The army pressed forwards. Men raised their fists, stirred by the emotion shaking in Volkmar’s words. They were almost ready to be unleashed.
“Remember who you are!” he shouted, his knuckles white as they gripped the railing. “You are men, the rightful masters of the world! None shall stand before us, not the beast of the forest, the orc of the mountain, nor the corruption from within! We shall cleanse Averland just as Middenheim was cleansed, as Praag was cleansed, and as every city will be cleansed that is defiled by those without faith, without honour, and without hope!”
The murmur turned into a swell of acclamation.
“So we ride, men of the Empire! We ride to glory, not for ourselves, but for the one who leads us. For Karl Franz! For Sigmar! For the Empire!”
The army raised its fist as one, hurling cries of “For the Empire!” into the air. The noise was deafening, a wall of sound that rose up from the gravel of the parade ground and swelled up to the highest pinnacle of the mansion house beyond. The earth drummed as the stamp of thirty thousand feet hit home. As if a gale had been sent by Sigmar Himself, the standards of the massed regiments suddenly burst into life, streaking out and displaying the proud devices of the myriad companies.
Volkmar felt his heart beat powerfully. On either side of him, Roll and Maljdir had raised their weapons high, and were stirring the host into new heights of fervour. The sea of men, filling the ground before him, had been roused. They would remember this moment on the long march ahead, and when the clash finally came, it would fill their hearts with the courage they would need to weather the storm.
Volkmar raised his arms high in a gesture of defiance, then stepped back from the edge of the platform. The host continued to roar with undiminished enthusiasm. He turned to Maljdir, and his grim face was set.
“Bring my charger,” he growled. “Now we march.”
High in the Iron Tower, work continued apace. Metal was twisted around metal, ever rising, ever growing. The pinnacle now dominated the city, casting its shadow over the poor quarter and stretching to the river. Nowhere in the city was now free of its gaze, and the skeleton framework of the topmost chambers was already snaking into the sky. A thousand Stone-slaves now toiled on its construction, their spirits crushed by the malevolence of the shard buried beneath them, their eyes glazed and wills destroyed.
Night was falling. Outside the perimeter fence the ceremony was starting up again. Hundreds of soldiers moved through the streets of Averheim, isolating those not performing their duties with sufficient zeal and dragging them to the holding pens. Iron lamps had been lit at every street corner, throwing an angry red glow across the stone. Numbly, the citizens of the city emerged to do obeisance to their new lords and masters. Most had the tell-tale signs of joyroot addiction around their eyes.
The populace had been told the ceremony was a ritual of praise to Sigmar, held to erase the sins of the citizens during the time without an elector. Many of them believed that, and sang the words with devout fervour. Others, knowing that they weren’t Reikspiel and had the ring of some unholy foreign tongue, did so reluctantly. They had little choice but to comply.
Many of the people still supported Grosslich, despite the steel fist that had descended on the city. Money continued to flow, and the food and root were both plentiful. Relaxations on long-standing edicts against drunkenness and fornication were popular in the slums, and the nobles who would normally have opposed such measures were Grosslich’s allies, or had been cowed into submission, or were dead.
From his crystal chamber in the Tower, the elector looked out across the city, watching with satisfaction as the points of light spread out from the centre like a spider’s web of flame. Far below, he could see shuffling masses in the streets, whipped into a frenzy of chanting by the soldiers around them. Some of them had looks of religious transport on their faces.
Though they were doing his work, he despised them more than he could express. At least those who opposed him had some backbone. Until Natassja got her hands on them, that was.
“Enjoying the view?”
He hadn’t heard her enter. No doubt she enjoyed these demonstrations of her superiority, but they were beginning to become trying. He turned slowly, attempting to look as if he’d known she’d been behind him all along.
“The mask has almost slipped now,” he said. “Few will be fooled for much longer. Is any of this pretence worth keeping up?”
Natassja came over to stand beside him and looked out across the twinkling mass of lights.
“It most certainly is,” she said. The blue tinge in her skin had become more pronounced and the pure black of her eyes glistened. “Why reveal ourselves before deception becomes impossible?”
Grosslich shook his head. “I can’t understand how they don’t see it.”
Natassja shrugged. “Because they don’t want to see it. You were chosen to end the anarchy. Right up until the end, there will be those who fail to see what you’ve done with your power.”
She turned away from the window. As ever, her manner was cool and controlled. Despite the outlandish nature of her appearance, it was hard to reconcile the grace of her bearing with the terror she was capable of inflicting.
“Maintain the ceremony,” she said. “The hymns aid the awakening of the Stone, and it gives the rabble something to do.”
Grosslich didn’t like the tone of command in her voice. For so long, he’d been willing to let her dominate him, aware he had much to learn, but now his own powers were increasing. The issue of respect was something he’d have to address.
“Is the chamber below complete?” he asked.
Natassja nodded. “Achendorfer has been busy. The process will quicken soon, and then you’ll have tools at your disposal no mortal elector has ever possessed.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
“Enjoy them while you can. The Stone is useful in other ways. I’ve seen a great army heading south, commanded by the master of the boy-god’s church. They’re travelling fast.”
“Do they pose a danger?”
“Everything is dangerous.”
“And do you ever give a straight answer?”
Something like a smile played across Natassja’s purple lips. With a sudden pang, Grosslich realised how well she was playing him.
“You can handle them, my love,” she said, coming up to him and placing a slender hand on his chest. Despite everything, Grosslich felt a shudder of desire at her touch. “With the powers I will give you, no mortal army will be able to stand against us.”
She came closer, her lips parted, her dark eyes shining. Grosslich could feel her breath, laced with lilac perfume. This was her most potent weapon. Herself. He had no means of combating it.
“Have no fear,” she whispered, pressing her body against his. “The outcome has already been determined. By the time they arrive, this place will be a fragment of the Realm of Pain on earth. We will crush them, my love, just as we have crushed Averland.”
From down in the city, the noise of frenzied revels was growing. Grosslich felt his will sapped, his resolve weaken. Natassja was more beautiful then than she’d ever been. Thoughts of trying to resist her divine mastery seemed not so much foolish as pointless.
“We have crushed Averland, have we not?” he murmured, running his fingers up to her hair.
“Oh, we’ve only just started,” breathed Natassja, and her pupils seemed like chasms to a whole new realm of terrible wonder. “Believe me, my love, this is only the beginning.”
CHAPTER TEN
Bloch paused for a moment from the march, shading his eyes against the setting sun. The sinking orb was huge and red, and the sky above was angry and inflamed like a giant wound. He stood with Kraus at the head of his small force, less than two hundred men, poised at the mouth of the passes. The Keep was several miles behind, garrisoned and provisioned after two days of hard work. Ahead of him, the land fell sharply, falling in a cascade of cliffs and sharp defiles. The road threade
d through the broken land before snaking eventually down through the highlands and towards distant Grenzstadt. On either side, the shoulders of the mountains reared into the evening sky, their snow-streaked flanks rosy from the dying sun.
“You all right?” asked Kraus, looking at him keenly.
“Fine,” said Bloch, starting to walk again. He’d be pleased enough to get down out of the high passes and back into warmer climes. There was still another hour before they’d make the next way-fort, and he’d kept the pace hard.
In truth, though, something about the sunset troubled him. He remembered Schwarzhelm’s face before he’d left. Whatever he was returning to face in Averheim had scared him. And that was where he was headed too.
“We need to pick up the pace,” he muttered, striding down the road with purpose. “Marching down here in the dark will be dangerous.”
Behind him, the column wearily picked up their weapons, and the trek resumed.
Skarr crouched down low under the cover of the trees. The sky was a light grey, overcast with high cloud and full of the chill of a failing summer. Around him his men did likewise, keeping their blades sheathed and armour covered. There were thirty of the Reiksguard with him, the majority of those who’d escaped Averheim and joined Helborg in the wilderness. He felt his body tense for action, his muscles responding instantly despite the long days in the wilds. His fingers remained tight around the hilt of his sword, still in its scabbard but ready to be drawn.
His eyes narrowed. After a couple of yards the trees gave out, revealing a slope of grassland and gorse. Thirty yards away, down at the base of a shallow depression, was the road, one of the main trade routes running east towards Heideck. On the far side of it the land rose again, enclosing the route on either flank.
The position was far north of Drakenmoor. Word had come to Leitdorf’s men that Grosslich was using the road for the transport of arms and supplies. No doubt thinking the province entirely subdued, the guard was light. Such complacence would have to be punished.
Skarr studied the descent carefully, noting the quickest routes down.
“I see them,” hissed Eissen, crouching to Skarr’s left.
From the west, to the left of the hidden Reiksguard, a caravan of wagons and carts made its way steadily towards the cleft in the hills. There were about a dozen of them, heavily built and drawn by a team of four horses each. All were covered, and the scarlet boar’s head of Grosslich had been painted on their wooden flanks. In front of the wagons was an escort of twelve mounted troops armed with spears and round shields. At the rear were perhaps two dozen more, marching on foot and arranged in a loose column formation.
Skarr watched carefully, judging the character of the guards and their likely responses from the way they moved. Their captain, mounted on a sable charger at the head of the escort, was a burly man with a shaven head and a heavy coat of mail over his broad shoulders. He didn’t look like an Averlander. A mercenary, perhaps, brought into the province by Grosslich’s famed bottomless coffers.
The trail of wagons crawled closer. As it neared the depression an order was barked out from the head of the escort and the guards drew closer together. There was no real urgency about their movements, just a calm, professional caution. They had no reason to suspect resistance; as far as they knew, Averland was entirely at peace.
The first horsemen came into range. Skarr gestured to Eissen in Reiksguard battle-signals, flickering his fingers to indicate deployment and tactics. He was to take ten men to deal with the rearguard, while Skarr and ten more dealt with the armoured column at the front. The remainder would hang back, mopping up stragglers and ensuring none got back to Averheim to report the ambush.
Wait for my signal, he gestured, then turned back to the road.
The head of the escort passed them and the carriages came into the centre of the view, swaying on their heavy axles under the weight of the cargo.
Now, signalled Skarr, balling his fist and plunging it down.
Silent as ghouls, moving as one, the Reiksguard burst from cover. Skarr tore down the slope, drawing his sword and aiming for the leader.
It took a few moments for them to be noticed. By the time the alarm was raised, the Reiksguard were almost on them.
“Ambush!” came a cry from one of the horsemen, and the carriages ground to a halt. From the rear of the column the infantry guards reached for their weapons, hurriedly pulling on helmets and buckling up loose breastplates. A second later and Eissen’s men tore into them, felling three before the rest began to mount any kind of defence.
Skarr felt his blood pumping fiercely. After so long skulking around like thieves, it was a savage joy to get back to proper fighting.
The escort leader kicked his horse towards him, shouting invective in some foreign tongue and pulling a curve-bladed halberd from his back. Skarr ran straight at him, keeping his sword loose in his hand. On either side his comrades fanned out, running at full tilt into the heart of the cavalry formation. They all knew the effectiveness of cavalry on the charge, but also how vulnerable the animals were once men got among them.
The black charger went for him, hooves kicking up turf as it laboured up the slope. Skarr waited until the last possible moment before swerving sharply to his right, dropping low and ducking under the swing of the rider’s halberd.
The horse thundered past him. Skarr spun sharply, stabbing his sword-edge deep into the beast’s hamstrings, severing them cleanly. With a scream, the horse tried to rear, buckled, and collapsed onto its side, pinning its rider beneath half a ton of muscle, tack and armour.
Skarr whirled round, hearing a second horse go down as his men carved their way into the panicking squadron. Another halberd blade plunged at him, stabbed down by a rider kicking a chestnut mount straight towards him.
Skarr spun his sword round, switching to a two-handed grip just in time to meet the strike. He parried it away and leapt clear of the charge. As the rider careered past, Skarr pulled a knife from his belt and hurled it at the man’s back. He turned away to his next target, hearing with satisfaction his blade thump into its target and unseat the rider.
The Reiksguard were everywhere by then, hacking at the horses to bring them down or pulling the riders from their saddles. Two of the convoy guards, seeing the destruction of their unit, tried to ride off down the road and away from danger. Both were soon toppled from their steeds, clutching at the daggers flung with expert precision at their backs.
As the defence collapsed, a third rider attempted to engage Skarr, spurring his terrified horse at him and working to bring his halberd to bear. Skarr danced away from the challenge, watching with contempt as the panicked swipe missed him by half a yard. The rider’s horse stumbled on the uneven terrain, caught up in the confusion of rearing steeds and flashing steel. Skarr powered forwards, leaping up and grabbing the jerkin of the struggling rider with his free hand. He pulled the man from the saddle and the two of them hit the ground hard. In an instant the Reiksguard was on top of the stricken soldier, sword edge at his throat, pressing deep into the skin.
“Mercy!” the man screamed, scrabbling for his own weapon.
“Not for you,” Skarr rasped, and yanked the blade down, severing the man’s head cleanly. Then he was up on his feet again, poised for a fresh attack, sword swinging into position.
The skirmish was over. Eissen’s men had wiped out the rearguard and were hastening to the head of the column to join him. The convoy’s riders lay amongst their dead mounts, slaughtered to a man by the sudden assault. The Reiksguard were the deadliest troops in the Imperial army, and the fighting had been almost embarrassingly one-sided.
“Secure those carts,” spat Skarr to Eissen, wiping the gore from his face and looking round to check for casualties.
On the ground, whimpering from pain, the leader of the escort still lived. Half of him was trapped under the flank of his steed, and his attempts to crawl free were pitiful. Skarr walked up to him and crouched down close, keeping his b
lade unsheathed. The man’s face was pale, and lines of blood ran down from the corners of his mouth. It looked like his ribcage had been driven in, and his breathing was thin and halting.
Skarr grabbed him by his hair and yanked his head back sharply.
“Who sent you?” he hissed. “You’re no Averlander.”
The man’s eyes narrowed in pain, but he somehow managed to spit a gobbet of phlegm into the Reiksguard captain’s eyes.
Skarr laughed harshly.
“Good man,” he said, wiping his face and letting the man’s head fall back against the turf. “Do it again, though, and I’ll cut your balls off.”
He pressed his blade against the man’s neck, watching as the honed edge parted the flesh. The rider grimaced, and his defiance ebbed.
“So I say again, who sent you?”
“You no Averlander neither,” the captain panted, his teeth red with blood, his speech slurred and heavy with a north Tilean accent. “All this for she. You stand no chance of it. Not against she.”
He tried a crooked smile, but the effort was too much. Blood and phlegm rose up his throat, and he began to retch.
Skarr withdrew, watching the man die impassively. Eissen came up to him, wiping his blade down with a handful of grass.
“Get anything from him?”
Skarr shook his head. “Dogs of war,” he said. “They know nothing. Let’s get the carts open.”
As the Reiksguard dragged the bodies into a pile at the front of the caravan and retrieved the surviving horses, Skarr and Eissen mounted the first of the wagons. The driver shrank back from them as they climbed up, face white with fear. Unlike his escort, he looked like a proper Averland merchant, full-cheeked and running to a comfortable layer of fat. Skarr ignored him. Behind the driver’s position there was a locked door. He kicked it heavily and the wood around the lock splintered and broke. Inside the wagon were crates, all of them bound with iron and locked tight. He pulled one out with difficulty. It was heavy, and the clink of metal came from within.
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