Swords of the Emperor

by Chris Wraight

  “Tell me again,” he said to Drassler, his chin leaning heavily on his crossed fingers. “How did you let them get at you?”

  Drassler looked irritated. No one liked to recount the story of their failure.

  “What more do you want?” he asked. “We got our orders, just as we always did. Captain Neumann did as he was told. We were told there were four bands of greenskins coming over the passes, none of them more than a hundred strong. The orders from the Averburg were to destroy them before they defiled the memorial sites.”

  Bloch knew all of this. He knew that the roving bands of orcs had turned out to be made up of thousands, that they’d worked in concert, and that once the defenders had emerged from the walls they’d been slaughtered. The memory of those killing grounds was still vivid in his mind.

  “And who gave you those orders?” he asked, still searching for some clue. Schwarzhelm had told him that one of the contenders for the electorship, Rufus Leitdorf, had been a traitor. If he’d orchestrated all of this, then he deserved everything that the big man had no doubt dished up to him in Averheim.

  “They came as they always did. A courier from Averheim, dressed in the livery of the citadel, carrying the scrolls in a locked casket. He had a guard of warriors, two dozen, all wearing the colours of the Averburg garrison. Everything was in the standard cipher, signed off by the Steward. I saw them myself. Nothing was different.”

  “And you didn’t think anything was strange?” asked Bloch, trying to keep the incredulity from his voice. “Four incursions, all at once, all moving in different directions? What of the defence of the Keep?”

  Drassler stiffened. “Fighting is a way of life up here, commander. We’re not like the rest of our kinsmen. When the order comes, we follow it.”

  Kraus shook his head. “You were played for fools,” he muttered.

  Drassler slammed his fist on the table. “How dare you?” he hissed. He looked tired. They all looked tired. “We were doing our duty.”

  “Your duty was to defend the Keep,” said Kraus, and his face showed his disdain.

  “Enough,” said Bloch, unwilling to see the tension spill over into pointless bickering. He privately shared Kraus’ assessment, but nothing would be gained by raking over past failures. “This isn’t helping.”

  He held his head in his hands, trying to think. There was so much he didn’t know. The idea of Averlanders deliberately sabotaging their own defences was disgusting enough, but perhaps the rot went deeper. The money, after all, had come from Altdorf. Maybe they were still being played for fools. Maybe all of this had been anticipated.

  That didn’t alter the bare facts. He’d been ordered to retake the Keep. He had a mixed army of Averlanders and Reiklanders, most of them seasoned by weeks of near-constant fighting, no siege engines and little artillery. There had been no news from Averheim since Schwarzhelm’s departure for the city, and his supply lines were extended and precarious. A cautious commander might have withdrawn, pulled back to Grenzstadt until the situation in the province had become clear and reinforcements were received. Grunwald’s failure weighed heavily on Bloch’s mind. There was no sense in fighting a battle that couldn’t be won.

  “We have a few hours until dawn,” he said. He looked at the officers one by one, gauging from their response how ready they were for the fight. They all met his gaze. “We’ll stay awake until we’ve hammered out a plan to get the Keep back and the pass secure.”

  His eyes rested on Drassler, who stared back at him defiantly. Despite everything, the mountain guard were keen to avenge their defeat.

  “I want ideas,” he growled, feeling impatient for action again. “We need to get them out of the Keep. One way or another, when the sun goes down tomorrow we’ll have paid those bastards back twice what they handed out to us. I don’t care how we do it, but the passes will be back in our hands, and the last of those scum choking on their traitor’s gold.”

  The Grand Theogonist Volkmar was an imposing sight even when bereft of his immense battle-armour. His skin was thick and leathery, tanned tight by a lifetime on the battlefield. Dark, direct eyes peered out from under feathered eyebrows. Like Schwarzhelm, he was not known for his humour. His mouth rarely smiled beneath its drooping Kislevite moustache, and his burly arms remained crossed across his chest when not kept busy swinging a warhammer. His shaven head and forearm tattoos completed the savage picture. He looked properly terrifying, as if he struggled himself to contain raging forces of anarchy within him. Even when at rest, he inspired trepidation. When unleashed on to the battlefield, that trepidation turned to awe.

  Those who knew him well had even more reason to be fearful. This was a man who had come back from the dead, who’d passed beyond the barrier between the mortal world and that of Chaos. The pain of it still marked his every word, scored his every movement. No one knew the terror of the great enemy quite as intimately as Volkmar, and the experience had marked him out even more than he had been before. With each gesture, each glance, he gave it away. Under the skein of savage piety, a cold furnace of frenzy forever lurked, waiting for the kindling. Once he had been a warrior. Now he was a weapon.

  The head of the Cult of Sigmar bowed to few men, but he did towards the figure before him. His ochre robes fell across his broad shoulders as he stooped, his right hand nearly touching the floor.

  “Enough of that,” came a familiar voice. “Sit. We need to talk.”

  The Emperor Karl Franz sat in the same chair he’d used when commissioning Schwarzhelm for the Averland mission. Then, he’d looked at ease with the world, confident and self-assured. Now his skin had taken on a pale sheen and his eyes were ringed with grey. His hair, normally glossy, looked dull. The most powerful mortal man in the Old World was troubled, and he hadn’t laboured to hide the fact.

  Volkmar rose to his full height, grunting as he did so. The wounds that had ravaged his body during his escape from the daemon Be’lakor had been slow to close.

  He sat beside the Emperor, saying nothing. The two men were alone. The fine furniture around them looked heavy and lumpen. Outside, a fine rain still spat against the glass windows, and the morning light was grey and filthy. In the corner of the room, the old engineer’s clock ticked methodically.

  Karl Franz looked down at some sheets of parchment in his lap. They looked like they’d been read many times.

  “Why didn’t he come here himself?” the Emperor mused.

  “My liege?” asked Volkmar.

  “Schwarzhelm. He could have spoken to me. I was angry, but not beyond reason. Now I’ve lost both of them.”

  Helborg. If the Reiksmarshal were found, then Volkmar would be the one priest senior enough to interrogate him. Though hardened by the fires of war and the poisons of Chaos, that was a task he wouldn’t relish.

  “Perhaps he tried,” said Volkmar.

  “What are you saying?”

  “That not all your servants are as loyal as he.”

  Karl Franz frowned, displeased by the implication. He looked down at the parchment again. “What do you know of this matter?” he asked.

  “A little. Averland is now governed by Heinz-Mark Grosslich. Leitdorf’s son is a traitor, and Helborg with him.”

  “And do you believe it? What they say of Helborg?”

  Volkmar gave a snort of disgust that said all there was to be said.

  “Schwarzhelm has erred,” agreed the Emperor, “and he knows it. Whatever forces were ranged against him have achieved what they set out to do.”

  He looked up, and a little of the familiar resolve shone in his eyes.

  “We’ve been granted a second chance,” he said. “They made a single slip. You know of Heinrich Lassus? He was the man behind them. He betrayed himself. Schwarzhelm has killed him, taken back Helborg’s sword, and no doubt seeks to return it to him. Perhaps he is already on the road.”

  “So how stands Averland?”

  “We don’t know. All is clouded. The only thing we can be certain of is that
the great enemy is active. They’ve used this succession to gain a foothold. Nothing has been purged. The stain remains, and it is growing.”

  Volkmar let the implications of that sink in. Averland had always been the most placid of provinces, the one furthest from the strife that ravaged the rest of the Empire.

  He should have seen this coming. Only in war was there purity; where there was peace there was disease.

  “Can Grosslich handle it?”

  The Emperor shrugged. “Who knows? He doesn’t answer my summons. That may be pride, or it may be worse. In any event, our response must be the same.”

  Here it came. The Emperor’s orders. Volkmar didn’t need his fine-grained knowledge of statecraft to know what they would be.

  “I have tried to manage the affairs of Averland by diplomacy. That has failed. Whether or not Grosslich is a part of this, he cannot be allowed to preside over treachery. It will be rooted out and destroyed.” The Emperor crumpled the parchment in his fist and the knuckles went white. “You will take my armies, Volkmar. Empty the Reikland if you have to. The gold in the reserves is yours. Take warrior priests and the holiest devotees of Sigmar. Take magisters from the colleges, war engines and artillery. Take veteran regiments and a core of knights. This is no routine suppression of a minor rebellion. This is a new war and needs a new army.”

  The Emperor looked into Volkmar’s eyes, and his expression was desolate.

  “Find out what’s happening there,” he growled, his fists still clenched. “Show the traitors no mercy. Crush them, burn them and grind them into the ground. I would rather see Averland turned into a blasted waste than see it harbour a second front against the enemy. You know what to do. You know it more than anyone else. Can I trust you, Volkmar? Can you succeed where both my generals have failed?”

  Volkmar felt a surge of enthusiasm quicken within him, tempered with the fear that had never quite left him. Not since the horrors of Middenheim had he commanded men against the enemy. Now he was being asked to ride again, to take up arms and show his devotion to Sigmar in the way the warrior-god had always intended. He’d failed against Archaon. He’d failed completely. He might do so again, just like the others.

  “Yes, my liege,” he replied, his thoughts racing. “Yes, you can.”

  Deep in the heart of Averheim’s exclusive jewellery quarter, the merchants had been quick to replenish their stocks. Averland was a province blessed with mines on its borders and Averheim sat squarely on the trade routes between Karak Angazhar and the heart of the Empire. There was money in the place too, and every fat merchant who’d made his fortune shunting cattle from the pasture to the slaughter-house had wives and daughters who needed draping in lines of pearls or traceries of silver, so the jewellery business had prospered with them.

  Some of the craftsmen were Averland-bred, plucked from the rural heartland and put to work at the forges or with the hammer. Over the centuries, the fame of the jewellery quarter had grown and artisans from further afield had settled there. Most came from Nuln, bringing new devices with them and a penchant for mechanical innovation, but there were also dwarfs, drawn as ever by the prospect of making money through the manipulation of the things they loved: steel, iron, gold and gromril. The stunted folk kept themselves to themselves, shunning the company of their human counterparts unless some deal needed to be struck or supplies of stones were running low. So it was that they formed a community within a community in Averheim, locked in their own arcane world of contracts and grudges, tolerated by their hosts but seldom interfered with.

  Such isolation brought certain advantages. The dwarfs didn’t involve themselves in human affairs, and were as happy serving under a Leitdorf or an Alptraum as they would have been under a Raukov or a Todbringer. Happy, that is, as long as they weren’t over-taxed and were given free rein to market their creations.

  That made the dwarf-smiths of Averland useful contacts for men of a certain profession. If the gold flowed, then they would be more discreet than a corpse. Of course, getting them to trust anyone but a member of their own clan was hard. It took persistence, patience, a working knowledge of the simpler forms of Khazalid, plenty of money and a formidable power of persuasion. Not many humans could boast all of those. Pieter Verstohlen, on the other hand, could.

  So it was that the spy sat, knees up almost against his chest, sitting on a three-legged stool in the forge of the master jewelsmith Rossik Valgrind. Before him the fire glowed angrily, throwing red light across the dark interior. Around the hearth hung metal objects of various kinds. Some were familiar—tongs, clamps, bellows and fine-headed hammers. Others looked like nothing Verstohlen had seen before, and their uses could only be guessed at.

  The owner of the forge himself worked at the back of the chamber, ignoring Verstohlen and tapping away at a ring of gromril. His gnarled hands worked with astonishing speed and precision, caressing and moulding the metal as if it were a child’s forelock. His naked arms were like corded leather, wound about with brass wire and latticed with tattoos. He smelled of scorched flesh, hot metal and charred oil, and his beard was wiry and truncated from a thousand singes.

  He didn’t speak, and the only sound to escape his bearded lips was the occasional grunt of satisfaction as the jewellery gradually took shape under his hammers. The deal he’d made with Verstohlen had been for a place to meet only. There’d been no payment for conversation, so he didn’t provide any.

  There was a tap on the door leading out from the forge and onto the street. Valgrind kept working, ignoring everything but his art. Verstohlen clambered up from the low stool and reached for the latch. Outside, wrapped in a long cloak, stood Tochfel. Verstohlen beckoned him in and closed the door behind him. The afternoon light stung his eyes after the occlusion of the forge.

  “Glad you could make it, Steward,” said Verstohlen, pulling up a stool. The two of them sat before the hearth. In the background, Valgrind worked away as if nothing had happened.

  “Safe to talk?” whispered Tochfel, casting anxious looks in the dwarf’s direction.

  “Absolutely,” said Verstohlen, speaking normally. “Maybe the safest place to talk in the city.”

  Tochfel nodded. “Good. I’m glad my message got to you.”

  “Your concerns and mine may be similar.”

  “Maybe. How are things with the elector?”

  Verstohlen shrugged.

  “I see less of him every day. I suspect my services are no longer of much use.”

  “But how does he seem to you?”

  “His mood changes. Some days, I see the qualities I saw in him when Schwarzhelm and I first arrived. On others, things are less… clear cut.”

  Tochfel nodded. “That’s right. That’s what others say. It’s harder to get to him. I’ve not spoken with him for days. He’s becoming erratic.”

  Verstohlen felt a qualm of recognition. That’s what they’d said about Schwarzhelm. Was there something corrupting about the city? He immediately thought of Natassja. The witch had still not been found.

  “So what are you saying to me, Steward?” asked Verstohlen. “I can’t believe you’ve come here to moan about your master’s moods.”

  Tochfel’s hands fidgeted on his knees. By the glow of the hearth, his face looked distorted.

  “Something’s wrong here, Herr Verstohlen,” he said, his voice audibly shaking. “I tried to warn you of it before Grosslich’s coronation. No one’s seen Ferenc Alptraum since the battle for the city. No one’s seen Achendorfer. There are other disappearances.”

  “Such things are normal when power shifts,” said Verstohlen, watching Tochfel carefully, looking for the signs of dishonesty. The Steward was not a master player of the game, but he could still have been subverted.

  Tochfel looked hurt. “I may not have your skill in such matters,” he said, “but I’m not entirely naive. Do you know how many men have been burned at the stake? Two hundred. They’re not all done in public. I’ve seen the lists. That’s beyond reason.”
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  “Are there trials?”

  “Supposedly.” Tochfel snorted. “The witch hunter Heidegger has his talons into everything. He even wants my own aides dragged to the stake. None of us are safe.”

  At the mention of witch hunters, Verstohlen had to work to suppress a grunt of contempt. The cult members who’d taken Leonora had been Templars of Sigmar. He regarded even the uncorrupted ones as little better than butchers and sadists, and the fact he was frequently mistaken for one of them was a considerable irritation.

  Tochfel leaned forwards, his fingers twitching with agitation. “Can’t you see it?” he implored. “We’ve picked the wrong man.”

  Verstohlen shook his head. “Impossible. I saw Leitdorf’s corruption for myself.”

  “Now who’s being naive, counsellor? So much has turned on that, and yet you always say that the great enemy is ever more cunning than it seems. Could you not have been allowed to see what you did?”

  Verstohlen froze.

  “Natassja’s still not been found,” he said. “She may be in the city. Her powers are formidable, and while she lives none of us should feel safe.”

  Tochfel let slip a bitter laugh. “You’re obsessed with Natassja. Can’t you see that Grosslich is the enemy? He’s duped us all. You’ve seen that monstrosity he’s building in the poor quarter. What sane man builds a tower of iron?”

  Verstohlen didn’t reply. The more Tochfel spoke, the more anxiety started to crowd around him. He’d been so sure. He’d convinced everyone of Leitdorf’s guilt. Even Schwarzhelm.

  For that matter, where was Schwarzhelm? Why hadn’t there been any word from Altdorf? Why hadn’t there been word of anything from outside the province?

  “I won’t deny there’s something wrong here,” he said, “but Natassja is the witch, and she’s Leitdorf’s woman. We need to find her, and her whelp of a husband.”