coarsely, finishing off the remainder of the defenders with a savage,
feral energy.

They were serious fighters, thought Skarr, almost
unconsciously hacking down a fleeing soldier as he careered from their assault
and into his path. Possibly useful fighters.

The slaughter came to an end. In truth, it had been rank
butchery. Several hundred of Grosslich’s troops lay dead, strewn across the
camp, their broken bodies trampled into the dirt by the rampaging peasant mob.

Skarr dismounted heavily, thumping to the ground in his plate
armour. He’d have to impose some discipline on the worst of his troops in time,
but for now they could enjoy their victory. Sterner trials lay ahead for them.

He strode over the heaps of crimson-clad corpses towards the
halberdier captain. The man was being congratulated by his peers, all of whom
were still whooping with the brutal enjoyment of the kill.

“Master halberdier!” cried Skarr, extending his gauntlet in
friendship. “I’d thought there were no foes of Grosslich left in Averland.”

The halberdier turned to face him and returned the handshake.
He was grinning from ear to ear, his face splattered with blood and with a
purple swelling disfiguring his left eye. He could have stumbled out of a light
in any disreputable tavern of the Empire.

“Nor I,” he said. “That was good riding.”

The remainder of the Reiksguard dismounted. Most walked over
to Skarr, swords in hand; others began to fan back through the camp, hunting for
survivors.

“We could use men like yours,” said Skarr, looking over the
body of halberdiers with approval. “You’re wearing Reikland colours. Who’s your
commander?”

“The Lord Schwarzhelm,” replied the halberdier, still
smiling.

Skarr moved instantly. His dagger was out of his scabbard
before the man could move. He whirled the halberdier round, got his left arm in
a lock and hooked the blade up against his neck, pressing hard against the
muscle. By the time the man knew what was happening, he was pinned.

“Schwarzhelm?” Skarr hissed, his good mood immediately
shifting to a cold, heartfelt hatred. “Well, this
is
my lucky day. Now
tell me how to get to him, or you die where you stand.”

Streissen lay in ruins. The walls to the north of the town
were little more than piles of rubble, smoking gently from the cannon barrage.
The boar’s head of Grosslich had been torn down and replaced with the Imperial
griffon and the old colours of Averland. The dead lay in their hundreds on the
streets, mostly defenders, too numerous for the priests of Morr to handle. Women
wept openly as carts were loaded with cadavers, some of them showing signs of
mistreatment after the combat had ended. All had been stripped of their weapons
and valuable items. The dogs of war in Volkmar’s army had paid scant regard to
the conventions of combat and only the strenuous efforts of the warrior priests
had prevented a wholesale massacre of innocents.

Resistance had been sporadic during the assault, and most of
it had concentrated around the large central square, once enclosed by richly
decorated houses and an elegant, tree-lined fountain. Now the fountainhead was
smashed and the cobbled space covered in a stinking brown lake. The trees had
been felled for firewood and the grandest townhouse taken over by Volkmar’s
retinue.

As the long, slow task of securing the city began, the Grand
Theogonist sat in the uppermost chamber, flanked by his captains of war. He had
taken the high seat, a tall-backed chair carved from a single block of oak. The
others sat in two long rows on either side, facing inwards. The subject of their
interrogation stood alone, dwarfed by the armoured figures bearing down on him.