Blighted Empire

by C. L. Werner

  ‘Thank you, your grace,’ Beck huffed, winded by the hard fight. He had barely drawn a breath before he was lunging forwards again, striking down an opportunistic ratkin that was leaping at Mandred’s back. The rodent fell in a pool of spilled entrails.

  The ebb of battle flowed away from the prince’s position. For a moment, he was able to gaze across the cavern, to appreciate the havoc that had been wrought against the skaven. Even as Mandred was feeling the glow of their accomplishment, he saw something that turned him sick inside.

  Kurgaz’s brother, that great champion with his fabulous warhammer, was beset by a mob of armoured ratmen. Black-furred brutes, they bore great halberds in their paws. While Drakdrazh struck one down, another slashed at Mirko, catching him in the back of the knee. The dwarf’s mail blunted the impact, but he staggered just the same. The blazing runes on the haft of his hammer flickered for a moment.

  In that moment, a huge white skaven wearing black armour lunged at Mirko, a sword clutched in either paw. The massive ratman brought both blades stabbing down, driving them with such force that they penetrated the mail between neck and shoulder. The monster put his full weight behind the stabbing blades, pushing them down until only the pommels projected from Mirko’s shoulders.

  The dwarf champion collapsed and Drakdrazh tumbled from his fingers. One of the black-furred skaven grabbed at the hammer, but before he could reach it his white-furred warlord lunged at him, tearing out his throat with gleaming fangs. Mandred’s view of the skaven warlord was obscured as the armoured skaven surged forwards to oppose the dwarfs seeking to avenge Mirko.

  Another surge of skaven swept towards Mandred’s forces, pushing them back and away from Mirko’s company. Kurgaz cursed and raged, throwing himself with reckless ferocity against the monsters. He’d heard the great wail set up by Mirko’s comrades. He knew his brother was dead.

  Mandred redoubled his own efforts, striving for every inch of ground. As the skaven began to give way, as they fell before the swords and spears of the Middenheimers, the prince kept an eye out for the white rat, dreading to see Drakdrazh blazing in the creature’s paws.

  ‘Your grace! Your grace!’ The cry came from a sweat-drenched man clad only in a linen tunic and woollen breeks. He pushed his way through the reserves behind the prince. Mandred shook his head at the man’s curious raiment. He didn’t look like one of his soldiers, which left the question of where he had come from.

  ‘Your grace!’ the man shouted again, his cry ringing over the fray. There were more words, but they were garbled in the clamour of battle. Something of their import must have impressed Beck, however. The knight pressed close to Mandred, fending off the prince’s foes so that he could disengage.

  Mandred fell back, listening with horror as the man’s words became clear. He was right, the man wasn’t a part of the army. He was a messenger from the surface. From Middenheim.

  ‘We are undone,’ the messenger cried. ‘Skaven are attacking the surface!’

  The report was like a cold knife sinking into the prince’s heart. Skaven on the surface! Skaven in Middenheim!

  ‘Your grace, what do we do?’ The question came from one of the commanders, a nobleman who had been fighting at the prince’s side.

  Grimly, Mandred turned back to the battle. ‘We fight on,’ he said. ‘We gave our word to help the dwarfs, we will not forsake them.’ He choked back the dread that made his voice falter. ‘If we can’t turn the enemy back here, we won’t be able to save our homes anyway.’

  Carroburg

  Mitterfruhl, 1115

  Plague ravaged Carroburg. Daily, from the towers and parapets, the denizens of Schloss Hohenbach could see the decimation of the city. Corpse-carts prowled the streets, bodies lay stacked in the gutters. White crosses were marked up on the doors of the afflicted, and even from the heights of the Otwinsstein the nobles could pick out the figures of plague doktors, their faces hidden behind their birdlike masks, making the rounds. The trickle of trade still braving the river to reach Carroburg vanished entirely, plunging the stricken populace even deeper into the grip of need and want.

  Within the castle, however, a much different world existed. Here the Black Plague held no dominion. Here there was no spectre of starvation, no threat of death and disease. Here there was only indulgence and luxury, the excesses of extravagance. All the vices the plunder of the Empire could buy were brought forth by its Emperor to impress upon his guests once and again the magnificence of his might and his wealth. To make them forget the horror that had become their salvation.

  It was a venture doomed to failure. What melody, what dance, what farce, what harmony, what delicacy, what eroticism could make a mind forget what had been done? Never could those who had partaken of the obscene inoculation drive that knowledge from their minds. Not the strongest spirit, not the most potent herb, not the most ardent lover could bring a moment’s respite. Yes, Emperor Boris had saved their lives, but their salvation was a tawdry thing, ever haunted by the thing Fleischauer had made.

  Emperor Boris brooded upon the problem, watching as the very thing he had hoped to stop was instead accelerated by the warlock’s magic. The great men of the Empire were growing to hate their Emperor, not because he couldn’t protect them but because he had.

  This inverted logic finally placed an idea in Boris’s cunning mind. The schemer who had played nobles and provinces against one another, who had ensured that no man was without some potent enemy only the Emperor could protect him from, now set his insidious intellect to this crisis. The answer that came to him was almost an epiphany. If he could not make his guests forget the cause of their good fortune, then he would compel them to embrace it!

  The great hall was lavishly adorned, draped with festive garlands and colourful banners. Priceless artworks by the old masters were placed upon the walls, and a band of the most skilled musicians Boris had commanded to the castle assembled at the far end of the chamber. Broad tables displaying poached quail eggs, broiled cormorant and dozens of other items of costly fare lined the other end of the hall. It was the last of the fresh food. After this night, they would have to endure the pickled and preserved stores. This night, however, indulgence was to be the rule.

  As the strains of a jaunty waltz rolled through the castle, the noble guests sauntered into the chamber, festooned in an opulence of frill and lace, each face hidden behind a feathered domino mask. Cloaked in the anonymity of their costumes, they entered the hall with a measure of bravado they might otherwise not have shown. Each feared to find accusation and recognition in the face of their peers – even more in the eyes of the thing itself. Wrapped in their disguises, however, they felt no such trepidation.

  Boris himself made small attempt to conceal his identity, striding into the hall dressed in a costume that affected the ostentatious regalia of the proscribed godling Vylmar, lord of debauchery and decadence. The small silk mask that covered his eyes did nothing to conceal the impish smile. Even the dullest mind couldn’t fail to recognise the griffon-headed walking stick with which he swaggered about the hall, for all had seen that item many times in Boris’s possession.

  The timid, quiet woman who accompanied Boris made a better effort at concealing her identity, but she was betrayed by the company she kept. It had been several weeks since the Emperor had devoted his attentions to anyone except Princess Erna.

  The Emperor made a single circuit of the hall, a gesture that had all the judgemental posturing of an inspection tour; then he turned his back upon his guests and stared directly at the thing that none of them dared acknowledge, the thing they could look at only with shy, quickly averted glances. Boldly, Boris defied the taboo his guests had agreed upon.

  The thing’s eyes were open, but there was no awareness in its gaze. A line of drool trickled from the corner of its toothless mouth, dripping down its breast to bathe one of the leeches fastened to its pallid flesh. The trunk of the thing wa
s inanimate, only the rise and fall of its chest indicating that it was alive at all.

  Brazenly, Boris walked up to the pedestal. From beneath the breast of his brocaded tunic, he brought forth a fold of gaudily coloured cloth adorned with tiny bells. While his shocked guests watched, Boris rose onto his toes, stretching to the utmost to set the fool’s cap onto the thing’s shaven head.

  Music fell silent, conversation died. The atmosphere in the great hall became charged with tension, a dreadful expectancy. All eyes were turned to the Emperor and the grotesque thing resting upon the pedestal.

  The shaven head tilted to one side, setting the little bells sewn to the cap jangling. In the silence, the tinkling note sounded like a peal of thunder.

  As the thing’s head rested against its shoulder and the bells were quiet once more, a boisterous laugh boomed. Emperor Boris pranced about the fearful apparition, genuflecting before it in mocking deference. With his antics, he demonstrated to his guests that the thing they feared was no ill omen, no token of damnation and guilt. It was simply an idiot thing to be made sport of, a mindless buffoon that could accuse no one and nothing of any sin.

  The Emperor’s laugh spread through the hall, at first half-heartedly echoed by his most spineless sycophants, but soon growing into genuine bursts of amusement. Into that laughter the nobles poured their relief, their last pangs of fleeing guilt. When the musicians again took up their instruments and sent the strains of a waltz flowing through the hall, the celebrants paired off, dancing through the hall, their opulent gowns and coats bustling and swirling around the pedestal and the drooling wreckage perched atop it. With each pass, the dancers jeered at the thing, pointing and laughing, letting their fear become contempt.

  Emperor Boris cast his gaze about the revellers, searching for Erna, intent upon joining the celebration. His guests thought they were applauding restored freedom, liberation from the mortal terror that had dominated them since Fleischauer’s ritual. In truth, they were enslaved by fetters far more insidious. The Emperor had led them from the shackles of their own conscience, had roused them to embrace the perversity that preserved them from the plague. He had led, and they had followed. So it would always be.

  His eyes hardened behind his silk mask as he found Erna near the door leading to the Sigmarite chapel. The princess had distanced herself from the throng, was keeping away from the revelry. Her mask couldn’t hide her almost pious disdain for the scene. Here, Boris knew, was one who hadn’t followed him, who refused to follow him.

  Seated beside Erna was the besotted ruin of Doktor Moschner, dressed in the deerskin of a Thuringian druid, his mask cast aside so that he might partake more liberally from the jar of wine resting beside him. The physician looked up when he saw his Emperor approaching. He tried to rise, to bow before his master, but liquor had already weakened his legs and he instead slumped back in his seat.

  ‘You are a disgrace,’ Boris snarled at Moschner. ‘We should have you removed from the castle.’

  Moschner blinked up at Boris, a flicker of awful hope passing through his eyes. ‘Would you? Can I leave, Your Majesty?’ He waved his hand at the dancers, trying to point a finger at the thing on the pedestal. ‘You don’t need me. You don’t need a doktor. You don’t need medicine!’ He slumped over, as though his bones had suddenly turned to jelly. ‘You have magic to preserve you...’ The last words were drawn from him in a low sob.

  Boris glared down at the physician. He’d come to confront Erna, but where he might be prepared to indulge her defiance, he would brook none from Moschner. ‘You’ll be cast out,’ he vowed. ‘Dumped over the wall and left to fend with the rest of the peasant rabble.’

  ‘Please, he is drunk. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.’ Erna caught at the Emperor’s arm. All that pious disdain was gone now, unseated by raw panic.

  ‘A drunk man speaks the truth in his heart,’ Boris told her in a cold voice, reciting a bit of wisdom disseminated by the god whose raiment he wore. ‘He speaks treason against Us and will be punished.’

  Erna’s grip on Boris’s arm tightened. She turned him around so that he again faced the crowd, could see them dancing and jeering. ‘You don’t need to. Can’t you see that you’ve already won?’

  The Emperor stared into her eyes and when he spoke, his words were sombre. ‘Have We? We came over here to ask why you do not dance, why you do not share the cheer We have demanded from Our subjects.’

  The princess withdrew her arm, recoiling from the tone in Boris’s voice. ‘I cannot…’

  ‘You defy Us openly,’ Boris accused. ‘You set a poor example for the others. Why We permit this, We do not know, but it ends now. It ends here.’

  The colour drained from Erna as she appreciated what it was that the Emperor commanded. ‘You won’t punish the doktor?’ she asked.

  Boris reached out, took her hand in his and led her towards the revellers. ‘We will spare him. He is a peasant. Nobody cares about peasants,’ he added with a cruel chuckle.

  The celebrants parted as the Emperor and Erna danced about the hall, watching as their sovereign led his companion in a graceful pirouette. Again and again, they circled the pedestal, drawing near to the idiot thing. At each pass, Erna felt her skin crawl, her soul sicken. Boris saw her revulsion, smiled at the power it implied. He had at last broken her to his will. Even this bulwark had crumbled before his siege.

  In the course of one of their passes, with a deft flourish of his hand, Boris plucked a bloated leech from the tattooed thigh and presented the parasite to Erna. ‘A pill to preserve the doktor’s health,’ he whispered to her.

  Erna could feel everyone watching her as she took the foulness from Boris’s hand. Quickly, before she could think about what she was doing, she put the leech in her mouth.

  Laughter rippled through the hall. Emperor Boris had displayed to his guests that no one could resist his authority. Within the castle, he was absolute. Neither men nor women nor the gods themselves could defy him.

  Long into the night, the music of the waltz echoed through the castle. Strains of melody drifted down from the Otwinsstein, rolling down from the hill into the desolate streets of Carroburg.

  There were few in the plague-blighted ruins to hear the revelry.

  Even fewer who listened did so with human ears.

  Chapter XVIII

  Altdorf

  Kaldezeit, 1114

  Sythar Doom gnashed his fangs, sending blue sparks flitting across the massed warpguard surrounding him. A few of the skaven spun around, baring their teeth at whatever had singed their fur. Their ire wilted when they saw it was the Grey Lord himself who had burned them. The hulking warriors cringed, hurriedly returning their attention to the verminous throng surging through the narrow street ahead.

  The Warpmaster of Clan Skryre lashed his tail angrily, the hairless appendage whipping across the scarred pelts of the mute, lobotomised slaves who carried his palanquin. The slaves were perfectly matched for size, limbs elongated or cropped when the creatures had been mere whelps. The arms that gripped the runners supporting the palanquin were massive, burly things, swollen to monstrous proportions through injections of warpstone dust. The other arms, superfluous to the only labour demanded of the litter bearers, were absent entirely, amputated in the name of nutritional efficiency.

  One day, Sythar Doom vowed, Clan Skryre would remake all of skavendom as he had remade his slaves. They would cast down the old superstitions and foolishness that had retarded skaven development for thousands of years. Reason, the cold brilliance of intellect and imagination, would become the new foundation of the Under-Empire. Beneath the leadership of the Warpmaster, the old clan systems would be abolished. All skaven would belong to a single nest. The thinkers of Clan Skryre would oversee the breeding pits, use spells and potions to reshape the pups as they were forming in the wombs of their brood-mothers. They would create strains of brilliant, intellectual skav
en to further the arcane technology that would make the ratmen masters of the world. They would make strong, fierce skaven to serve as warriors for the new order, being careful to strip them of those mental processes that would lead to ambition or defiance. They would bring into being a pliable underclass of workers, docile and subservient, devoid of even the capability to rebel.

  It would be a glorious day, a day when Sythar Doom, Grey Lord and He Who Is Sixth, wasn’t scratching his fleas while two packs of miserable clanrats argued over which of them had prevalence at a crossroads!

  Treachery! That was the first thought that crept into Sythar Doom’s mind. General Twych or Grey Seer Pakritt was behind this, unless of course it was some intrigue set into motion by the late and unlamented Deacon Blistrr. The battle for the man-thing nest-city called for the destruction of their chief temple. Once that was destroyed, the man-things would be a broken rabble utterly at the mercy of their conquerors. The skaven who commanded the attack on the temple would be the victor, acclaimed by the Grey Lords and Arch-Tyrant Vecteek.

  That triumphant leader would have to be Sythar Doom. Anything less was an outrage!

  ‘Burn them clear,’ Sythar snarled at the captain of his warpguard. The hulking ratman bobbed his head in acknowledgement, and scurried off to growl orders at the rest of the Clan Skryre strike force. In short order, the warpguard were scrambling clear, making way for the fire-throwers. Gigantic casks of worm-oil mixed with warpstone, the wheeled contraptions were dragged forwards by a small army of scrawny slaves. Warp-engineers dressed in oilskins scurried about the arcane controls, throwing levers and pushing buttons, urging the volatile liquid to flow through ratgut pipes and bat-bone tubes. At the fore of each wagon-like barrel-cart, a villainous ratman clothed from snout to tail in wormskin coveralls twisted open the nozzle of a thick hose.