Swords of the Emperor

by Chris Wraight

  Bloch knew that as well as he did.

  “Keep firing!” he shouted, spittle flying from his lips. The men had to know he was in charge, that this was all part of the plan.

  “They’ll come out,” he hissed, his voice low so only Kraus could hear.

  “And if they don’t?”

  Bloch didn’t answer. He didn’t want to think about that.

  The day waxed across Averheim, and all along the river barges bumped and jostled for position. Clouds had begun to drift from the east, and the sky was no longer the unbroken arch of blue it had been for so long. A light breeze whipped up the surface of the Aver, throwing flecks of foam against the bows of the vessels in the water.

  Men clambered from hold to hold, carrying goods or ticking off items on requisition ledgers. Soldiers were everywhere. The number of men at arms in Averheim seemed to have trebled. Some looked like Alptraum’s men, given new uniforms and new weapons. Others had an unfamiliar look about them, as if they were new to the city and out of sympathy with its residents.

  Tochfel gathered his cloak around his shoulders, feeling the cool air against his skin. He had no business on the wharfs today, and since his meeting with Verstohlen he’d grown wary of any attempts to influence the traffic there. If no one but he could see the problem in suborning an entire province to the demands of a single building, then that was their problem. The time had come to make his protests at the highest level, while he still had the protection of his rank and title. He had no confidence in retaining either for long.

  He hurried on down from the quayside, avoiding the glares from the roving bands of soldiers. Grosslich’s men had become officious, as if given special orders to stop and search anyone abroad without permission. Even in the middle of the afternoon, some of them were clearly the worse for wear. They were well-paid, that Tochfel knew, and there were only two things a soldier spent his money on. The taverns and bawdy-houses had never done better business.

  Striding on from the Griffon Bridge and the embankment beyond, Tochfel made his way to the poor quarter. As he went, the crowds thinned out. Even the patrols lessened, and before he’d gone more than half a mile the roads and streets were eerily quiet. No taverns were open, no hearths glowed behind lead-lined windows, no brothels rang with song and laughter. Everything was buttoned-down, locked-up, shut fast.

  Tochfel didn’t pause, but kept his head down. He knew what kept the people away. Ahead of him, the Tower rose. It seemed to grow taller with every passing hour. Iron fronds had shot up from the base like plants, curling into the air and branching into new tendrils. The skeleton was gradually being clad, and fresh beams criss-crossed between supporting struts like the bone spurs of a lady’s corset. Even at such an early stage it was clear that the final construction would be huge. When completed, the horrific needle of metal and stone would dwarf the Averburg and cast a spiked shadow over half the city. As Tochfel looked at it, he shuddered. Why could no one else see how wrong this was? Why was Verstohlen so relaxed about it?

  Tochfel pulled his cloak tighter and pressed on. It was time to get to the bottom of things. If Grosslich wouldn’t come to see him at the Averburg, Tochfel would have to come to Grosslich at the Tower.

  He turned into the long, straight street which led directly to the construction site. The houses on either side of him were almost completely silent. Even in the strong sunlight he felt a strange chill settle on his bones. There were no open windows. A loose door banged in the breeze at the far end, and from somewhere else there came the sound of a rusty hinge being worked back and forth.

  At the end of the street the old wooden perimeter fence had been replaced with something more permanent: iron, naturally, hammered into eight-foot poles and elaborately spiked on the top. As far as he could see, it looked like the new fence ran around the entire site, enclosing the workings of the Tower completely.

  Where the street met the fence, a high gate had been raised, crowned with a stylised “G” set amid a crown of thorns. There were other shapes sculpted there, though quite what they were was hard to make out. Despite the strong daylight, lamps burned atop twin pillars on either side of the gates. The flames within them were an odd colour, a deep orange, with the faintest blush of pink at the edges. The fires flickered within their glass caskets like grasping fingers.

  Tochfel paused, suddenly uneasy. He’d heard the stories of this place, just as everyone else had. The river was less than a mile away, bustling with life, and yet it could have been left behind in another world. His resolve began to waver. Perhaps coming had been a mistake.

  “Declare yourself,” came a voice from beside the gate.

  A man stepped from the shadow of one of the pillars, brandishing a spear. Another approached from the opposite side. They were wearing the crimson and gold of Grosslich’s army. Tochfel noticed that they were better equipped than the guards at the Averburg and wore a close-fitting breastplate, greaves and a tall helmet. Not very Averland-like. Almost… elvish.

  “The Steward,” said Tochfel, letting his cloak fall back and trying to keep the fear out of his voice. Now that he’d been noticed, retreat was impossible. The guards recognised him and lowered their spears.

  “You’re here on your own, sir?”

  “What does it look like? Open the gates.”

  The guards looked at one another doubtfully. “Are you expected, sir? The elector doesn’t like—”

  “Open the damn gates, man. Neither he nor I like being kept waiting.”

  The lead guard shrugged. He went back to the pillar and pulled some kind of brass lever set into the stone. There was a hiss, and the gates swung inwards. Beyond them, a wide path had been cut, lined with some kind of thorn-bush at ground level. Dotted clumps of the strange plant were visible beside the path as it ran the several hundred yards up to the unfinished Tower.

  Tochfel hurried inside, not giving the guards a second glance. Behind him, the gates sighed closed, coming together with a soft click. Like everything about the place, the motion was unsettling.

  Within the fence, the ground had been cleared and flattened. Huge paving slabs of dark stone had been laid. They were interlinked, and traced out some obscure and massively complicated pattern. As Tochfel gazed at it, he thought he caught something of its outline, but the totality eluded him. It was both familiar and deeply strange. The artistry of the stones’ placement looked superb, and the joins between sections were barely visible.

  He went deeper in the compound. The silence became more absolute. Only his own footfalls, soft against the polished stone, seemed to make any noise at all.

  Tochfel looked up as he went. The sky had lost some of its lustre. There was a greyness to it. That was strange. As he watched, the colour seemed to run out of it. He flicked his eyes earthwards, disorientated. The mass of iron loomed ahead, a fraction more distinct than the sky behind it. It was no longer dark. Everything was going grey, as if a mist had rolled across the plain while he walked.

  Tochfel could feel his heart thumping strongly. His palms grew sweaty. The air around him smelled strange. There was a metallic taste on his tongue, almost sweet. He felt light-headed and dizzy. This really had been a mistake.

  His breathing quickening, he turned and started to head back. The place was cursed, and he had no place in it.

  A sudden noise made him start. He felt panic rise in his throat. It sounded like the wheeze of some huge dog, close by, somewhere in the gathering mist. Tochfel hurried back the way he’d come. The scorn of the guards didn’t matter now. There was something in the grey light, and it wasn’t natural. Perhaps a hundred yards ahead, he could still see the dim outline of the pillars with their flame lanterns. He’d be there in moments.

  Then the pillars shrank from view. Both of them. As if some order had been given from within the Tower, the colour-drenching mist swept up and across the compound. Everything but the patterned stone beneath him disappeared. Even his hands looked pale, like a cadaver’s.

  Tochfel f
ound himself struggling to keep a lid on his bubbling fear. He began to run. To his left there was another dog-like sound, closer than the last, right on his shoulder. He veered away from it, losing his sense of direction. The last shreds of vision merged into the grey fog. It felt like the whole world had been torn from existence. Heart hammering, breath ragged, he stumbled blindly, mumbling prayers to Sigmar in his panic.

  Then, from nowhere, a patch of curling vapour ripped from the rest and let a shaft of the world’s sun into the cloud. Ahead of Tochfel was a man. No, not a man. It had an armoured snout, impossibly long, plated and dark. It crouched low, as if its joints were twisted backwards. A snarling, grating sound came from its muzzle, and it clutched a crystal-bladed halberd in a pair of clawed hands.

  Tochfel screamed. He screamed like he’d never screamed in his life. Other soldiers emerged from the shifting clouds, each panting and growling like a dog, each limping towards him like a grotesque parody of both man and beast.

  Then the beam of sunlight passed, obscured by the grey miasma once more. Tochfel’s screams lasted for a moment longer, and were then extinguished, muffled by the mist. Silence rolled back across the construction site. After a few moments the mist sank back to earth, wavering and rippling as it sighed out of existence.

  Back at the gates, the guards did their best not to pay any attention. They’d learned it wasn’t wise to interfere with what went on in the Tower. They hadn’t seen the mist anyway. Only one man in Averheim had seen the mist, and he was gone. Just on the edge of hearing, there was a faint noise. It could have been a trick of the wind, but it sounded like a woman laughing, cool and elegant.

  Then it too was gone. The compound looked as it always did, empty and echoing. Across the wide expanse of stone there was no sign of the dog-soldiers, nor of Tochfel. If the human guards had been foolish enough to venture inside the compound, perhaps curious as to his fate, they would have found no body, and no blood.

  There was no blood, because he hadn’t been killed. That wasn’t the way of the Tower. He’d been taken, just as the others had been, alive. And that, of course, was only the beginning.

  Arrows flew up at Black Fire Keep, peppering the stone and clattering back to earth. The cannon still boomed, but only the faintest of cracks had been opened up on the ramparts. It was too old, too strong. The orcs stayed clustered in safety, locked out of harm’s way. Frustration began to spread across the besieging army.

  Bloch sensed it before he saw it. He was barely out of the ranks himself, plucked from being a company captain by Schwarzhelm after the engagement at Turgitz, and knew all the moods of a halberdier detachment. They were getting close to boiling over. They could all see the exposed archers being picked off from the ramparts, all hear the jeers of the capering orcs on the battlements. This was death by attrition.

  “Pull them back,” hissed Kraus through clenched teeth. Nearly two dozen archers lay dead, and another score had been wounded. They were having almost no effect.

  “No,” said Bloch, watching the carnage blankly. “It’s keeping their eyes where I want them. We won’t pull back.”

  “Damn you, commander, pull them back!” Kraus looked livid. His fingers itched at his side, eager to draw his sword and exact retribution for the losses.

  “Bring out the bait,” said Bloch, clenching his jaw to hide his anguish. His faith in his plan was being sorely tested.

  Kraus shook his head, but called out the order. A company of Averlander spearmen rushed from the reserve position to the front ranks of the army. Still out of bowshot, but ahead of the main body of halberdiers, they stopped. Each of them carried a heavy bag on their back. Some were bent double under the weight, and others were carried by two men.

  Their captain, a veteran of the Averheim garrison who’d ridden out with Schwarzhelm, looked up to Bloch for confirmation.

  “Do it!” Bloch roared, before turning to Kraus. “Send the word out. The army holds position. Do not threaten the gates, d’you hear?”

  The orders were passed on. The hail of artillery and arrows was kept up, nearly obscuring the Keep beyond with its drip feed of provocation.

  On the plain, in full view of the Keep’s massive gatehouse, the Averlanders began their work. All slammed their bags to the ground and pulled the fabric back. Within them were the bodies of fallen greenskins. Most were goblins, scrawny and spiteful-looking even in death. Some of the cadavers were of larger breeds, and there were even a couple of heavy warriors, carried by two or more men and as thick as the bole of a fallen oak.

  All of the bodies had been stripped of their armour, and the naked green flesh looked almost grey in the spare light. The limbs were bound with twine, and there were bloodstains on all the corpses. There were nearly a hundred of them, the best part of a company, all dead. As the carcasses were produced, a howl of anger rose from the Keep.

  “It won’t work,” insisted Kraus. “They’re obviously dead.”

  “They can’t see that,” said Bloch, looking at the carnage grimly. “It’ll look like an execution. And even if it doesn’t, would you watch while they butchered your comrades’ bodies?”

  The Averlander captain waited until the stricken orcs were all out, then brought his sword down. One by one, working from right to left, the cadavers were dragged forwards. With the maximum ceremony, the captain sliced off their limbs. He didn’t work quickly, and lingered over every stroke. If the orc had been alive, it would have been howling in agony. As it was, Bloch hoped the distance would give a similar impression to those watching on the battlements.

  More orc corpses were sliced apart. The growling and cursing from the Keep grew louder. Figures could be seen scurrying back and forth against the battlements, and the rain of black-feathered arrows stepped up. They were getting angrier.

  “Maintain artillery barrage!” bellowed Bloch. “Keep those arrows coming!”

  He looked at the distance between the front ranks of his army and the gate. There was plenty of space. He’d deliberately kept the ground open and his forces in a loose offensive position. The orcs had to think that he was ill-prepared for a sortie, that he’d left his men wide open to attack. Even now, he could sense the boiling anger from within the castle walls. He knew the orcish commander would be holding them back, but he also knew there’d be hotheaded warriors burning to strike back. If the roles were reversed, he’d have been one of them. Better an honest fight in the open than skulking in the stinking halls of a human hovel.

  “Come on,” he breathed, watching the walls intently.

  A muffled cry told them that another archer had been slain. A low tide of muttering reached his ears from the halberdiers around him. More orc corpses were cut apart, their limbs thrown towards the gates with scorn. Averlanders capered around with severed heads, throwing them back and forth like children with snowballs. The cannon roared again, making the ramparts shudder with the impact.

  “Come on…”

  The gates stayed shut. The growling from within reached a fever pitch. Bloch was running out of time. Kraus put his hand on his sword, ready to draw it. His face was black with anger. Bloch knew what he was thinking. The madness had to be put to an end. They had to withdraw. The plan wasn’t working.

  Bloch looked up at the ramparts. The gamble was blowing up in his face, and good men were dying. Another shield-bearer went down in the front ranks, his skull crushed by a rock hurled from the Keep. The cries of agony as he writhed on the stone rent Bloch’s heart.

  “By Sigmar,” he hissed, knuckles white with tension as he gripped the shaft of his halberd. “Come on…”

  Verstohlen waited. He’d already been waiting for some time. It had been hard to gauge how long, but it must surely have been two hours. He was sitting in an antechamber in the Averburg. The room was almost entirely bare. There were marks against the stone where furniture and paintings had once hung, now just bleached emptiness. The one bench that remained was old and battered. The place had been stripped, and was now not much mor
e than a draughty hall of naked rock.

  Verstohlen crossed his legs and looked out of the window opposite. Doubts ran through his mind, one after the other. It was the little things that gave cause for anxiety. Traders spoke in hushed tones of a heavy military presence all along the Aver. What little dissent had remained in Averheim after Leitdorf’s departure had been ruthlessly crushed. Verstohlen recalled Tochfel’s look of disbelief as he’d recounted the burnings. Two hundred.

  And Natassja was still alive. She had to be. Despite all Grosslich’s assurances that she and her husband were being hunted, there was still no result. Only a body would satisfy him.

  Now Tochfel had thrown doubt on the elector himself. Part of him couldn’t believe the ebullient, golden-haired warrior could have been corrupted; the other part of him dwelt on the possibility endlessly. Averland seemed to have developed a knack for turning the minds of its governors. First Marius, then Schwarzhelm, now Grosslich. There had to be something deeper going on. For all his supposed acumen, all his long experience, he couldn’t see it.

  Verstohlen sighed, letting his head fall back against the bare stone wall. There was no pleasure in this work anymore. There never had been, really. He was just Schwarzhelm’s tool, the keenest of his many instruments. With the Emperor’s Champion gone, Verstohlen was bereft, like a plank of old wood washed up on the shoreline. Some men made their own destinies. Verstohlen hadn’t been like that since Leonora. For all his peerless attributes, the wound of that parting had never closed. He was a follower, not a leader, and the shadows were his home. Now exposed, held out in the open as the architect of Grosslich’s rebellion, he was useless, a liability, an anachronism.

  “My lord?”

  Verstohlen snapped back into the present. He’d been drifting. Reverie was replaced with irritation.

  “What is it?” he asked, looking up sharply.

  An official wearing the robes of a loremaster had entered. The man’s face was curiously white and smooth, rather like a woman’s. He was gazing at Verstohlen with a faint air of smugness, as if glad to have caught the famous spy napping.