Swords of the Emperor

by Chris Wraight

  On the far horizon, the column of fire flared, angry and raw.

  Schwarzhelm moved first. Keeping his gestures obvious, unthreatening, he unfastened a naked sword from his belt. The blade was notched halfway along its length. In the low light, the metal looked black with age. There were runes on the steel, obscured in the darkness.

  Helborg remained frozen, driven by fury, imprisoned by indecision. This was wrong. Schwarzhelm was his brother.

  He was a traitor.

  The big man edged forwards, carrying the Sword of Vengeance on his upturned palms. As he drew closer, Helborg saw the grief on his face. The man was wracked with it. The last time he’d seen those features, they’d been lit with a fire of madness. Now what was left was grey and empty, like embers that had long since burned into husks.

  Schwarzhelm halted less than a yard away. He extended his arms, offering Helborg the Klingerach. With stiff fingers, Helborg loosed his grip on his borrowed blade, raised his right hand and took it at the hilt.

  The weight was familiar, the balance almost the same as before. Helborg bore it up. The spirit of the weapon was coiled within, as ancient and powerful as the lost forges on which it had been made. As Helborg took the grip, he felt death locked into the instrument. It had killed for millennia, this thing, drinking deep of the blood of men and their enemies alike. It thirsted still. It would thirst until the end of time, never satisfied, never at peace.

  Only one taint remained on its glinting surface, the shard Schwarzhelm had taken from it. That had still to be healed.

  Schwarzhelm sank to one knee then, his limbs moving awkwardly. Only then, kneeling before Helborg, did he speak. When they came, his words were shaky and thick with emotion.

  “This is yours, Kurt. Wield it as your heart dictates.”

  The tide of rage broke. Schwarzhelm’s voice unlocked it.

  “Damn you!” Helborg roared, snatching up the blade in two hands and raising it high. “Damn your arrogance! You should not have come.”

  Helborg held the Klingerach high over his head, grip light, poised to strike. He locked it in place, shivering with anger, waiting for the resolve to bring it down. Schwarzhelm bared his neck, looking Helborg in the eye, refusing to flinch. He said nothing more.

  I will find the one who did this to me.

  Still Helborg hesitated. He felt as if his fury had become so great that it would destroy them both if he moved. The fire within him raged beyond all control, greedy and consuming. His shoulder flared again, sending jets of pain coursing through his body. The wound goaded him, his anger goaded him, the sword goaded him.

  My name itself is vengeance.

  Still they remained, locked in a grotesque masque of execution. Heartbeats drummed, heavy and lingering. The runefang wavered, eager to plunge.

  When it fell at last, toppling from his fingers to land in the grass, he hardly heard it. It rolled away, discarded in the mud like a child’s toy.

  “Not this way.”

  Helborg reached down. Extending a hand, he raised Schwarzhelm to his feet. The big man hauled himself up slowly, unready to face him again.

  The anger was still there. The grief was stronger now. Even during the darkest times, it had always been stronger. They were the titans of the Empire, the two of them, the foundations upon which all else was built. That could never be forgotten, not while any shred of forgiveness existed within the world.

  Helborg looked into the man’s face. There were the familiar features he had fought alongside for so many years, the cracked cheeks, the deep-set eyes, the unsmiling mouth. The madness had gone from them. Schwarzhelm was diminished in some respects, unchanged in others.

  Emperor’s Champion.

  “Brother,” said Helborg, gripping him by the shoulders.

  Schwarzhelm met his gaze. The old warrior had seen it all. Loss and victory, faith and treachery. He’d witnessed the fires of war tear across the Empire. He’d watched, defiant, as the tides of ruin had swept down from the wastes of the north and the hopes of mankind had dimmed. In all of this he had been unmoving, implacable, emotionless.

  Only now did he falter. Only now, as Helborg embraced him at last, did his eyes glisten with tears. Clumsily, he returned the gesture, his mighty arms locked round the shoulders of his rival. There they stood, together once more as brothers in arms, the bitterness purged, the anger drained away.

  The Reiksguard watched, silent as tombs, none daring to move. At their side was Verstohlen, lost in contemplation. After so long in the wilderness, the circle had been completed. About this, as with so much else, he had been wrong.

  Forgiveness had been sought. Honour had been satisfied. Restitution had been made.

  Achendorfer hurried through the corridors of the under-Tower, clutching the book to his breast as he always did. He had no choice. The leather-bound tome had merged with the fingers of his left hand. The book was one with him now, and he was one with the book. Little by little, the pages of spells and arcane recipes of death within had melted away from the parchment, all except the one he needed, the one he recited every day. The one that coaxed the Stone into life.

  All around him, muffled moans and sighs ran down the twisting passages. Every so often a pale hand would reach out from the ornately carved walls, clutching at him desperately. So many slaves had been trapped within the filigree of iron that he’d lost count of them. They couldn’t die in there, but neither was their agonised existence truly life. Some brave souls retained enough of a sense of self to implore him to release them, their fingers scrabbling against the cage walls to gain his attention.

  Achendorfer ignored them. Where could they go, even if they were set free? All of Averheim was a furnace now, a shrine to the singular lust of one individual. They didn’t matter to her, no more than they had in their former miserable lives.

  He turned a corner sharply and followed a winding path between high, arching walls of obsidian. He went as surely as a rat in a cellar. He knew all the routes, all the myriad ways of the under-Tower. Another gift from the queen. Even when the walls shifted, as they often did, he could still follow them.

  Achendorfer scurried quickly, knowing the penalties for missing an appointment. On his right, the wall suddenly fell away, exposing a huge shaft. Hot air blossomed up from it, flaked with ash. Deep down below, massive engines toiled and churned. Natassja’s thousands of minions had been busy. Such infernal devices magnified her power many times over, storing the energies of the Stone in vast crystal cylinders. The machines growled angrily as they turned, fed incessantly by a host of Stone-slaves.

  Achendorfer pressed on, feeling the book crackle expectantly under his touch. How long had it lain, forgotten, in the library of the Averburg? It had been a spoil of war, probably, recovered by an elector count and dumped, unread, in his stash of trophies and trinkets. Now, after so many thousands of years, the words were being heard again in the lands of the living. Perhaps the author, if some shred of him still existed, was pleased about that.

  Achendorfer left the shaft behind and drew closer to the heart of the under-Tower. The walls began to throb with a suffused pink light, bleeding from behind the black iron like the organs of a dissected corpse. Natassja liked those little touches.

  He paused for a second, reflecting on how far he’d come. It was five years ago that the dreams had started, leading him to the library under the Averburg and its terrible secret. Back then Natassja had kept her face covered, whispering secrets to him and promising the wealth of Araby if he would interpret the scripts for her. And so he had done so, working night and day in the gloomy recesses of the archives, his skin turning grey and his hair falling free in clumps.

  It had been worth it. All the pain, all the humiliation. He was now her true lieutenant in the Tower, whatever Grosslich thought about such things. Achendorfer had been given gifts beyond measure and had seen things no mortal could dream of. He had a personal guard of fifty augmented dog-soldiers, exclusive chambers near the centre of the under-T
ower and a playroom lined with shackled, quiescent pets.

  All of that was immaterial, of course, besides the power. That was what convinced him he’d been right to turn. For the first time in his life he held the lives of men in his hands. The knowledge of that thrilled him. By the time this was over, she would make him a god. That’s what she said. The prospect made him moisten his purple lips with anticipation. She’d promised so much, and always kept her word.

  A scream broke out from up ahead, resounding down the curved walls. Achendorfer smiled. So it had started.

  He came to a set of double doors, each inscribed with a glowing lilac sigil of Slaanesh. He gestured with his free hand and they slid open.

  The room beyond was circular and lined with marble. There was no furniture or adornment, just perfectly smooth, faintly reflective walls. There was no ceiling either. The polished walls went up, on and on, hundreds of feet, until they emerged near the summit of the Tower, far above the roofs of Averheim. The laughter of daemons could be heard from the distant opening, and fire flickered around the rim.

  A single figure crouched on the floor, hands clasped over his ears. Odo Heidegger, Templar of Sigmar.

  “So you know the truth,” said Achendorfer, closing the doors behind him.

  Heidegger looked at him imploringly. His skin was white with fear and horror. He’d torn his scarlet robes apart. Beneath them Achendorfer could see protruding ribs, stark across the man’s wasted torso.

  “What is this… madness?” he cried, spittle flying from his dribbling mouth, eyes staring.

  Achendorfer smiled.

  “What you’ve helped to create. All of this has been built by you, witch hunter.”

  Heidegger’s horror grew. His mind, for so long on the brink of insanity, was breaking. Natassja had lifted the veil from him, and the pleasure of the moment was exquisite.

  “You killed every enemy who could have worked against us,” said Achendorfer. “You delivered Alptraum to us. You killed Morven and let Tochfel be taken. You burned the rebellious and tortured the questioning. The queen is pleased with your work. She asked me to thank you in person.”

  Heidegger looked like he might be sick, but there was nothing to retch up in his ravaged frame. He fell to his knees and wracking sobs shook his body.

  “No,” he gasped. “This is an illusion. I have been working for the Lord Sigmar, who protects and guides. Long may He—”

  Achendorfer laughed, and his distended stomach wobbled beneath his white robes.

  “Oh, you are subject to an illusion,” he admitted, coming to crouch down beside the distraught Templar. “All that you did before was an illusion. This is real. This is more real than anything you’ve ever known.”

  Heidegger’s eyes began to flicker rapidly back and forth. Lines of foamy drool ran down his chin, glistening in the light of the fires above.

  “I do not…” he started, then seemed to lose the power of speech. A low howl broke from his bloodstained lips.

  “You were a sadist, master witch hunter,” whispered Achendorfer, loading his words with malice. “You broke men for pleasure, whatever stories you told yourself about righteousness and duty. You were no different from us, except perhaps in honesty.”

  From far above, the howling was reciprocated. Something was coming down the shaft, travelling fast.

  “How many of our kind did you hunt down in your career? Dozens? Not a bad total. Now you have killed hundreds. All of them innocent. You are a murderer and a traitor, Herr Heidegger. The blood of Grosslich’s treachery is on your hands. When your soul is dragged before the throne of your boy-god, he will not deign to look at it. It’s ours now.”

  The howling grew in volume. It was nearly upon them. Achendorfer got up and withdrew, looking down with satisfaction at the weeping, broken man before him. He backed towards the door, wishing he could stay to see the final act.

  “Do not fool yourself that this death will be the last one,” he sneered. “The Lord of Pain has plans for you. Eternity, in your case, will seem like a very long time.”

  Then the daemons landed, slamming down from their screaming descent, eyes lit with infinite joy and malignance. They opened their fanged mouths, and the tongues flickered.

  Achendorfer slipped through the doors and closed them just in time. As the barriers fell into place something heavy slammed against them and was taken up the shaft. There was no more screaming from the witch hunter. Heidegger’s mortal body had been broken and the daemons had taken it. Unfortunately for him, physical death meant little to a daemon. Their sport was only just beginning.

  The camp had settled for the night. Watch fires burned on the edge of it, throwing dancing shadows across the gorse. The guards patrolled the perimeter in detachments of six men, all fully armoured. The rotation was strict. Rumours still ran through the army about creatures made of bone and iron that stalked the moors at night, unstoppable and eager to drink the blood of men. Some said they had talons of wire and eyes that glowed with a pale flame, though the more level-headed troops were quick to disregard such exaggeration. Since leaving Drakenmoor, the columns had encountered nothing more threatening than foxes and kites, though they were all perfectly aware things would change as they neared the city. The watch fires were burned partly for security, but also to blot out the terrible fire on the western horizon, the one that never went out.

  Verstohlen sat on the edge of one such camp fire, cradling a cup of beer in his hands and watching the men nearby as they noisily prepared for the night. They slept in their cloaks, huddled around their own small fires, laughing and telling obscene stories. Soldiers were the same across the whole Empire. Verstohlen remembered how they’d been at Turgitz. Then, as now, he was on the outside. Now, as then, men looked at him askance, questioning his presence, unsure of his role.

  A dark shape loomed up from the shadows and stood before him. Unlike the rest of the troops, he didn’t hurry on by. Verstohlen looked up, and his heart sank.

  Rufus Leitdorf stood there, dressed in a breastplate and greaves, a sword at his belt. He’d lost weight, and looked less bloated than he’d done in Averheim. He still had the long hair and ruddy cheeks of old, but there was a residual hollow expression that marred his fleshy face.

  “Verstohlen,” he said, and the tone was cold.

  Verstohlen sighed. The meeting had to happen sooner or later. Perhaps best to get it over with now.

  “My lord elector,” he said, inclining his head but remaining seated. “Will you join me?”

  Leitdorf shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “That might indicate to the world that we were friends. That is not the way of it, nor will it ever be.”

  “I see.”

  Leitdorf moved to stand in the light of the fire. His features, lit from below, looked distorted.

  “I have spoken to the Lord Schwarzhelm,” he said. Verstohlen thought his voice was less haughty than before, and there was a gravity to it that he’d never noticed in Averheim. “After reconciling with the Marshal, he apologised to me. Profusely. I have accepted it. Do you have anything you wish to add?”

  “I’m glad you two made up,” said Verstohlen flatly. “You don’t want to prolong a feud with Schwarzhelm.”

  “Is that all you have to say? Gods, your arrogance knows no bounds. Truly, I don’t know why you came back. You offer us nothing now.”

  Verstohlen swept to his feet in a single, fluid movement. He was taller than Leitdorf and considerably more deadly. Leitdorf, startled, held his ground, and the two of them faced off.

  “There were errors,” Verstohlen said coolly. “For these, I am sorry. But you lived with her, Leitdorf. If she could deceive you so completely, then perhaps you will understand why we made the decisions we did.”

  “You should have contacted me. The war you started was unnecessary.”

  “Don’t fool yourself. If it hadn’t been me, she’d have found another way to implicate you.” Verstohlen’s face edged closer to the electo
r’s, lit with threat. “It might make you feel better to blame me for what took place, but you’d do well to reflect on your own conduct. If you’d not taken Natassja to your bed, there’d be no joyroot, and no corruption. We have erred, my lord, but you set this thing in motion.”

  Leitdorf’s hand slipped to his sword-belt.

  “Even now, you dare—”

  “I dare nothing. I state the facts.” Verstohlen shook his head in disgust. He was too tired for this. “What do you want from me? Guilt? Oh, I’ve got plenty of that. We both have. Every night when I close my eyes I see Tochfel’s face. He tried to warn me. Do you know what they did to him? They cut out his heart and replaced it with a ball of iron. Your wife.”

  Verstohlen looked away, filled with revulsion by the memory.

  “So don’t try to pretend this is something you don’t share responsibility for,” he muttered. “We’re all guilty, and we all had choices.”

  Leitdorf removed his hand from his sword-belt. Verstohlen expected him to fly off into some tirade. To his surprise, the man remained calm.

  “And you don’t think much of mine, do you?” he said.

  “It hardly matters now.”

  “I disagree.” Leitdorf raised his chin defiantly. “Whether you can stomach it or not, Herr Verstohlen, I am the elector now. Kurt Helborg leads my army, and Ludwig Schwarzhelm stands beside him. Soon my claim will be put to the test, and this time there can be no doubt about its legitimacy. Either we will die in battle, or I will rule Averland. Those are the only outcomes possible. Which one would you prefer?”

  Verstohlen smiled grimly.

  “I have no wish to see you dead, Leitdorf. Nor, for that matter, myself. But unless you’ve grown much wiser in a short space of time, I have no wish to see a dissolute count ruling in Averheim either. I do not say this to wound you, but your reputation does you no credit.”

  Leitdorf returned the thin smile. “So others have said.” He looked back over his shoulder. Near the centre of the encampment, Helborg was conversing with Schwarzhelm and the other captains. “I see the warmth between us has not grown. If you’d spoken to me thus in Averheim, I’d have had you driven from the province in disgrace. Even now, a part of me would not regret to see you leave.”