Swords of the Emperor

by Chris Wraight

  Lassus nodded and took another sip of wine. “Of course. You’re right. This is much to take in, though. Very much to take in.”

  He looked up at Schwarzhelm.

  “I’m sure you did the right thing, Ludwig. You’ve been vindicated by Grosslich’s election. You were there. You saw his actions. You saw the message on the parchment. The evidence was before you.”

  Schwarzhelm took some comfort from that.

  “Indeed,” he said. “Those were the things that I—”

  He stopped.

  “What parchment?”

  “You said it yourself. On the road to Averheim.”

  “I said no such thing.” Lassus frowned.

  “I’m sure you mentioned it. That was the thing that finally confirmed your suspicions, was it not? That’s what you told me.”

  Schwarzhelm felt a sudden chill strike at his heart. He didn’t want to believe it. He couldn’t believe it.

  “I’ve not told you of it,” he said, feeling a mounting wave of dread within him. He felt like being sick. “I’ve not told anyone of it. Even Verstohlen.”

  Lassus seemed suddenly nervous. He let out a weak laugh. “Well perhaps I did hear from somewhere else. I’m not as young as I used to be. Sometimes I forget.”

  Schwarzhelm rose from his seat. His hand crept down to the hilt of the Rechtstahl.

  “How could you know that, master?”

  Lassus looked scared.

  “Sit down, Ludwig,” he snapped. “Don’t tower over me like that in my own house. What are you doing?”

  “How could you possibly know that?” He suddenly remembered Verstohlen’s discovery of the letters. Weeks ago. Messages have been sent from the castle to Altdorf. It’s been going on for some time. Lassus tried to rise in turn, but his hands were now shaking uncontrollably.

  “I think you’d better leave.”

  Schwarzhelm felt his confusion begin to crystallise into anger. “It was you. Of all the horrors. By Sigmar, it was you.”

  Then Lassus’ face stretched into a snarl. “Don’t be stupid, Ludwig. I’ve known you since you were a boy! Sit down!”

  Schwarzhelm drew the Rechtstahl. The blade slipped from the scabbard easily. As the sword flew out, the steel hummed. The spirit of the weapon was roused. It thirsted.

  Lassus staggered back, knocking over his wine. At the sight of the sword his eyes went wide with fear.

  “What are you going to do? Kill me? Have you lost your mind?”

  Schwarzhelm felt a dark clarity come over him. Though the man made him sick to the pit of his stomach, killing Lassus would solve nothing. There were mysteries here still. The secrets had not been uncovered.

  “Kill you?” he said, his voice like scraped steel. “No. You’ll come with me. You know what’s been happening here. Your secrets will be wrung from you. Every last one of them. I will find out what happened in Averheim.”

  At that, Lassus seemed to lose control of himself. His fingers flew to his neck, scraping at his windpipe. He let out a shriek of horror. The dry skin began to crack at the edges of his mouth. He tried to clamber past the chair, out in the hallway beyond.

  He was too slow. Schwarzhelm grabbed his cloak with his left hand. It felt like his fingers had closed on a sack of bones.

  “Don’t do this,” begged Lassus. There were tears of fear in his eyes. “Kill me if you must, but do not make me talk!”

  Schwarzhelm loomed over him, digging his fingers into the frail old man’s shoulder. “Why not?” he hissed. He was angry enough to kill him. It would be better than he deserved, but the truth was more valuable even than vengeance.

  For a moment, Lassus stared back at him, lips trembling. His whole body had started shaking. He was in mortal terror.

  “She won’t let me talk! She won’t permit it!”

  Schwarzhelm let the wretched figure drop to the floor.

  “What do you mean? Who are you talking about?”

  But the truth was already becoming apparent. Under Lassus’ loose robes, a transformation was taking place. Whatever information he possessed, his dark patron wasn’t about to let him divulge it.

  Schwarzhelm backed away. He’d seen this happen before. He brought his sword up, ready to strike.

  Too late. With a shudder, Lassus’ cloak shrunk back on itself. The fabric sucked inwards, like water running down a drain.

  Then it exploded. Fragments of cloth spun out in all directions, ripped apart by the detonation at their core.

  Beneath the shredded fabric, Lassus had disappeared. In his place, an obscene ball of pulsing flesh had appeared. With breathtaking speed, the orb began to change. Growths shot out in different directions, latching on to objects and sucking them into the growing mass. Jaws opened, lined with mucus, then snapped shut and sank beneath the fleshy folds around them. Limbs burst out, wrapping themselves around furniture before snapping off and wriggling blindly back to their origin.

  The spawn began to grow. A vast maw, ringed with pin-sharp teeth, opened up in its midriff. Eyes popped out all around it, hundreds of them. They glowed purple. The flesh around them was as white as teeth and ink-dark veins throbbed under the surface.

  Lassus had gone. His mistake had been a costly one.

  Schwarzhelm pulled the Rechtstahl back, preparing the strike. It was hard to know what to aim for.

  “Do not cut me!” cried the spawn. The voice was like Lassus’. It sounded as if he was still there, buried deep within the flexing glands.

  Schwarzhelm ignored the pleas. There was nothing he could have done to save him even if he’d wanted to. And he didn’t want to.

  The Sword of Justice arced downwards. As it bit into the mutating flesh, a foul stench burst from the bulging sacs. Sharp musk spurted into the air, splattering against the walls.

  The spawn screamed. Tentacles, each laced with purple barbs, shot out from the heart of the maw. They latched on to Schwarzhelm’s clothes, clutching and binding. He swung round, tearing them free, slicing the hooks from his leather jerkin and cloak.

  “You killed Helborg!” screamed the spawn from mouths that rapidly formed and then closed again. “You killed him, Schwarzhelm!”

  Schwarzhelm ploughed towards the heart of the tentacle swarm, hacking each one down as it snaked towards him. For every barb that was cut down, two more shot out, aiming for his eyes, his throat, his fingers.

  Schwarzhelm held his ground, letting the sword find its path through the flailing lengths of extended flesh. He had to keep calm. The thoughts rushing through his head weren’t helping. This was no longer the Lassus he knew. Perhaps that man had died long ago. All that lay before him was a twisted amalgam of dark magic and ruined matter.

  The contest continued for some time, but then the swarm abated. One by one, the tendrils fell to the ground, either severed or withdrawn. The orb of flesh remained, shivering and weeping. The maw was there too, surrounded by eyes. As it drooled, the pupils popped in and out.

  “Very good,” mocked the voice. It sounded scraped and warped, as if the vocal cords within were undergoing radical rearrangement. “You’ve been taught well.”

  Schwarzhelm ignored the taunts.

  “Why?” he said, keeping the blade high, watching the remaining tentacles as they slithered across the floor.

  “Who are you asking? Heinrich Lassus? He’s in here. But not much of him. His soul has been taken to another place.”

  “But you know why he did it.”

  “Of course. I know many things.”

  “Who are you?”

  The maw expanded rapidly, and a choking sound slopped out of it. The flesh flapped and fresh eyes burst out across the moving skein. That might have been something like a laugh.

  “You know who I am. I’ve been in your dreams for weeks. Your mind is an interesting one, Schwarzhelm. So full of anger. If you knew the damage those emotions caused, I doubt you would think so highly of yourself.”

  Schwarzhelm began to advance once again. He knew not to lis
ten to the ravings of a spawn. Perhaps the speaker was a fracture of Lassus’ consciousness. Or maybe something worse. Whatever it was, only a fool listened to the blandishments of Chaos.

  “I will discover the truth behind this,” he said, choosing his moment to attack with care. The spawn, seeing the blade come nearer, withdrew in on itself again.

  “Be careful what you wish for. The truth can help you, or it can drive you mad. Which do you want?”

  “Neither. I wish to uphold the law.”

  “As you did in Averheim, then! I look forward to mocking your failure. Just as you have done already. Helborg is dead, and his soul is in torment. You have ruined Averland, Emperor’s Champion. Soon daemons will roost in the eaves of the Averburg and the streets will be lined with screams. This is all your doing. You were our instrument. You were our tool! Hail, herald of Chaos! The Lord of Pleasure salutes you!”

  That was enough. Schwarzhelm let rip at last, swinging the Rechtstahl with ferocious abandon. Ignoring the fresh tentacles sent darting in his direction, he hacked and thrashed at the disgusting bag of slime and sinew. The blade rose and fell with astonishing speed and power. There was no pretence at precision, no semblance of control. Like a farmer with the grain flails, he surged through the spawn’s defences, cutting down everything that reached for him.

  As the blade carved through the gelatinous surface of the orb, the maw split in several pieces. One mouth let out an unearthly screaming. The others grew spine-like fangs and snapped at him.

  Schwarzhelm went straight for the mouths, plunging the sword into each one in turn. Blood the colour of sapphires and garnets spurted out, drenching his hands and chest. Where it touched naked skin it burned like hot wax. He ignored it.

  The spawn began to weaken. Its vital essence sluiced across the floor, splashing up against the walls. What little coherence it possessed began to dissipate. Schwarzhelm didn’t relent. He whirled the sword in tighter circles, cutting through the trembling miasma. He was soaked in foul-smelling fluid. The tentacle barbs had lefts welts on his hands and neck. His exposed flesh was scored with pinpricks from where the teeth had bitten.

  All were superficial wounds. None of them mattered. Soon the spawn could no longer muster even token attacks. Its flesh slopped from the edge of the Rechtstahl like slurry. The eyes went dark, hard and rolled across the floor like marbles. The screaming subsided to a whimper.

  In the end, all that remained amid the pools of liquid was a quivering pile of semi-transparent muscles and sinew. Twisted blood vessels curved around a mockery of a heart. There were a few tufts of human hair and what might once have been a voicebox. All of it was distorted and perverted. Even as Schwarzhelm watched, the pathetic creature tried to mutate further, to shape itself into some kind of viable form. It looked like it was trying to speak again. The voicebox trembled, and new sinews formed on its outer reaches. Something like a fluted mouth began to emerge.

  Schwarzhelm raised the Sword of Justice a final time. The edge glinted. He plunged the tip down. It pierced the heart. The remainder of what had been the spawn burst open. In the centre of the pools of plasma and fluid lay a single object. Lassus’ Star of Sigmar. The small iron token lay amid the filth like a mockery.

  Ignoring the stench, Schwarzhelm picked it up and cleaned the slime from its surface. He looked down at the reeking mire contemptuously.

  “For the Lassus I knew,” he said.

  There was no time for either anger or mourning. Schwarzhelm’s mind worked quickly. A clarity had descended over him. There were things he had to do.

  He retrieved the decanter of wine from where it lay, still intact and half-full. He poured the contents over the jellied remains of the spawn. He didn’t think of Helborg. To do so now would be fatal. The time for remorse would come later. He left the room, heading for the chamber on the next floor.

  Schwarzhelm swept through the narrow house, uprooting chests, emptying boxes, lifting up floorboards. As he did so, the remains of the spawn gurgled in isolation. The fluids ran between the cracks in the floor, seeping into the rugs, pooling in the dark places under the finery.

  Eventually, after much searching, Schwarzhelm took only one item from its place. An old iron key, found in a rosewood box under Lassus’ austere single bed. Perhaps it meant nothing. Perhaps it didn’t. There was nothing else of any note.

  With that done, he returned to the lower chamber. Everything was as he’d left it. The spawn continued to gurgle. Slowly, unbelievably, some of the liquids were beginning to coalesce again. Schwarzhelm took a flint and struck a spark on to the oily pool of wine and plasma. The mixture kindled immediately, throwing off a strong scent of jasmine.

  Schwarzhelm didn’t wait to see the results. Making sure he had the Star of Sigmar and the key with him, he turned on his heel and walked from the room. Behind him the flames caught quickly. On the edge of hearing, he thought he could hear the ghost of screams, an old man crying out in agony.

  He kept walking. As he left the house, smoke began to curl from the upper window.

  Schwarzhelm passed from the General’s Quarter and headed for the river. A kind of cold resignation had seized him. The guilt was finally rushing back. He saw Helborg’s face. Why are you doing this, Ludwig?

  Because of the deception. Because the great enemy clouded all things.

  Because they’d known how to exploit the jealousy that lay there already, untouched, ready to be used.

  He reached the river. The water was thick, grey and fast moving. Rain whipped at the surface, mottling the surface scum into foam. Far out, industrial barges plied their heavy trade. On the other side, half-lost in the haze of rain and smoke, factories rose into the air. Their brown smoke rose into the polluted air, adding to the stain of the elements. Everything was tainted, old, tired.

  His emotions surged through him, as fluid as the spawn’s flesh. It had been Lassus, not Helborg. Lassus.

  Schwarzhelm stared into the water for a long time. The brown water stared back. The torrent was heavy, bolstered by the storms upriver. He wouldn’t last long. Not even he, the Emperor’s Champion, defender of the Empire, mightiest general of the Old World. His heavy jerkin would drag him down. The silt would clog his lungs.

  He carried on staring. The quayside was deserted. A chill wind, laced with rain, gusted at his coat.

  Then his hands slipped to the pommel of the Sword of Justice. His fingers closed around the hilt. He drew it. The metal glinted grey in the filthy light. The insignia of the comet glistened along the long blade.

  It was ancient. It had been wielded long before he’d been born. It would be carried on to the field of battle long after he’d gone. His only task was to be a good steward, to carry it faithfully in the time allotted to him.

  Schwarzhelm drew the steel surface closer to him. He could see his reflection looking back at him. His expression was savage. The lines of loss were still vivid. All those he’d been close to had gone. He’d been wrong. He had failed. He was alone.

  So be it.

  He sheathed the sword once more. With a final, parting shot at the mighty Reik, he turned away from the torrent. Any man could fall into error. The test was what he did to rectify it.

  As he strode, Schwarzhelm felt some sense of purpose return. His limbs regained some vigour. His mighty heart began to beat again with strength.

  He would use the key. He would find a way to contact Verstohlen. He would return to Averheim somehow. He would seek out Helborg, if he still lived. There was atonement to be made. Restitution. Forgiveness.

  He had to go back. Schwarzhelm now knew he’d been wrong about many things, but one above all. He’d thought the battle for the soul of Averheim had been averted, that the corruption had been cut off at source. That was what he’d tried to achieve.

  It was not so. His master’s house was burning. People rushed out to see the blaze, gawping and gesturing like puppets. He ignored them. As he strode past the smouldering wreckage and back to the centre of the Imperial
capital, he knew the truth of it at last.

  The war for Averland had only just begun.

  The story will continue in the sequel, Sword of Vengeance.

  WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE

  The first part of this story was told in

  Sword of Justice.

  The summer of the year 2523. The province of Averland has been without an elector since the death of the mad Count Marius Leitdorf. Wearying of the long process of selection, Emperor Karl Franz dispatches his Champion Ludwig Schwarzhelm to Averheim to expedite matters, accompanied by his personal spy, Pieter Verstohlen, and an army of Reikland halberdiers.

  The electorship is contested by two men: Rufus Leitdorf, second son of the old elector, and Heinz-Mark Grosslich, a relative unknown. During the long months of conflict between them, Averland has drifted into misrule. Reports arrive of orcs massing in the east, and most of Schwarzhelm’s forces are sent to secure the distant marches. Back in Averheim, Schwarzhelm is subject to severe pressure. When reports reach him that his commander in the east has been killed, he immediately rides out to avenge him.

  Meanwhile, Verstohlen investigates the origins of the narcotic traffic in joyroot, and stumbles across Leitdorf’s wife Natassja at the centre of a Chaos cult. Barely escaping with his life, Verstohlen flees to the safety of Grosslich’s forces. Promising him the electorship if he will declare war on the Leitdorf’s, Verstohlen instigates open conflict between the two camps, and prompts the city Steward to send messages to the garrison of Reiksguard in Nuln. These are commanded by Schwarzhelm’s great rival, Kurt Helborg.

  Schwarzhelm is swiftly victorious over the orcs and rides west back to Averheim. On the way to the city, Schwarzhelm discovers the bodies of messengers and half-burned orders which seem to implicate Leitdorf in their murder. Nuln is referred to as well, fanning the flames of Schwarzhelm’s already heightened suspicion of Helborg.

  In Averheim, Grosslich and Verstohlen drive Leitdorf’s forces to the edge of the city. As Helborg and his Reiksguard arrive, they see Averheim in flames and Grosslich’s men running rampant. Helborg moves to quell the fighting, takes Leitdorf into custody and begins to orchestrate the capture of Grosslich.