[Von Carstein 02] - Dominion

by Steve Savile - (ebook by Undead)

  “Fun,” the vampire growled, caught halfway between his own form and that of the wolf. The beast stood on two legs once more, its skeletal structure hideously malformed. Two huge wounds gaped in his torso, one in his side, the other scored deeply along the line of his spine. The beast’s skin writhed with unnatural life as beneath it the bones cracked and reshaped until the metamorphosis was complete. “But not so much that I want it to last all night.”

  “Then stop your yapping and finish it.”

  “My pleasure.” The vampire dropped into a crouch, its face twisting with rage as it sprang sideways, rolling and coming up with the discarded sword belt in its left hand. It drew the blade, and threw the scabbard aside. The blade sang as it rasped free. The vampire brought it round in a vicious arc, cutting low and high in a single sweep before returning to guard.

  Kallad stepped in to meet the beast’s attack when it came.

  He stumbled, tripping over Sammy Krauss’ outstretched arm, and in that instant the vampire was on him.

  Kallad felt a searing pain across his chest as the vampire’s blade plunged into his side, working its way up between the dented discs beneath his mail, seeking out his heart.

  The world faded into black. The last thing he saw: the cold eyes of the vampire. The last thought: that he had failed his people. That the grudge would go to the grave with him.

  Then he slipped into the blackness.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Ring of Fire

  THE BORDERLANDS OF SYLVANIA

  The first kiss of snow, winter, 2056

  Mannfred stood over the dwarf.

  The wounds in his back and side were deep, the pain debilitating, but far from lethal for one of his kind. Even so, he owed the dwarf a more painful death than he was able to offer. He left him to bleed out into the dirt.

  He opened himself up and breathed in the winds.

  It was as he thought: the magician had opened himself up to Shyish, the death wind. That was how they had tracked him. It would be the fool’s undoing. Only the strongest sorcerer could bear any kind of exposure to Shyish without being blackened by it. The man was already doomed. It would be eating away at his immortal soul even now, burrowing its way into every crease and fold of his humanity and stamping it out.

  Mannfred reached out, touching Shyish.

  The wind was invigorating. He savoured it as he drew it into himself.

  “I’m coming for you, little man,” he said, knowing that Shyish would carry the taunt to his victim’s ears no matter how far away he had managed to flee. It wasn’t far enough. “Run, run as fast as you can. It isn’t fast enough. I will find you. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, but someday, I promise, and it will be the end of your life. So run, coward, while your comrades rot.”

  He walked amongst the dead, but there was no sustenance to be had from them. Their blood had already begun to lose its vitality. It was about the life-essences in the blood, not the blood itself. To drink now would be poison. Pity, because thanks to the damned dwarf he needed to feed.

  They carried nothing of worth, a few petty trinkets and holy marks of Sigmar, hammers and swords. By far the most interesting thing was the dwarfs hammer, but he had no intention of touching it. He could feel the silver threads that the dwarf had had woven into the leather grip. It was a fine weapon, a match for any axe he had ever seen.

  What he needed was clothing. His own clothes were left in tatters after the transformation.

  He stripped the dead, taking what would fit.

  The wound in his side troubled him. He could feel it burn where it had opened up. It would take time to knit. In the meantime, it made walking uncomfortable where the raw flesh rubbed.

  He had time.

  Mannfred returned to the tree stump and sat. He found himself toying with the ring he wore on his left hand, turning it around his middle finger.

  The wound in his side was really beginning to burn. He touched it with curious fingers, feeling out the true extent of the damage, and he found that it was much smaller than he had at first thought. The sides of the gash were hot, which explained the fire he felt. He reached around awkwardly, probing the deep cut that ran parallel to his spine. Only it wasn’t deep anymore. It was a shallow cut.

  Neither wound was as damaging as he had first thought, although both burned with a hellish fury.

  A sudden jag of pain lanced from his side into his heart. Mannfred cried out against it, sinking to his knees. He threw his head back and roared.

  As the black agony subsided, Mannfred touched the wound in his side, dreading what he might discover.

  The gash had almost sealed. Already the burning was beginning to ease.

  It made no sense, until he thought of the times, when, with his own eyes, he had seen Vlad fall only to return, rejuvenated. He looked at the signet ring, the plain little trinket that he had claimed as his inheritance from the thief, Felix Mann, and began, finally, to understand.

  “Thank you, father,” he said, standing.

  He dressed himself in the dead men’s clothes. There were no boots that fit, so he resigned himself to going barefoot as he set off after the magician.

  Mannfred moved carefully, but the wounds had already healed over. After a few minutes, he broke into an easy ground-eating lope. The magician was easy to follow. He had blazed a panicked trail that even a blind man could have followed.

  He caught up with the man in the middle of the open field. The man scrabbled about in the dirt, begging for his life. It was quite pitiful.

  Mannfred could smell Chaos taint on the magician, already. He had tasted Shyish, and now he was addicted.

  “Spare me,” the magician begged. “Please, sweet Sigmar save me.” It was a pathetic whimper.

  Mannfred smiled coldly, his face shifting as he released the beast within, and reached towards him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Unforgettable Fire

  THE SUBTERRANEAN CATHEDRAL,

  BENEATH DRAKENHOF, SYLVANIA

  The darkling buds of Pflugzeit, spring, 2057

  Miesha’s words haunted him, even now.

  She may have been Hans’ get, but she was also Hamaya, chosen by Jerek for her loyalty to the vampire nation. With her sire dead, she had suffered. It had taken every ounce of her will to reclaim some sense of herself, and with it she had become stronger.

  For that, he had promised her a commendation, an elevation in the ranks of the Hamaya. She would be rewarded.

  Whether he wanted to or not, Konrad believed her when she said that his brothers Pieter and Fritz were scheming behind his back. He had always known they would.

  The fact that they had chosen to band together to see him beaten, however, was like a stake through the heart. Although he was loath to admit it, the fact that they could hate and fear him so much was curiously gratifying.

  Konrad had always known what he would have to do, but their petty scheming had forced his hand far sooner than he would have liked.

  He stood on the stone dais, his brothers flanking him on either side. Behind them, Konrad’s loyal Hamaya had arranged themselves in a tight cordon.

  They were nearly a mile beneath the surface, in the subterranean cathedral that his thralls had mined out of the very earth itself. Down here, they were immune to the whims of the sun and the moon, and other such inconveniences. Around the vast cathedral with its ceiling of stalactites as a warren of cells and chambers that made up the war rooms and Immoliah Fey’s vault. The necromancer had built a sprawling underground kingdom for her research into the dark arts, including a black library that far exceeded anything from the rooms above. She had assembled treasures dating back to Nehekhara, and perhaps even Neferata herself, holy books and unholy ones, artefacts of power, masks, some renditions of familiar animal faces and other far stranger creatures, charms, icons, rods, staves, wands, and a vast arsenal of weapons.

  There was even a caged pit for gladiatorial death matches, all in the name of amusement. The cage fights were brutal a
nd bloody, with the new vampires thirsting to be a part of the kill as they looked on.

  Death was good for morale.

  In the galleries, a thousand flickering torches illuminated the upturned faces of his new vampires. Their faces were tainted a sickly green by the luminescence given off by the lichen that grew on the walls. Some wore expressions of idolisation, others outright hatred. Both were vital to the future of his people.

  There were hundreds of them, all tied in some way to the bloodline. These were his people: he was their father-in-death, their lord, their master, their god.

  He turned to Miesha.

  “Come forward, girl,” he said, quietly. Then louder, to the gallery: “Hear me, my family.” His voice carried easily, the acoustics of the domed vault amplifying his words. “Our people have suffered since the fall of our beloved father-in-death. We were beaten, forced into submission, the lands around us stripped and useless, our cattle drained and our spirit broken.

  “It is not so now. In each and every one of you we have been reborn. In ways that the living cannot comprehend, we are kindred. We are merely the beginning. We stood against the might of the Empire in the war and we suffered years of loss as a result, struggling merely to subsist. As our people slept, so did their dreams of dominion. Now, take a look at the faces around you. Do you see the hunger there? Do you see the fire to take back what is rightfully ours? Has it woken in the face of each and every one of you?

  “You are servants of the vampires, but you alone are nothing. As part of the organic whole you are everything.”

  Konrad paused, giving his words a moment to sink in.

  “We are one, you and I. Nothing separates us. If you suffer hurts, I suffer with you, and if I suffer hurts, you, in turn, will suffer with me.

  “Miesha, my love, kneel.”

  She came forward and knelt at Konrad’s feet, her smile one of satisfaction. Her loyalty was being rewarded, her position of influence cemented. She bowed her head, going along with Konrad’s mockery of the knighting ceremony, and waited.

  “If one amongst us betrays one of us, they betray all of us. If one harbours deceit in their heart, if one would scheme for their own gain, understand that they are scheming against all of us, understand that they are lying to all of us, and believe me, I will not stand for that.”

  He drew his sword.

  “Miesha, one of my trusted Hamaya came to me. She spoke of my brothers, my beloved brothers Pieter and Fritz,” he gestured with the sword towards first Pieter, and then Fritz. “She claimed that they plotted treachery behind my back. I know my brothers, they would do no such thing, for like me, they have only the best interests of the vampire nation in their hearts. So why would Miesha do such a thing? Because she sought to profit from it.”

  Konrad nodded to the flanking Hamaya, and one, Onursal, a dark-skinned giant, stepped forwards, laying a hand on Miesha’s shoulder, claws sinking into her flesh and holding her in place.

  She looked up at Konrad, and the first flickerings of fear registered in her eyes.

  There can be no other reason. She came to me with outright lies about my brothers. So here, my people, I make an example of those who conspire against my rule.”

  Konrad brought the blade down with an executioner’s precision, cleaving the woman’s head from her body in a single smooth blow. Her body held its position for a moment before collapsing in nervous convulsions. Konrad sheathed his sword. Miesha’s head rolled across the dais, the look of shock frozen on her face as it came to a stop.

  He turned and bowed to each of his brothers.

  They understood the point of the demonstration. It was not for the assembly of vampires, it was for them.

  The message was plain: those who stand against me can expect no less a fate. The ruthlessness of it was shocking.

  He had sacrificed one of his own to reinforce the point.

  “Let us speak of this no more. We have more important things to consider by far. Together we stand before you, brothers, united.

  “You,” he spread his arms wide to encompass the entire gallery, “are the results of my desire to rebuild our great nation. You are here because of my will. I have a vision for our people. You were but the first stage of that great vision. It is time now to put the second stage into practice.

  “Some of you may say: “He has brought us another plan. When he had completed the first, why couldn’t he leave us in peace to feed and grow at our own rate? Why the haste, why run before we can walk?”

  The truth is our enemies do not stagnate, they move forwards every day.

  “Now that we are restored, it is time to take the fight to our enemy’s door. They shall tremble once more as they peer out into the darkness, knowing that we walk in the night. It will be a war fought on three fronts, the first a guerrilla assault on their societal structure. You are to go abroad in search of those with peculiar gifts. You are to scour the land for any with even the slightest aptitude for magic, not just known practitioners, but folk with unusual luck, men surrounded by uncanny stories. You will seek out midwifes who have never lost a child, soldiers who have survived terrible campaigns and tell tales of their fortune while other suffered, and people, who might, in some way, have touched one of the Eight Winds. They are to be brought back here to Immoliah Fey, who will drain them of their talents, creating a second tier of what will be our unstoppable force: a corps of magicians skilled in the Lore of Death.

  “To show how little store I put in the gossiping of that traitor,” he inclined his head towards Miesha’s corpse, “the second assault, a force of purebloods led by my brother Pieter, will sack Nuln, spreading discord amongst the humans. We will not give them the luxury of sleeping easily in their beds. The third, a force of equal measure, will be under the command of my brother, Fritz. I trust him to make Middenheim bend its knee before the year is out.

  “It is time for us to reclaim the night and teach these humans the true meaning of fear.”

  It was done. He had trapped his brothers into exile whilst making them into heroes. In sending them away, he had shown the assembly who was in charge, and made it difficult, if not impossible for Fritz and Pieter to continue to plot his downfall in tandem. He had meant what he said; alone they were nothing. He smiled coldly as he turned to face them.

  Their exile was only his first move in a long and drawn out dance of death.

  A part of him looked forward to their response. It would keep life interesting.

  “The fate of our people is in your hands, my brothers, do not fail us.”

  With that he dismissed the assembly, bidding his brothers take their pick of whichever subordinates they would take into battle.

  He looked down at poor Miesha. He was proud of her, and proud of himself for giving her death meaning.

  “Stay,” he said to Jerek as the Hamaya turned to leave. “All of you, stay.”

  The six took up positions around their master.

  “What would you have us do with her body?” Onursal asked.

  “Dispose of it as befits a traitor.”

  The vampire nodded. The fate of a traitor in the new vampire nation was gruesome. The corpse was spitted and roasted, and then stripped, and the meat was fed to the birds up in the Rookery.

  “I find it hard to believe.” The Wolfs gaze drifted towards Miesha’s corpse. Konrad had known Jerek would take her death personally. He had chosen her. He had helped her through the insanity that threatened to overwhelm her in the wake of Hans’ death. Seeing her die branded a traitor must have galled him.

  “It is not so hard to believe, my friend,” Konrad said, smoothly. “The madness had obviously rooted itself deeper than you were able to reach. Without question she was still spoiled by her master’s evil. You cannot hold yourself responsible. You did all that you could, but we always knew there was a chance she would not come back to us.”

  Jerek remained unconvinced.

  “She had weathered the worst of the withdrawal.” He shook his hea
d. “She was getting stronger and stronger. It makes no sense.”

  “Then perhaps she had a relapse,” Konrad said, his irritation flashing through. “I suggest, my friend, that you let it go.”

  He refused to allow himself to get worked up during his hour of victory. No, this was a moment to be savoured, not lost in a blur of anger. Konrad took a moment to compose himself.

  “There is someone I would have you meet. He came to me last night, having escaped from the belly of the beast itself. Vlad placed great store in his talents. Wolf, I believe you and he are acquainted?”

  Konrad gestured for the newcomer to join them.

  All eyes turned to see Jon Skellan step out of the shadows. He came to stand beside Konrad.

  “With the… ah… sudden vacancy, I have asked Skellan to join us. He has unique skills. Now, there is something I have no wish to talk of, but alas must. Despite our best efforts, I believe that at least one of you is loyal to my brothers. This pains me greatly. I do not ask much from those around me, only loyalty. In return you are privileged above all others. This is my reward, to learn that there are vipers in my nest.”

  No one argued with him. No one claimed that he was wrong. They knew better than to try to dissuade him when he had his mind set on something.

  “Well, my little schemers, take this to your masters, and let them stew on it. They aren’t coming home.”

  He looked at them all, one by one, judging them. Then he gave the assassination orders for Fritz and Pieter.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Ravens Left the Tower

  KONRAD’S TOWER, DRAKENHOF, SYLVANIA

  The long dark night of the soul, spring, 2057

  He knew they would come for him. It was only a matter of time. That was why he had challenged them so openly, proclaiming their death sentence before the Hamaya.

  He had expected it to goad either Pieter or Fritz into some rash action, some obvious treason that he could punish with impunity.