Swords of the Emperor

by Chris Wraight

  In any case, it didn’t matter now. His mind was made up. He would leave for Averheim as soon as his work in Altdorf was done. There were only three things he needed to do first.

  He rose from the table, taking the key and the letter with him and placing them in his jerkin pocket. He took a dark cloak from the hook in the wall beside him and wrapped himself up in it. At his side he felt the cool presence of the Rechtstahl. He hadn’t drawn it since returning from Averland, and he dreaded seeing the rune-carved steel again. The spirit of the weapon was sullen and accusatory. Like all dwarf-forged master swords, it cared about the nature of the blood it spilt.

  Schwarzhelm turned to leave the room. Three simple tasks. To leave the letter where the Emperor would find it. To enter Lassus’ private archives in the Palace vaults. To retrieve the Sword of Vengeance, ready to return it to its master if he still lived.

  Simple to list, difficult to do. With a final look around his study, Schwarzhelm blew out the candles and left to break in to the most heavily guarded fortress in the Empire.

  Grosslich reached the bottom of the staircase. The echoing screams had now become a gorgeous cacophony, rising from the depths of the crypt and snaking through the many passages and antechambers of the whole foundation layer. For a moment, Grosslich paused to take in the sound. He could almost smell it. That wonderful mix of fear, desperation and utter hopelessness. They had no idea how lucky they were to be shown such exquisite varieties of sensation. Their minds were being expanded. Involuntarily, it was true, but expanded nonetheless. Sometimes literally.

  At the bottom of the stairs, a long gallery ran ahead for two hundred yards. Far below the surface of the city, Natassja had been able to indulge her peerless sense of design. The floor was glassy and smooth. A gentle lilac light rose from it, picking out the detail of the baroque walls, each carved with the same care and intricacy as the doors above. The themes were the ones she loved—lissom youths of both sexes, locked in what looked like a ballet of agony. The artistry was such that the iron figures could almost have passed for real bodies, locked into eternal stasis and bound into the foundations of the Tower.

  At regular intervals along the gallery, archways had been cut into the walls. Each of these was decorated in the same fashion, with sigils dedicated to Pleasure engraved over the keystone. The noises came from beyond these arches. Grosslich hadn’t had time to explore all the rooms in person, but he knew they were where Natassja carried out her works of artistry. On the rare occasions when he’d felt able to peer within their confines, he’d found the experience difficult. He knew that a part of him was still mired in human weaknesses. Even now, after so much transformation, to see some of those… scenes made his flesh shiver. He’d have to work on that. The weakness in him, small as it was, was the last remaining impediment to glory.

  At the far end of the gallery a large octagonal chamber had been hewn from the earth. When the Tower was completed, the chamber would sit directly beneath the centre of the mighty shaft. For now, all that stood above it was an iron cat’s cradle.

  Grosslich walked across the glass floor, enjoying the echoing click of his boots. The sound produced a pleasing counterpoint to the sobbing whimpers coming from door number four. As he passed it, he was pleased to see Natassja already waiting for him in the octagon.

  “My love,” he said, marvelling as he always did at her splendour.

  Natassja sat on an obsidian throne at the centre of the chamber. Her skin, once ivory, was now a shimmering pale blue. Her eyes had lost their pupils and become pure black jewels in her flawless face. Her teeth still shone as white as they’d ever done, even if the incisors looked a little longer. She wore a sheer gown of nightshade silk, and a necklace of ithilmar spikes now graced her neckline. Her hair, black as pitch, hung loose around her shoulders.

  At Grosslich’s approach, she rose from the throne.

  “What word from Altdorf?” she asked, descending from the dais to meet him. Her voice was cool, though a sibilant undertone had been added to it.

  “The Emperor summoned me. I played for time.”

  Natassja looked thoughtful. “He won’t remain patient forever,” she said. “Schwarzhelm will tell him the truth soon, if he hasn’t already.”

  Grosslich frowned at that. Everyone was always so worried. It was inexplicable, given the position of strength they were in.

  “You’re sure Lassus gave much away?”

  “He was weak,” spat Natassja. “Even now his soul is shriven. I have seen it. A thousand years of torment to ponder a slip of the tongue.” Vehemence made her voice shake. “And yes, he did give much away. His presence in this has given us all away. Schwarzhelm is damaged, but he’s still powerful.”

  “Then I’ve no doubt you’ve plans in place.”

  “We still have agents in the Palace,” she said. “For as long as possible we must maintain the illusion that Rufus was the traitor here. In the meantime, there are two men we have to kill. One is Schwarzhelm, though that will be difficult at such a range. The other is closer to hand.”

  “Verstohlen.”

  “Quite. See to it.”

  “Of course,” said Grosslich. That would be a singular pleasure—the man’s bleating had become insufferable.

  “And then there’s the pursuit of Rufus. That troubles me.”

  Natassja spoke quickly but clearly. There was no trace of mania in her eyes. Back when he’d been a normal man, Grosslich had assumed all cultists were raving fanatics. Natassja had her moments, but her demeanour habitually remained as smooth as onyx. Perhaps that shouldn’t have surprised him. She’d been active in this, after all, for centuries.

  “Any more news from your men?” she asked. “How goes the hunt?”

  “It’s difficult, my goddess,” said Grosslich, not bothering to hide the truth. “He’s in his own country, protected by his own people. I send more men east every day, but we can’t search every house.”

  Natassja shook her head. “Not quick enough. Come with me. I have something to show you.”

  She led him back into the long gallery. With a faint shudder, Grosslich realised they were heading for one of the antechambers. Number one. He’d never been allowed in that one.

  “The one uncertain factor in this is Helborg,” said Natassja as she walked. “He was not part of the original plan, though we were able to make use of him. My senses tell me he still lives.” She turned to face Grosslich before entering the chamber, and her expression was intense. “I fear his presence. He was not foreseen from the beginning. It might have been better if he had never come.”

  She ducked under the archway. As Grosslich followed into the darkness his eyes took a moment to adjust.

  “I thought you used him? To goad Schwarzhelm further?”

  Natassja nodded. “We did. Lassus and I had discussed the contingency. At every stage, we made it appear as if Helborg and Rufus were working in tandem. But that was always in addition to the main objective. I was never sure it was the right decision.”

  Grosslich’s vision began to clarify. The antechamber retreated far back into the darkness of the earth. He couldn’t see the far wall for shadow. On either side of him were long wooden tables with leather restraining straps. There were vials of a lilac-coloured liquid and gut tubes leading from them. Surgical instruments had been placed on a separate table, and they glistened in the low light. Across every surface, parchment made of human skin had been draped, painstakingly inscribed with tight-curled script. There were diagrams, etched in blood so old it had turned black. The floor, hidden in the gloom, was sticky. In the darkness beyond, he could faintly make out a rattling sound. Something was moving.

  “I saw the blow that felled him,” said Grosslich, trying to concentrate on the task at hand. “He may yet die from it.”

  “Possibly. But we have to be sure. Come forwards.”

  The last command hadn’t been directed at him. The rattling grew louder. Something was shuffling into the light.

 
“What is this, my goddess?” asked Grosslich. He was nervous. Despite all his training, all his immersion in the world of the Dark Prince, he was still nervous. He still had some way to go.

  “A new toy,” she replied, eyes fixed on the approaching shape. “A refinement of the creatures I was working on before. I call them my handmaidens. What do you think?”

  The figure that emerged had been a woman. She had once been beautiful, perhaps. She was slim, pale-skinned, with mouse-brown hair arranged in long plaits. Maybe in the past she had moved with an easy grace, laughing in the sun and trying to catch the eye of the troopers marching to war.

  Now she moved silently. Her once flawless skin was covered in incisions and sutures. Her eyes were gone, replaced with blank brass plates. Black rags had been draped over her naked shoulders, but they did little to obscure the surgery that had scored her body. Exposed bone glinted from her hips, her knees, her neck. Most strikingly of all, her fingers had been replaced with long curved talons. They shone coldly in the dark. What was left of her face was contorted into a silent, frozen howl of agony. It was unclear if she could still speak. It looked like she could barely walk.

  “Impressive,” said Grosslich, trying not to imagine the full horror of the transformation. “What can she do?”

  “There has been extensive replacement,” said Natassja coolly. “At her heart there burns an iron casket containing a shard of the Stone. That keeps her alive, despite the removal of the spine. Once given an instruction, she will never stop. These ones no longer need to be near me to retain their power.”

  The handmaiden shuffled closer. It seemed blind as well as crippled. Every movement it made was tight with pain.

  “It doesn’t move fast.”

  Natassja smiled and ran a finger gently down the handmaiden’s scarred cheek. “Do not be fooled by her current state. When given the proper command, she will change.” Natassja looked at her tenderly, like a proud mother. “For now, she only has her own private world of pain. That can be altered by giving her a name.”

  “A name.”

  “A name is a mystical thing, Heinz-Mark. It has resonance in the aethyr. They can use it to find their prey. When they are ready, I will give it to them.”

  “She’s not ready?”

  “Not yet,” said Natassja, stroking the handmaiden’s remaining hair. “There will be three of them, at least to begin with. Their creation is long and difficult. Then I will send them out. They will sweep across Averland like crows, never pausing, never resting.”

  She looked back at Grosslich, and her eyes were shining. “All they need is the name. Helborg.”

  Rufus Leitdorf looked down on the stricken face of Kurt Helborg. The Marshal slept still, propped up on bolsters of duckfeather. The two men were alone in the bedchamber of one of his father’s houses, far out in the eastern reaches of Averland. The room was typically grand, with a high plastered ceiling and heavy wooden furniture against all four walls. The bed itself was larger than some peasants’ hovels, with fanciful images of dragons and crested eagles carved into the headboard.

  The night was old. Candlelight made Helborg’s face look even paler. The craggy features, so admired and feared across the Empire, were now haggard, and the proud moustache hung in lank strands across his cheeks. His breathing was shallow, and a thick layer of sweat lay on his skin.

  Leitdorf took up another towel and began to dab the moisture away. Only a few months ago he’d never have stooped to minister to another man’s discomfort, even a man as famed as Helborg, but things had changed. He was now a fugitive in his own land, hunted by men he had once aspired to command. There seemed little point in retaining old pretensions of grandeur.

  He replaced the towel on the low table by the bed. Leitdorf sat for a while, watching the man’s breast rise and fall under the coverlet. Helborg fought with death. The wound in his shoulder had closed, but some profound struggle was still going on within him.

  There was a knock at the door. Leitdorf rose from the bed, smoothing the sheets from where he’d been sitting.

  “Come.”

  Leofric von Skarr, preceptor of the Reiksguard, entered. He was still in full battle armour and looked as grim and wolfish as ever. His dark hair hung around his face, criss-crossed with the scars that so suited his name.

  “Any change?”

  “None.”

  “He hasn’t woken?”

  “Not while I’ve been with him.”

  Skarr nodded. Around his neck hung the shard taken from Helborg’s sword. It had become something of a totem for the depleted Reiksguard company who still guarded their master, the emblem of his future recovery.

  “There was another patrol out there, beyond the line of the hills,” said Skarr. “We killed them all, but they were getting close. They’re going to find us.”

  “Then we move again.”

  “You haven’t run out of houses?”

  Leitdorf gave a superior smile. “My father owned more houses in Averland than there are whores in Wurtbad.”

  Skarr snorted.

  “It’s no solution, this endless fleeing,” he said dismissively, leaning against a fabulously expensive Breugsletter sideboard as if it were a country gate. “They’ll catch up with us eventually, and we don’t have the men to fight them all.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that.” Leitdorf walked over to a writing desk by the window. Across it lay a vellum map of Averland, lit by more candles. It bore the crest of Marius Leitdorf in the corner and was obviously a private commission. Each of the old count’s many manor houses and fortified places was marked. “Look at this.”

  Skarr joined him.

  “We’re here,” said Leitdorf, pointing to a country mansion several days’ ride from Averheim. “Far, but not far enough. We should be aiming here.”

  He indicated a blank spot on the map. The nearest landmark was a patch of scratchily-drawn highland called Drakenmoor.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “I know,” said Leitdorf. “This is one of my father’s own maps, and it isn’t even displayed here. That’s how secret he kept it. His last retreat. The place he went to in order to escape the dreams.”

  Skarr looked sceptical. “A hideaway.”

  “Something like that.”

  “How do you know of it?”

  “There were some family secrets to which I was privy,” said Leitdorf, affronted. The Reiksguard treated him like a spoiled, feckless dandy.

  Skarr continued to frown. “You can’t hide a castle.”

  “Of course not. Those who live locally know of its existence. But there are few villages in the region, and fewer staff in the retreat. My father set great store by having somewhere no one could find him.”

  “How far is it?”

  Leitdorf pursed his lips. “In the Marshal’s condition, maybe three days across country. Once we get there, we’ll be isolated. Even if Grosslich sends his men after us, we’ll see them coming from miles off. In any case, he’s sure to send his men to the houses he knows about first.”

  Skarr hesitated, studying the map carefully, weighing up various options. Leitdorf began to get frustrated. There were no other options.

  “Come on, man!” he snapped. “Surely you can see the sense of it?”

  Skarr whirled back to face him, his eyes bright with anger. Leitdorf recoiled. The preceptor had a quick temper.

  “Never give me orders,” hissed Skarr. There was a dark expression on his face, drawn from years of expert killing. “It’s down to you and your games that we’re in this damned mess.”

  Leitdorf felt the blood rush to his cheeks. “Remember your station, master kni—”

  “Remember yours! It is nothing. You may think you’re the elector of this blighted province, but to me you’re just the man who’s brought this whole thing down on us.” Spittle collected at the corner of Skarr’s mouth. He was consumed by rage. Leitdorf backed away from him.

  “Maybe I should leave you to Grossli
ch’s men,” Skarr muttered, turning away in scorn. “What they want with the Marshal is still a mystery to me.”

  Leitdorf, for once, found himself lost for words. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. He stood still, heart pounding, trying to think of a response.

  “Skarr,” came a croak from the bed.

  The preceptor turned quickly, wild hope kindling across his face. Helborg’s eyes were open. They were rheumy and ill-focussed, but they were open.

  “My lord!”

  “I heard enough,” rasped Helborg. His voice sounded as if it had been dragged over rusted iron. “Do as Leitdorf says.”

  “Yes, my lord,” replied Skarr, suddenly chastened. For his part, Leitdorf didn’t know whether to feel relieved or not. His position was still precarious.

  “And we take him with us,” continued Helborg. The effort of speaking produced fresh sweat on his brow. “We need him.”

  “Yes, though I—”

  Skarr didn’t finish. Helborg, exhausted by the effort, drifted back into sleep. His head sank deep into the bolster, his breathing ragged.

  Leitdorf turned to Skarr in triumph.

  “I think that’s given us our answer.”

  Skarr shot him a poisonous look.

  “We’ll do as the Marshal says. For some reason, he seems disposed to be charitable towards you.” The Reiksguard glared at Leitdorf, every sinew of his body radiating menace. “But I warn you, Herr Leitdorf, my only task is to safeguard Helborg’s life. If you do anything—anything—to put it in danger, then so help me I will throw you to the wolves.”

  Night lay heavily on Altdorf. The turgid waters of the Reik flowed fast, swollen by weeks of rain. Fires still burned across the city, sending acrid peat-smoke curling into the air. Lights glimmered in the darkness and at the pinnacles of the many towers. As ever, the turrets of the Celestial College retained their thin sheen of blue, glowing eerily far above the compass of its rivals. Any men abroad at that quiet hour avoided looking at the unnatural lights and kept an eye on their surroundings.

  Schwarzhelm stole along the Prinz Michael Strasse, keeping his cloak wrapped tight around him and hugging the shadows. He feared no street urchin or cutpurse—the rats of the street went for easier pickings than him. Even stripped of his plate armour and helmet, Schwarzhelm was still a formidable-looking target.