[Heroes 03] - Sword of Vengeance

by Chris Wraight - (ebook by Undead)

Achendorfer shivered, whether out of pleasure or fear Tochfel couldn’t tell. His vision started to cloud again. What was left of his skin broke out into sweat. His heart, shivering beneath his open ribcage, beat a little faster. Why didn’t he die? What malign force kept him sustained in this living hell?

  “And what do you plan for me?” he asked, eyes wide with fear, locked on the approaching instrument.

  Natassja smiled and began to work. “Something very special,” she purred. “Something very special indeed.”

  * * *

  Dawn broke over Averheim. The sun peered through veils of mist rising from the river, taking an age to warm the stone of the quayside buildings. Even before the light made its way down to the wharfs men were busy unloading and loading the endless train of barges. Orders were bellowed out from overseers, and the cranes wheeled back and forth with pallets of iron bars, brick and stone.

  Verstohlen watched the activity from his shabby rented room on the east side of the river. From two storeys up he had a good view of the operation. As he watched, he began to wonder how he’d missed the signs. Some of the crates were clearly full of arms. One of them spilled open on landing, revealing scores of curved swords, all wickedly fashioned with trailing spikes. They were no ordinary Imperial manufacture, and he could bet they hadn’t come from Nuln.

  Verstohlen let his gaze run down the long harbourside, watching as the gathering dawn brought more activity. There were soldiers everywhere. How had he not noticed the increase in their numbers? Where did Grosslich get them from? It seemed like every street corner had a group of surly-faced guards, all wearing the absurd crimson and gold of the elector’s personal army. There must have been several hundred of them, milling around, threatening and cuffing the merchants doing their best to unload cargo. The Averlanders seemed to have learned not to talk back.

  He turned from the window. He needed to get some sleep. It wouldn’t take them long to find out where he’d gone. Even now he guessed that his rooms in the Averburg had been ransacked. Perhaps they’d slipped deathflower into his food. That would be a real spy’s death.

  Verstohlen rubbed his eyes. The room around him was grim. The sheets were stained and stinking, and there were long lines of grease down the faded walls. He walked from the window and sat down heavily on the bed, ignoring the cocktail of unsavoury aromas that curled up from the linen. All night he’d been kept awake by the shouts of gamblers in the chamber below, steadily getting drunker and more violent. Not that he’d have been able to sleep much anyway. He’d kept his dagger and pistol close to hand and sat watching the door until the dawn.

  There was a knock.

  “Come,” said Verstohlen, cocking the pistol and placing it under the sheets.

  The fat landlord, a man with as many chins as he had rooms, waddled in. He wore an apron that might once have been white, but now had been stained the colour of thin gruel. In his hands he carried a mug of small beer, long past its best and reeking of spoilage.

  “You’re awake, then,” he grunted, placing the mug on an unsteady table and wiping his hands on the apron. “You’ll be wanting food?”

  “No, thank you,” said Verstohlen. If the food was prepared here, then he wouldn’t need to worry about assassins. “I won’t be staying another night. Prepare my account, and I’ll settle it this morning.”

  The landlord looked at him blankly. “Suit yourself,” he muttered. “It’ll be five schillings.”

  The price was exorbitant. He’d have balked at paying it even in a refined inn. For a moment, he considered challenging it, then changed his mind. He needed to keep a low profile until he could get out of the city.

  “I’ll bring it to you as I leave,” said Verstohlen. The landlord hung around, as if waiting for something. “Was there anything else?”

  The fat man coughed and looked down at his hands. “Maybe, if you’re not having food…” He trailed off.

  “Yes?”

  “I can get it for you. Cheap price. Best this side of the river.”

  Verstohlen looked at him coldly. If joyroot was available even to scum such as this, then the last pretence at controlling the trade must have been abandoned. Grosslich was flooding Averheim with it, just as before. Was he in it with the Leitdorf’s? Or had he taken it over? So much still to unravel.

  “No,” said Verstohlen, his voice quiet and controlled. “A little early for me.”

  The landlord shrugged and shuffled out again, closing the door behind him clumsily. Verstohlen pulled his pistol out from under the sheets and looked over the workings. It was important that everything operated flawlessly. Unless he could get out of the city soon and find his way north undetected, he knew he’d be using it soon enough.

  Rufus Leitdorf watched as the land around him became steadily more familiar. The gorse and heather stretched to the horizon in all directions, rustling gently under a ceaseless wind. The air was sharper than it had been in the lowlands, and in the distance the peaks of the Grey Mountains were just visible, lost in a haze of blue in the far south. A low tide of mist rolled across the depressions in the land, shifting and miasmic, torn into tatters as the breeze across the moors ripped it away. In the far distance there were ruins, tall towers of age-whitened stone marching across the horizon. No human hand had built those places, and no human dwelt among them now. In the vast space between mankind’s scattered settlements, there were still plenty of ancient secrets lying dormant. Drakenmoor was replete with them.

  Leitdorf had been sent to the secret castle twice in the past, once as a child when there was a threat of assassination against him, and once as a teenager. The second time he’d travelled on his own account, albeit surrounded by household servants, Averburg officials and a retinue of armed guards. Growing up as a prince had given him precious little solitude. He found it hard to recall any occasions where there hadn’t been members of the elector’s court hovering around, waiting to take orders from him or pass on new requirements from his father.

  That world, the one of privilege and prestige, had slipped away so fast. Less than a month ago it had seemed like the trappings of true power were firmly in his grasp. He and Natassja had planned so much together, and Averland looked set to have another Leitdorf at its helm.

  He let his gaze drop from the horizon. The memory of Natassja was painful. Like a drug, being away from her was hard. He hadn’t realised, perhaps, how much he’d relied on her, how far the preparations for conquest had been hers, and how many of his considerable resources had been diverted into her policies. The joyroot had been her creation. He had no idea where she’d sourced the first samples. Perhaps he should have inquired more carefully.

  For all her wisdom and perceptiveness, it hadn’t helped them when the hammer-blow fell. No doubt Grosslich had tracked her down by now, and she languished in one of the dungeons of the citadel. Somehow he doubted her spirit had been broken, but feared her body might have been.

  It was unpleasant to dwell too much on that. He had failed her, and he had failed his family. The experience of the entire Empire turning against him, seemingly on the whim of Schwarzhelm and his damnable spy, had shocked him to his core. He should have paid more attention to his lessons in diplomacy. The old fool Tochfel might have been worth listening to more carefully.

  The situation with the Reiksguard was even more puzzling. He could understand well enough Grosslich’s desire to have him hunted down and killed, but to extend it to the Emperor’s own troops? That was bravery bordering on folly, and in the long run such arrogance would surely cost him dear. He’d never have dared such a thing himself, even if matters in Averheim had gone otherwise.

  Leitdorf looked over his shoulder at the carriage, shaking as it was dragged along the uneven tracks towards Drakenmoor. He knew the Marshal was recovering. The knights’ morale had lifted as a result, and they now went more proudly than before, as if defying Grosslich’s pursuers to find them. It was amazing what the presence of a commander could do for his men.

  Le
itdorf found himself reflecting on what his own vassals thought of him. The closest to him, soldiers like Klopfer, were surely dead now, caught in the ruin and confusion of Averheim. Even if they hadn’t been killed, none of them would have rushed to fight by his side again. He knew his temper had driven half of his allies away. Like his father, his blood ran hot, ever ready to spill out into some petulant tirade. He’d never been forced to confront the consequences of that, to examine himself against the measure of other, better men. Now, when he looked in the mirror of introspection, he saw a petty character, a bully and a tyrant.

  A shadow passed across him. Skarr had drawn up alongside, controlling his horse with an enviable ease.

  “You look troubled, my lord,” he said, and his severe face twisted awkwardly into something like a smile.

  Skarr had become less brooding since Helborg’s partial recovery. The preceptor still held him responsible for the events of the Vormeisterplatz, but an uneasy truce had developed between them. At least he was being referred to as “my lord” again.

  “I’ve only been here twice,” replied Leitdorf. “And yet it feels like home. I can’t tell you why.”

  Skarr shrugged. “I like this place too,” he said. “The air’s healthier. I can see what your father was thinking.”

  They rode on in silence for a while. Tangled copses of black-thorned briars passed by as the horses trod the winding path. The calls of birds, or something like birds, echoed in the distance, faint against the vastness of the open sky.

  “You know, he wasn’t the madman everyone says he was,” said Leitdorf at length. “He had a temper, but he wasn’t mad.”

  Skarr said nothing.

  “When he came up here, he was more himself.” Leitdorf found himself suddenly wishing to explain everything, to make it clear why things had turned out the way they had. “Everyone said the same about him. It was Averheim that made him angry.”

  “The city?”

  “I saw it for myself. He never slept properly There were bad dreams. It was almost as if…”

  Leitdorf trailed off. It was painful to recall those sleepless nights, the screams of his father echoing down the long corridors of the Averburg. Nothing the physicians could do would ease the pain. Though his father had known the courtiers were laughing at him behind his back, Marius never once shirked his duty as a result of the night terrors. Not once, even though it drove his mind to the brink of breaking.

  “They say he was a proper swordsman,” acknowledged Skarr, and his voice had a grudging approval in it. “The Marshal wanted to offer him a duel, but the opportunity never arose.” The grizzled knight smiled again, this time less forced. “Perhaps, when he’s recovered, you should take up the challenge.”

  Leitdorf felt his pride stung at the mockery, and went red with anger.

  He pushed it down. This was his problem. He had no means of coping with the banter of ordinary conversation. That was why he was feared rather than loved, ridiculed rather than respected. Instead, he did his best to return the smile.

  “I’d not give him much of a fight.”

  Skarr couldn’t disagree, and gave an equivocal shrug. Leitdorf winced.

  “You don’t think much of me, do you, preceptor?” he said.

  Skarr looked surprised.

  “It’s not important what I think. It’s about survival now.”

  “Perhaps.” Leitdorf looked up ahead. The road was curving round to the right, snaking steadily up a long, shallow incline. Remnants of the mist curled around the hooves of the horses as they laboured up it, ghostly and insubstantial. The Drakenmoor castle was close, staffed by members of his father’s most devoted staff and safe—for the moment—from the prying eyes of Grosslich. This had been his decision, perhaps the first he’d ever truly made without his father or his wife peering over his shoulder. That was an odd thought.

  “Maybe I don’t think that much of myself, either,” he said. “A man’s defined by what’s around him. I’m beginning to wonder if the company I’ve kept has always worked to my advantage.”

  “War can change a man, my lord,” said Skarr. “I’ve seen it happen. It asks a question of you.”

  “We’re at war?”

  “Assuredly. The Marshal has no thoughts of escaping. He’ll take the fight back to Grosslich.”

  Leitdorf pondered that. Such a course was hugely dangerous. Grosslich had the resources of the entire province at his disposal. It would be easier for Leitdorf to slip over the mountains into Tilea, to lick his wounds amongst old allies of his father and gather strength slowly Staying in Averland was the riskiest option of all.

  And yet the Marshal had not built his reputation for nothing. Now Leitdorf—chubby, tantrum-ridden Rufus Leitdorf—had the chance to ride alongside the legend.

  “So the question will be asked,” he mused. “Let us hope, when the time comes, I have the right answer.”

  The Iron Tower kept growing. Every hour, more metal beams were lowered into place, slotting into a plan of dazzling complexity. Even semi-complete, it had the look of a building that could survive a thousand years. Great spars shot into the air, now reinforced by hundreds of cross-beams. A thick outer shell had begun to creep up in their wake, hard and shiny like the carapace of an insect.

  Halfway up the monstrous structure, a chamber had been created. It was small, just a foretaste of the mighty halls which would fill out the shaft in due course. Giant crystal windows covered three of the walls, and in the centre a curved throne had been placed. There was no other decoration, just blank panels of iron. Natassja’s aesthetic sense had not yet been brought to bear, for this was Grosslich’s commission.

  Standing by the windows, nearly a hundred feet above the centre of the circular plain below, the elector gazed down on the majesty of his creation. Natassja preferred to remain below ground. That relieved him. Though she was as addictive as the narcotics she created, her presence was wearing on his nerves. Grosslich had seen what happened to servants who failed her. From time to time, a nagging doubt even entered the back of his own mind.

  Will I be next?

  No. That wouldn’t happen. He was the lord of this realm, and she was his ally. They both needed each other for the fulfilment of the great vision. Though the mask was gradually slipping away, just as it had to, there was still the appearance of normality in Averheim. The ordinary people could grumble about the imposition of rules and military tithes, but none of them suspected the truth behind the manoeuvrings. The knowledge would come later, once all was ready. In the meantime, they had the joyroot again to addle their minds.

  Grosslich looked down. The elaborate pattern of stonework on the courtyard below was almost complete. It was dazzlingly beautiful. From three hundred feet up, the eventual height of the Tower, it would be even more impressive. The Mark of Slaanesh, etched in circling rows of obsidian and picked out with silver. At ground level, the shapes were unintelligible, and only here was their true purpose apparent.

  He followed the progress of a pack of dog-soldiers as they crept across the open space, far below him. Once he’d have baulked at having such creatures working for him. No longer. He’d seen for himself what the Empire really was: a club for the privileged and the noble-born. It didn’t matter that his bloodline had sent its sons to die on the sodden fields of war, had built up a trade in cattle-rearing from nearly nothing and donated vast sums to the Church of Sigmar and the Knights of the Blazing Sun. For the elite in Altdorf, the Grosslichs would always be commoners. The electoral battle had been about nothing more than blood proofs. The fact that Grosslich was twice the warrior Leitdorf would ever be counted, seemingly, for nothing.

  All that had changed with Natassja. Until she’d proposed her alliance, he’d been a minor landowner and frustrated powerbroker, nothing more. It was she who’d taught him how to use his money, how to influence the right people, buy the right alliances, smooth over the trifling difficulties of the law, and dispose of those who couldn’t be bought.

  He
inz-Mark had learned the lessons well. Only later had the joyroot emerged, and then soon after that the knowledge of her corruption. She’d come to his rooms at night, draped in perfume, and the seduction into the dark had begun.

  Though he’d not known it at the time, that had been his last chance to turn back. By then, though, he was entangled in a thousand deals and treaties. She showed him visions of such splendour, gave him experiences of such magnificence, that he’d been unable to say no. He denied her nothing after that, trapped in the honeypot she’d so skilfully placed before him, addicted to the pleasures she doled out to him like toys to a child.

  Grosslich still liked to tell himself that she needed him, that the plan would have ground to a halt without his efforts. Perhaps that was true in part, but he wasn’t deluded enough to put any faith in it. He was the lesser partner, and that made things dangerous for him. When the Tower was completed and his armies mustered, perhaps Grosslich would have to do something to reinforce his position. She was powerful, to be sure, but only a woman. He was a warrior, tempered by combat since childhood and destined for command. Surely the Dark Prince would reward him when the time came. He had, after all, done so much to please him. There would be opportunities. There were always opportunities.

  There was a knock from the corridor outside. Grosslich turned, his dark cloak following him like furled wings. He gestured with his finger, and twin doors slid back into the iron walls. Eschenbach and Heidegger came in. Far from the prying eyes of the Averburg, they were free to shed their appearance of normality. Eschenbach had let his eyes resume their pink hue and had donned robes of subtly shifting colour. Heidegger looked perfectly normal, although the mania in his eyes was more pronounced. The poor dupe was working under a heavy burden of interwoven spells, and still believed he was doing Sigmar’s holy work. Despite the abundance of evidence of Chaos around him, the part of his mind that could discern the world truly had been drilled out by Natassja. Now he only saw what she wanted him to see.