03 - Sword of Vengeance (45 page)

“Enough,” said Grosslich, calming his snorting mount.
“There’ll be more.”

The dog-soldiers had finished off the others. They stood
around stupidly, waiting for fresh orders. Beyond them the battle raged,
intensifying in scope as more and more troops were committed by their desperate
commanders. The Imperials were showing commendable spirit, but there weren’t
enough of them and they weren’t of the same calibre as Natassja’s creatures.

Grosslich wished he could take some pleasure in that.
Slaughtering such men was nothing to be proud of. Even as victory edged towards
his grasp, he felt a deep and stubborn sickness lodge deep within him.

He’d dreamed of
glory.
Of a realm that men would
admire and envy. Whatever the result of this battle, he’d never be granted that
now.

“Oh, go and find something to kill,” he muttered to his
guards, and watched bitterly as they loped back towards the fiercest fighting.
They never questioned a thing. They’d never question anything.

With a heavy heart, his armour streaked with blood, the
elector withdrew from the frontline, back to the position of command, leaving
his slaves to continue the struggle. Above him, the Tower loomed, a roost of
daemons and sorcery, the mark of his failure.

* * *

Maljdir looked around him, blood and sweat clouding his
vision. Volkmar’s vanguard had penetrated far across the plains, fighting their
way through the maze of trenches and across the ridges of spikes. Even though
the Light magisters’ spell had waned, Volkmar still blazed a trail. Though the
casualties around him grew ever heavier, the Imperial army still clustered to
his call. As the day waned and the meagre scraps of shrouded sunlight bled away,
his was the only pure fire left on the battlefield. Like moths around a
candle-flame they huddled close to its warmth, given heart in the face of the
endless hordes raging towards them. The Theogonist was heading to the centre of
the defences, and a light of madness was in his eyes.

Maljdir took up the standard in his left hand, hefting the
heavy stave against his shoulder. In his right hand he carried Bloodbringer,
swinging it with as much vigour as the other warrior priests. The dog-soldiers
were everywhere now, snarling and tearing at the Imperial troops, bringing them
down through sheer savagery. The armour-plated priests were the only infantry in
Volkmar’s retinue capable of taking them on one-to-one. The mutants were taller,
faster and stronger than the average halberdier and killed two of them for every
one of their warped kin that was taken down. Against such losses, Volkmar’s
surge was doomed. Soon they’d be cut off entirely, their defences whittled away
and the spearhead isolated.

A dog-soldier leapt across Maljdir’s path, growling as it
swept up its halberd, aiming for his chest. Its iron mask had been torn from its
head, exposing the distended muzzle and canine teeth. The flesh was human-like,
ripped and moulded into its new shape by surgery and sorcery. Maljdir dodged the
blow, dropping back with surprising speed before spinning back with a
counter-strike. Bloodbringer swung heavily, slamming into the soldier’s flank,
smashing the breastplate in and cracking the ribs beneath it. The mutant was
knocked sideways, stumbling across the ground before recovering and coiling for
a second attack.

It never came. Bloodbringer swept back on the reverse angle,
catching the horror square in the face. With a rip and a snap the dog-soldier’s
head came off, dragging the body up after it on a string of sinews before the
whole corpse thumped down into the mud, feet away.

Maljdir hardly broke stride, crushing the severed skull under
his boots as he ploughed after Volkmar and looked for the next victim. The
momentum was relentless, exhausting. The Theogonist seemed to have no tactics
other than rampage. The vanguard was moving ever closer to the walls of
Averheim, still barred by a sea of foes and clothed in a thundering wall of
flame. Dark shapes swam within that blood-red curtain, curling like fish around
the column of madness. Maljdir could sense the corruption there, spilling out
from the inferno.

Volkmar must have sensed it too. That was where the
Theogonist was heading. He cared nothing for the battlefield now, nothing for
the lives of the thousands of men who still fought in the trenches and under the
shadow of the war machines. He was after Archaon, and the rest of the army was
expendable to that delusion.

“He’ll damn us all,” growled Maljdir, dispatching another
dog-soldier with a crunching blow, hardly pausing in his onward march.

Bloodbringer felt light in his hands. Volkmar was only a few
paces ahead, raving and spilling golden light from his fingers. His back was
unprotected.

“Sigmar’s blood,” he said, judging the path his hammer would
have to take to end it. “He’ll damn us all.”

“Reiksguard to me!”

Helborg crested the final rise before the city, and its
damnation was laid out before him. They’d arrived to the east of the
battlefield. The fighting was less than a mile away, spread out across the plain
below.

All thought of gaining the Averpeak was instantly abandoned.
The ridge smouldered away in the north, its flanks broken by the power of
Grosslich’s war engines. Six infernal devices still survived, their jaws gaping
red and angry. Around each of them were thousands of troops, staining the land
black with their numbers. At the very foot of the Averpeak, a mile distant from
the walls of the city, the line of battle ran in a vast, snaking curve.

Helborg squinted through the drifting smog. There were
banners flying. Many infantry companies fought, but they were heavily
outnumbered by Grosslich’s defenders. There was no
shape
to the Imperial
assault, just a straggling melee towards the walls. Only at one point did the
Empire army seem to be making headway. A column of soldiers had pierced deep
into the enemy lines, moving fast towards the city gates. There was a brilliant
golden light at the tip of the column, blazing in the heart of the darkness.

“Volkmar,” said Helborg as his knights clustered around him.
Forty-six Reiksguard remained. The swirling clouds reflected from their armour,
glowing red from the fires on the plain below. “I’ve seen that power wielded
before.”

“He’s out of position,” said Skarr, frowning. “His army’s
coming apart.”

Schwarzhelm came alongside them. The Rechtstahl was naked in
his hands, ready for action. There was no time for deliberation. The Empire army
was in disarray, outnumbered, out-fought and leaderless.

“Lord Schwarzhelm, lead the infantry to bolster the Imperial
lines. Rally the men, and give them some purpose.”

“And the Reiksguard?” asked Schwarzhelm.

Helborg drew the Klingerach. The dark metal glinted, still
marred by the notch on the blade.

“We can cut through those troops,” he said, snapping his
visor down. All thought of the long days of sickness had left him. His heart
pumped powerfully in his chest again, fuelling the arms that carried the
runefang. “We’ll fight to Volkmar’s position. This field isn’t lost yet.”

Last of all, Leitdorf drew up to the height of the rise, his
ruddy face aghast at the devastation below.

“My inheritance,” he announced grimly, gazing across the
carnage.

“Indeed so, my lord,” said Helborg, readying for the charge
down into the inferno. “You will ride with me. My blade is keener than it was
the last time we fought together and my body is restored.”

Unholy winds, laced with ash and throbbing with heat, rushed
up from the battlefield. Helborg’s cloak billowed out, revealing the splendour
of his ancient armour. The hawk-pinions of his helmet seemed to catch an echo of
the golden rays streaming from Volkmar’s staff, etching the metal with a faint
sheen against the shadows.

“If Sigmar wills it,” he said, raising the Sword of Vengeance
and pointing it towards the heart of the horde below, “we will yet bring
destruction to those who have turned away from His light. Ride now, and may His
protection be with all of you.”

Achendorfer let the last pages of the book crackle and fade
away. His long fingers, warped and melded with the leather, curled back round,
free from the weight at last. The grimoire had been burned away like so much
else.

No matter. Its work had been done.

He gazed up lovingly at the Stone. No light reflected from
its sides even though the lamps in the walls of the chamber still burned
strongly. It was as black as a pupil, a void at the base of the city. By
contrast, everything around it was flickering and ephemeral. The shaft above it
soared into the far distance, hundreds of feet of thundering fire. He stood
alone at the base. This was the origin, the source of all that was to come. The
thought pleased him.

Achendorfer took a deep breath and closed his eyes, feeling
the heat of the flames enter his lungs. Down here, the bloodfire was at its
thickest. It didn’t consume or damage mortal flesh, but it
hurt.
He felt
the searing heat of it against his throat, scraping at the flesh, testing him
and probing for weakness.

“Is all ready, lizard?”

Achendorfer hadn’t heard the queen enter. He snapped back to
attention, whipping round to face her.

“Of course. The Stone is waiting.”

Natassja didn’t smile. Such mortal gestures were losing their
grip on her. Her humanity was now little more than a skein, a fragile barrier
between the world of laws and the raging Chaos within her. Achendorfer could see
it in her eyes. Those white-less orbs, for so long two cool, tolerant points
within that sleek face, had now sunk into darkness, mirroring the Stone. He
doubted that she even saw the world of matter truly anymore. For such as her, a
realm of pure sensation awaited, a flux of emotion and desire. Perhaps the same
would come for him one day.

“Then begin again,” she said.

Achendorfer bowed. He no longer needed the book for such
work. The words had been burned on to his mind across the many hours of labour.
His lips formed around the words unbidden, his muscles fully attuned to the
shapes of the forbidden speech.

“Bedarruzibarr,”
he intoned. The bloodfire in the
chamber flared up at the sound.
“Bedarruzibarr’zagarratumnan’aka’akz’berau.”

On and on the syllables droned, just as they had for weeks,
soaked into the walls of iron and etched in the blazing sigils far up the shaft.

Natassja walked slowly towards the stone, her steps mannered
and ceremonial. From far above, beyond the wards, there came the sounds of
daemons singing.

“Akzakz’berau,”
they chorused, and a feral joy was
locked into the fractured, cherubic voices.
“Malamanuar’tieramumo’klza’jhehennum.”

Natassja raised her slender arms in supplication. Her skin
darkened to nightshade, glowing darkly like embers. With a faint hiss, her sheer
gown slipped from her shoulders and coiled around her feet.

Achendorfer knew he should look away then. He remained rapt,
and a thin line of drool ran down his chin.

He kept chanting. The daemons kept chanting. The bloodfire
seared the air, pregnant with the coming storm. Natassja’s hair began to lift,
rippling like wind-lashed silk, exposing the sweeping curves of her flawless
outline. Across her flesh, signs of Slaanesh glowed into life, swimming over the
skin and moulding into new and wonderful shapes.

She began to grow.

Blood replaced the drool on Achendorfer’s skin. A kind of
ecstasy gripped him.

“Abbadonnodo’neherata’gradarruminam!”
he raved,
swaying with the movement of the bloodfire.

This was it. This was what the root had been for, the
deception, the armies, the torture, the construction, the book, what all of it
had been for.

For so long She had been coming. Now, finally, She was
here.

Bloch marched at the head of his detachment. His halberdiers
went steadily. There was no running or hollering, only a disciplined,
well-ordered advance. He’d arranged the men into four companies of forty men,
ten across and four deep. A few extra men had been tacked on to his lead group.
Not much of a return from the thousands who’d marched under Grunwald.

As he went, he muttered a prayer to Sigmar, to Ranald, to
Shallya, and a general benediction to anyone he’d left off the list. The enemy
ranks were within sight and the charge would not be long coming. The clash of
arms was huge and heavy, echoing across the plains and rebounding from the
ruined Averpeak. The nearer they came to it, the darker the skies became.

The rest of Helborg’s irregular infantry marched in
semi-ordered detachments on either flank of Bloch’s troops. They looked scared
and uncertain. The prospect of liberating Averland, so attractive under the warm
sun, now seemed like a fool’s errand. They were heading into the depths of
Chaos, and even the simple-minded knew the great enemy when they saw it. Bloch
placed little faith in them. At the first sign of serious trouble, they’d break.
The only hope was to join up with the larger Imperial forces before that
happened.

Ahead of them all rode Schwarzhelm, Kraus and the few cavalry
Helborg had given them. The Emperor’s Champion looked as stern and unyielding as
a mountain. He, and he alone, inspired some faith that this wasn’t merely a
vainglorious march to death.

“Herr Bloch.”

A forgotten voice rose over the growing clamour. Bloch felt
his heart sink.

“Herr Verstohlen,” he replied, looking up to see the familiar
figure of the spy riding alongside. Something of the habitual smug expression
had been erased from the man’s lean face. His eyes were ringed and heavy with
fatigue, and his tailored clothes were ripped and stained. “You’re still here,
then.”

“Just about.” Schwarzhelm’s agent had his pistol in his free
hand, loaded and ready to fire. “I’ve not seen you for some time.”