by Rob Sanders
‘I do not laugh at you child but with the world,’ the priest assured her. ‘The Reverend Mother sent you with some of the most dangerous texts I have had the dubious privilege to lay eyes upon. Your ignorance protected you child, for if you had been tempted by even the titles of some of these tomes, it would have been your end.’
‘My mistress sent a letter?’
‘Between the books in the bundle, bearing the wax sigil of her Order,’ Dagobert said. ‘You would like me to read it to you?’
‘If you would, sir.’
‘To whom this letter finds,’ Dagobert read. ‘I pray to the God-King that the works with which I have burdened this poor child find their way to a keeper of the faith – a true servant of the Heldenhammer. My name is Ottoline Hentshel, Reverend Mother of the Hammerfall Priory and proud Sister of the Imperial Cross. It had been, with my sisterhood, the highest honour to stand sentry over such damned volumes as now find themselves in your possession. Two nights past, however, I was blessed with what I believe to be a vision of the God-King. He came to me. He told me that three days hence, the Hammerfall would receive a visitation from which it would not recover – from which my sisterhood would not recover. The Hammerfall – which has stood for centuries unmolested, atop the highest of peaks in the Middle Mountains – looking down on the God-King’s Empire and watching over his people. If I hadn’t heard it from the Heldenhammer’s own lips, I would not have believed it. It has been my duty to destroy what I can of the dark hoard the Hammerfall has kept safe these generations past. There are some pieces, some texts and the dread knowledge they carry that even I am not permitted to erase from history. My sisters and I will greet our visitors in the way Sigmar intended before preparing to receive his own. Please welcome the child who carries these burdens with hospitality and care. She is a daughter of the Empire and emissary of the God-King’s word. I beg you: see these dangerous works to safety – to the site of our patron’s crowning – the Cathedral of Sigmar in Altdorf – where they may once more find sanctuary with the priests, scholars and holy knights of his church. The blessings of Sigmar upon you.’
Again, silence settled on the scene, with only the spitting of the fire filling the void.
‘You think my mistress received the God-King?’
‘I do not know,’ Dagobert said. ‘But the rider I stopped and had confidence with earlier today told me that Bergendorf, Gerzen and Heedenhof were not the only villages to suffer destruction. There is a storm sweeping through our lands, burning and butchering its way south with dread purpose. It has put others to the sword in our blessed ignorance. The township Esk – dear to my own heart – has similarly fallen to these fearless marauders. Perhaps Sigmar did warn your mistress. Warned her that a doom from the north was coming. A warband or host intent on destruction. Men and monsters, who move through our lands unchecked, like vengeful ghosts, who slaughter with impunity in search of god knows what. Report is, my child, that the Hammerfall too smokes like the fiery anger of the mountain and that your sisters already sleep in Sigmar’s delicate care. For all we know, you might be the last of your Order…’
‘This cannot be,’ the girl sobbed.
‘And yet it is,’ Dagobert said. ‘It is happening. Right now. Events move swiftly about us.’
‘What do these marauders want?’
‘No one can tell what truly drives such mockeries of men,’ Dagobert said. ‘The favour of some dark god? Immortality? Daemonhood?’
‘But you think not?’
‘This carnage is not the random path of some northern barbarian,’ Dagobert said. ‘The path has purpose. I believe that this host – whoever or whatever they might be – slaughtered the Sisters of the Imperial Cross at the Hammerfall in search of one of the godforsaken works you brought to me. I think that they followed it to Esk because the tomes were taken to the way temple nearby, and that they know it travels south on this road – accounting for the butchered villages and hamlets on our route.’
‘Then they are already ahead of us,’ Giselle said, her words rising with panic. ‘How will we reach the city with these beasts between us and safety?’
‘Calm yourself, girl,’ Dagobert said. ‘Don’t forget that Sigmar watches over us.’
‘Sigmar watches over us!’
‘…or that I sent Berndt on ahead with my missives to the Grand Theogonist. There are soldiers stationed at Fort Denkh. We shall appeal to the company captain for sanctuary behind his walls. It is also where I requested Lord Lutzenschlager have a contingent of his finest knights meet us to escort us back to the Altdorf.’
‘How do you know that he will answer such a call?’ Giselle put to the priest. ‘Are you and the Grand Theogonist friends from temple?’
‘Far from it, child,’ Dagobert said coldly. ‘But I included in my letter assertions that even the Grand Theogonist would dare not ignore.’
‘Excuse me, sir. Assertions?’
Dagobert didn’t answer at first, as though considering his words carefully.
‘Some of the tomes you brought to me were undoubtedly dangerous and belonged in the secure vaults of the Hammerfall,’ the priest said. ‘But only one of the diabolic works could truly justify such a bold invasion of our lands. One worth risking so much for.’
‘Which one?’
‘This one, child. The Celestine Book of Divination,’ the priest said. ‘Or The Liber Caelestior. It was composed by a Tilean scryer or madman – depending upon whose version of history you trust – called Battista Gaspar Necrodomo. He used the stars, their relative positions and the patterns they cast across the night sky to make predictions about times that were to come to pass.’
‘He knew of the future?’
‘So say some,’ Dagobert admitted. ‘The Liber Caelestior, however, is considered especially dangerous since it prophesises the coming of the End Times.’
‘The End Times?’
‘The days of doom, my child. The end of the world.’
‘You have read of these End Times?’ Giselle asked.
‘The Liber Caelestior is on a list of prohibited texts that the Grand Theogonist forbids even his Sigmarite priests to read. The contents are considered too perilous to become common knowledge. As far as I know, the Grand Theogonist and his predecessors are the only ones to have read it in its entirety.’
‘You have read this tome,’ Giselle said. ‘I can tell.’
Dagobert said nothing for a few moments. Then–
‘Given the murderous circumstances surrounding the tome’s acquisition,’ Dagobert explained, ‘and what presently is at stake, I thought it prudent to examine it for myself. The bundle you brought from the Hammerfall contained a primer – a text used to translate, at least in part – some of the other works. Our journey has afforded me time to translate the early sections.’
‘And?’
‘Though he seems to talk in dark riddles, some of what the madman says has already come to pass,’ Dagobert admitted grimly.
‘And what of the End Times?’
‘The End Times are heralded by a coming of a warrior from the north, at the head of the greatest army in the history of man. He will be the Everchosen of the Ruinous Powers…’
‘I don’t know much,’ Giselle said, ‘but I know that does not sound good.’
‘The Everchosen is a warlord bearing the favour of the Dark Gods and their blessings in equal measure. There have been few who have enjoyed such a title and unrivalled command of damnation’s forces. Only a warrior worthy of the Powers’ dread unity, through the completion of a series of unholy quests, can present himself to be crowned Everchosen of Chaos. Several such men have plagued the Empire and our God-King fought them even before that. As we have had our mighty champions like Magnus the Pious, so the Dark Gods have their own. To be Everchosen is to receive the gods’ ultimate blessing: sole command of the legions of darkne
ss and the honour of ushering in the End Times – the end of the world as we know it.’
‘Then…’ Giselle began. She seemed to be thinking. ‘Who is this Lord of the End Times to be?’
‘All I’ve learned so far is a single name,’ Dagobert said. ‘A name I have mercifully never heard before. The herald of the apocalypse is a man called Archaon. A southern name for a northern threat – with the Empire caught in between.’
‘A name? Surely this Necrodomo must have said more of him than that?’ Giselle argued, her tender years lending themselves to impatience. ‘On account of these strange powers, and all.’
‘He did,’ Dagobert admitted, ‘but the page bearing the burden of that secret had been torn from the tome. Perhaps someone – at some time – thought that such knowledge should be kept separate from the text. Or that it was better destroyed. Even Necrodomo himself could have removed the dangerous details of Archaon’s identity upon truly considering the danger that they posed.’
‘Do you think that the leader of the marauders is Archaon?’ Giselle asked.
‘Desiring confirmation and the secrets of his future?’ the priest said. ‘I think that such an idea is equally dreadful and possible, my child – and if true – makes getting this volume to Altdorf all the more necessary.’
‘I can’t believe this to be happening.’
‘Do not fear, child,’ Dagobert assured her, ‘the Grand Theogonist will send his Templars for The Liber Caelestior, if not for us personally. Trust that they are on their way to us.’
‘Did you hear that?’
Kastner’s searing attentions were suddenly brought back to the hospice wagon. Beyond the incredible stench that now dominated the space, the knight could hear noises from the opposite bunk. Emil’s moans had ceased. The knight could see the bottom of the squire’s bunk. There were still movements beneath his bandages and blankets but they had assumed a horrid undulation, like a snake sloughing off its skin. The sounds from beneath were grisly. It was like the splinter of crackling on a roast pig and the collapse of liquefied flesh. Kastner wondered if Dagobert or the girl had checked the squire’s dressings recently.
Then he heard it. Something new. In the tedium of wagon, new was usually good. The knight did not think this to be the case when he heard the slow, wet growl of what Kastner could only assume was some kind of dog. Outside, Kastner heard the horses bridle. The stink of predation was in the air.
The knight fought his body for control of his neck muscles. If he could just loll his head over to one side, he could see the thing with which he was trapped in the hospice wagon. Pleading fed the knight’s frustration which in turn stoked his anger – but it was no good. He could not even form a face of fury let alone act upon it. The cot opposite creaked as the thing that was no longer Emil shifted its weight.
‘I’m sure I heard something,’ Kastner thought he heard Giselle say.
‘It’s probably that malingering oaf, Gorst,’ Dagobert said, putting the girl’s fears to rest. ‘Here. Eat something. You will need your strength.’
Inside his head, Kastner roared his defiance. He would not die a miserable, unknown death in the back of a wagon – slowly devoured by and horribly becoming one with some Chaotic spawn of corruption. Kastner willed his body to movement. He yearned for his arms to thrash out, or his legs to kick, his head to lift from the cot or his torso to buck. His mind burned with the effort but his body betrayed him. There was no life there. Not even a promising numbness. Just a terrifying absence.
The growling grew louder. A savage announcement of territorial assertion. Except the horror cared not for forest or hills. Its claim was the templar’s own precious flesh. Although he could not see it, Kastner felt the wagon lean, ever so slightly, as Emil’s unmade form pushed out from the blankets in its glistening stink and moved towards Kastner – led on by a new snout and a new sense of smell.
Kastner had started to entertain his blackest fears, when suddenly something wonderful happened. The patient passed water. He hadn’t realised it at first but the templar had been soaking the blankets and the cot – urine passing down through the boards of the hospice wagon. Kastner could hear the pitter-patter of his waters beneath the wagon. He heard Giselle grunt as she realised what had happened.
‘I think our patients may need us,’ the knight heard Dagobert say.
‘I’ll go,’ Giselle said. ‘There are fresh blankets in the driver seat.’
Kastner felt feeling return to the tip of his little finger and the knight waggled it for all he was worth. A celebration in miniature. This led to a twitch of the shoulder and the slight drift of his head to one side. There his sore eyes beheld the thing that was now Emil. Still a festering patchwork of mauled flesh, a hairless, eyeless dog snout had pushed free of the terrible changes that had overtaken the squire’s wretched form. The grotesque head snarled at the templar as it sniffed his vulnerability. Lips curled back like an opening bud and the snaggle-toothed jaw – a twisted parody of the mongrels that had infected the boy with their corruption-frothing maws – yawned open with predacious intention.
A roar built within Kastner’s chest – at first a miserable rasp – building to bombast and the raw announcement that the templar wanted to live. He reached out with soul-draining effort, bringing his hand up in defence. The fresh obedience of action to thought was sweet relief. It was instinct. The spawn moved in to assume the templar’s flesh. Kastner’s hand came up between them but suddenly stopped. For a heart-stricken moment, the knight thought his body had once again failed him. As he heard the jangle of chains through the cot side, Kastner came to realise that this was not paralysis. It was captivity. There were manacles about his wrists and thick chains between them. As the spawn moved in to feed on him, similar restraints thunked to the wagon floor, slipping from the squire’s changing form.
As threaded slime dribbled from the spawn-jaws in expectation of its first meal, Kastner tore at the chains. Passed through the cot as they were, the restraints accomplished precisely what they were designed to do. Keep the templar in place.
‘God’s wounds,’ Kastner heard Dagobert swear. He could see the priest through the curtain opening, where Giselle stood also – the girl struggling with what she was seeing. Kastner’s mouth was moving but returning from insensibility, his throat couldn’t manage anything as articulate as speech. The urgency of the bellow that escaped his lungs was enough to shake the priest from the spectacle.
‘The crossbow,’ Dagobert rumbled. ‘The crossbow.’
The spawn’s own hackle-roar erupted from the nest of teeth and tongues which had once been a head. Its transformations still underway beneath the blood-soaked mound of blankets, the abomination leant in for the kill.
Kastner punched for the wagon bonnet, dragging the length of chain between his manacles up against the cot rail. Once, twice, thrice. The rail gave and clattered free – just in time for the knight to land a punch on the dog-spawn’s snout. He hit it again and again with his left fist, his right forced to follow, but the ravenous monstrosity would not surrender its first conquest. Within the spawn, bones snapped and flesh rearranged itself in its aching desire to feed and make Kastner part of its metamorphosis.
Allowing it an opening, Kastner felt his own lips retract with disgust. The blind snout slipped through the opportunity the templar had allowed it, bringing its stinking maw right up to his face. A growl like buried thunder issued from the beast’s transformations. Kastner bellowed back at it – coiling the length of chain between his manacles about the spawn’s alteration-slick neck. Kastner heaved the beast to him, holding its horrid, squirming flesh against his own – cutting across its throat with his restraints.
‘Damnable contraption,’ Dagobert said, having been handed the retrieved crossbow and a bolt from Giselle, but struggling to load the weapon.
Kastner heaved. His muscles enjoyed the ecstasy of
movement. He willed the corrupted spawn dead and his body answered the call. His biceps bulged and the metal of the chain cut into the thing. The thrashings of primordial panic replaced the undulations of transformation on the opposite cot. The monstrous nest of butchery that was the creature’s evolving form did not like what Kastner was doing to its mongrel head. It might have been some nightmare aberration of nature but it still needed to breathe.
The spawn bucked and flailed. A foul fluid bubbled, foamed and leaked from its hissing jaws. Kastner could feel it dying in his embrace. Somewhere, in the horror of it all, the templar’s arms trembled to give his squire peace. With a final roar, Kastner strangled the loathsome aberration. A crunch and wet rattle left the grotesque’s throat before the beast – moments before in the flesh-euphoria of new life – convulsed its way to a messy death.
Kastner heard the crossbow relieve itself of its bolt. With the priest awkwardly behind the weapon, the quarrel cleared the creature’s horrific malformation and thudded into the wooden sideboards beside it.
Kastner released the spawn’s blind, skinless muzzle and allowed the fang-heavy skull to hit the wagon floor. The sweet smell of corruption lingered. Giselle turned away, the food she had just eaten returning with a retch of disgust. Dagobert allowed the crossbow to dangle at his side, the priest’s face hollow and sheepish. Kastner brought up his wrists, the manacles and chains rattling together. Finally, the word came. When it did, it was cold and imperious.
‘Keys…’
CHAPTER VII
‘If history has taught us anything,
it’s that one man fighting for his belief –
no matter how mistaken and misguided his faith,
is measured to the worth of ten faithless knights.’
– Frederik III (ascribed – the Great Crusade against Araby)
Fort Denkh
Middenland
Nachfrederikstag IC 2420
It was a dismal day and had started badly.
They had built a basic pyre and burned what remained of Emil Eckhardt on the mist-shrouded hills along the Drakwasser. Father Dagobert had deemed it the safest course of action, considering the extent of the boy’s corruptions. The priest had reasoned that he must have been infected in some fashion from the bites he received from the beastmen’s pack of hounds. He claimed that he had heard of herds hammering extra fangs into the jaws of their beasts, made from curse-carved bone and wyrdstone flints for just such a purpose.