Bloodforged

T
HIS IS A DARK AGE, A BLOODY AGE, AN AGE OF DAEMONS AND OF SORCERY.
I
T IS AN AGE OF BATTLE AND DEATH, AND OF THE WORLD’S ENDING.
A
MIDST ALL OF THE FIRE, FLAME AND FURY IT IS A TIME, TOO, OF MIGHTY HEROES, OF BOLD DEEDS AND GREAT COURAGE.

A
T THE HEART OF THE
O
LD
W
ORLD SPRAWLS THE
E
MPIRE, THE LARGEST AND MOST POWERFUL OF THE HUMAN REALMS.
K
NOWN FOR ITS ENGINEERS, SORCERERS, TRADERS AND SOLDIERS, IT ISA LAND OF GREAT MOUNTAINS, MIGHTY RIVERS, DARK FORESTSAND VAST CITIES.
A
ND FROM HIS THRONE IN
A
LTDORF REIGNSTHE
E
MPEROR
K
ARL
F
RANZ, SACRED DESCENDANT OF THEFOUNDER OF THESE LANDS,
S
IGMAR, AND WIELDER OF HIS MAGICAL WARHAMMER.

B
UT THESE ARE FAR FROM CIVILISED TIMES.
A
CROSS THE LENGTH AND BREADTH OF THE
O
LD
W
ORLD, FROM THE KNIGHTLY PALACES OF
B
RETONNIA TO ICE-BOUND
K
ISLEV IN THE FAR NORTH, COME RUMBLINGS OF WAR.
I
N THE TOWERING
W
ORLDS
E
DGE
M
OUNTAINS, THE ORC TRIBES ARE GATHERING FOR ANOTHER ASSAULT.
B
ANDITS AND RENEGADES HARRY THE WILD SOUTHERN LANDS OFTHE
B
ORDER
P
RINCES.
T
HERE ARE RUMOURS OF RAT-THINGS, THE SKAVEN, EMERGING FROM THE SEWERS AND SWAMPS ACROSS THE LAND.
A
ND FROM THE NORTHERN WILDERNESSES THERE IS THE EVER-PRESENT THREAT OF
C
HAOS, OF DAEMONS AND BEASTMEN CORRUPTED BY THE FOUL POWERS OF THE
D
ARK
G
ODS.
A
S THE TIME OF BATTLE DRAWS EVER NEARER, THE
E
MPIRE NEEDS HEROES LIKE NEVER BEFORE.

CHAPTER ONE

CHANGES

‘You will not return to Sylvania,’ said Lady Hermione. ‘And you will no longer be Countess of Nachthafen.’

‘But – but, why?’ asked Gabriella.

‘Because
she
has ordered it so,’ said Hermione.

Everything was changing, Ulrika thought sourly as she watched Countess Gabriella struggle to maintain her composure, but everything remained the same.

Ulrika had done all this too often before – had stood here in attendance in the drawing room of Lady Hermione, the leader of the Lahmian vampires in Nuln, had suffocated beneath a long wig and layers of dresses and petticoats, had listened to her mistress, Countess Gabriella, have words with Hermione, and had wished she were anywhere else in the world. The only difference betwixt then and now was that Lady Hermione had a new name, and a new disguise to go with it, and it appeared Gabriella was about to be given the same.

Three weeks had passed since the monstrous Strigoi, Murnau, and his army of ghouls had attacked the Lahmian sisterhood at Mondthaus, Lady Hermione’s country estate, and since Witch Hunter Templar Captain Meinhart Schenk had come within a hair of discovering the sisterhood’s true nature – three weeks also, since Gabriella had killed Witch Hunter Friedrich Holmann when Ulrika had refused to do it. In those three weeks prodigious amounts of work had gone into making it appear the sisters had all died, and to establish new identities for each of them.

They had faked their deaths after Countess Gabriella and Lady Hermione had decided that continuing in their current identities was impossible. They were certain Schenk and the witch hunters would never stop wondering if they were vampires, even if nothing could be proved, and their every action would be scrutinised.

And so, the day after the attack, women were found who bore some resemblance to Gabriella, Hermione, Ulrika and the beautiful Famke, Hermione’s protégée. They were dressed in appropriate clothes, then torn apart as if by ghouls, with special care taken that their faces were shredded and unrecognisable.

Then began a great shifting of behind-the-scenes resources. Bank accounts were closed and money transferred, titles and deeds to houses and other properties changed hands, always through third parties, and wills and birth certificates were forged and ancient family trees pruned and grafted so as to bear fresh new fruit.

At the end of this process, an old man appeared on the doorstep of the recently deceased Lady Hermione von Auerbach, claiming to be the grieving Lord Lucius von Auerbach, a distant cousin to whom Hermione had willed her properties. With him were his two beautiful young daughters, Helena and Frederika.

Lord Lucius claimed the family had come to Nuln to mourn the passing of their cousin, and afterwards decided to take up residence in her mansion. In reality, of course, Lord Lucius was a mere blood-swain – a slave of Hermione’s, chosen for his sad, noble face – and his two young daughters were none other than Hermione and Famke themselves, remade with paint and henna and the subtle illusions that were the Lahmian sisterhood’s stock in trade. Lady Hermione’s hair, which had before been a rich chocolate-brown, had been straightened and lightened to a honey-blonde, while Famke’s hair, which had been the colour of white gold, had been darkened to the same shade and given a more youthful cut. This and a change of dress, manner and voice appeared all that was required to make Nuln think them entirely different women, and Ulrika had to admit that, even though she was in on the game, when they were in public, she had a hard time remembering they were the same women she had known since she had arrived in Nuln the month before.

‘The Queen wishes me to stay in Nuln?’ asked Gabriella.

‘Yes,’ said Hermione. ‘With the deaths of Rosamund, Karlotta, Alfina and Dagmar, she believes we are short-handed here, and as you performed so…’ Here Hermione pursed her lips and looked as if she would rather eat a decomposing rat than continue. ‘So admirably, she has decided you will stay and take over Dagmar’s position, opening a new brothel in the Handelbezirk and continuing her work gathering information there. You, I and Mathilda will be the Queen’s eyes here for the foreseeable future.’

‘But my place is in Nachthafen,’ said Gabriella, upset. ‘Sylvania cannot go unwatched.’

‘I am informed that someone will be found,’ said Hermione. ‘And Krieger is dead now. A new threat will not arise so quickly again from that quarter.’

‘We can only hope,’ said Gabriella, sitting back. ‘I do not like this change.’

‘You can be sure I like it even less,’ said Hermione, sniffing. ‘But as the Queen commands, so must we do. Now we must come up with a suitable name and guise for your new position.’

Ulrika turned towards the window that looked into Hermione’s back garden, their words fading away as she stared into the moonlit night. So they would stay in Nuln. It was the last thing she would have wished for. Too many things she would rather have forgotten had happened here. Sylvania, for all its isolation, had at least been simple and ordered. When they had come here things had become complicated.

The murders of the vampiresses Rosamund, Karlotta, Alfina and Dagmar had threatened to expose all the Lahmians, and the hunt for their killer had set them at each other’s throats. Hermione had suspected Mathilda of attempting to take her position, and had accused Gabriella of being a von Carstein spy, out to weaken the sisterhood. There had been betrayal, bloodshed and death, and Gabriella and Ulrika had lost nearly everything, including their lives.