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Authors: Chris Wraight - (ebook by Undead)

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03 - Sword of Vengeance (37 page)

BOOK: 03 - Sword of Vengeance
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It felt unreal, like the lingering memory of a dream. The
grip on his sword grew tighter. He couldn’t lift his arm.

On the far horizon, the column of fire flared, angry and raw.

Schwarzhelm moved first. Keeping his gestures obvious,
unthreatening, he unfastened a naked sword from his belt. The blade was notched
halfway along its length. In the low light, the metal looked black with age.
There were runes on the steel, obscured in the darkness.

Helborg remained frozen, driven by fury, imprisoned by
indecision. This was
wrong.
Schwarzhelm was his brother.

He was a traitor.

The big man edged forwards, carrying the Sword of Vengeance
on his upturned palms. As he drew closer, Helborg saw the grief on his face. The
man was wracked with it. The last time he’d seen those features, they’d been lit
with a fire of madness. Now what was left was grey and empty, like embers that
had long since burned into husks.

Schwarzhelm halted less than a yard away. He extended his
arms, offering Helborg the Klingerach. With stiff fingers, Helborg loosed his
grip on his borrowed blade, raised his right hand and took it at the hilt.

The weight was familiar, the balance almost the same as
before. Helborg bore it up. The spirit of the weapon was coiled within, as
ancient and powerful as the lost forges on which it had been made. As Helborg
took the grip, he felt death locked into the instrument. It had killed for
millennia, this thing, drinking deep of the blood of men and their enemies
alike. It thirsted still. It would thirst until the end of time, never
satisfied, never at peace.

Only one taint remained on its glinting surface, the shard
Schwarzhelm had taken from it. That had still to be healed.

Schwarzhelm sank to one knee then, his limbs moving
awkwardly. Only then, kneeling before Helborg, did he speak. When they came, his
words were shaky and thick with emotion.

“This is yours, Kurt. Wield it as your heart dictates.”

The tide of rage broke. Schwarzhelm’s voice unlocked it.

“Damn you!” Helborg roared, snatching up the blade in two
hands and raising it high. “Damn your arrogance! You should
not
have
come.”

Helborg held the Klingerach high over his head, grip light,
poised to strike. He locked it in place, shivering with anger, waiting for the
resolve to bring it down. Schwarzhelm bared his neck, looking Helborg in the
eye, refusing to flinch. He said nothing more.

I will find the one who did this to me.

Still Helborg hesitated. He felt as if his fury had become so
great that it would destroy them both if he moved. The fire within him raged
beyond all control, greedy and consuming. His shoulder flared again, sending
jets of pain coursing through his body. The wound goaded him, his anger goaded
him, the sword goaded him.

My name itself is vengeance.

Still they remained, locked in a grotesque masque of
execution. Heartbeats drummed, heavy and lingering. The runefang wavered, eager
to plunge.

When it fell at last, toppling from his fingers to land in
the grass, he hardly heard it. It rolled away, discarded in the mud like a
child’s toy.

“Not this way.”

Helborg reached down. Extending a hand, he raised Schwarzhelm
to his feet. The big man hauled himself up slowly, unready to face him again.

The anger was still there. The grief was stronger now. Even
during the darkest times, it had always been stronger. They were the titans of
the Empire, the two of them, the foundations upon which all else was built. That
could never be forgotten, not while any shred of forgiveness existed within the
world.

Helborg looked into the man’s face. There were the familiar
features he had fought alongside for so many years, the cracked cheeks, the
deep-set eyes, the unsmiling mouth. The madness had gone from them. Schwarzhelm
was diminished in some respects, unchanged in others.

Emperor’s Champion.

“Brother,”
said Helborg, gripping him by the
shoulders.

Schwarzhelm met his gaze. The old warrior had seen it all.
Loss and victory, faith and treachery. He’d witnessed the fires of war tear
across the Empire. He’d watched, defiant, as the tides of ruin had swept down
from the wastes of the north and the hopes of mankind had dimmed. In all of this
he had been unmoving, implacable, emotionless.

Only now did he falter. Only now, as Helborg embraced him at
last, did his eyes glisten with tears. Clumsily, he returned the gesture, his
mighty arms locked round the shoulders of his rival. There they stood, together
once more as brothers in arms, the bitterness purged, the anger drained away.

The Reiksguard watched, silent as tombs, none daring to move.
At their side was Verstohlen, lost in contemplation. After so long in the
wilderness, the circle had been completed. About this, as with so much else, he
had been wrong.

Forgiveness had been sought. Honour had been satisfied.
Restitution had been made.

 

* * *

 

Achendorfer hurried through the corridors of the under-Tower,
clutching the book to his breast as he always did. He had no choice. The
leather-bound tome had merged with the fingers of his left hand. The book was
one with him now, and he was one with the book. Little by little, the pages of
spells and arcane recipes of death within had melted away from the parchment,
all except the one he needed, the one he recited every day. The one that coaxed
the Stone into life.

All around him, muffled moans and sighs ran down the twisting
passages. Every so often a pale hand would reach out from the ornately carved
walls, clutching at him desperately. So many slaves had been trapped within the
filigree of iron that he’d lost count of them. They couldn’t die in there, but
neither was their agonised existence truly life. Some brave souls retained
enough of a sense of self to implore him to release them, their fingers
scrabbling against the cage walls to gain his attention.

Achendorfer ignored them. Where could they go, even if they
were set free? All of Averheim was a furnace now, a shrine to the singular lust
of one individual. They didn’t matter to her, no more than they had in their
former miserable lives.

He turned a corner sharply and followed a winding path
between high, arching walls of obsidian. He went as surely as a rat in a cellar.
He knew all the routes, all the myriad ways of the under-Tower. Another gift
from the queen. Even when the walls shifted, as they often did, he could still
follow them.

Achendorfer scurried quickly, knowing the penalties for
missing an appointment. On his right, the wall suddenly fell away, exposing a
huge shaft. Hot air blossomed up from it, flaked with ash. Deep down below,
massive engines toiled and churned. Natassja’s thousands of minions had been
busy. Such infernal devices magnified her power many times over, storing the
energies of the Stone in vast crystal cylinders. The machines growled angrily as
they turned, fed incessantly by a host of Stone-slaves.

Achendorfer pressed on, feeling the book crackle expectantly
under his touch. How long had it lain, forgotten, in the library of the
Averburg? It had been a spoil of war, probably, recovered by an elector count
and dumped, unread, in his stash of trophies and trinkets. Now, after so many
thousands of years, the words were being heard again in the lands of the living.
Perhaps the author, if some shred of him still existed, was pleased about that.

Achendorfer left the shaft behind and drew closer to the
heart of the under-Tower. The walls began to throb with a suffused pink light,
bleeding from behind the black iron like the organs of a dissected corpse.
Natassja liked those little touches.

He paused for a second, reflecting on how far he’d come. It
was five years ago that the dreams had started, leading him to the library under
the Averburg and its terrible secret. Back then Natassja had kept her face
covered, whispering secrets to him and promising the wealth of Araby if he would
interpret the scripts for her. And so he had done so, working night and day in
the gloomy recesses of the archives, his skin turning grey and his hair falling
free in clumps.

It had been worth it. All the pain, all the humiliation. He
was now her
true
lieutenant in the Tower, whatever Grosslich thought
about such things. Achendorfer had been given gifts beyond measure and had seen
things no mortal could dream of. He had a personal guard of fifty augmented
dog-soldiers, exclusive chambers near the centre of the under-Tower and a
playroom lined with shackled, quiescent pets.

All of that was immaterial, of course, besides the
power.
That was what convinced him he’d been right to turn. For the first time in his
life he held the lives of men in his hands. The knowledge of that thrilled him.
By the time this was over, she would make him a god. That’s what she said. The
prospect made him moisten his purple lips with anticipation. She’d promised so
much, and always kept her word.

A scream broke out from up ahead, resounding down the curved
walls. Achendorfer smiled. So it had started.

He came to a set of double doors, each inscribed with a
glowing lilac sigil of Slaanesh. He gestured with his free hand and they slid
open.

The room beyond was circular and lined with marble. There was
no furniture or adornment, just perfectly smooth, faintly reflective walls.
There was no ceiling either. The polished walls went up, on and on, hundreds of
feet, until they emerged near the summit of the Tower, far above the roofs of
Averheim. The laughter of daemons could be heard from the distant opening, and
fire flickered around the rim.

A single figure crouched on the floor, hands clasped over his
ears. Odo Heidegger, Templar of Sigmar.

“So you know the truth,” said Achendorfer, closing the doors
behind him.

Heidegger looked at him imploringly. His skin was white with
fear and horror. He’d torn his scarlet robes apart. Beneath them Achendorfer
could see protruding ribs, stark across the man’s wasted torso.

“What is this…
madness
?” he cried, spittle flying
from his dribbling mouth, eyes staring.

Achendorfer smiled.

“What you’ve helped to create. All of this has been built by
you, witch hunter.”

Heidegger’s horror grew. His mind, for so long on the brink
of insanity, was breaking. Natassja had lifted the veil from him, and the
pleasure of the moment was exquisite.

“You killed every enemy who could have worked against us,”
said Achendorfer. “You delivered Alptraum to us. You killed Morven and let
Tochfel be taken. You burned the rebellious and tortured the questioning. The
queen is pleased with your work. She asked me to thank you in person.”

Heidegger looked like he might be sick, but there was nothing
to retch up in his ravaged frame. He fell to his knees and wracking sobs shook
his body.

“No,” he gasped. “This is an illusion. I have been working
for the Lord Sigmar, who protects and guides. Long may He—”

Achendorfer laughed, and his distended stomach wobbled
beneath his white robes.

“Oh, you are subject to an illusion,” he admitted, coming to
crouch down beside the distraught Templar. “All that you did
before
was
an illusion. This is real. This is more real than anything you’ve ever known.”

Heidegger’s eyes began to flicker rapidly back and forth.
Lines of foamy drool ran down his chin, glistening in the light of the fires
above.

“I do not…” he started, then seemed to lose the power of
speech. A low howl broke from his bloodstained lips.

“You were a
sadist,
master witch hunter,” whispered
Achendorfer, loading his words with malice. “You broke men for pleasure,
whatever stories you told yourself about righteousness and duty. You were no
different from us, except perhaps in honesty.”

From far above, the howling was reciprocated. Something was
coming down the shaft, travelling fast.

“How many of our kind did you hunt down in your career?
Dozens? Not a bad total. Now you have killed
hundreds.
All of them
innocent. You are a murderer and a traitor, Herr Heidegger. The blood of
Grosslich’s treachery is on your hands. When your soul is dragged before the
throne of your boy-god, he will not deign to look at it. It’s
ours
now.”

The howling grew in volume. It was nearly upon them.
Achendorfer got up and withdrew, looking down with satisfaction at the weeping,
broken man before him. He backed towards the door, wishing he could stay to see
the final act.

“Do not fool yourself that this death will be the last one,”
he sneered. “The Lord of Pain has plans for you. Eternity, in your case, will
seem like a very long time.”

Then the daemons landed, slamming down from their screaming
descent, eyes lit with infinite joy and malignance. They opened their fanged
mouths, and the tongues flickered.

Achendorfer slipped through the doors and closed them just in
time. As the barriers fell into place something heavy slammed against them and
was taken up the shaft. There was no more screaming from the witch hunter.
Heidegger’s mortal body had been broken and the daemons had taken it.
Unfortunately for him, physical death meant little to a daemon. Their sport was
only just beginning.

 

* * *

 

The camp had settled for the night. Watch fires burned on the
edge of it, throwing dancing shadows across the gorse. The guards patrolled the
perimeter in detachments of six men, all fully armoured. The rotation was
strict. Rumours still ran through the army about creatures made of bone and iron
that stalked the moors at night, unstoppable and eager to drink the blood of
men. Some said they had talons of wire and eyes that glowed with a pale flame,
though the more level-headed troops were quick to disregard such exaggeration.
Since leaving Drakenmoor, the columns had encountered nothing more threatening
than foxes and kites, though they were all perfectly aware things would change
as they neared the city. The watch fires were burned partly for security, but
also to blot out the terrible fire on the western horizon, the one that never
went out.

BOOK: 03 - Sword of Vengeance
2.34Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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