Stefan rated the chances of success as slim at best.
“All right,” he called out. “Let the girl come over here and I’ll give you what you want.”
“The Star,” the pock-faced man repeated. “First the Star, then you can have the girl.”
“Tomas,” Stefan said. “Give our friend here what he asks for.” Tomas looked momentarily blank, then, after a few seconds’ hesitation made a show of fumbling in the pockets of his breeches and shirt. “Here somewhere,” he said. “Sure it’s here somewhere.”
Stefan was directing his focus on the leader. If he could get close enough before the guards on either flank moved against him, he might be able to get one clean strike. They might not win the day, but their deaths would not be without a price.
Varik’s patience was reaching an end. It would have been easier to retrieve the Star of Erengrad before they put the woman and her escort to the sword, but if they had to tear the tombs apart to find it, so be it. The Star would be his, before or after the Kislevite and her friends met their doom. He would not tolerate being made a fool of by this callow mercenary and his followers. The emissary tightened the grip upon the knife in Haarland Krug’s leathery hand. The girl was as good as useless to him now. He may as well start the work of slaughter there.
Lisette writhed and whimpered in his arms, begging for her life to be spared.
“You promised me,” she screamed at Varik. “You promised you would set me free.”
“So I did,” the emissary concurred. “Never let it be said I failed to honour a promise.”
In a single motion he drew the blade of the knife back across the exposed flesh of the girl’s throat. Lisette’s dying scream echoed through the chamber as her body crumpled upon the ground.
Varik had already forgotten the girl. He was fixing his attention upon the swordsman they called Stefan. Here, he knew, the real threat lay. The emissary focused all of his energy like a single beam of light into the mind of Haarland Krug. The miller’s normally feeble brain was racing at a speed that would have defeated all but the quickest-witted of men. Stefan moved fast, but for Varik it was like watching events unfold in slow motion. He drew his own sword, relishing the combat to come. He was going to enjoy this.
In the moment before their swords met, a sudden commotion somewhere in the passage behind distracted him. Simultaneously, Varik registered irritation, panic and alarm. One of his men emerged from the darkness, clutching at his side.
The emissary had just enough time to see the crossbow bolt protruding from the man’s flank. Just enough time to notice the second figure, further down the corridor in the gloom, leveling the weapon at him.
Steel rang upon steel as Stefan Kumansky’s sword drove against his own with a force that Varik would scarcely have believed possible. In the fractured second that his host body toppled backwards, the emissary saw his second assailant level the bow and curl one finger around its trigger. Time enough for him to remember that this should not be happening. That they had trapped all their enemies below ground, and set a watch above. Time enough to realise that the bolt now spinning in the air between them had been launched with unerring aim.
The view of the crossbow bolt racing in was the final image ever to pass through the mind of Haarland Krug.
Werner Schlagfurst lay face down in the filth of blood and soiled earth. He was cold, wet, and confused beyond all comprehension. A few futile attempts to stand or even move his prostrate body along the ground told him that he was badly wounded, though shock was numbing most of the pain. Even as he tried to ask questions of his own memory, the answers relating to events of only minutes ago seemed to flee from him. He no longer even remembered who he was, or had been.
Images crowded into crumbling thoughts like soldiers marching in and out of a fog. He remembered himself as a warrior of some kind, a killer of men. Remembered how good that had felt. Remembered a leader that he had followed, and an image of himself in a bar brawl flitted through his thoughts. He remembered waiting, being told to wait with the others, somewhere near where he found himself now. That had been frustrating, hadn’t it? Waiting, not killing? But the leader had commanded it. Werner was to be a guard now.
Most clearly of all Werner remembered the daemon who had come, the daemon in the shape of a man. The daemon had fallen upon them like a remorseless machine, its only purpose to kill or be killed. Werner had enjoyed that at first, until he realised that the man-daemon was more than a match for all of them.
He watched them die, those strangers who were also his comrades, falling one after another beneath the red-dripping blade of this merciless enemy. And then it had been his turn. He was the only one left to guard—to guard—Werner struggled and failed to remember what it was he had been guarding. He had fought hard; he had no other thought but to fight. But it was never going to be enough.
A face swam into view in Werner’s fading memory. The face of the man who had struck him down. He had bent low over Werner to claim the crossbow that he had been carrying. Snatch it away from him as though he were a baby.
The face that held nothing but contempt for him, and the dark eyes that shone with a lust for battle that easily outshone his own.
Werner had no idea who the man had been, or why they had been attacked. A few minutes after the daemon had left him lying in the mud, something else had happened to Werner. It was as if a light had suddenly been snuffed out, and all reason and purpose channeling his being vanished.
Of one thing, at least, Werner Schlagfurst could be fairly sure. Soon he was going to die.
Varik was dying, too. It was not an experience he had ever expected to become familiar with. Over the course of lifetimes in the service of his lord he had perfected the art of evading death, fleeing from the failing body of one human host into another at the moment of dissolution. Many times he had mocked the heralds of Morr, turning back from their dread portals at the moment of final reckoning. He had come to consider himself immortal.
But, this time, he had left it too late. Long before Haarland Krug’s clumsy frame had crashed finally upon the hard ground, he should have fled, sought sanctuary in one or other of his servants gathered round him. But the attack had come too quickly. Varik had focused his whole being upon the destruction of Stefan Kumansky. He had not considered for a moment that another, equal threat might lurk behind him. Filtered through the consciousness of Krug, his mind had a fleeting instant to register the mocking smile on the face of his second assailant. Then Kumansky’s sword had crashed down upon him like a mighty hammer and, as he turned his surrogate face away, the crossbow bolt had struck, piercing him through the heart.
Varik lay upon the cold floor of the tombs, blood pouring in a red tide from the wound. The light was fading; it was as though he was drifting away into the mouth of a dark tunnel.
With what remained of his mortal sight, Varik stared up at the two men standing above him. The cursed Kumansky, leaning arrogantly upon his sword, and the smiling assassin with the crossbow.
“This one’s dead,” Varik heard him say to Kumansky.
Dead. The word reverberated through Varik’s disintegrating thoughts like the taunting laughter of the gods.
Dead.
It could not be. This couldn’t happen. With what strength yet remained to him, Varik channeled every ounce of his being into breaking free of his host. He would be revenged upon them, he would be revenged.
But the physical limitations of Haarland Krug’s dying body were lying heavy upon him now, weighing him down like chains. The gateway to the outer world was closing. He was barely capable of thinking any longer.
Lord Kyros, he beseeched. Do not desert your servant now.
Stefan looked round at the scene inside the tombs with a mixture of bewilderment and relief. With their leader fallen, the rest of the Scarandar had lost all interest in the fight. Some slumped to the floor, seemingly stripped of all energy. Others wandered around as though unable to remember why they were there. Or eve
n who they were.
Looking down upon the figure lying on the ground, Stefan suddenly felt very tired. He raised his sword once more then lowered it to the ground and rested the weight of his body upon it. For a while he simply stood there, watching.
“This one’s dead,” a voice next to him said. “The rest of them will be easy meat now.”
Stefan turned to look into the glittering eyes of Alexei Zucharov. In contrast, his appetite for battle seemed barely whetted. Then again, Stefan noted with some bitterness, he hadn’t already had to fight off the army of the undead.
“Leave them,” Stefan said at last. “They’re no threat to us like this. We won’t waste any more time on them.”
“They’re the scum of Chaos,” Alexei retorted. “Impotent or not, they should be cleansed from the face of the world.”
“Not now,” Stefan told him. “We have to get out.” Weariness was pouring over him. He doubted he had the strength to fight on. “What happened to you?” he demanded of Zucharov. “We could have done with you down here.”
“I wasn’t of a mind to run and hide,” Alexei replied. “I decided to stay above ground where I had room to swing my sword. Anyway—” he grabbed the hair on the dead man’s head and twisted the body round, exposing the bloodied stock of the crossbow bolt still embedded in the chest of Haarland Krug. “I reckon I’ve played my part down here, don’t you?”
“I’m not arguing with you,” Stefan persisted. “But if we’re going to come through this then we have to work together, not follow our own whims.” He saw Zucharov’s face darken, and realised that exhaustion was drawing him into a quarrel that he neither needed nor wanted. Suddenly another voice cut across them.
“Both of you,” Elena shouted. “Shut up.” Her face was drawn and stained with tears, but there was a hard edge to her voice that made both men step back and listen.
“There are good times to have arguments,” she said, “and there are bad times. This is a bad time. A very bad time.” She moved towards Alexei and, to his obvious surprise, put her arms around him and kissed him once. “We’re glad you found us,” she said. “Very glad. And, now that we have, we need to get out. We need to leave, and leave now.”
“I’ll second that,” Tomas said.
“It makes sense to go while we have the chance,” Bruno concurred. Stefan looked around at the four of them. He paused at Alexei, waiting for any word of dissent he might have to offer. Zucharov shrugged in a way that suggested the argument was set aside, but not necessarily forgotten. He slung the crossbow back over one arm.
“We’re agreed then,” Stefan said. “There’s still a few good hours in the night yet. Let’s put as much distance as possible between Middenheim and us before the sun lights the new day.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Holding On
From amidst the endless wastes of grey eternity, Lord Kyros looked down upon the narrow span of light that marked the mortal world. A part of Kyros, too, had once been mortal; one human life fused in the myriad soul of the mighty being that Tzeentch had created as his champion.
Kyros had no feeling for humankind. No feeling for those, like the Scarandar, who served his purpose, nor for those who would oppose it. All of them were but pawns, flesh figurines on the chequered board upon which the struggle between light and dark raged, a war without end.
Kyros had no doubt that victory would finally be his. But, for now, he tasted disappointment. Varik had disappointed him; his promise to destroy the Kislevite and secure the icons had proved hollow. While the Star remained outside his grasp, Erengrad might yet hold out. Kyros savoured the stirring of anger for an instant, then cast it from him, a disposable and unnecessary weakness.
He had watched Varik through the throes of his death, an unexpected transformation for the servant who had believed himself as immortal as his master.
Death would be a just reward for his emissary’s failure. Kyros could let him die, or he could yet free his spirit to serve him anew. The seconds of Varik’s death agonies spanned hours or days in Kyros’ universe. All in good time, he would decide upon his disciple’s fate.
Like a blind man, the Chaos Lord sensed rather than saw the events unfolding in the corporeal universe; smelt the ebb and flow of the energies as the struggle turned first one way and then the other. He knew that the girl had escaped him for the moment. Varik had underestimated the Kislevite. Underestimated, too, the pack of mercenaries, and the proud defiance of their leader.
Kyros peered deep into the fabric of the mortal void, trying to pluck a face or name from the clamour below. Somewhere, the paths of their destinies had crossed before. An image swam into focus: a village in flames, a boy fighting with unexpected savagery. Kislev, the sea crashing against its coastline. And a name: Odensk.
Odensk. Memory flowered inside the being that was Kyros. With it came a cruel pleasure. So the Kislevite was on her way to Erengrad in the company of the boy from Odensk. That would be the right place for them to die. As for the others that rode with them—Kyros savoured a deepening sense of pleasure, and knew that his god was smiling upon him. Yes, for the others, many futures lay in wait. And, upon one of them at least, the Lord of Change would bestow a special gift. A special gift indeed.
Petr Illyich Kuragin had walked until his body and soul had wearied of walking. All morning he had traversed the streets and alleyways of Erengrad, surveying the great edifices and monuments of a city rich with glorious memories. Those memories only mocked him now. The walls of Erengrad, like the hopes he still clung to, were crumbling. Its foundations were rotting away. And its people—sick, hungry and divided in despair—were dying.
Kuragin recalled the day, so many years ago, when he had toured the grand avenues of the city in an open carriage, flanked by his brothers in their finery. Three brothers, barely more than boys, fearless guardians of a dynasty that would last forever. He could still hear the cheering of the crowds that lined the streets, smell the sweet perfume in the blooms strewn along their path.
Now his brothers would lie forever beneath the cold fields of Praag, and he skulked amongst thieves and starving waifs, anonymous in his dung-coloured robes. He hid his face away behind a heavy cowl, avoiding their gaze like a fugitive. The people would not cheer for him now.
At Praag the dark ones had launched attack after murderous attack upon the unyielding walls until the dead were piled high both sides of the divide, and the Lynsk was gorged with blood. Petr Kuragin remembered the time only as a shadow, indelible, upon his childhood. His brothers, Yuri and Alexander, had been barely more than children themselves. But they had been old enough to fight, and old enough to die. The forces of Chaos had paid their price there, too, but they had learnt the lessons of Praag.
In Erengrad the assault had taken a different form. Chaos had laid its siege not with arms, but by sowing the seeds of malevolent change across the city, slowly choking off its lifeblood until its heart would surely fail.
Beyond the city walls to the south, the fields of wheat and barley stretched out to the horizon. Summer would soon approach its peak; the fields, the bountiful larders of western Kislev, should have been brim-full. Instead they had been laid bare, filled only with blight and pestilence. The few crops that had survived lay rotting in the ground.
Inside the walls, the extent of the blight was scarcely less devastating. With a bitterness that bordered on self-disgust, Kuragin acknowledged the guilt that he and his kinsmen must bear. For it was not only the meddlings of Chaos that had brought the city to this forsaken pass. His own family had contributed to the fall. Pride, greed, and simple vanity had brought them down—that and a simmering feud with a family with a shared but opposing thirst for the trappings of power. His family had learnt their humility, just as the Yevschenkos had learnt theirs. But, like all lessons, it had come at a cost. And this time the cost had fallen on the head of every soul within the city.
Every day that passed brought fresh rumours that Erengrad would be saved. Wheresoev
er Chaos blighted the land, so there came those who would oppose it. Stories were rife of convoys travelling from Praag and Kislev, of wagons groaning beneath the weight of food they carried west. But Praag and Kislev were still weak from the ravages of war, and any promise of help from the Empire seemed distant and weak. The Old Alliance, Kuragin feared, was at risk of falling apart. And even if they came, there was no guarantee that Erengrad would be able to hold together for long enough.
Even time, perhaps, was now on the side of Chaos. How often had it been said that Father Winter would come to Kislev’s aid in times of peril? No creature, it was said, not even the foulest incarnation of the Dark Lords themselves, could survive that bitter season. But, this time, it was different. The people might survive the months of summer, only for cruel winter to finally destroy them. Sick and malnourished, they would die in their thousands.
Could there really still be a chance that the wounds of Erengrad could be healed? Walking the stinking streets of the lower city, listening to the weeping of the people, Kuragin found it hard to believe. Harder still to believe in the healing power of three broken pieces of beaten silver, and a girl who might even now be lying dead, far away from the borders of Kislev.
In the last week alone, more than a dozen city militia had perished protecting the city from rioters. It was a sign that the enemy within was becoming as much a force to be reckoned with as any that might threaten from without. Or perhaps, he reflected darkly, those enemies were now one and the same.
Kuragin moved on, trying to lift his sombre spirits. A crowd had gathered around some spectacle or other at the foot of the hill. Petr Illyich Kuragin quickened his pace, resolved to determine what it might be.
Stefan extended the spyglass and scanned the length of the tree-lined valley they had recently crossed. Elena watched him in silence for a few moments, then reached for the spyglass and pulled it away.
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