“Natassja!”
Grosslich’s voice was thick with anger. She turned to see him framed in the doorway to her throne room. He was still dressed in his ridiculous red armour. The Dark Prince only knew what had made him design such a thing. He carried his bone wand in one hand and a black-bladed sword in the other.
He looked hugely annoyed. She didn’t blame him for that. If she’d been him, she’d have been hugely annoyed too.
“My love,” she murmured, walking over to the throne and taking her place on it. The little gestures were important, even now. “What brings you—”
“You know damn well what brings me here,” Grosslich said, advancing towards her. There was a powerful aura about him. He’d grown strong. In another place and another time, he’d have been a mighty warlord. The waste of it saddened her.
“You seek Eschenbach.”
“Seek? No. I know full well what you did to him. Sacrificed to your power, just as you intend to sacrifice me.”
“And why would I want that?”
“To rule this place alone,” spat Grosslich, eyes blazing. “That’s why you made it a home of capering devils. None of this is what I wanted.”
Natassja raised an eyebrow. “Then stay here with me. I’ll show you how to enjoy it. I never lied to you, Heinz-Mark. Believe me. If you stay in the Tower, there are still many things we could accomplish together.”
Grosslich laughed harshly. A fey light had kindled across his features. The power he’d accumulated was already leaking, spilling out from his fingertips like water. He couldn’t handle what he’d been given. Ach, the waste.
“Perhaps you’d like that,” he said. “Perhaps that would give you all you wanted from this arrangement.”
He laughed again, a bitter, choking sound. “I won’t do it, Natassja. There’s one role left I know how to play. Your army needs a commander. I’m leaving to take them. I’ll destroy the challengers, and then I’ll make my next move. Perhaps I’ll bring them back here. Perhaps I won’t. You’ve given me the tools to carve out a realm of my own—it doesn’t need to be here.”
“I could prevent you,” Natassja said, and the sadness in her voice was unfeigned.
Grosslich shook his head. “I don’t think so. My skills are greater than you think.”
Natassja knew that wasn’t so. She could kill him with a word, but to do so would solve nothing. Out of affection, she would give him a final chance, after which he would have to make his own decisions.
“If you leave the Tower, I cannot protect you. If you stay, you will remain safe. You have my word. You will never be the master, but you will be provided for. You may yet become truly mighty, a regent worthy of long service.”
Grosslich smiled to himself, as if a joke he’d heard a lifetime ago had suddenly made sense.
“A regent. Tempting. I’ll bear it in mind.”
He bowed low.
“Farewell, Natassja. When I return, master of the armies you’ve created, perhaps our negotiations will go differently.”
He turned on his heel flamboyantly and marched out of the chamber. Natassja watched him go. Despite everything, despite the centuries of malice and intrigue, she was not unmoved. There had been a path for the two of them she’d foreseen, one of discovery, knowledge and enlightenment. The fact that he’d chosen to reject it was regrettable.
“So you let him go,” came a sibilant voice from behind the throne.
A daemon curled up from the floor, her naked flesh snaking lewdly across the obsidian. Natassja ignored the gratuitous attempt at provocation. For beings of infinite intelligence and power, daemons could be tediously infantile.
“Of course,” she replied. “Maybe it was wrong of me to expect more of him.”
The daemon laughed. “Or maybe he decided his position was no longer secure. That is a mighty army out there. It will make him feel safer.”
Natassja turned to look at the daemon and frowned with disapproval.
“Did you plant that idea in his head? If so, I’ll rend you apart.”
The daemon giggled, though the laughter was suffused with a note of fear. She darted away, hovering near the outlet to the shaft.
“That’s not in your gift, my queen,” she reminded her.
“Not yet,” said Natassja, rising from the throne. “But watch yourself.”
She began to walk from the chamber.
“Are you starting it, then?” asked the daemon excitedly, following at a safe distance.
“Why not? I have the city to myself now.”
The daemon whooped with pleasure. “Then you’re not worried about their armies? Helborg draws close, and he carries the sword.”
“What can he do now? His time has passed.” Natassja turned to the floating daemon and gave her an affectionate, tolerant smile. “Return to your sisters, dark one. There’ll be more play for you before the day is out.”
Then she turned back, heading down the long gallery and towards the spiral staircase.
“The Chamber of the Stone will be warded until all is complete,” she warned. “Wait for me outside the Tower. It is, at last, time for my birth.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Out on the plain, something had changed. The legions continued to take up their positions, but a new presence had come among them. Volkmar strode forwards, peering down into the smog-clad gloom of the battlefield.
“My spyglass,” he snapped, and a priest hurried to bring it.
He swept across the ranks of enemy troops. Some were men, clad in Grosslich’s colours, their eyes glowing strangely. Others were obscene corruptions of men, their legs twisted backwards and crouching like dogs.
Then he found his quarry. The gates of the city had opened, and a man had emerged, mounted on a coal-black charger. The horse was as corrupt and twisted as everything else in that host. It had clawed pads in place of hooves and a scaled hide in place of skin. Its mane and tail shone like polished onyx and had been plaited and decorated with jewels. Tabards decorated with forbidden sigils hung from its flanks, and its eyes smouldered like hot embers. It was massive, at least a foot taller and broader than a mortal beast, and when it trod on the broken earth the claws sunk deep.
The figure mounted on it was no less impressive. Enclosed from head to foot in crimson armour, glistening from the fires around him, the master of Averheim had emerged. He wore a tall helm crested with a plume of gold, the only opening of which was a narrow slit for his eyes. In his right hand he carried a black-bladed broadsword with a serrated edge. It looked as if molten pitch were continually dripping from the dagger-sharp points, pooling like blood on the earth as he passed into the heart of his men. In his left hand he bore a wand of bone.
As he made his way through the ranks of soldiers they withdrew silently. Perhaps once they had fought under him as mortal men, hopeful of the new dawn he would bring to Averland. Now such memories were lost, subsumed beneath the crushing will of the Stone and its mistress.
With their commander among them, the legions began to advance.
“So it begins,” said Volkmar, handing the spyglass back. “The master has left his lair. Give the signal.”
Trumpets blared out from the command position and passed down the line. The gunnery crews sprang into action. Just as they had done at Streissen, they worked quickly and well. These were crews from Nuln, the best in the Empire, and they were masters of their deadly trade.
Orders roared out, cannonballs were rammed home and rags doused in flame. Crews and escorts scrambled to get out of the way as the iron-belchers were primed and loaded. Seconds later the thundering boom of ignition shook the earth and a wall of death screamed out from the Averpeak on to the plain below. Huge clouds of blackpowder smoke billowed from the gun-line, swept up into the air by the swirling storm and dragged across the battlefield.
The enemy vanguard continued to advance into range, heedless of the power of the artillery. They were cut down in clumps, blasted apart by the sudden wrath of the heavy guns.
Heedless and undaunted, they came onwards, clambering over their fallen without pause. Like a massive pall of black fog, the enemy rolled across the plain, marching slowly, claiming more ruined ground with every step.
“Maintain fire!” ordered Volkmar, looking down at the enemy ranks. All along the ridge, men were poised to counter-attack. Soldiers fingered their weapons, sweat on their brows and ice in their heart. Minutes passed while the iron-belchers reloaded. The waiting was the worst part.
The cannons bellowed out again and a fresh cloud of blackpowder discharge tumbled down the slope. This time the barrage was laced with the scything fire of the Helblasters, slamming into the front ranks of the Army of the Stone and tearing open whole companies of marching troops. In their wake the fizzing trails of Helstorm rockets screamed, spinning into the sea of men and detonating with devastating effect. Limbs were torn free and armour shattered by the volleys as they thudded home, round after round of murderous power.
But Grosslich was no savage or raving maniac in his order of men, and he didn’t send his vanguard idly into harm’s way. After the advance had gone so far, they halted, halberds raised, and began to dig in. Spikes the length of a man were brought up from the heart of the host and rammed into the ground. Earthworks were raised and the ground behind them cleared. Under withering fire from the Imperial guns, the forces of Grosslich toiled with neither fear nor hurry. Whenever an exposed company was torn apart by a well-aimed salvo, another would take its place. The artillery barrage was costing them dear, but it couldn’t dislodge them.
Horns blared from the walls of the city, and the reason for their death-clogged advance became apparent. Huge engines of war, each forged in the hells of fire beneath the Tower, were dragged from the open gates by straining teams of mutated horses. Their wide mouths gaped twice as wide as the largest Imperial cannon. Each device was decorated with writhing bands of bronze and encased in a spiked cage of iron. Smoke poured from beneath them where furnaces had been stoked and fuelled to a flesh-blistering heat. Stone-slaves crawled all over them, polishing the bronze and adjusting the spider webs of pistons and valves even as the towering constructs were hauled towards the forward positions. As the line of guns ground on, each monstrous engine was flanked by whole companies of heavily armoured infantry, all covered in thick iron plate, their faces hidden behind masks in the form of leering beasts.
From the angle of those mighty barrels, it looked as if their range was less than the Imperial guns. What they lacked in distance, however, it was clear they made up for in power. As Volkmar gazed at the rumbling tide of death his eyes narrowed, calculating the distances and gauging the outcome of a volley.
“Target those embankments!” he roared, and the order went down through the ranks.
“We have to advance,” hissed Maljdir, his hands eager to clasp Bloodbringer. “Once those things—”
A fresh boom of cannon fire echoed across the battlefield, backed up with a hail of rockets. The gunnery crews weren’t fools, and had adjusted their aim to meet the new threat. One of the rumbling war machines was hit by a whole flurry of artillery fire. It cracked open, leaking green-tinged flames. The horrific structure listed for a moment, wracked by internal explosions, then blasted apart, showering the troops around it with white-hot metal shards.
A cheer went up from the watching Imperial forces, but it was short-lived. Other war machines were hit and suffered little, protected by their thick iron plating. More than a dozen still remained, all crawling into position, all aimed up at the ridge. The nearest drew up to the allotted positions, their bronze-lined maws grinning like hungry wolves.
Still Volkmar held back the charge.
“Magisters,” growled Volkmar, determined to delay the engagement until the last possible moment. “Destroy them.”
The Celestial wizards strode forwards, staffs crackling with sapphire lightning and their robes rippling from winds seen and unseen. Alonysius von Hettram, the senior battle wizard of the entire army, gave the Theogonist a proud look.
“It will be done,” he said, and the winds of magic began to race.
Bloch watched the column of fire grow as he rode west. The sight was enough to render him mute. He’d seen nothing like it in his life, and he’d done a lot of campaigning. The spectacle at Turgitz had been something, but the destruction of Averheim was on a whole different register of impressive.
Kraus was beside him as ever, riding a grey steed and keeping his mouth shut. The honour guard captain hadn’t liked what he’d heard about Schwarzhelm any more than Bloch had. The big man inspired near-fanatical loyalty from the fighting men close to him, and hearing of his actions at the Vormeisterplatz had made sobering listening.
Behind the two of them, Skarr’s army of infantry streamed out, marching in a semi-organised rabble. A rabble, that was, except for Bloch’s own halberdiers, who stuck to the well-drilled squares he’d insisted on. They’d keep their discipline even in the fires of hell.
Ahead of them rode the Reiksguard. Skarr hadn’t spoken much to Bloch since they’d exchanged their stories. He was still angry. Bloch couldn’t help but think the preceptor would have liked to punish him for Schwarzhelm’s alleged crimes just to make himself feel better. Typical high-born.
Despite it all though, he couldn’t entirely blame the preceptor. Bloch remembered the strain on Schwarzhelm’s face east of Heideck. His words had remained with him. Since arriving in Averland I’ve not felt myself. It’s been as if some force has turned against me, weighing down on my mind. The city is at the heart of it. It may be that Averheim is perilous for me.
Perhaps he’d been right about that. There was little else that could explain Skarr’s testimony. The few details Bloch had been able to add - Leitdorf’s treachery, the long process of legal divination, the Imperial armour on the greenskins—hadn’t really helped matters.
Even after the preceptor had allowed Bloch to accompany him to the rendezvous with Helborg, much still remained to be settled. The Reiksguard were suspicious, and their blood-oath against Schwarzhelm remained intact. Bloch found himself confronted with the terrible scenario of marching against his old master. For all he knew, Schwarzhelm had turned to darkness. He couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that, but the thought wouldn’t leave him alone.
“So is this what we drove the orcs out of Averland for?” muttered Kraus, staring sullenly at the distant red clouds.
Skarr’s column was little more than a day’s march from Averheim, summoned by Helborg’s orders of a muster. At the appointed location, Skarr’s two thousand troops would join up with Helborg’s three thousand. Not much of an army to take on the forces of the great enemy, especially as over three-quarters of them could barely point their sword in the right direction without being shown how.
“I’d rather have one enemy than two.”
Kraus shook his head irritably.
“I don’t believe it,” he said. “He hasn’t turned. And I won’t believe he made a mistake either.”
“You said yourself he was acting strangely.”
“The man’s commanded armies for thirty years. He’s no weakling.”
“Skarr never said he was. This is the great enemy.”
Kraus said nothing, and turned his eyes away from the angry sky. On the far horizon there came a low, grinding rumble, as if the earth were as troubled as the heavens above it.
“We should be glad we made it back here, Kraus,” said Bloch. “We’ve been part of this from the beginning. It’ll all be decided in Averheim, one way or the other. Couldn’t miss that.”
Kraus remained stubbornly quiet. Bloch looked up, watching the way the clouds were sucked across the sky into such a massive, slowly rotating spiral. He knew as well as anyone that their army couldn’t fight power of that magnitude, whether or not Helborg rode with them. Just more crazy Reiksguard heroism, a final fling of bravado before they all died.
That suited him. Fighting was what he’d been born for. It had to end some time or othe
r, and it might as well be against a decent enemy. All he’d need was a sign that the sacrifices had been worth something and he’d happily march into that storm of fire, halberd in his hand as always, searching for the next victim, doing what he’d been put on the earth to do.
Hettram was first to cast. Raising his hands high, he cried aloud, summoning the storm to his aid. His companion, barely out of his twenties and with a lean face, joined him, adding his raw power to that of his master.
Above the battlefield, the clouds swirled fast. The storm, already raging, accelerated into a frenzy of anger. Lightning slammed down from the boiling tumult above, immolating all it struck and sending fresh fires blazing up from the heart of the beleaguered city.
“Storm, unleash thy wrath!” roared Hettram, summoning fresh power from the elements.
Rain began to hammer down, whipped into flurries by the wind. It bounced from the streaming barrels of the war engines, fizzing and hissing. Bolts of silver fire scored the heavens, streaking and tearing into the lumbering hosts below.
Another of the war engines tilted over, hit by a thunderous blast from the skies and cracked down the length of its gaping muzzle. Still it was dragged on, listing in the mud, gouging a huge furrow as the horses strained against their chains. The beasts had been driven mad by whatever foul experiments had been performed on them, and they foamed against their halters, churning up the mire until it became a blood-coloured soup.
“We’re not stopping them,” muttered Maljdir, watching darkly as the rest of the guns were hauled into their firing positions.
The Imperial cannons roared out again, sending blackpowder plumes rolling into the heart of the maelstrom. More lightning slammed down on to the field, burning brightly as it plunged into the heart of Grosslich’s legions.
[Heroes 03] - Sword of Vengeance Page 30