Swords of the Emperor

by Chris Wraight

  Bloch was exposed. There were men all around him, grappling with the ranks of orcs, but none were close enough to come to his aid. He grabbed the halberd from the first soldier who’d fallen, picked it up on the run and charged straight back into range. The orc saw him coming and heaved the warhammer round for the killing blow.

  He had to strike hard and true. If he missed, the hammer would do for him as it had done for the others.

  “Sigmar!” Bloch bellowed, plunging forwards with all his might, keeping the tip of the halberd high and controlling it with both hands.

  The steel bit deep between the orc’s breastplate and collar, driving into the flesh beneath and sending up a spray of hot, black blood. The warhammer flew from the orc’s flailing hands, spinning into the air and sailing high over the heads of the struggling warriors. Bloch pushed the halberd in deeper, twisting the blade, churning through the flesh and severing the head from its massive shoulders.

  The roars were silenced. The orc crashed to the ground, taking the shaft of the halberd with it, hitting the stone with a dull thud.

  Panting, Bloch looked around for a fresh weapon. Time was running out.

  “Faster!” he roared, stooping to collect the halberd of another fallen soldier and breaking back into a run. His men were still on the offensive, hammering at the retreating orcs, trying to hack their way through to the Keep. “Faster, damn you!”

  Ahead of him, Bloch could see the Keep looming closer, still cut off by the horde of greenskins. The fighting was frenzied and brutal—both sides knew what was at stake.

  Bloch raised his halberd, the blade streaked with blood, and roared his defiance. From every direction men answered his call, hurling obscenities at the orcs and slamming into their disordered defences. The counter-assault was in full swing, the fruit of the tactics he’d spent so long devising. All their hopes were with Sigmar now.

  Bloch got his head down, picked his next target and charged.

  Drassler’s men were hemmed in, surrounded on all sides by the orcs and pinned back close against the open gates of the Keep. The two companies had formed up into ranks three deep on either side, fighting under the shadow of the mighty ramparts and repelling the assaults coming at them from both directions.

  The orcs returning from the sortie were the biggest and most aggressive—they’d been the vanguard of the attack and were the most heavily armoured greenskins left. Those remaining on the inside were the weaker breeds, less nakedly belligerent than their larger kindred though nearly as deadly at close quarters. Seeing the danger of losing the gates entirely, scores of them had torn across the courtyard and thrown themselves at the rear of the mountain guard position, heedless of the steel fence waiting for them when they arrived.

  Drassler heard the cries of anguish as the lines clashed, but he couldn’t pay them any attention. Hochmann had taken the rear ranks, and he was busy enough with his own counter-assault. The first of the returning orcs slammed into the ranks in front of him, tearing their way back to the Keep with desperation. The orcs lived for fighting, but even they could see when their position had become exposed. As savagely as they’d fought to break out of the Keep, they now fought to recover it.

  “Form up!” Drassler shouted. In the midst of the ranks of defenders, he’d assembled a detachment of his own. Twenty men, all from his home village, all experienced and tempered by a lifetime fighting the greenskin. As the battle raged around them they formed into a tight column, four men deep and five across. Drassler stood in the centre of the front rank, leading as ever from the front.

  “Charge!” he roared, breaking into a run. The men swept forwards, thrusting aside their comrades as they surged to the front. All were swordsmen, carrying the blades of their fathers, handed down from each generation to the next and stained with the blood of countless orcs.

  Drassler’s unit crashed into the front rank of the enemy, sweeping it aside and ploughing onwards. The greenskins were disorganised, broken up by their headlong race to recover ground. Each of them alone was twice as strong and quick as a man, but by acting in concert a disciplined detachment made up the shortfall.

  “That one! Break them!” Drassler pointed to the right, spotting a vast, dark-skinned monster hammering away at the mountain guard’s right flank. It was surrounded by a heavily-armoured bodyguard, all wielding human weapons. There were swords, maces and warhammers. Not a curved scimitar or cleaver to be seen.

  Drassler’s unit swung into battle, keeping their formation as they assaulted the knot of larger orcs. Drassler himself got into position quickly, pulling his sword back to strike, knowing his back was covered by those around him.

  His bladed flashed, slicing clean through an orc’s extended forearm. The greenskin bellowed with pain and swung a halberd straight back at him. Drassler dodged it, and a swordsman to the left of him leapt in with another strike. The orc, bleeding heavily, turned to face the new threat. Then the man on Drassler’s right struck, plunging his blade deep into the orc’s back.

  Working in unison, swords spinning and jabbing in a united front, Drassler’s men carved their way into the heart of the fighting. The greenskins retreated further, knocked aside and bludgeoned into submission by the organised ferocity of the human assault.

  But the charge only lasted so long. With nowhere to go, the orcs regrouped and struck back. Dragged into a melee, the detachment formation lost its edge and soldiers began to fall. Whenever a grey-clad swordsman went down, another rushed to take his place, maintaining the line and keeping the pressure on the greenskins. The orcs were strong, though, terribly strong. When they got close, their heavy fists and crushing blows began to tell.

  Drassler worked like a blacksmith at a forge, his sword heaving in arcs of destruction. Ahead of him loomed the warlord, the heart of the orc forces. Drassler lowered his sword-point and bellowed a challenge. The language of battle was universal, and the lumbering brute turned to face him. It was nearly as broad as it was tall, covered in bunched muscle and draped in plates of ill-fitting armour. It carried a halberd in one hand and an axe in the other. Seeing Drassler come at it, the orc thundered its defiance, opening its tusked mouth wide and roaring like a bull.

  Then they came together. The orc struck first, bringing the axe down hard. Drassler sprang aside, dodging the blow and sweeping his sword back for a counterthrust. The orc punched the halberd up, and the blades met with a jarring clang. Drassler withdrew a pace, keeping his blade raised, watching for the next blow. The axe fell, followed by the halberd again. The flurry of blow and counter-blow was fast and deadly. Drassler matched it as best he could, but he was driven back.

  Then there was another man at his side, jabbing a halberd into the fray, going for the patches of exposed flesh. The orc turned to face him, swinging its own blade to meet the attack.

  Drassler joined in, catching the axe with a sharp upward jab and knocking it out of position. Now the orc withdrew, unable to cope with every warrior at once. The halberdier pursued, working his stave with incredible skill and precision. Drassler followed suit, knowing his men around him guarded his flanks.

  Together, halberdier and swordsman battered the mighty orc to its knees, raining blow after blow onto its desperate parries. Seeing the danger, it tried to break back out, powering up to its feet with a heavy lunge. The halberdier was knocked back by the thrust, rocking back on his heels and staggering two paces.

  That gave Drassler the opening. Leaping forwards, he spun the sword-tip round in his hand, gripped the hilt with his fists and rammed it down. The point sank deep into the orc’s ribcage, snaking between plates of metal and lodging deep.

  The greenskin bellowed like a wounded ox and whirled round, axe flailing. Then the halberdier was back, scything his blade mightily. The arc swept through the creature’s defences and took its head clean off. The severed hunk of flesh and bone flew high into the air, before hitting the rock and rolling to a standstill.

  The decapitated body swayed for a moment, pumping hot
blood into the air like a fountain, before it too slumped to the earth. Drassler pulled his sword clear as it fell. The orcs weren’t bellowing now, and a kind of sullen hush fell over the entire horde.

  All around him, mountain guard pressed home the advantage, sweeping past Drassler and tearing into the demoralised orcs.

  Drassler turned to thank his comrade. Markus Bloch grinned back at him, his face streaked with blood. Only then did Drassler notice the swarms of Averlanders and Reiklanders breaking through the mass of orcs and smashing them aside. The relief had arrived. The orcs were broken.

  “Good timing,” Drassler said.

  “Not finished yet,” said Bloch, heading back into the melee. Before long his coarse voice was raised above the general roar, uttering every obscene curse known to man.

  Smiling like a wolf, Drassler plunged after him. There was hard fighting left before the day was over, but the outcome was no longer in doubt. The orcs were in disarray, the halberdiers rampant, and soon the Keep would be theirs.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Pain. That was all that remained. Sometimes a dull, throbbing ache, distributed evenly across his body. Other times, they made it sharp and sudden. There were long, drawn-out sessions, and mercifully short ones. It all depended on her mood. He’d stopped being able to mark the passage of time, and couldn’t truly remember what had brought him here. Maybe he’d been in the Tower for a few hours, maybe a few weeks. Only one thing was certain. The pain.

  There was a noise, somewhere close. With effort, Tochfel dragged his eyelids open. He was suspended. He felt the flesh of his wrists, raw and angry, chafe against the rope. The muscles under his ribs had been pulled tight. He should have been dead long ago. He had no idea why he wasn’t. Down on the stone floor, beneath his gently swaying feet, he could see pools of his own blood. The sight no longer nauseated him. After a while, the horror became a long, numb dream. There was only so much screaming a man could do.

  He moved his head carefully, trying not to inflame the exposed muscles of his neck. The chamber looked much as it always did. There were tables on either side of him. One had the instruments. They were astonishingly beautiful, forged from steel with the precision of a master craftsman. From time to time, when they came to have their fun, he’d tried to remember which ones they’d used. It was the little things, the repetitions and rituals, that kept a fragment of sanity lodged in his mind.

  The other table had the items. Some of them had already been added to him. Others had once been part of his body. His extracted organs still sat, glistening and viscid, slopped in the metal bowls.

  Ahead of him was the door, the only way in and out. When they shut it, it was dark like no darkness he’d ever known. There, suspended, far from help or salvation, he could reflect on the variety of pain they’d introduced him to during the last session. He didn’t have the language to describe it all, but he suspected they did. They knew all the ways of misery. They were geniuses of their craft, masters of sensation. In comparison to what they’d shown him, his former life now seemed impossibly stale and drab. He’d had no idea that existence could be so raw, so unutterably acute, so agonising.

  The door opened. Tochfel had trouble focussing. Was it her? He could no longer decide whether he should scream or not. Being in her presence was unbearable. Being away from it was unbearable. He’d been transformed in so short a time. He felt his mouth hanging open, a line of drool running down to his naked chest.

  “You shouldn’t have come here, Steward.”

  That wasn’t her voice. It was a man’s voice. A hunched, slender man, bowed by a curving spine. Tochfel’s eyes weren’t working. Everything was blurred. He tried to screw them into focus.

  “Achendorfer?” he croaked, wincing as the tendons in his throat rubbed against one another.

  The man came closer. Uriens Achendorfer had changed. His skin, always grey, was now as white as snow. The bags under his eyes hung heavier than ever, purple and pulsing. His pupils were pin-pricks of red, and lines of sutures ran across his sagging cheeks. He looked heavily altered. His purple robes were loose, but when he moved they gave away the changes that had taken place. Willingly or not, the loremaster had become something more, or perhaps less, than human.

  “What were you thinking?” asked Achendorfer scornfully. His voice rattled when he spoke. “You must have known what was in here.”

  Tochfel ignored the questions. None of the others had asked him questions. That was the confusing thing. Why torture him, if they didn’t want to know anything? It was senseless.

  “Where’ve you been?” Tochfel croaked again.

  Achendorfer let slip a thin smile, and his cheeks ran like fluid around his lips. “Here,” he replied, self-satisfied. “When Alptraum took the Averburg, that was my signal. I had to bring the book here.”

  “Alptraum?”

  “He’s in number seven, and still not dead. Amazing, given what she’s done to him.”

  Tochfel felt a tear run down his cheek. That was unusual. He’d thought all his tears had been shed. Perhaps something still lingered within him. That was bad. If they discovered it, there would be more pain.

  “Why?”

  Achendorfer raised a heavily plucked eyebrow. “Why? Do you really need to know that?” He shook his head. “This is power, Dagobert. You’ve no idea what these people are capable of. What she’s capable of. I was shown a fraction of it. The scrolls, the parchments, they mean nothing to me now. Only one of them was important—the one I could bring to her. There are rewards for those who know how to serve her. There are punishments, to be sure, but rewards also.” The white-faced man grinned, exposing black teeth. “I am no longer a petty man, Dagobert. She will make me a god.”

  Tochfel found he wasn’t listening. Speech bored him. Everything bored him. Only pain piqued his interest. That was all there was left. He hated it, feared it, needed it. That was what they’d driven him to.

  Another figure appeared at the door. Tochfel had no trouble recognising her outline. There was something curved in her hand, shining in the dark. As she approached him, Natassja patted Achendorfer affectionately on the head.

  “That’s right, my foul pet,” she said. “I have great plans for you. Just as I have for all my creatures.”

  Achendorfer shivered, whether out of pleasure or fear Tochfel couldn’t tell. His vision started to cloud again. What was left of his skin broke out into sweat. His heart, shivering beneath his open ribcage, beat a little faster. Why didn’t he die? What malign force kept him sustained in this living hell?

  “And what do you plan for me?” he asked, eyes wide with fear, locked on the approaching instrument.

  Natassja smiled and began to work. “Something very special,” she purred. “Something very special indeed.”

  Dawn broke over Averheim. The sun peered through veils of mist rising from the river, taking an age to warm the stone of the quayside buildings. Even before the light made its way down to the wharfs men were busy unloading and loading the endless train of barges. Orders were bellowed out from overseers, and the cranes wheeled back and forth with pallets of iron bars, brick and stone.

  Verstohlen watched the activity from his shabby rented room on the east side of the river. From two storeys up he had a good view of the operation. As he watched, he began to wonder how he’d missed the signs. Some of the crates were clearly full of arms. One of them spilled open on landing, revealing scores of curved swords, all wickedly fashioned with trailing spikes. They were no ordinary Imperial manufacture, and he could bet they hadn’t come from Nuln.

  Verstohlen let his gaze run down the long harbourside, watching as the gathering dawn brought more activity. There were soldiers everywhere. How had he not noticed the increase in their numbers? Where did Grosslich get them from? It seemed like every street corner had a group of surly-faced guards, all wearing the absurd crimson and gold of the elector’s personal army. There must have been several hundred of them, milling around, threatening and cuffing the m
erchants doing their best to unload cargo. The Averlanders seemed to have learned not to talk back.

  He turned from the window. He needed to get some sleep. It wouldn’t take them long to find out where he’d gone. Even now he guessed that his rooms in the Averburg had been ransacked. Perhaps they’d slipped deathflower into his food. That would be a real spy’s death.

  Verstohlen rubbed his eyes. The room around him was grim. The sheets were stained and stinking, and there were long lines of grease down the faded walls. He walked from the window and sat down heavily on the bed, ignoring the cocktail of unsavoury aromas that curled up from the linen. All night he’d been kept awake by the shouts of gamblers in the chamber below, steadily getting drunker and more violent. Not that he’d have been able to sleep much anyway. He’d kept his dagger and pistol close to hand and sat watching the door until the dawn.

  There was a knock.

  “Come,” said Verstohlen, cocking the pistol and placing it under the sheets.

  The fat landlord, a man with as many chins as he had rooms, waddled in. He wore an apron that might once have been white, but now had been stained the colour of thin gruel. In his hands he carried a mug of small beer, long past its best and reeking of spoilage.

  “You’re awake, then,” he grunted, placing the mug on an unsteady table and wiping his hands on the apron. “You’ll be wanting food?”

  “No, thank you,” said Verstohlen. If the food was prepared here, then he wouldn’t need to worry about assassins. “I won’t be staying another night. Prepare my account, and I’ll settle it this morning.”

  The landlord looked at him blankly. “Suit yourself,” he muttered. “It’ll be five schillings.”